A world with no roads, no doors, and no boats

[Irda Ranger]

Originally posted by Celebrim; taken from the "Taxes and Tithes" thread
One spell that is completely disallowed in its current form is teleportation circle. Once made permanent, this spell provides a stable safe means of transporting people from one place to an infinite distance away. The benifits of this are so great, that every major city and kingdom would have long ago set up 'stations' in which people would pay tolls to travel to other 'stations' throughout the kingdom. Armies would be transported in this fashion. Merchants would carry valuable goods in this fashion. Empires would be based on these teleportation circles in the same way that Rome and the Incans (and to a lesser extent the Americans) based there empires on good roads. The result would be such a vastly different world that I'm not prepared to handle it except by building a world up from scratch with this spell in mind.

I would like to take a moment to conjecture on what a successful Teloportation Circle web would do to the way an Empire is built and maintained, and defended.

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So, the premise is that any major city would have a few T.Circles connecting it to several other cities. Keep in mind, these cities don't have to be anywhere near each other, only on the same Plane. They don't even have to be on the same world. Some might be in the Underdark.

You wouldn't need major roads, only a few little ones connecting you to small nearby villages too small to merit a portal.

You might not have invented any kind of boat more sophisticated than fishing vessels for nearby waters.

If you used a Portal as your cities' "front gate":
You wouldn't need a real gate in the city walls. It would be one solid wall, all the way around.
You wouldn't need to be in a convenient location. You could be on the top of a Mountain with sheer 1000' cliffs on all sides. The Portal is at the bottom.
(Don't complain about costs. Portcullises and the whole "Gatehouse" setup are damn expensive too)

Historically, major cities were placed on rivers and harbors because of the ease of travel, and for fresh water. Well, now there is no need for that. Fresh water comes from Decanter's of Endless water. Roads and ships are obviosly irrelevant. Cities can be found anywhere they want to be. Probabley to defend an important resource, such a fertile farming valley or high value ore mine. Or simply because they like the view.

To effectively siege a city you have to place a Planar Seal over it preventing Teleportation and Planar Travel. The alternative is to somehow take control of the Portal Network, controlling who goes in/out and where they go. Otherwise they keep Teleporting in fresh supplies and fresh troops. From Tau Ceti, or Asgaard.

You wouldn't want your T.Circle web in the main square. Too easy to invade your city and get inside your defenses that way. You would want the T.Circles in a easily sealed off sub-section of the city. Lots of inward facing Archer Galleries and clear lines of sight Lightning Bolts and Fireballs. Absolutely no cover anywhere.

This could explain why the hills are always full of Orcs and Goblins. Since no one needs to travel through the hills, no one ever bothers to really root them out.

To successfully defend a city you would need to be able to shunt all incoming Teleports to the Portal Section mentioned above. You know, the Death Trap (tm). Other Planes and existance (especially the Ethereal) would have to be also sealed off.

Any other thoughts?

If you could put a city anywhere, where would you put it? Why?

Without a need for fresh water or ease of travel, what would motivate you to choose one spot over another?

Would you conquer Empire by going city to city, overland, or simply through the portal network?

If you knew that a city on the other side of the world was only three "portal hops" away, how would that change you?

Irda Ranger

 

[jmucchiello]

If you used a Portal as your cities' "front gate":
You wouldn't need a real gate in the city walls. It would be one solid wall, all the way around.
You wouldn't need to be in a convenient location. You could be on the top of a Mountain with sheer 1000' cliffs on all sides. The Portal is at the bottom.
(Don't complain about costs. Portcullises and the whole "Gatehouse" setup are damn expensive too)

How do you get food into the city? It has to come from the villages around the city. Cities are built on rivers because you can float food on barges into the city.

Also, where does one find these benevolent 17th+ level wizards to make the circles and pay the XP costs to make them permanent?

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Re: Re: A world with no roads, no doors, and no boats

Also, where does one find these benevolent 17th+ level wizards to make the circles and pay the XP costs to make them permanent?

These things are permenant. Somebody sooner or later would be willing to do it for the requisite compensation. Or it could be an adventure hook:

WizardA makes a circle because the city is willing to give him a neato artifact.
WizardA goes on to take SneakyApprenticeB as a helper.
WizardA dies from getting hit by a speeding ice cream truck in another dimension.
SneakyApprenticeB inherits the artifact and uses it to take over the world.

Just a thought.

 

[Luiz d'Artayn]

Somewhat aside from the nuts'n'bolts questions initially asked, this specific kind of magic (technology) offers a lot in the way of retooling the way these societies live, and there's huge possibilities arising from the implications of such portals. This immediately springs to mind because I recently read John Barnes' "Earth Made of Glass", a socio-political sci-fi story in which such portals were half of the whole story kernel. If the 'big implications' of such portals is of interest as a potential campaign/setting ingredient, I really recommend checking out that book.

 

[jmucchiello]

Re: Re: Re: A world with no roads, no doors, and no boats

These things are permenant. Somebody sooner or later would be willing to do it for the requisite compensation. Or it could be an adventure hook:

WizardA makes a circle because the city is willing to give him a neato artifact.

My point was that before there were tport circles all over the place, there would be boats and roads. And where does a city scrounge up an artifact and who is the brilliant leader of this city who hands out artifacts to high level wizards to pay for transportation systems.

"Eh, I suppose we could give you this thing-a-ma-jig. It roasted the last guy who touched it alive but it hums when we bring the box near you. It may like you."

 

[alsih2o]

just to kick in, i think you have a great hook for a world here. have all transport set up that way, and then have teleport magic fail for some reason now the hills would need cleared of all those baddies, roads would need secured and made, and eventually, someone would have to find out what caused this terrible probem.


sounds like that might have done decently in the setting contest-"in my world, there are no roads, yet."

 

[Fast Learner]

Teleportation Circle is limited to a 5' radius circle, aka 10' across. If you want to close down a circle simply move (roll, lower, whatever) a 12'-wide cylinder of stone over it -- the stone wouldn't teleport out and the spell would stop functioning once the stone was in place (based on the spell description). Move it about at will. Much safer than the well-protected courtyard, as it's foolproof. Even if you squeeze a dragon through the 10' diameter circle, he can't come through when the spell's not working.

Edited to add: Whether the spell would start functioning again after the stone was moved off might be up the the DM. My assumption is that permanency is only temporarily thwarted if the conditions that are necessary for the original spell are not present.

 

[Zappo]

A terrorist could cause a major communications/trade disruption, possibly cutting off a town's supplies, with a Dispel Magic. Not counting the loss of the circle itself, which ain't cheap.

 

[jmucchiello]

A terrorist could cause a major communications/trade disruption, possibly cutting off a town's supplies, with a Dispel Magic. Not counting the loss of the circle itself, which ain't cheap.

I assumed we were talking about circles made permanent with Craft Wondrous Item, not permanancy. This is even sillier if a dispel magic can destroy one.

 

[Hejdun]

A terrorist could cause a major communications/trade disruption, possibly cutting off a town's supplies, with a Dispel Magic. Not counting the loss of the circle itself, which ain't cheap.

Yup. Madman + Wand of Dispel Magic = Mass Chaos.

Seeing as how the costs to make this teleportation web would be enormous, even one dispelled circle will be a major loss. Not to mention that you need to find wizards capable of even casting the spell, and are willing to give up their experience to do so. Sure, if you are in the FR, high level wizards are a dime a dozen, but in other worlds high level wizards are hard to come by.