So, in our campaign, the story calls for a magical way of travelling between to locations. We thought we'd use a portal at first, but then I had the idea of using the Magic Realm. However, I'm not entirely sure on how this works. Let me see if I get this right:
In our covenant's basement, there is a certain room. It doesn't look like much, but in one of the stone walls, you can actually pass through if you know how to do it. By walking straight into the wall, you emerge out of a similar wall in the basement of a town house in a different tribunal, many leagues away. Can this be described as a Terram Boundary, that lets characters with Magic Might or Second Sight travel through the Twilight Void to the other end? Or is it a Vestige? I'm not entirely sure about the difference.
If either end of the "travel" is in a regio, you can simply state that it is one of the ways to enter/leave that regio.
Or you can place a regio as being all the inbetween and if you want to, add a distance that needs to be traveled inside the regio.
Another idea we had was that this room was actually some kind of magical "hub". When a person enters the room and closes the door behind him with a certain key, using key in the to open the door would open it into another place, say, the basement of the town house. There are many keys, and all fits into the lock. Each key opens the door into different place.
So, if one were to make game rules for this situations, and magical effects, any suggestions what they might be? Are the keys themselves the magic item here, or the locks? The door maybe? Or the room itself? What happened in the past to make this place?
The regiones idea still works with that, with the room being the regiones.
To make the whole room as magic effects, well that will take some doing for sure. Several Hermes Portal made into items and activated based on "their" key being used...
What we really want to avoid here is to have the characters using these portals being warped to death from using the portals. Would travelling through region levels warp the travellers? Hermes Portals would, if I understand the rules correct...
NOt if you want to avoid it. Being in a regio for a few minutes does not warp you, regardless of the power of the regio. A good narrative hook might be that people do get MASSIVE warping. The only way to avoid this, is if you are aligned to the magic realm, and in that case you do not warp. That will create a lñot of tension between "first level" and "second level" covenfolk: the travelers vs the rest. makes for a good tiered covenant, with internal tensions.
I would make it a regio as well. It can be a level 1 regio; no need to travel into the magic realm to have an effect like this one.
Indeed I was refering to non magi: if you have a Magical (and Faerie as well if you want) supernatural virtue, you are not warped. If you don't you get warped.
Other alternatives will include hermes portals "old style" and pacts weith supernatural beings that transport you fast (not i9nstantly) around ME for some favours (story hook!!)
Looking Mercere's Portals in True Lineages, I see that the effect is based on the level 35 Rego Terram spell (transport the caster to an Arcane Connection), but with +4 magnitudes for Arcane Connection, and +10 levels for Unlimited Uses. But what about the Target for this effect? The way I see it here is that the portal can transport itself as much as it wants, which is silly. Any ideas?
No, they wouldn't. On the other hand, no character gets warped by a regio unless he's staying there for a long time (at least a month for Aura 10, at least a season for anything less).
A somewhat strained way would be to "warp space". Space warping sounds un-medieval, but a character entering a room and discovering a whole realm hidden behind a door is the staple of many old stories. And the ability of magic to warp space is official since Magi of Hermes (initially I did not really like it and though of it as a flawed interpretation of the rules, but eventually changed my mind). In this case the effect would be to change two perfectly identical "containers" (e.g. rooms, sacks etc.) so that they actually share the same "inside", and anything entering one will leave from the other and viceversa. This qualifies as a highly unnatural change under various Muto guidelines.
Yes, unless he was the maker, or the portal was made specifically with him in mind.
Terram is a catch-all form for anything inanimate (and more generally, anything solid) - see The Unseen Arm for example. It's a bit strained - it really should have plenty of requisites. On the other hand, it's the adaptation of a pre-hermetic magic so, like Aegis of the Hearth, it's allowed to bend the rules a little.
I would mention that I think "magical" teleportation for trade and communication within the Order somewhat overrated.
In our saga, the local (PC) Redcap owns a magical device that allows him to lift any small ship he is currently steering, using an effect almost identical to Wings of the Soaring Wind. Even at a palsy 40 mph (as per the spell's description) it only takes 3 days or so to travel from one corner of Europe to the opposite one. At a more reasonable 120 mph for hurrican strength winds it takes only a single day.
To me, this sounds like exactly the sort of mad idea that a magus would have. It is kind of like saying:
"I want to fly between Chicago and New York. I know. I'll design and build a supersonic passenger plane."
That is, using the magic realm to travel is a fine idea, but it seems like a much, much bigger challenge than merely using a portal (which, in the modern example, is the equivalent of taking a commuter flight).
Put another way, it's hard to imagine anything that requires you to travel between locations where what you actually do at those locations could be more significant than the fact that you used the Magic Realm to travel there.
All of which means, there's no reason why the magi wouldn't try this. But it seems to be a "Mad Plan".
I can see that, and the magic realm is very difficult to get to, and it's full of Warping and Death.
Which is no reason for magi not to try, of course.
If you (as players) just want something to be there, that does the travel job...but don't want the magi to go through the actual invention (and also have to find reasons why the magi don't do this everywhere). Then just have the magi discover some piece of ancient magic that does the job; some sort of Mercurian (or older) relic. Then you don't need to worry about how it works according to Hermetic magic; it works according to the unknown principles of some ancient magical tradition.
Well, the idea in the story is that a Hermetic Magus built a portal. I've been looking it over, and what I came up with is this thing:
A magical doorway, with an intricate lock. The door itself is an invested item, with a spell similar to Leap of Homecoming set into it. The door has Touch as Range, which affects those stepping over the threshold. The duration is Concentration, which the door maintains as long as it is open. Now here's the interesting bit. They keys to the locks are permanent Arcane Connections to one other door, which is a similar magical item. So there is one key for each destination, and the key you use decides where you end up.
Other effects could be a ReHe-spell with Arcane Connection as range, and with a linked trigger. This effect opens the door at the other end when you want to step through. Finally, an InIm-effect would be nice, so a person could see through the doorway. This is also a linked effect.
It might go something like this:
Magical Network of Doorways
ReCo50
(Base35, +1 Touch, +1 Conc, +5 levels for maintain conc)
InIm33
(Base2, +4 Arcane Connection, +1 Conc, +2 Room, +3 levels for linked trigger, +5 levels for maintain conc)
ReHe18
(Base3, +4 Arcane Connection, +3 levels for linked trigger)
Is the character returned once the door closes?
Or do you simply mean that the doorway only teleports you when you pass through the door (meaning the door has to be open) or how?
The idea is that the door teleports you when you step through the open door. Since it can do this as long as it is open, I thought Concentration would be the best way. Could say Unlimited Uses too, I guess..
