Question about "bounded space"

Would it be terribly pretentious or dorky to say "Any simple closed curve in space could be a portal" and leave it at that?

[Although the prospect of a self-intersecting portal... intrigues.]

The portal is destroyed. That's what the Grixxit (from Uncaged) is doing - going around Sigil breaking the bounded spaces of portals in order to destroy as many as possible.

If a portal forms between, for example, a tiefling's clasped hands, or between the shadows of a tree's branches, the portal only lasts as long as the space is bounded.

Some portals only exist for a very short time. But, in Sigil, they can exist just about anywhere.

Well. That *could* cause a problem I'd say - within Sigil I think the Lady could handle the problem though, preventing it from occuring.

Outside of Sigil (there are portals that go from plane to plane that Don't go to or thrpough Sigil after all) - then that could cause some serious serious problems.... that could be a good central problem for a module.

Heh. Maybe every so often, a portal just explodes.

Who says that one "bounded space" in Sigil equals one portal?

A portal is door + key.
Door 1 + Key 1 = Portal 1.
Door 1 + Key 2, 3, or 4 = Portal 2, 3, or 4.

I doubt that the portal is tied to the exact geometric dimensions of the space it occupies (though that would be a really interesting idea, if the portal's destination were determined almost formulaically by the bounded space, just in ways too complex for regular berks to comprehend). If you cut away at the portal's frame, it wouldn't affect it. If you make a breach in the frame, though, you'd probably destroy it.

I think that the question of minor damage to portals is a question pertaining to the power of belief.

if the doorframe to which fidricon reffers is gouged, the vast majority of the multiverse would agree that it is still a door, even the same door. thus, the amount of damage required to be sustained on the part of the door frame must be a sufficiant amount to render it unrecognisable.

hence: the minimum amount of damage that must be done to the border of a portal in order to destroy the portal would be the minimum amount of damage required to render the doorway unrecognisable to at least more than 50% of all sentient beings in the multiverse, thus shifting the majority of belief. obviously this wouldn't be a concious decision. the beings don't need to be at all aware of what a door might be, but if they were to see the 'before' picture (a door) and the 'after' picture (a hole in the wall) they would be able to see that these are to distict things, despite the fact that they are the same thing with varying amounts of damage.

Also, isn't the light in sigil supplied by tiny portals to the plane of radiance that form from the bounded space in the smog towards the center of the ring? I recall having read this somwhere, and that suggests that portals can be formed on the molecular level...

If that were the case, wouldn't everyone who jumped off Sigil's edge end up in the Quasielemental Plane of Radiance?

Or is it a one-way portal? That's certainly possible. It might be a portal from Radiance to Sigil in one direction, and from Sigil to anywhere and everywhere in the other.

I think I prefer the idea that the light portals are in the clouds and smog, however. Or the dabus haul in the light in buckets.

There's at least one canonical example of a portal inside a living creature's mouth. In Doors to the Unknown, the PCs have to pass through a portal in the mouth of a creature called a cortelestial. (Also...and I'm going by memory here, because I'm too lazy to look up the module right now...IIRC the portal key is to not have fear...so if anyone's afraid that they'll end up as the cortelestial's dinner, well, they'll be right...)

Wow the foundry's smog really IS good for the enviroment.

That would be odd...
Think about the poor sod at the other end!
And what if it went to an inhospitable plane like ooze, or mineral, fire or any of the lower planes esp the lowest layer of aceron

Well, it wasn't the most serious of comments, but if it sprouted even a tiny idea, it was not completely wasted.

Close to topic, can a portal move? Meaning, if end of a barrel contains a portal, how does moving the barrel affect it? Does the portal:
a) move with the barrel to a new position?
b) close until the barrel is moved back to the position?
c) close until any bounded arch is moved to the position?
d) close permanently, as connection was broken?
e) Is everything answer the chaos to! (dependis on portal, hour, or whatever).

I guess a) would be unlikely. Easy answer would be e), only The Lady knowing all the dark on portals.

a) would open the door to all sorts of mischief. Not that it's a bad thing... Sigil might have a few specialists who snoop around for 'mobile portals' and selling them to highest bidder.

"For sale, small cozy portal to Carceri, mounted on an old bleaker soup pot. Key; farastu spit. Cheap!"

Also selling mobile portals that are found might also gain the Lady's ire if done too much.

Not that it didn't also introduce other non-official concepts, but Torment included a mobile portal, if you will. It was the folding iron gateway that you pick up at the Foundry and that takes you to Ravel's maze. You just have to unfold it and get the key, which I think was blood from some kind of tanar'ri or something involving an alu-fiend student at the Brothel.

Whoa. Considering that most portals open on the other side to bounded spaces of the same size and shape, and even matirial, could make for some INTERESTING possabilities esp in some sigilian brothels. On the other hand if you figured out that you had one and the key, just open it up and no need to worry about stds, at least for yourself.

Imagine someone going mad when their ears become portholes to Pandemonium.

I've always been fond of the implications of very loosely-defined "bounded spaces," even going so far as to over-expand the meaning to a very non-canon interpretation of "bounded conditions" or even "bounded chronology." A simple justification for this, of course, lies in the Rule of Threes: If there's one way to define a portal, there must necessarily be three ways to define a portal.

A "Bounded Space" portal is of the type we all know and love: anything with defined spatial boundaries can, when crossed by a sentient bearing the proper key, instantaneously remove that sentient from its current spatial boundary and replace it within a similar spatial boundary elsewhere.

Expand that definition by replacing applicable nouns, and the situation becomes intriguingly brain-busting: A "Bounded Condition" portal: anything with defined conditional boundaries can, when crossed by a sentient bearing the proper key, instantaneously remove that sentient from its current conditional boundary and replace it within a similar conditional boundary elsewhere.
Thus, consider the instance of two couples on seperate planes of existence gettting married. The boundaries of the condition of marriage are very clearly defined; "I now pronounce you man and wife" or some variation thereon is a standard of most wedding ceremonies. By the establishment of that "Bounded Condition," in that brief moment, the bride and groom both, but seperately, risk being yanked out of their reality (both spatially and, possibly, chronologically) and thrust into another. Of course, given the generally accepted standard of a boundary of similar construction on the other end, the newlywed plane-hopper would likely (but not necessarily) be interjected into a just-completed wedding ceremony, probably to the great agitation and alarm of the regular wedding guests there. (You don't figure that the key would be the possession of something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, etc? Nahh...)

Write the same dissertation for a temporal displacement, and suddenly, you've got wackos the world (multiverse?) over standing on one leg, with a frog in their pocket, left index finger on the apex of their skulls, reciting a nursery rhyme backwards at the moment of the Winter Solstice, hoping that they will be whisked back to the winter solstice following the date of their own birth in order to purchase a lottery ticket for the huge drawing that year, knowing the numbers in advance.

I hope this (technically second) post of my Planewalker career is to the satisfaction of the group... Enjoy!

'nick012000' wrote:

Sounds like a "bounded chronology" would be a "Closed timelike curve.

Oh, how I wish I was intelligent enough to NOT have had to follow the link... Thanks for it, though. (Wikipedia is INCREDIBLE.)

From Monte's Chaositech, these entities are essentially "holes" in reality -- portals that lead to a dimension of writhing wormlike terrors.

That's correct, yes, especially in the case of one-way portals, or portals that open into a completely different plane when coming from the opposite direction, or portals that require a different key to get back, or portals that simply require a fresh key to get back. You can't back up unless you've got a new key, or you might end up with part of a severed limb on an unknown plane of existence.

With two-way portals that are always open and don't require keys I might make an exception, but those are very rare.

... which could neatly explain why as time progresses at a wedding, there's always someone getting drunk in the corner that nobody has a clue as to who they are! Poor berks, eh?