Planescape 101 Planescape Portals/Keys

[Goober4473]

I've started a new campaign, running The Great Modron March updated to 5e, and while the adventure (and some others I'm interspersing in-between) includes various portals and portal keys, I think it'd be fun to get together a list of interesting portals and keys that I can just throw in as needed.

So, give me your best portal/key ideas! I'll get it started.

1. The Despondent Well. This old, dried up well can be found in the center of a graveyard. A few feet down is a portal whose key is a distinct feeling of ennui.

2. The Offended Gateway. This large iron archway, carved with the motif of many large tongues, sports a heavy, locked gate. The portal opens on the "inside" of the gate, so the gate must also be physically opened before entering the portal from the outside of the building the archway is attached to. The archway is, however, intelligent and mobile, using the statistics of an iron golem. Without proper authorization or key (physical key, that is), it will not open the gate. The key to the portal behind the gate is a rude gesture, but the gate is very easily offended, and becomes enraged and attacks with large metal tongues that animate from its frame if shown a rude gesture (using its Slam attack). Canny cutters might lure it out of its position as a doorway, allowing them to move around to its back where the portal opens, or they might defeat it in battle, at which point the physical gate opens. Or, if they convince it to open, they might run through before it has time to react to their rudeness.

 

[hawknsparrow]

i dig #2. thanks!

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using EN World mobile app

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Perhaps some kinda of generator?

Adjective (1D6: 1-3 roll once, 4-5 roll twice, 6 roll thrice)

1. Creaky
2. Dark
3. Ancient
4. Fine
5. Warped
6. Wooden
7. Decrepit
8. Suspicious
9. Sanctified
10. Dusty
11. Majestic
12. Fortified
13. Finely-crafted
14. Crumbling
15. Creaking
16. Metallic
17. Iron
18. Rotting
19. Intricate
20. Well-worn

Type

1. Trapdoor
2. Doorway
3. Entrance
4. Window
5. Crack
6. Well
7. Hole
8. Archway
9. Gate
10. Hatch

​

Flavour

1. ..is covered in mold and fungi.
2. ..hums eerily when touched.
3. ..seems to flicker when viewed directly.
4. ..rapidly ages and then renews itself.
5. ..is covered in slimy flora.
6. ..is flecked with blood.
7. ..bares a grotesque gargoyle shaped like a baby's face.
8. ..fills the ears with an almost inaudible ringing.
9. ..is barred with with (1-4: wood and iron / 5 ominous glowing runes / 6 giant web).
10. ..is warm to the touch.
11. ..is covered in small, biting creatures. (1 Beetles / 2 Ants / 3 Scoprions / 4 Worms / 5 Spiders / 6 Wasps/Bees)
12. ..is nearly invisible to direct observation.
13. ..is rimmed with the teeth of various creatures.
14. ..features strange pistons and pipes.
15. ..giggles when approached.
16. ..features feral scratches across its surface.
17. ..smells of burnt hair and singed flesh.
18. ..glimmers with an otherworldy sheen. (1 red / 2 blue / 3 magenta / 4 yellow / 5 green / 6 purple)
19. ..is spotted with rusty. (1-2 spikes / 3-4 chains / 5-6 blades)
20. ..seems perfectly normal. Almost.. too normal.

 

[Staccat0]

3. The Soundless Bell
A large clock sits atop a tower. The intricate clockwork and some regular maintenance has kept it accurate for generations and it chimes a droning chime every hour on the hour. The face of the clock is also a portal which only appears when nobody hears it's hourly chime.

The output of the portal changes depending on the time.

(Depending on how time and timekeeping works on this plane, this could go many directions)

 

[Ancalagon]

4: The running man

One of the flying buttresses that supports the great Mortuary in Sygil is a somewhat well known portal to the City of Brass on the elemental portal of fire. As these are both major cities for planar travelers, the portal is of great commercial value.

However, only 4 keys are known to exist - each of them a lock of hair from a specific individual. A 5th one was destroyed by a stray fireball in an ambush by ambitious hivers on a party of interplanar merchants, hoping to steal whatever trade-goods had been acquired from the City of Brass. At the moment one of the 4rth remaining key is presumed loss, and another has been locked away in a treasure vault, with rumors it may be put on auction at a later date.

But what about this specific individual?

Karl of Pickleton is a human farmer who got transported to Sygil by mistake. After a few years of scrapping a living in the Hive, he accidentally discovered the portal to the City of Brass (from which he immediately retreated). With the help of a more experienced planar travel, it was determined that his *hair* was the key. Initially this was good for Karl and he sold locks of his hair for a reasonable amount of money (that experienced traveler still has one of the keys). However, he came to realize that some people wanted to capture him and hold him captive as a source of planar keys, while others, who now had a key, wanted him dead to ensure exclusivity. His life or liberty in grave danger, Karl went into hiding.

For the last 12 years, Karl has been on the run in the multiverse. Every day is a new adventure as he faces a bewildering arrays of race, cultures and beliefs he is not equipped to understand. He shaves daily and burns the hair, less said hair be used to track him magically somehow.

 

[Delazar]

Actually made me wonder... is there a database of all the portals mentioned in every book ever published for Planescape?

 

[Blue]

5. Neverclean

This portal is in the bottom of a claw-footed iron tub in a small and out-of-the-way but well maintained inn. The key is water plus any amount of sentient blood - washing off wounds or a small cut will do it. However, the portal stays open only a very short time - about the time for a medium creature lying in the tub or a small creature standing in it to fall through.

There has been a number of disappearances from the inn over the years of guests, but it hadn't been connected to a portal.