Magical Travel Methods In RP -- (Portals, Death Gate, etc).

A few days ago I started a hotbed conversation on how the Death Knight's Death Gate actually functioned. In-game we know that the gate will open a portal to Acherus wherever you are in the world. I always felt that the gate was a temporary two way street, that you could pass through and back again without any issues. I've even gone as far as to play it where the gate can be opened from a rune crafted on a small piece of saronite. That has been used several times in surgery to remove a foreign object from the body without causing more damage (like an arrow head). Some people I spoke to felt that the Death Gate was, as Arthas used it, a portal to anywhere that the ley lines could take you. In essence a Death Knight could tap a ley line (assuming they have the magical skills) and appear anywhere in Azeroth! That left me a little skeptical, but I can understand the theory behind that. Then it moved on to if Death Knights could take passengers through or if anyone could go through of their own will. I chimed in that the Death Gate was only traversible by a Death Knight, but they could pull someone through with them as long as they stayed physically connected. I figure that the portal takes the DK through the shadow realm and any non-DK that passes through could potentially end up lost in that realm.

This opened up a discussion to how Mage portals work, how engineering devices are able to teleport, who can be brought through what. So I thought I'd open this up for a conversation here. What method of RP magical travel do you use, and how do you perceive it working?

I figure that the portal takes the DK through the shadow realm and any non-DK that passes through could potentially end up lost in that realm.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Cenarion_Scout

The Scout that the trainer pulls out of the Shadow realm, so yeah.

Edit:

Lady Alistra says: Let us coldly greet another inhabitant of the shadow realm...
Alistra summons a Cenarion Scout.
Cenarion Scout says: Wha... where am I?
Lady Alistra says: A druid! How curious... I wonder how it got in there.
The scout enters Tree Form as Alistra starts attacking it
Disciples... you will find with time that many healing spells fall victim to the degeneration of our strikes.
Alistra finishes off the druid
Some healers lack the knowledge to counter the diseases that we master.
This lack of knowledge is just one more weakness among many. There is little hope against the power of death itself.

There is nothing to indicate that portals work both ways. No form of teleportation magic in wow, with the exception of warlock short-range portals, provide such functionality.

As such, it is safe to assume portals and death-gates are one way trips. There is no portal that opens on "the other end", you just appear there, odd as it may be. (same with hearthstones, astral recalls and druid teleports.)

Summoning is a different beast all together.

I've always considered death gates to be unfit for living travel because of their necrotic nature. The living would be damage beyond repair if they travel by death gate. This theory stems from the fact that you can take other DK's with you through your death gate, but not other classes, even when they are in your party.

Using mini-death gates to remove foreign stuff from the body is fair play, as far as i'm concerned.

As for this:

EShadowsong wrote:This opened up a discussion to how Mage portals work, how engineering devices are able to teleport, who can be brought through what. So I thought I'd open this up for a conversation here. What method of RP magical travel do you use, and how do you perceive it working?

I'll refer to the in-character articles I'm writing to pitch in on the discussion.
The articles can be found here: http://www.defiasrp.com/t6474-magic-the-pursuit-of-cosmic-truth-article-3

According to those theories, every magical effect can be linked to a specific pattern of spell-weaving, a specific arrangement of magical elements to get the desired effect.

In the case of teleportation and portals, it could very well be that mages and death knights use the same pattern, but through different magical sources.

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As for the specifics of how a portal spell would actually work... I'd say the portal bends reality in such a way that one point in space becomes one with the location of the portal. Step through the portal, and you step into the location you've brought forward.

This is evidenced in the spell graphics of the portal, were you can vaguely see your destination before you step through.


Opening a portal towards a certain location required you to know that location, and requires there to be an anchor in place. This is why you can't just go ahead and make a portal to anywhere. Generating and up-keeping an anchor requires tremendous magical effort, much more then opening a portal towards that location once the anchor is made.

This is evidenced in the first series of quests in the twilight highlands, where you have to gather reagents for the mages (or where it shamans?) to be able to allow the casters in Orgrimmar to open a portal to the highlands.


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EDIT: Oops. This became a long post. xD

There are however evidence of portals that work both ways. For one, there are all the Cataclysm portals - Where the one you mentioned (Though those being opened by shamans) is specificly mentioned to be one that allows personal to travel back and forth.

The portal is ready!

It's not powerful enough to transport an army, but we can maintain the connection long enough to allow important individuals to pass back and forth.

Source: http://www.wowhead.com/quest=26798

Worth mentioning is that these portals are of shamanistic origin, and required an element of the nearby region (Water elemental cores in this case) in order to be powered.

This is just theory from my side, but a two-way portal would be possible by most spell casters. However, it would require uninterrupted channelling, both locations to have an anchor and the caster to have a nearby power source to drain from, or deliver the power himself - Which would most likely be extremely taxing.

Edit: There's also several two-way portals in the Krasarang wilds, most of them most likely being a crossbreed between arcane and engineering, where I think the portal machines provide for both the channelling, the anchors and the player just has to provide the power! (Portal fuel)

I'm just going to copy paste a few paragraphs from my magic guide, since I CBA to write something new.

One last aspect of transmutation that must be addressed, is portals. Portals are... tricky. Traditionally, teleportation is the realm of conjuration, as that is the summoning school... this is not the case in WarCraft. In WarCraft, teleportation and portals are firmly the realm of transmutation. And while portals can fit in transmutation, it is a rather clunky fit. Essentially, transmutation portals involve transmuting air into interdimensional gateways. For example, in a Blink spell, the caster swaps the air in front of him with the air of his destination. Thus he steps into the air-switch and is transported only as a side-effect. With portals, the caster transmutes the air in front of him into what is essentially an interdimensional gateway (which connects to a ley line for long distance travel) that has been calibrated to match that of the target destination's gateway (in other words, like a Stargate). Essentially, a brief piece of air in both locations has been 'swapped' around, such that the moment you step into it, you suddenly appear at your location. The target destination gateway has been prepared beforehand for arrivals with an anchor spell, as portals in WoW require these anchors at the destination end in order to work safely. It is possible to not use an anchor, but it is extremely dangerous, likely teleporting you into a wall or a thousand feet in the air.

Despite transmutation being the school for portals and teleportation, conjuration remains the school of summoning. The difference between these two is that conjuration can only summon something from somewhere, it cannot send something to someplace. Transmutation is needed in order to traverse back and forth, as it creates stable interdimensional tunnels by transmuting the air into a magical gateway.

The info for teleportation in WarCraft comes from some Dalaran books.

http://www.wowpedia.org/Blinking_Rules_%26_Regulations
http://www.wowpedia.org/Thinking_with_Portals_-_A_Memorandum_on_Proper_Portal_Usage


Also yes, some gates are both-way. Some are one way. It depends on how the gate has been prepared.

erwtenpeller wrote:As for the specifics of how a portal spell would actually work... I'd say the portal bends reality in such a way that one point in space becomes one with the location of the portal. Step through the portal, and you step into the location you've brought forward.

This is evidenced in the spell graphics of the portal, were you can vaguely see your destination before you step through.

This, essentially. This explains the process in a much cleaner fashion than my above paragraphs.

Portals, or at least your generic magical ones, seem very much like those funnel things

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk91tAEsKaE

This was the only example I could think of... Fml.

Vaell wrote:Portals, or at least your generic magical ones, seem very much like those funnel things

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk91tAEsKaE

This was the only example I could think of... Fml.

Maybe you want to say that it's a SAW thing.

Also, maybe it would look more like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdrNNKYBMXM

I don't really bother with the specifics too much. All I know is that they are mighty convenient for the plot and they can be whatever it is the players need them to be.

You want to fight hordes of zombies trapped somewhere with a time limit ticking to your escape? Have it take forever to charge up.

You simply want an easy way to fast-travel to an exotic location? Have your mage sneeze out a portal.

You want to use offensive portals to shove somebody to the other side of the world? Be sure to leave in a loophole so the other player has a possible way of countering it.

I could go on for some time but I think you get the gist of it. When it comes to portals I am more concerned with what they could mean for the plot and narrative than how they actually work in an in-character / in-universe sense.

I feel Blizzard is the same in that regard.

Thelos wrote:You want to use offensive portals to shove somebody to the other side of the world? Be sure to leave in a loophole so the other player has a possible way of countering it.

I did that a couple of times. Só much fun xD

Currently my Mage, (Falarth), and the rest of Strom's Mage Playerbase are working on a way of rebuilding and protecting Stromgarde's Ley Pattern (Line). Logically, as a previous Alliance Capital and being where the first Human Mages were taught, Stromgarde ought to have a strong enough anchor present to be used but we've RPed it being shattered and scrambled by our Archmage, a hasty decision made due to a lack of transmutation knowledge. This allowed us to be safe from incoming Horde attacks and whatnot however it hindered our own transport, presently, we RP it to be nigh impossible to Portal or Teleport in or out of Stromgarde.

This however will change! The way we see it is that a Portal Spell is much like any other, as Erwtenpeller said, weave the pattern of the Spell to (as Drustai said) transmute the Air of one place to another, however we asked ourselves this. How is it that Stormwind's Leyline differs from Orgimmar's? Or the Undercity's to Ironforge? We figured that somewhere along the line, somewhere upon weaving the Runes required for the Portal or Teleport, there existed a cantrip rune (Passrune), which differs from place to place allowing you access. These Passrunes are spread around the right Magical Circles and thus presumably no Horde Mage has the knowledge to open a Portal to Stormwind and no Human has the knowledge to open a portal to Orgimmar.

Part of the storyline therefore is about researching into a suitable Rune to act as a Passrune and then somehow weave that into the Ley Pattern of Stromgarde.

What I'd like to know, without taking the conversation offtopic, is what's the thoughts on the concept of a Passrune and is there any other explanation as to the above issue?

Orthur Thorgint wrote:What I'd like to know, without taking the conversation offtopic, is what's the thoughts on the concept of a Passrune and is there any other explanation as to the above issue?

I'd say it's as good of a solution as any to the "problem" of not being able to teleport to horde cities as alliance, and the other way around.

Pretty clever for a bunch of barbarians, indeed.

siegmund wrote:

I figure that the portal takes the DK through the shadow realm and any non-DK that passes through could potentially end up lost in that realm.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Cenarion_Scout

The Scout that the trainer pulls out of the Shadow realm, so yeah.

Edit:

Lady Alistra says: Let us coldly greet another inhabitant of the shadow realm...
Alistra summons a Cenarion Scout.
Cenarion Scout says: Wha... where am I?
Lady Alistra says: A druid! How curious... I wonder how it got in there.
The scout enters Tree Form as Alistra starts attacking it
Disciples... you will find with time that many healing spells fall victim to the degeneration of our strikes.
Alistra finishes off the druid
Some healers lack the knowledge to counter the diseases that we master.
This lack of knowledge is just one more weakness among many. There is little hope against the power of death itself.

See this right here is a very good explanation of how I perceive the Death Gate working. It is basically a link into the shadow realm that the Death Knight is able to pass through. Obviously on the other end they're anchored into Acherus (Eliza is able to teleport directly into her personal quarters in Acherus). From this we can see that non-Death Knights are capable of being in the Shadow Realm (also from the Koltira quest from Wrath) but they need a guide in order to be able to leave that realm.

As far as being traversible, I firmly believe that a Death Knight can go to and from the point to Acherus for a limited time. It requires runes to create a portal into the Shadow Realm, and there are runes on the other side that allow for the end point. Naturally the runes in Acherus are permanent while the runes created at a point are temporary. So long as those runes remain active (which is really depending on the skill of the Knight) then the portal can be reopened to allow passing back through again.


I find it interesting we haven't touched on the engineering ability to teleport yet. It seems that engineers have a knack for studying the magical abilities of others and creating nifty gadgets to mimic them.

Any sufficiently advance technology appears like magic.

Engineering is just another way to do magic, basically. :/

I always perceived summoningstones as "picking up someone from the sky and making them disappear in a leyline, just to pull them out at the summoningstone." The limitations I set is that I am unable to find -anyone-, unless they have something of Aishlings felsignature on it. Basically, just like dogs that mark their territory. Ofcourse, this takes loads and loads of magic to do so, and even finding them as Aishling uses all of her magic to scan the leylines for her own signature is tiring and intensive.

erwtenpeller wrote:Any sufficiently advance technology appears like magic.

Engineering is just another way to do magic, basically. :/

Exactly how I see the "Tech" in WoW. Technomancy even.

I'll just drop by the thread with the information here that there is this Quest, Second Chances where in Icecrown you summon a Death Gate for an Ebon Blade guy to step through.

Skarain wrote:I'll just drop by the thread with the information here that there is this Quest, Second Chances where in Icecrown you summon a Death Gate for an Ebon Blade guy to step through.

My mind jumped to this one too Skarry.

http://www.wowpedia.org/Quest:The_Air_Stands_Still