[PnP] pnp Digest, Vol 151, Issue 9 -Planar Travel

[Bessie Hadley]

I confess that I have never advanced a character so far as to be able to use this spell & frankly, it scares me (or rather, my characters) to even try it. I believe I would only participate in such a spell as part in the included group going - WITH the caster - & only by direct invitation from the other side, & the caster would have to be from that place. Since it involves the Upper Worlds & my PCs don't know personally any Alfar or angelic-type characters, the chance of this seems very dim. And the PC would have to consider how long they would be absent from the Middle World.

This is what I have considered:

That said, I confess that I had a created portal in my 2nd novel, created by a Kotothi god, which linked to his own plane (the Lower World). I presented it as a huge door, about 10 feet high & 6 feet across, of ancient-appearing metal-reinforced (iron?) wood, with a light coming through the cracks around its edges (top, bottom & sides). I pictured it in my mind as a door opening TOWARD the Middle World, since its created purpose was to funnel through various chaos (only 1) & kotothi monsters from the Lower World to create havoc in the Middle World. I pictured it as located (in the Lower World at the edge of kotothi territory, but near a chaos boundary, so that both types of creatures might be forced across by their gods)

I had felt the door could send folks both ways (altho since it opened TOWARD us, those on the other side would meet less resistance), but no one on our side was foolish enough to try opening it, & indeed, their goal became to get someone experienced enough to block the portal (since I had no real idea of how long it could exist when made by a Contact Level 5 Dark Elder god - Mallon Trow). I had to create an older NPC/PC (51 year-old Balance Priest, MEL9 level) to deal with blocking the portal's exit with a Ward Pact & it's Guardian. I figured it should last long enough for the created portal to fade on its own, although, since I wasn't sure how it all worked, its EL level being unknown,  I left the situation in some doubt.

That's my only portal experience. I figured as long as the portal was open, creatures could pass through it, especially if the god continually renewed the spell. I largest group was, I think, eight. I was trying to be reasonable & not entirely into an author's flights of fancy (plus, my PCs were all fairly new (level 1-2), so didn't want to overwhelm them - I DO try to follow the game's rules - lol).

I have already given away too much of my story - sigh. Wish I could get a literary agent to read my book;I'm sure they would think it worthy of being published in some form.

This discussion could prove very fruitful. I should create a few more older NPC/PCs to figure these things out. I created my 51-year old by simply extending the character creation tables (same parameters as initial PC creation) to accommodate the skills I needed, that is, having enough points to grow the spells I needed to hi-enuff levels.


Bess L. Hadley