How prevalent are they in Eberron?
Indeed, for the overwhelming majority of people on Khorvaire, house Orien has a virtual monopoly on teleportation. Monopolies over specific applications of magic are not at all uncommon amongst the Dragonmarked houses. House Orien also has total control of the Lightning Rail service. House Lyrandar nearly exclusively operates Airships and elemental galleons, while House Jorasco seems to be in charge of all the major centers of healing since divine casters in Eberron don't sit around all day waiting for people in need of Cure Light Wounds. Nobody but Cannith was in the business of making Warforged.
Even those institutions which are not formally a part of the Dragonmarked houses have a tendency to be related to them through membership in the many guilds that the houses sponsor.
How do other Eberron DMs handle the various teleport rituals like Linked Portal...it seems to me that House Orien would try to have some sort of monopoly on the use of teleportation circles.
How prevalent are they in Eberron?
I would think house orien would have a circle for 'public' use at most enclaves, but if you use their circles as a target for linked portal from anywhere you pay a usage fee (about 15 gp?). Orien would charge the normal 135 (plus surcharge when you get to the end location) (making the profit from the ritual because of the 50 gp savings for having a permanent circle) when you get them to cast Linked Portal, and would allow you to use their circles as an outgoing point for your own ritual for the 50 gp.
The prices are way outside the average person's budget, and each the enclaves are unlikely to even have someone able to cast the ritual in the first place.
I would think house orien would have a circle for 'public' use at most enclaves, but if you use their circles as a target for linked portal from anywhere you pay a usage fee (about 15 gp?). Orien would charge the normal 135 (plus surcharge when you get to the end location) (making the profit from the ritual because of the 50 gp savings for having a permanent circle) when you get them to cast Linked Portal, and would allow you to use their circles as an outgoing point for your own ritual for the 50 gp.
The prices are way outside the average person's budget, and each the enclaves are unlikely to even have someone able to cast the ritual in the first place.
There you have it. It is the perfect plan, in my opinion any way.
I'd say that PC ritual casters with teleportation magic should be allowed to use their own, though, regardless of Orien's aspirations of monopoly. Maybe they'd have pay a small nominal fee to House Orien (5% of ritual cost or something), but there's only a small chance that House Orien will find out that they shirked the fee anyway, unless their departure point or destination is in a very public place.
Well, that's the trick - you have to get pretty high-level to be able to teleport without a defined destination point (the teleportation circle), and Orien probably controls most of those, so they can hire some Deneith thugs to stand around and enforce the contract whenever someone pops out.
Well, that's the trick - you have to get pretty high-level to be able to teleport without a defined destination point (the teleportation circle), and Orien probably controls most of those, so they can hire some Deneith thugs to stand around and enforce the contract whenever someone pops out.
I would think that since Orien is in the business of transportation, and part of it involves a network of transportation circles, known circles (whether constructed or found by Orien) would likely be the site of some kind of structure that serves much the same function as a train station or airport or any other staging area.
You schedule a teleportation and receive a voucher/ticket, then show up at the time with the allotted cargo, everyone/thing gets into the circle, the house worker performs the ritual and away you go.
Just as Orien uses its own security for the Lightning Rail and caravans, I'm sure they'd have local security on site as well. Any such facility is likely to become a center of trade, since the difficulty of transporting goods and some services over long distances becomes negated, and eventually grow into a community of decent size.
That is, of course, unless said teleportation circle is located in some place that makes it impractical to do the above- like if it's in the middle of some Drow infested ruins in Xen'drik, or a dangerous swamp in Q'barra.
On a side note, I'm remembering a scene in The Darkwood Mask, early on when the main character is sent via Orien teleport to Korth. I don't have the book on-hand, but I remember quite liking the description of the process; the main character entered a room with a complex mosaic pattern decorating the floor, and an elderly gentleman with a sprawling dragonmark took her hand... and a moment later they were both in a very similar room, but in the Korth enclave instead of the Sharn one. I swiped the idea for a game I ran when the PCs ended up conniving House Orien into teleporting them to their destination, and while it wasn't explicitly stated in the book, I interpreted it as "Every teleportation room has a distinct and unique mosaic pattern, so the caster can easily focus on it without fear of error."
I think that's easily expanded to "the mosaic pattern forms/includes the address for the Linked Portal ritual."
That is, of course, unless said teleportation circle is located in some place that makes it impractical to do the above- like if it's in the middle of some Drow infested ruins in Xen'drik, or a dangerous swamp in Q'barra.
Money is money. If the big honchos at Orien decide it is worth the investment, the circle is going to be secured, no matter the cost.
Come to think of it, it may be a fun adventure...
And making money at both ends of the circles is definitely something Orien would want to do.
I dunno, having a teleportation circle inside of your vault sounds like a bad idea to me.
Can you say 'bank job'? Sounds like a perfect plothook for a robbery to me.
I dunno, having a teleportation circle inside of your vault sounds like a bad idea to me.
By RAW a circle has to be studied to be able to reach it. So I personally would see apprentices would be taken across various circles to be able to learn them all.
So if you go with that set up, the only person who can teleport into the vault is someone whose been there in the past. Restrict who can go there, and you've got quite a secure vault.
By RAW a circle has to be studied to be able to reach it. So I personally would see apprentices would be taken across various circles to be able to learn them all.
So if you go with that set up, the only person who can teleport into the vault is someone whose been there in the past. Restrict who can go there, and you've got quite a secure vault.
Which means it would require an inside job.
Plus many of the Circles my pcs have found are older circles from older civilizations and neither Orien or anyone else has discovered them yet. So Orien may control many but not every Portal needs to be House controlled ones.
I may be mistaken, but I thought that the person using a Linked Portal spell needs a Permanant Portal location and the "code" and location of the place they are heading. I did not think they need to have seen the place itself.
Huh. You're right. I was always under the impression they had to have seen it. Couldn't someone theoretically guess the co-ordinates then if they know the symbols a particular civilization used? The magical equivalent of spamming?
Plus many of the Circles my pcs have found are older circles from older civilizations and neither Orien or anyone else has discovered them yet. So Orien may control many but not every Portal needs to be House controlled ones.
Definitely. Although I imagine they have a large network of spies (my House Orien would at least ;)) that are well trained to spot patterns consistent with regular traffic through linked portals.
Also, the idea of "spamming" a teleport address just seems like a horrendously bad idea. What if you teleport to Sarlona? Since Khorvaire's civilization is founded by direct immigrants from Sarlona, Sarlona's circles would have the same symbols. You could potentially pop out right in the middle of a Reidran enclave.
Also, the chances of randomly entering symbols to get an actual circle address would probably be about as hard as winning the lotto. And even then, you just teleport to a random circle. The chances of accidentally teleporting into a highly secure vault would be like...... punching in random numbers on your telephone and getting President Obama's personal cellphone.
I feel like the "code" are specific symbols that connect with "ley lines" or some such thing. One could not spam anything because you need the exact code or nothing happens except wasted components.
I agree. there is probably some sort of coded symbol pattern that corresponds to some location on Eberron. Perhaps there is a special Dragonmark like symbol that has to be scribed exactly. This mark corresponds to another mark located in a specific circle. And then you teleport there.
there is probably some sort of coded symbol pattern that corresponds to some location on Eberron.
And it requires 7 coded symbols to make the correct pattern so that you can go anywhere you want. 6 for the location in 3-dimensional space and 1 for your point of origin.
... hey wait a sec ... where have I heard this before?
Also, the idea of "spamming" a teleport address just seems like a horrendously bad idea. What if you teleport to Sarlona? Since Khorvaire's civilization is founded by direct immigrants from Sarlona, Sarlona's circles would have the same symbols. You could potentially pop out right in the middle of a Reidran enclave.
Also, the chances of randomly entering symbols to get an actual circle address would probably be about as hard as winning the lotto. And even then, you just teleport to a random circle. The chances of accidentally teleporting into a highly secure vault would be like...... punching in random numbers on your telephone and getting President Obama's personal cellphone.
I dunno. Seems like something House Orien might find worthwhile to do over the centuries.
A way around it is to just get rid of the idea of a "runic alphabet" because it does have the limitation of what happens if you run out of letters. (I'm not overly certain I understand what Rauric is saying with leylines and the like).
As far as "running out of letters" I really wouldn't worry about it. It's not like you have to make words. And they never say how many symbols makes an address. For comparison to another work of specular fiction, look at Stargate. The ring has, what, 28 symbols or something? 8 of them are used for an address. There's enough combinations to connect to an entire galaxy's worth of planets, plus several orders of magnitude more of worthless combinations that don't go anywhere.
The symbol-addresses for a teleportation circle are said to be about as easy to remember as a telephone number. That makes me think there is a limited library of symbols common among circles, so that you need not memorize a completely new set of symbols every time you commit an address to memory.
If each circle's address was comprised of symbols completely unique to that circle, it would be like having one friend who's cell number is made out of numerals, another who's number is constructed from hieroglyphics, a third who's number is comprised of japanese kanji symbols, and a different form of representation for every individual who's number you know. That would be horrendously difficult to memorize.
If there's one common "arcane symbol" alphabet that's about 26 to 30 characters long, and you need only 7-10 of them for a circle address, there would still be millions of possibilities to explore.
EDIT:
I just did the math, and for an alphabet of 30 symbols, and an address of 8 symbols. If the order in which the symbols are arranged is important, and you are able to use any one symbol more than once in an address (meaning AAAAABBA and BABAAAAA are legal combinations for an address, and lead to different circles), there are 656,100,000,000 possibilities.
That's Six Hundred and Fifty Six Billion, One Hundred Million possibilities, roughly a hundred times the human population of earth.
I sincerely doubt there's that many teleportation circles in existance.
Second I'm not sure I would let PC's use Orien's teleportation circles, at least not without a dragon mark. The idea being that most Orien aren't ritual casters, their circles would instead be based on their dragon marks. This also solves the problem of PC's "Comendeering" the Orien Circles.
Because they would use a diffrent mechanism, Orien circles might function diffrently. The image I have in my mind is each station would have a heavly secured case of several dragon shards attuned to other stations, and they Use these shards as a focus of sorts to assist in opening the portals. This side steps the issue of the Orien operator having to have been to the other end of the portal, and allows a mechanism for a bad guy to slam the door shut behind him by destroying the crystal after he has used it. Forcing the PC's to use conventional methods to persue him.
Orginizations such as the Arcantrix and Morgrave University seem much more likely to have Arcane constructed circles, and to have staff on hand to ensure proper payment. Or to put wards in place that require focus items to use their circles, which you obtain by paying cash up front.
I don't see the problem with House Orien "spamming" circles to try and spread out their control of the portal network. In fact, that's probably very likely. I was speaking of it being a bad idea from the context of someone trying to spam teleports to try and get into the Residuum Vault.
As far as "running out of letters" I really wouldn't worry about it. It's not like you have to make words. And they never say how many symbols makes an address. For comparison to another work of specular fiction, look at Stargate. The ring has, what, 28 symbols or something? 8 of them are used for an address. There's enough combinations to connect to an entire galaxy's worth of planets, plus several orders of magnitude more of worthless combinations that don't go anywhere.
The symbol-addresses for a teleportation circle are said to be about as easy to remember as a telephone number. That makes me think there is a limited library of symbols common among circles, so that you need not memorize a completely new set of symbols every time you commit an address to memory.
If each circle's address was comprised of symbols completely unique to that circle, it would be like having one friend who's cell number is made out of numerals, another who's number is constructed from hieroglyphics, a third who's number is comprised of japanese kanji symbols, and a different form of representation for every individual who's number you know. That would be horrendously difficult to memorize.
If there's one common "arcane symbol" alphabet that's about 26 to 30 characters long, and you need only 7-10 of them for a circle address, there would still be millions of possibilities to explore.
EDIT:
I just did the math, and for an alphabet of 30 symbols, and an address of 8 symbols. If the order in which the symbols are arranged is important, and you are able to use any one symbol more than once in an address (meaning AAAAABBA and BABAAAAA are legal combinations for an address, and lead to different circles), there are 656,100,000,000 possibilities.
That's Six Hundred and Fifty Six Billion, One Hundred Million possibilities, roughly a hundred times the human population of earth.
I sincerely doubt there's that many teleportation circles in existance.
Exactly. Also, how did that figure?
So there is really no way to spam circles if there is that many possibilities . How long would it take just to do a tenth of them?
I really don't even think that teleportation circles would even be common. That or they are extremly expensive. Maybe the technology used is still experimental and Orien is trying to figure out some perfect, inexpensive meens of teleportation and teleportation circles are a possible option.
Exactly. Also, how did that figure?
It was a permutation of 30 elements, 8 choices, order important, repeats allowed. I googled for a "permutation calculator" and put in the relevant numbers.
Exactly. Also, how did that figure?
So there is really no way to spam circles if there is that many possibilities . How long would it take just to do a tenth of them?
Yup. Maths wins again :P No spamming of circles ;)
To Toss out a few plot hooks based on that idea:
The PC's are contacted by an Orien agent who has an interesting proposition; They have come across a crystal to an unknown location from the war of the mark. They sent a team through the portal to do some reconnaissance of the site and to attune crystals to the area. The team missed their return rendezvous, and Orien agent wants the PC's to investigate what happened to them. Once through the portal the PC's would have a limited amount of time (say 48 hours) to find the team/attuned crystals and return to the portal site.
Someone has broken in at an Orien waystation, and stole all of the crystals. House Orien has placed a sizable bounty on the return of the crystals. As the PC's investigate they find the crystals were stolen by the Emerald Claw. The EC's goal is the assassination and replacement of a karnathi Diplomat who was due to return to karnath via the portals. The diplomat will now have to travel to a small way station a few days outside of the city they are in. The claw plans to ambush him on the way.