How it Works: The Gates of Cidri

[Prootwaddle]

So... I've been ruminating on the Gates of Cidri, and I've had some ideas on how they work. Feel free to use any of these in your campaigns, I have several explanations as to how they might work.

Anyhow, as I see it Jen Mnoren's original gate is a short time lasting, one way gate. It's a natural spell only available to Mnoren's or Mnoren crossbreeds (very old dragons, specifically, in my campaign, Wyrmfire). It acts like any other like a spell, so only Mnoren or their descendents can use it as only the have the ST to maintain the spell, even for a short time.

The standard gate is a variant on the original spell, it can only be cast by a Mnoren but is a two way gate, and is sustained over a long period via a sustainer mechanism. This can take several forms. For the less ethical, one could imprison a Mnoren wizard and drain their ST into the gate to keep it going. The way my evil Emprorer is using is to power the sustainer with ST battery banks... by having his personal wizards drain ST out of wounded soldiers en mass and into the batteries, hence his starting a disastrous Civil War. Sort of a Fullmetal Alchemst gambit, really. The final way, which I think would be the standard for gates on Cidri, is to cast Gate over a leyline, a natural source of magical power.

Just some musings... I mainly differentiated the different ways of making gates because I needed to find a way to make their introduction to my party integral to the big bass evil plot, and i wanted the Dragons to be able to gate too because I am a fan of Dragonriders of Pern. Let me know what you all think of my theories!

[ak_aramis]

You realize that the gate spell works for anyone per Advanced Wizard, yes?

AW, p 39.

Control Gate is IQ 18 & costs 10 ST to detect or alter, 50 to destroy. (AW17)

Create Gate is only IQ 15, costs 50 St foe each end, and is a linkage.

No Mnoren genes needed.

But EVERY Mnoren seems to be possessed of both, inherently. And seem to be able to make blind jump gates.

So, IMC, back in the day, it was that they could create gates from one end, and use a gate no matter what the conditions were set to for using it. And that PO'd a few players.

[JLV]

I read it this way too. Mnoren can do it without a gate (effectively meaning they can automatically create a "gate" whenever they want). I also always assumed that any Mnoren "gate," since they didn't go to the trouble of "creating" an actual gate, would disappear when the Mnoren left.

But once a gate is created, the only restrictions on using it were based on the size of the gate and what conditions (if any) the creator put on it.

[David Bofinger]

The only reason I can think to say it might be like a gate is that there's a story from I think Space Gamer in which a human finds out yeti are intelligent, and they only act dumb because the ones we meet have passed through a gate that reduces the intelligence of those who use it. And we know Jen Mnoren made only six journeys and came out of it in "fright and confusion". So if we imagine these two effects to be similar we might think they had similar causes. But it's drawing a very long bow.

More likely it's like teleportation.

[JLV]

It'll be interesting to see what, if any, additional information Steve provides us on the Mnoren. I wonder what HE thinks their ability to move between the worlds is?

[The Wyzard]

I think my take is that Mnoren can shift themselves, and not much else, inherently and innately. There's no gate, no big bang, they just go from one place to another. Maybe there's a small amount of rigamarole (going into a closet and shutting the door behind themselves, for example...)

Everything else they can do is a matter of leveraging the resources of one world against the weaknesses of another, and vice versa.

I think they probably need to use a Gate spell or some other artifice to take other people along with them.

There's probably a bit of Myst in my interpretation.

[Anomylous]

Leylines are a neat idea. Having Gates be tied to them seems like a natural concept. It would also prevent Gates from being used for stuff like convenient waste disposal, building perpetual motion machines, etc.

...But maybe you enjoy using the mystic portal as a toilet and making Newton cry.

[zot]

Originally Posted by Anomylous

Leylines are a neat idea. Having Gates be tied to them seems like a natural concept. It would also prevent Gates from being used for stuff like convenient waste disposal, building perpetual motion machines, etc.

...But maybe you enjoy using the mystic portal as a toilet and making Newton cry.

I like the physics-breaking properties of gates. We had a huge discussion on this here:

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Sorry about the wall of text. I have edited for brevity and focus.
the cost of creating a Gate using the rules for hiring wizards to cast spells is not expensive compared with a bridge, a road, or even a ship.

I like the idea of the Transport Guild, which controls knowledge and use of Gate, Control Gate, and Long Distance Teleport.

[Keysh]

I think it's clear that the Mnoren were not using any kind of simple variation on the Gate spell, since what they did was jump between different universes.

The Gate spell (per Advanced Wizard, p.39) "can lead from ANYWHERE to ANYWHERE, as long as the wizard who created it was able to reach both 'ends' to set it up." So in practical terms, Gates lead between different parts of Cidri, not from one universe to another.

(This leaves open the possibility that a dimension-hopping being like a Mnoren could create Gates that have ends in different universes, though I'd imagine that would require a different spell...)

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Mnoren might use an Amberite Shadow walking ability to slowly shift themselves to the dimension/shadow they want to visit.