Regulation of Prime Portals

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Dalmosh's picture
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Regulation of Prime Portals

Hi,
Does anyone know if there a Planescape faction or Power focused on warding and maintaining portals linking Prime Worlds into Planescape, or regulating Planeshifting abilities/access in developing societies and protecting Prime Worlds from extraplanar invasion? While all major alignments have their champions and enforcers who would carry out such regulatory work in specific instances, I am wondering if there is an overarching Faction responsible for protecting clueless Prime Worlds from too rapid exposure to the Planes.

The closest I can think of are the Regulators (3rd ed. Epic Level Handbook) who are devoted to maintaining balance and stability across the Planes. What are the core classes/prestige classes that they would deploy as mid-lower level field agents to regulate portal use and creation in the aim of maintaining the order?

I do not have a great deal of material on the Rilmani beyond (3rd ed.) Fiend Folio, though presumably this race could have some vested interest in preventing a careless wizard tearing a hole from his world into the Abyss, or stopping Formians from enslaving and reordering Prime Worlds in the aim of maintaining the power equilibrium between the different Planar Alignments. In terms of aligned powers, this focus on broad control of extra-planar activities seems rather Lawful. Would Primus take any interest in the creation and abuse of Prime portals and travel between the Planes and the Prime? Are there other Powers more focussed on this area? Is there any agency within Sigil that cares what happens to berks who leave the door open behind them to their world's detriment?

Any thoughts or ideas are most welcome.

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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

I can easily imagine such a sect existing. I cannot however, imagine one being available to PCs, because they're very likely to have a nativist mindset (meaning they frown on interplanar travel). I had thought of making such a sect myself based loosely on the Gate Wardens from Eberron (yes, one of their major objectives is to wipe out "unnatural" and invasive creatures, particularly those originating from the Far-Realm. Though I didn't make them too hardline-- they don't frown on interplanar trade or travel, only immigration.)

In a more detailed writeup I'm working on in the timeline thread, there are some interesting details on the Vast Gate incident-- namely that the entire multiverse was aware of it, and the powers, outsiders, elementals, etc. all scrambled to destroy (or at the very least, seal from their end) every last portal to Greyspace. Cryonax and his herald go to Oerth themselves after his lesser minions fail to deal with Father Llymic (Cryonax is certain that Celestian and some of the other deities will seal Greyspace off from the rest of the Multiverse is worst comes to worse, but fears that this will not be enough to stop the reality-taint from spreading into the Phlogiston and into other prime worlds, which eventually would affect the planes. Also, Father Llymic and the Shivhads *both from the same plane of the Far Realm cosmology* did not emerge from the Vast Gate-- they emerged from one of the dozens of portals that began to open spontaneously due to the reality-rending effects of the Amoebic Sea's reality pouring out of the Vast Gate. This destablilized reality around Firestorm Peak and allowed innumerable tears into the Far Realm cosmology. The other tears however did not leave the scars in the fabric of reality that the Vast Gate did.)

ripvanwormer's picture
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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

Sounds like the Guardians of the Gates.

Dalmosh's picture
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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

Fantastic! The Guardians of the Gate are exactly what I was looking for, thanks a lot. I particularly like the idea of Dragons supporting this network. The older and more sedentary dragons, especially those of a neutral/ lawful neutral leaning are excellent candidates to monitor and guard portals due to their near immortality, great intelligence and perhaps even the sense of loyalty to a Prime World that comes with holding a lair for thousands of years and watching mortals be born and die like so many mayflies. It makes sense that such a being would be pretty committed to maintaining the stability of its world within the broader multiverse against external threats.
It is also interesting to consider the Archomentals to be continuing an ancient role of defending tangible reality against the influence of the Far Realm. Inciting the wrathful attention of a being like Cryonax or Ben Hadar is a pretty good reason to take some care with the fabric of reality.

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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

^^Actually, the way I have it, even the fiends (other than the Obyriths) do that, since, as spiritual beings of this reality, the very presence of the Far Realm creatures sickens them (though not enough to hinder them). Plus, an Elder Evil from the Far Realm has the potential to mess up the status quo of the Outer Planes-- particularly when it comes to the physical and spiritual nature of one or more planes. Not even the Tanar'ri or Slaad would put up with some interloper waltzing in and distorting their territory, or worse, distorting the very definition of Evil or Chaos. As for the lawfully-aligned outsider races, you can bet they'd be dead-set against the very existence of such creatures in their Multiverse. Though I did have in mind that the powers and immortals of the Inner Planes would be especially opposed and hostile to Far Realm creatures and those tainted by them, since the Inner Planes represent the physical laws of the Multiverse much more than the Outer Planes do (which have more to do with mutable laws)

There is also some very specific stuff I had thought out regarding the incident that you might likewise be interested in:
Once the Elder Elves (more specifically, the task forces assigned with the Father llymic problem) are convinced of what Cryonax's objective is, they start trying to use him as an oracle, though Cryonax's help was limited. Among the things he told/answered were:
--He voices concern (which turns out to be mistaken at least for wizards and priests who don't focus on elementalism) that protective spells vs. cold won't offer any protection against Father Llymic's soul chill aura, since the entity doesn't follow the physical laws of the Multiverse
--He informed them of what was going on in the Outer and Inner Planes regarding the portals (the Elder Elves were under the erroneous assumption that the portals to the Inner and Outer planes were collapsing due to the breakdown of reality)
--He and his herald (Frigidora) are the ones who notice that Father Llymic gets stronger as more and more lifeforms succumb to brood fever (see Elder Evils for full details). He decides that the brood spawn must be destroyed, and advise the task force to slay any they find. However, the non-evil aligned members of the force are reluctant to do this and insist on seeking ways to cure their bretheren rather than kill them. Cryonax convinces them that, even if the condition can be cured without killing the host, the elves lack the resources to cure everyone AND have enough magic/etc. left over to fight Father Llymic and the other monstrosities.

Below are some bits and pieces that I've written out thus far for details of some of the timeline events (for my timeline topic)
---
Several of the arcanists were adversely affected physically, many fatally. Blood curdling screams pierced the Vast Gate chamber as the flesh of some began to bubble, while in others it melted off like wax, condemning them to slow and agonizing deaths. Others still became horribly deformed, while in the most greusome cases, appendages such as arms, tentacles, even fanged stomachs sprang from victim's bodies and slaughtered their nearby horrified colleagues, often turning on their owners once no more victims remained within range.

The outsider and elemental races, naturally and viscerally revolted by matter and energy from the Far Realm, quickly became aware of these circumstances. In little more than a day, the entirety of the Great Wheel, Transitive, and Inner Planes are plunged into mayhem as the beings of each plane desperately scramble to smash every portal to Greyspace they can find, in order to contain the Far Realm's influence. Even Ptah and Celestian cut Greyspace off from the Deep Ethereal. One by one, the Elder Elves' various portals begin to fail, though some are merely sealed off, in the unlikely chance that the quasipowers, powers, and outsider races might need to intervene.
At the same time, the Vast Gate continued to expand, and by this point, the blot on reality began to destabilize space around Firestorm Peak. This caused innumerable smaller rifts to open into the Far Realm multiverse, including one into a highly inimical plane of cold and darkness. Another rift continually spewed out gallons of green slime from the Amoebic Sea, teeming with wriggling amoebae and larval wystes. The rift into the plane of cold darkness soon grew to monumental size, and horrible creatures begin to pour out-- entire armies of shivhads, and something far worse-- a crystalline being later dubbed "Father Llymic". At first, the Elder Elves mistakenly believed it had been killed after it tore a path of destruction into a verdant glade, only to wither away in the sunlight.

The struggle with Father Llymic attracted the attention of Cryonax, who sent several of his minions to deal with the situation. They failed dismally-- those not eradicated by the elves themselves fell victim to Father Llymic's corruption. Cryonax subsequently sent one of his aspects to the scene. When it likewise failed, Cryonax decided to take matters into his own hands, accessing the portal himself, accompanied by his herald and a small army of minions.
The portal took them (like those before them) to the base of Firestorm Peak, where they had an immediate run-in with one of the elven armies dealing with the aberrations. The general, after realizing that Cryonax was to Father Llymic (initially he made the normally fatal mistake of assuming that Cryonax had arrived to assist Father Llymic, along with a few other mistakes *namely, he referred to Cryonax as "that thing" and voiced the mistaken assumption that Frigidora was his "concubine general"*, petitioned him for advice. However, Father Llymic, Cryonax explained, was not a being of paraelemental ice-- or even of elemental air or water. Thus, Cryonax did not know how to destroy it. In fact, Cryonax noted, it didn't appear to be made of elemental earth or quasielemental mineral, either. Hearing this, the general's top advisor realized that the Far Realm creatures, in fact, are not composed of the basic elements at all, unlike all matter, life, and energy of their own multiverse.

As the two armies neared the spreading abyss of utter darkness, however, Cryonax's minions began to act strangely. Eventually, most either fled, become violently ill, or collapsed. It turned out that elemental and outsider races feel an innate disgust and uneasiness when near a Far Realm creature, and apparently it has the potential to make them physically sick. None of the monstrosities battled on the way to the gaping darkness seemed to have much effect on Cryonax's army, but the aura of Father Llymic was apparently too overwhelming. The advisor noticed that Cryonax and Frigidora appeared to be in great discomfort as well, though this seemed to have no effect on their abilities.

Dalmosh's picture
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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

Yep this is pretty mint stuff, Elder Evils rocks. I don't really use it for anything other than fluff as I have never been especially interested in epic level play. I realised last week when setting up an unstable portal as an encounter than canonical 3-3.5 supplements fall really short on integrating Planescape into more conventional D&D. Specifically I really thought that trawling through my supplements would yield a really specific and logical prestige class that would fit logically in the role of portal warden.
There is always pursuing the dull and obvious choice of just using a wizard with planar focussed powers, but this just doesn't sit that well with me. In my campaign world wizards are not common due to a low level of technology following an apocalyptic event. Those that do practice wizardry are generally rather selfish and more fixated on accruing personal power. Nevertheless, a Lawful Wizard at least has the basic faculties to perform this role.
For me, Druid seems like a much more logical choice as a warden to maintain the integrity of Prime Worlds. Outside of the Beastlands, Bytopia, Ysgard and the Outlands animals are not very common and mostly counterparted by magical beasts and more primitive outsiders. So a planar Druid to me is someone fixated on preserving the natural balance of Prime worlds in the face of extra-planar subversive or invasive influences (and in some instances a similar role on another Plane). The problem is that Knowledge (the Planes) is not even a class skill for Druids, even using the Planar Substitution levels in the (lets be honest pretty mediocre) Planar handbook. So their abilities just don't seem very appropriate to such a task.
I am going to read Portals and Planes for some less canonical but hopefully more specific direction.

The Far Realm (and similar irrational pockets between the Planes in Elder Evils) is a rather extreme example of extraplanar invasive corruption that I agree would be fairly uniformly opposed by most Planescape forces. Due to the balance of the Great Wheel and the elements/forces of the Inner Planes most races and powers have an antagonist that would harry and impede their own actions with regards to Prime Worlds. But every alignment or elemental force has the capacity to upset a world's balance, and I am a little surprised that there is not a Prestige Class somewhere devoted to across the board portal control, whether against Angels, formians or tentacle monsters from BEYOOOOOND!!!. Maybe its Homebrew time once again.

Hyena of Ice's picture
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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

Perhaps. Although I don't think there were any prestige classes presented in it, you might be interested in Inner Circle's Violet Dawn campaign setting-- it's low magic and inspired heavily from Dark Sun (but with waaay more HP Lovecraft and less desert-- it has the exact same exotic feel of Dark Sun, though). For an ameteur college 3rd party setting it's pretty damn amazing. Sadly, they seem to have disappeared from the radar, but I believe their products are all still for sale, and I've actually encorporated some of their stuff into my writings on this site. (For the record, the only monster-related 3.5 book you need is Complete Book of Denizens. Aside from that, I would recommend the Avadnu Primer *which IIRC is free on their site*, the Broken Isles Lorebook (though some of it is redundant with the Complete Book of Denizens), and Player's Guide to the Broken Isles.

And, if you're interested, here is how I've incorporated the stuff:

--The Void is NOT part of The Farrealm; it is a demiplane created by Temulea (Temulea also created its inhabitants).
--Temulea was originally from the Far Realm *he crossed over waaay back in antiquity along with Ghaunadaur, Tharizdun, The Great Mother, and The Patient One. after Piscathes's bump created the Aboleth and left a festering wound in reality between the two multiverses. Back then, beings from the Far Realm multiverse sealed the rift.*, but was almost entirely naturalized to this multiverse. His alignment was originally chaotic neutral, but after he slew his son Krug, he went insane and became chaotic evil.
--The Luminas were actually my initial inspiration to make the Far Realm an entire Myriad Planes multiverse instead of just the Amoebic Sea. Though looking back at the Father Llymic story, this seems to be implied by the canon, as well. The Luminas are an epic-level celestial-like race with a Far Realm theme. They are extremely good-aligned, but in a very alien way (and in fact, their very concept of goodness is mildly alien to the D&D concept)
--In addition to the Violet Dawn canon, I have written up that half the reason Violetspace was cut off from the rest of the Multiverse was to prevent The Void and the Xxyth *and other voidspawn* from contaminating other parts of the Multiverse. (the canonical half was to limit The Void's interaction with Violetspace) (The voidspawn are Cthulhu-tastic monstrosities created by Temulea to undo his creation of Violetspace. They fill the niche of fiends in the Violet Dawn setting, just as the Luminas fill the niche of celestials)
--A colony Sulwynarii (not mentioned in the free primer, sadly-- they're basically neutral good elves with an affinity for crystals) became established on the Quasielemental Plane of Mineral shortly before the Time of Chaos hit Avadnu. Most of them are servants and/or cultists of Crystalle, the Quasielemental Prince of Neutral Mineral. Unlike most prime-indigenous flesh based races, the Sulwynarii are treated very well by Crystalle due to their natural inclination for cultivating crystals. Eventually I plan to work on encorporating the other major Avadnian races into Planescape, as well. The Violet Dawn books claim that the Sulwynarii are the ancestral form of modern elves, though I would say this clashes with the canon, and more likely they are either an offshoot race or another creation of the Leshay (racially they are a type of elf)

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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

I don't know how useful it is, since there's almost nothing about them, officially, but there's also the Lords of the Gloaming.

And possibly the Keepers of the Cerulean Sign from Lords of Madness.

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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

I think the original Keepers of the Cerulean Sign were the slave races that defeated the final Aboleth empire (if you go by my timeline, that would be the proto-reptile-like Chroch'hochaat and the proto-mammal-like Chroch'chikaat. They were wiped out by the Permian-Triassic extinction analogue inadvertently caused by Imix's rampage, however-- their extinction had nothing to do with the aboleth or any other aberrant race. In case anyone is confused regarding the flumphs and other primordial, indigenous aberrations, in my rules these are not affected by the Cerulean Sign. It likewise cannot be used to harm Inner or Outer indigenous aberrations on their own plane.)

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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

The Regulators have nothing to do with portals to the prime either.

They're a Lawful Neutral sect devoted to preserving the status quo, and therefore the exact opposite of the Revolutionary League.

As for controlling the portals from the prime to the inner or outer planes, I don't think most planar organizations out there care too much for regulating and controlling them. But I'd see the Planar Trade Consortium as an organization that would want to keep some of those portals open, if it served their purposes for trade routes.

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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

Well, the Planarists do. That's Cirily the firre's group from Uncaged, known for their anti-prime bigotry. They don't want to protect the Prime from the planes; they want to protect the planes from the Prime.

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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

LOL, I bet THAT sect doesn't have much support among the Fiendish races. I bet certain subgroups of the Doomguard absolutely love the Regulators (trying to maintain oppression and unchanging status quo eventually does indeed lead to entropy)

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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

For those who are interested, the Legends and Lairs supplement "Portals and Planes" has an excellent Prestige Class that offers (for me at least) a great candidate for Prime portal warden. It is a Druid class called the Tender of Worlds. Naturally you need to either cross-class or spend double skill points to level up in Knowledge the Planes ranks in order to qualify. Once you do, you get a raft of very appropriate abilities to deal with these sort of problems.
These include the ability to sense the presence of and divine the nature and destination of a given portal, the ability to use animal-targeting spells against outsiders, the ability to alter and impede planar affects within a 50ft bubble (really good against e.g. an Abyssal cyst or a spreading elemental vortex to the Plane of Fire), and use of Dimensional Anchor at will. In a defensive capacity, this class would be of critical importance in a less connected Prime World such as I am currently using in my campaign.
I could also envisage Tenders of Worlds acting at the Meta-level in Planescape to scout out fluxes within planar forces or intentional ploys to invade and subvert Prime worlds on the part of powerful entities or forces of the planes. I could almost even imagine the yugoloths having a few evil Tenders operating from Niffelheim.
Since Tenders focus less on traditional natural environments and more on the meta-environment of the Plane as a whole, and its place within the Multiverse, they would also be much more effective within civilized areas than classic Druids.

Hyena of Ice's picture
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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

For me, Druid seems like a much more logical choice as a warden to maintain the integrity of Prime Worlds. Outside of the Beastlands, Bytopia, Ysgard and the Outlands animals are not very common and mostly counterparted by magical beasts and more primitive outsiders. So a planar Druid to me is someone fixated on preserving the natural balance of Prime worlds in the face of extra-planar subversive or invasive influences (and in some instances a similar role on another Plane). The problem is that Knowledge (the Planes) is not even a class skill for Druids, even using the Planar Substitution levels in the (lets be honest pretty mediocre) Planar handbook. So their abilities just don't seem very appropriate to such a task.

There's the Gate Wardens from the Eberron Campaign setting, who get Knowledge: Planes as a class skill and consist mostly of druids and rangers as one of the perks of belonging to the organization. However, this group is specifically concerned with keeping the gates to the Far Realm sealed and wiping out aberrations. I can easily picture them as being a sect in the Planescape Setting.

I can also picture some of the Obyrith being crazy enough to try to ally with/open a gate into the Far-Realm with the hopes of altering the Multiverse (Abyss specifically) so that it favors them again. They'd prettymuch be the only major planar race I could picture doing this, however. I'm certain Dagon, Pale Night, and Pazuzu would do such a thing, but I could possibly picture Obox-Ob and Ugudenk trying it. (As for why, Pazuzu has practically abandoned his Obyrith heritage and is slowly becoming a Tanar'ri. Dagon and Pale Night both have a nice gig going on.)

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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

With regards to planar vortices; which are in effect naturally occurring portals between the planes (or indeed temporary and unstable rifts), are these actually magical in nature per se? Artificially constructed portals typically feature a permanent or triggered use of the Gate spell (or something similar), so is there a similar magical effect driving a planar vortex? What I am asking specifically is whether a planar vortex is A) a spontaneously occurring blend of spell-like effects driven by diffuse interactions of cosmic forces or B) a non-magical physical wormhole that acts analogously to the effects of the gate spell?
The reason I am curious is that divine casters don't seem to have many options (in 3.5) to suppress portal activity. Would Dispel Magic work to briefly hold a vortex shut for a few rounds? Could a vortex open and function within an anti-magic field?

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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

A vortex would not function in an antimagic field, no, since it is indeed supernatural in nature. There is no extraordinary ability, power, or what-have-you that allows plane-shifting or gating.

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Re: Regulation of Prime Portals

Since I homebrew my campaigns, I am not very well versed in conventional WotC-owned Prime World Material, so I often miss useful stuff from these supps. until something alerts me to it.

Anyway, I just saw that Forgotten Realms has a Prestige Class for wizards who specialize in this kind of Portal Regulation, protecting their world against extra-planar incursions.

This is the Incantatrix from Magic of Faerun, who gains specific abilities at banishing outsiders and fighting ethereal foes. I still like Tenders of Worlds way more though, as their powers are much more focussed on locating and warding gates between planes.

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