D&D General The Brilliance of the Original Gygaxian Multiverse

[ilgatto]

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was published in 1950 and featured the lead characters traveling to a magical land through the titular wardrobe. The Magician's Nephew came somewhat later, in 1955, and instead had a set of rings: one set that would bring the wearer to a mystical forest filled with ponds, and another that would let the wearer travel through these ponds into other worlds. I think this is one of the first literary uses of travel between different worlds (as opposed to "weird faraway places" like Gulliver's Travels) where those worlds aren't various afterlives (e.g. Dante's Inferno).

I guess it's a thin line. Fore example, while it could be argued that Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) doesn't actually take Alice into another plane of existence, EGG did use it for his Dungeonland/Land Beyond the Magic Mirror demi-plane.

 

[Rabulias]

Teleporting from one world to another, however, does not and cannot work if one applies the least bit of physics to it: when jumping from the planet you're on to elsewhere on that same planet, your speed of movement through space as the planet orbits its star and the star orbits its galaxy etc. is the same (or close enough) at your jumping-off point as it is at your destination. Thus, teleport on the same world works OK. But teleporting onto a different world moving at a different speed through space - yeah, splat. Even teleporting to the moon would be damn risky!

Applying physics will limit teleportation even on the same world. Teleport significantly north or south of your current position and your rotational velocity could be dangerously different from the destination's. Same for major differences in altitude. And may the gods help you if you try to teleport to the other side of the planet -- the surface there is quickly headed the opposite way from the direction you were moving when you left.

 

[Alzrius]

Teleporting from one world to another, however, does not and cannot work if one applies the least bit of physics to it

One of the fundamental characteristics of magic, at least to me, is that physics and other natural laws don't apply to it. Magic's only consistency, in terms of how it works, is with itself (i.e. adhering solely its own set of guiding principles and operations); the sciences don't get a say.