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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 5711369" data-attributes="member: 151">So, here's the thing.  On at least two occasions, my players have had an encounter with evil NPCs who had access to long and short range teleportation via summoned portals.  The players have seen the process in action, but have no idea how it worked.Thing is...neither do I.  <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=":)" />I have supposed in my mind that this would be the product of an ability conferred upon the villains (The Legion of The Coming Storm and/or their masters, The Cruel Wizards) and a more powerful item.  The facts are as follows:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The portal is small, mostly the size of the user</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The portal is short-lived, suitable for creating an escape but not much more</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The short distance portal could go at least a few hundred feet</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The long distance portal opened to a remote location hundreds of miles away</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The portals can be summoned as a standard action</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The campaign is on the verge of going to the Paragon Tier</li> </ul>So this raises the question: how can the villains manage this?  I'm leaning towards items with significant negative consequences or that are much more limited in scope than they first appear.  The players clearly have an idea of what's available with magic and I prefer to avoid fiat, per se.  If they manage to get their hands on one, what would it be like?If it's something like a boon, how would that work?  One consistent item in my game that the players really don't know much about are Rune-stones.  Sometimes one-shot magic items and other times extremely powerful (but dangerous) ones...their commanding officer actually has one embedded in his chest (it's a curse, actually).  They have encountered monsters transformed by them...again by having them attached or otherwise fused with the creature.Any suggestions for how my bad guys can get around?</blockquote>

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