Celebrim
Legend
Ok, ok, I'll throw my hat in.
The kind of defences you are describing could only be implemented at 'the capitol' or other central cities. The Empire is still dependent on 'the outside' for basic necessities to some extent. Granted, it doesn't take many Decanters of Endless Water to provide all the water a city is going to need (and then some), but there is only so far, Create Food & Water, Heroes Feast, Mordankainen's Magnificent Mansions and the like will go to feed a thriving metropolis. And besides, what wealthy Empire is going to be happy not recieving the tribute and wealth of the world through its doors.
So lets say we have these satellite city states of oh, 40,000 people - the minimum needed to occasional (every few centuries) produce a Wizard with the talent and desire to start up a link to the next city. They are surrounded by a rather large agarian community of say, 200,000+ that is producing the wood, food, cloth, leather, raw iron, gems, gold, and other commodities that are consumed by each city. But once the commodities are brought to the city, it is easy for the city dwellers to transport them to any of several other cities in the trade loop.
At each cities heart is vast trading station where access to the portals is controlled. Commodities stack up in the trading station, are bought and sold, and then teams of porters (some slaves, some freemen, maybe even some cities have politically powerful porter guilds), pick up bundles of whatever is sold and walk through the 'out' portal, pick up something on the other side and walk through the linking portal back to their home city in an endless chain.
Probably one porter can carry 80-100 lbs. per trip, and can (with experience) clear a portal for the next bearer in under 3 seconds, so each portal can transport operating around the clock approxiamately 144 tons of raw material. An average city in the Empire probably has 3 or 4 such portals - with the equivalent transportive capacity of a fleet of 30 or so Semi's even assuming something more efficient cannot be arranged.
Horses, Oxen, Mules, and what not could perhaps be trained to carry things through the portal, but I imagine that they would cause as many problems as they would solve in a crowded noisy magical environment, so mostly the cities would rely on humanoid labor (at least I perfer that YMMV). Hill Giants would be probably in high demand as porters, stevedores, teamsters, whatever you want to call this job (no direct real world analogy), as they would definately increase transportive capacity immensely.
These satellite cities would look pretty normal except for thier connection to the secret cities at the heart of the Empire.
As you get further into the Empire, things could get as bizarre as you are suggesting. At its heart in the middle of the Empire, you really could have a City Without Doors where noone in the city knows where the city is, and everyone travels about the city via teep circles, phasedoors, and other magical gates. Average city dwellers might not even be sure where one building in the city was relative to another. (I think of the family with the power to open teleport gates in Neverwhere). Probably such a city would only evolve if everyone didn't trust everyone else, so this implies that the ruling heirarchy is a bunch of might Wizardly families who engage in widespread assassination for political purposes, or that there is great fear of slave revolt, or both. The other possiblity is the whole defensive scheme developed in responce to some nightmarishly powerful all consuming evil that the average citizen of the Empire has long forgotten existed. Then again, both things could be true.
Maybe at the top of the Empire its not even the same race controlling it as what lives in it.
Who knows? And even if there wasn't anything unusual about the City without Doors, wouldn't everyone in the Empire be constantly speculating about it just because it makes for such great rumors?
BTW, city walls in themselves, even ones without doors in them, don't make much of an obstacle in a high magic campaign. To many things can just fly right over them, teleport right through them, smash them, etc. So, having a hole in the wall isn't that big of deal. If you really want security, you build like the Dwarves do... and keep your ears to the wall to make sure nothing is tunneling in.
The kind of defences you are describing could only be implemented at 'the capitol' or other central cities. The Empire is still dependent on 'the outside' for basic necessities to some extent. Granted, it doesn't take many Decanters of Endless Water to provide all the water a city is going to need (and then some), but there is only so far, Create Food & Water, Heroes Feast, Mordankainen's Magnificent Mansions and the like will go to feed a thriving metropolis. And besides, what wealthy Empire is going to be happy not recieving the tribute and wealth of the world through its doors.
So lets say we have these satellite city states of oh, 40,000 people - the minimum needed to occasional (every few centuries) produce a Wizard with the talent and desire to start up a link to the next city. They are surrounded by a rather large agarian community of say, 200,000+ that is producing the wood, food, cloth, leather, raw iron, gems, gold, and other commodities that are consumed by each city. But once the commodities are brought to the city, it is easy for the city dwellers to transport them to any of several other cities in the trade loop.
At each cities heart is vast trading station where access to the portals is controlled. Commodities stack up in the trading station, are bought and sold, and then teams of porters (some slaves, some freemen, maybe even some cities have politically powerful porter guilds), pick up bundles of whatever is sold and walk through the 'out' portal, pick up something on the other side and walk through the linking portal back to their home city in an endless chain.
Probably one porter can carry 80-100 lbs. per trip, and can (with experience) clear a portal for the next bearer in under 3 seconds, so each portal can transport operating around the clock approxiamately 144 tons of raw material. An average city in the Empire probably has 3 or 4 such portals - with the equivalent transportive capacity of a fleet of 30 or so Semi's even assuming something more efficient cannot be arranged.
Horses, Oxen, Mules, and what not could perhaps be trained to carry things through the portal, but I imagine that they would cause as many problems as they would solve in a crowded noisy magical environment, so mostly the cities would rely on humanoid labor (at least I perfer that YMMV). Hill Giants would be probably in high demand as porters, stevedores, teamsters, whatever you want to call this job (no direct real world analogy), as they would definately increase transportive capacity immensely.
These satellite cities would look pretty normal except for thier connection to the secret cities at the heart of the Empire.
As you get further into the Empire, things could get as bizarre as you are suggesting. At its heart in the middle of the Empire, you really could have a City Without Doors where noone in the city knows where the city is, and everyone travels about the city via teep circles, phasedoors, and other magical gates. Average city dwellers might not even be sure where one building in the city was relative to another. (I think of the family with the power to open teleport gates in Neverwhere). Probably such a city would only evolve if everyone didn't trust everyone else, so this implies that the ruling heirarchy is a bunch of might Wizardly families who engage in widespread assassination for political purposes, or that there is great fear of slave revolt, or both. The other possiblity is the whole defensive scheme developed in responce to some nightmarishly powerful all consuming evil that the average citizen of the Empire has long forgotten existed. Then again, both things could be true.
Maybe at the top of the Empire its not even the same race controlling it as what lives in it.
Who knows? And even if there wasn't anything unusual about the City without Doors, wouldn't everyone in the Empire be constantly speculating about it just because it makes for such great rumors?
BTW, city walls in themselves, even ones without doors in them, don't make much of an obstacle in a high magic campaign. To many things can just fly right over them, teleport right through them, smash them, etc. So, having a hole in the wall isn't that big of deal. If you really want security, you build like the Dwarves do... and keep your ears to the wall to make sure nothing is tunneling in.
