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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 5890977" data-attributes="member: 6669384">RumbleTiger, that's an interesting point.A greedy caster might well prepare such a quick transit point.  But, being greedy, and knowing that the city fathers would have it (and him) destroyed at first opportunity, he might well do it in secret.Isn't this the stuff of adventures after all?  PC's exploring the mad wizard's lair discover a mysterious stone ring that radiates magic?Loonook:  My campaign *includes* (not "depends on" ) a group trying to minimize the availability of a particular spell.  One Dispel Magic can undo the ongoing effect of Plant Growth, after all, and that's all it takes.  But that does bring up something of what I was looking for:  Plot hooks or developments.Presume that, in order to isolate the Druidic community and minimize their ability to address the famine issue, the bad guys promoted a general distrust of them?  Blaming the nature priests for the sky turning black and nature turning against them isn't that big a leap, after all.Now, Civilization v the Sims?  Really?  I thought we were talking D&D. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> (And I seriously doubt that you'll find any reference to arms smuggling in the world building section of the DMG.)  Magic exists in the game world, and has for a long time.  It's part of the world, and in areas where the factors are right, I'd expect to see it employed in a lot of different aspects of life.Previously, you estimated the number of high level spell casters based on city populations of 100,000 or so.The city of Rome had over half a million slaves at one point, and a full population that's been estimated as high as 1.3 million.  Even experts have to estimate, because census figures are unreliable.  Some census counts counted only adult men, others only citizens, while yet others included non-citizen freemen, and slaves were most often counted as property.  Still, other records show that the city of Rome imported more than a million slaves a year for quite a while, so that gives us a hint as to its true size.During the same period my game is set in (500 a.d.) Athens had a population of 140,000.  Again, this is an estimate, and didn't count slaves which would swell that number.  Estimates place the slave population between 150,000 and 400,000.  (You can Google these figures, if you care).Based on these figures, the highest level casters normally available would include archmages (those capable of casting 9th level spells), so Teleport Circle would be in play.  Still, that spell takes 10,000 gp in materials to cast, so it probably wouldn't be in regular use for commerce unless it was made Permanent, or crafted into a portal point as a Wondrous Item with X activations per day (or week depending on your budget.)Oddly, since the Teleport Circle is a one way transit (going, not coming), having a Permanent one in your city wouldn't pose any threat to the realm, and opposing one wouldn't prevent some enemy from using one prepared on their end to move troops into your capital.  So in many ways it would make sense for a major city to invest in such a thing for trade purposes, with a reciprocal arrangement with a trading partner.  You get some control of where things pop in that way.Or at least the illusion of it...</blockquote>

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