Cager Portal Chant

Portals that lead to every corner, nook and cranny of the planes intersect here in the City of Doors. The only trick is finding out where they are, how they work and how long they’ll stay. There’s many a canny basher that has forged an ironshod future for themselves by hawking knowledge of these peculiar portals and their wily ways to those that don’t know the dark. Fact is that all planars can see portals, and most of ‘em would more often than not tell you where one is for a bit of garnish.

It’s usually the next couple of bits that cause the clueless to cave-in, moaning and wailing about ‘natural places where the world worked right...’ You see, to get a portal to work, one needs a portal key, something that activates the portal and allows you to pass through it as if it was a normal doorway and not a bricked-in stone archway, or a razorvine-covered iron-shuttered window. These portal keys can be anything, literally. An actual key, a song, a broken pot, a dance, a whine, a book, the third finger of a githyanki knight, anything... (Don’t ask about that last one - it was not a pretty sight).

Then, one has to know how long a portal will be around, if it’s a permanent, shifting, or random portal. These darks can make a fairly large impact on whether or not you’ll be headin’ back to the Cage in the same manner that you left. (Take my advice, cutters, don’t bet on it). You might want to find out if your doorway-to-beyond is a one-way’er or a two-way’er, as well. If it’s one thing that I hate, it’s landing in the middle of a ‘loth tea party with a one-way portal at my back. You’d do well to do the same.

Where does one learn of these archaic secrets of the doorways to the multiverse? There are several places, actually: you could bribe (or hire) a wizard or priest to cast special (and usually expensive) spells to tell you the dark of the key or you could research it yourself, if you have the time. Also, you could find someone who knows and lann the portal’s chant from them, but this can get costly both in time and jink.

I’ve heard that there’s a blood in Sigil by the name of Lissandra the Gate Seeker that keeps a book full of all of the portals in Sigil (at least the ones that she has found, that is), their keys, and how often they appear, or disappear. I’ve also skeeged the chant that there is an up-and-coming mage by the name of Rowan Darkwood that puts out a book of portal and spell keys that is said to be uncannily accurate. Me, now, I’d be a bit wary of that flam. There's said to be a more dependable source within Sigil, however, than both of these dames: a 'Master Scrivener of Extra-Planar Information' (a Guvner, if I ever met one), by the name of Grumbling Lorin. It's said that he's got a list of portals as long as a 'loth's arm, and if ya don't know it cutter, that's a fairly long list!