Portable Portal to Limbo

**My players stay out**



**Shouit, that means you. **





Alright, I realized in the middle of a game session the other day that I may have made a mistake. For purely story-related reasons, I introduced a portable portal to a fairly stable spot in the plane of Limbo, the abode of a powerful magic user who's been barred from returning from the the Material Plane. The portal takes the form of a book, a treatise on change and chaos.

I introduced the book portal so that one of my characters would be able to consult with the magic-user and, vice-versa, the magic user could use the character as an agent on the Material Plane. No sooner did the player understand how the portal works, however, and he started coming up with "inventive" uses for it, things such as hiding out in Limbo while the other PCs smuggle the book portal into locations where he can't go--a use I hadn't thought of.

Offhand, I have nothing against PCs making inventive use of their resources, but I'd like to try anticipating what they could do with such an object.

What would your characters do with a portable portal to Limbo?

Don't get me started.

My imaginative use of Immovable Rods and Gate Rings has resulted in these magic items being forevermore banned from all current and future play in my play group.

I'm surprised it's a book. It would make more sense if it was a 10' pole that transported anything that passed beneath it when suspended horizontally above the ground.

Seriously though--

There are a couple of options here. You could have the wizard get grumpy that this useful tool is being used for such trivial matters.

You could have enemies of the party steal the book (only to be destroyed by the wizard). The wizard could then replace the book with an item that has limited uses per day and is keyed only to the PC.

You could do the above and have the item only allow communication. If the wizard needs to tranport items back and forth or arrange an in person meeting, perhaps he would use a variation on gate (targeted at the PC).

Given that limbo is an inherently unstable plane, it's possible that the planar effects could start leaking out of the book. Alternatively, they plane's inherent instability could cause the book to start dumping the PC to a random location in Limbo.

Perhaps the wizard discovers that the above will happen. He needs to replace the book. The new book (like the old book) has a cumulative 1% chance of malfunctioning when used for travel. That is, of course, unless the wizard is notified that the book is going to be used. Then he can perform a short ritual to strengthen the enchantment before the book is used. He'll get pretty tired of being called on as a travel agent before too long.

Hope at least one of these ideas helps.

--G