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

[Garmorn]

The problem with teleport circles is the limited amount of traffice that can use one. Think of how many one lane roads a large city would need to move a 1000 or so comuters everday. Next add in caravens with 10' wide wagons and other travelers. They just could not handle the traffice load of every commerce.

They would make trade in small high value items (like magic items and gems) very easy. They would also increase the ease of tourism and diplomacy.

 

[Drakmar]

Although it is a cool idea.. (one I quite like).. you would find that you will still have roads if it was a development of the people rather than a gift of the ancients. There are a few reasons.

one.
check out the modern stuff... lets say.. that airplanes are the ultimate in transportation... we still have cars. maybe when the Molar Skycar becomes affordable will that change.

two..
military reasons.. in a campaign I played in.. my character got to 34th level (Rolemaster) and became a Magedrake.. and was able to create Teleportation Portals.. ala Stargates.. he started to connect all of his cities. He also made sure that all of his cities had a viable road network...why? because you want to have multiple methods of getting to a city.. otherwise it is two easy for an enemy to retain control of a city if they manage to get control of one.

some of the advantages to having these portals would be the ability to have a smaller standing army.. because they would be more mobile. you would not have to garrison a city to quite the same extent.

three
getting there in the first place. well.. you would have to get to the location in the first place.. and well.. you wouldn't just turn up and plonk a circle down.. because.. if an enemy was watching.. they might steal control of it before you had defences up.. so.. .you need to build the defences first. meaning.. you have to get your construction crews there.

four
caution... if I was the instigator of the empire.. I would create it cautiously.. because.. we all know that cataclysms happen.. I would not want a huge magical cataclysms to destroy my empire.. so.. I would make sure it had back up systems.. ie.. citys on rivers..

five.
People... Hi.. I am a rich person.. I like pretty places.. riverfront houses are pretty.. flimsy reason.. but still a good one.

these are just some of the things I think would affect it. Mainly because I try to think from a few different angles.. namely from a strategic.. and tactical.. and People perspective.

 

[Drakmar]

o.. and you do realise.. that the people who would control the portals would be the military..

not trade people.

just look at Stargate SG-1

Once the military has full control.. and was using the gate to control things for their government.. only then would you start to see limited transit of other things.

 

[Saeviomagy]

The people who controlled the portals would be whoever first came up with the idea (and a method) of controlling the portals. If a mage can create a teleport circle spell which is permanent, then he can also create a teleport circle which requires an oddball ritual to keep it going, then only teach the oddball ritual to his inner circle.

If we're going with a network of ancient portals, then the cities may simply not be connected by road at all. The only reason the cities exist is because (after someone found the first portal) it was really really easy to create a city next to the second portal, and the third portal etc. Hell, people would probably not actually know WHERE the portals go, and therefore where all their cities actually are. They could even be on different planets or planes. Any wars would occur between groups of people on either side of certain portals. If you assume that it's ancient technology, you could even make it an impossible task to block off the portals in a fool-proof manner (so each city has an inward-facing fortification in it's centre, guarding the portal).

Roads into and out of a city would still need to exist, for the same reason that we still have cars when we have aeroplanes. An aeroplane is great for long-distance mass transport. It's no good for individual short-distance travel.

 

[Buttercup]

Anyone ever thought of making a really big Passwall or Phase Door as the entrance to the city? At night, or at the command of the King, the Walls just turn into seamless stone. No gate to attack for that strategy either.

I hadn't thought of it. But it's a fabulous idea. Hmmm.

 

[Usurper]

The people who controlled the portals would be whoever first came up with the idea (and a method) of controlling the portals. If a mage can create a teleport circle spell which is permanent, then he can also create a teleport circle which requires an oddball ritual to keep it going, then only teach the oddball ritual to his inner circle.

I suddenly see this snowballing way out of control. I mean, you could have mages magically communicating over distances to determine when it's safe to remove the blocks from such a portal, but there's little to stop an ambitious mage or mages from teleporting into the chambers and destroying the barricades anyway. With matter and reality warping magics available, the world could quickly devolve into a Magic the Gathering-style mage duel. Argh!

Guess you'd have to start persecuting mages at that point. Think of all the poor sorcerers running around polymorphed just to disguise themselves from the authorities.

If we turned a blind eye to such inconvenient possibilities, I think it could still be a lot of fun. Especially with the prospects of illegal portals and smuggling. Imagine if an enemy to Big City 1 created a portal with the exact same endpoint as the main portal between Big City 1 and Big City 2. Marching some hapless mercenaries to be slaughtered in Big City 1 would cause Big City 1 to think that Big City 2 was attacking, when it's really the insidious plot of the enemy city.

I need to work on making things more confusing.

Consequences of Teleportation Circle Proliferation is the best thread title I could come up with, Irda. Was just kidding though. Your title is very apt.

 

[Dinkeldog]

I like how Katherine Kurtz handled this sort of thing in her Deryni books. Basically, there's no teleport spell, all teleportation happens through circles. It requires expenditure of magical energy to activate the portal. Requiring a spellcaster will make the portals objects of convenience for the elite again.

 

[jasper]

Call it 25 people or 1 wagon every 12 seconds. 1 round to activate one to move off.
That is 5 wagons every minute and 125 people.
Which is 300 wagons an hour and 7,500 people an hour
finally it is 7,200 wagons and 180,00 people per day.
Yikes. Lot of moving
In ONE Direction! The spell does not say it works both ways. And someone said using the same endpt. Hum not good because you mixing teleportation beams. I would vary the chance of Mishap.
How are they linked?
one in each direction or do have multiple circles. Now leaving for L.A. Circle 1, New York city circle 2, London, circle 3 and el passo circle 4.
Or is it a chain. To get to la. you go from, new york, london, el passo to l. a.
What is the punishment for disturbing the circle?
What is the punishment for be slow off the mark to clear the landing area?

Good idea Imagine in the circles are in the same cavern 4 wizards with minons. Use the circle cast fireball into the crowd. Teleport out of your own or use their circle.
What happens when an int monster learns of this?
yellow alert! orcs in the compound.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Cf. "Master of Orion II".

Has anyone else played the computer game "Master of Orion II"? It's a sci-fi game, not fantasy, but hear me out.

One of the later technologies you develop is the Stargate, which allows nearly instantaneous travel for your starships (one turn, the smallest unit of time in the game). Once your network of Stargates is up and running, the game gets... weird.

You can pop into an enemy system with scout ships, plunk down an outpost/Stargate (think of this as casting the Teleport Circle), then on the next turn drive in your massive fleet of star destroyers. However, at the same time, your enemy could be flying his ships through your outpost into your systems.

In order to avoid devastating sneak attacks, everyone starts building up massive, massive fleets and stationing them everywhere. A kind of detente can develop in which no one wants to make the first move, because if you lose... your enemy pours back through the Stargates and crushes your now defenseless systems.

Eventually, someone gains the upper hand in superior technology or sheer numbers. He then launches a galaxy-wide attack against essentially all enemy systems at once... and when the dust clears, only one side is left standing.

So this is how I imagine a world full of Teleport Circles. Everyone is armed to the teeth with magic. Minor raids through a Circle might happen, but full-on invasions would be extremely rare because of the risk of catastrophe if the invasion bogs down. Only a simultaneous attack through multiple Circles at once would have a chance to work (and by work I mean achieve a long-term conquest).

 

[Sammael99]

Great idea, guys !

I love this idea. It would make for a determinedly different setting, one with a likely very different flavour.

My favorite sub-concept of those described above is the "ancient race developed the portals". I like the idea of the portals being kind of a wildcard, not entirely manageable.

People have learned how to activate the portals but not necessarily to master all their functionalities, and they are certainly not capable of reproducing them (although powerful mages may circumvent them by casting the spells mentioned above.)

It's kind of a transposition of the Fading Suns setting to medfan.

What I like with that is

• it doesn't imply high magic.
• it allows for more complex portals (1)
• it means that there is no notion of geography beyond the web. Is the next city actually just beyond the next hill, on the other side of the continent, on another continent, another world, another plane ?
• it would imply a largely urban society with small peripheric countryside exploitations (very different from your normal medfan setting)
• it allows for a truly apocalyptic collapse of the portals. Local exploration and a rebuilding of geography would then become the main thrusts of exploration.

(1) I'm thinking of several things here : Fading Suns has a concept of gatekeys that link a portal to various other portals. Presumably, all portals could link to all other portals, but only a few keys have been redicovered. I'm also thinking of a Dragon's Dream (French RPG "Rêve de Dragon") supplement that has kind of a similar concept : the portal destinations are dictated by astrological combinations. Some are well known, and others are not. So once in a while, an expedition is sent to the other side, not knowing where they'll arrive and how they'll come back...

Now for the apocalyptic plot : gradually, some of the destinations fall through. Suddenly, city A cannot connect city B and thus no longer has access to wool, salt, whatever. Suddenly, this vital product has to be found elsewhere, either through another city, or more likely locally, since the fallout in links cannot be fathomed. Therefore, there's a concept that I find extraordinary which is that of local exploration and a reconstruction of geography. Wow !

That would have made an extraordinary WOTC submission. Darn, why didn't you guys suggest it months ago ?