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RelentlessImp
2009-09-13, 07:38 PM
This thought came to me while reading over Skorj's teleportation spell changes in the Arcane Adventures recruitment thread. For those not wanting to track the thread down, here's the basics:

The setting's loosely based on the Roman Empire era, plus magic. Teleportation effects have been toned down, but they got me to thinking. What sort of effect should (or could) teleportation spells (especially teleportation circles) have on the effect of actual governments?

It seems to me that the use of teleportation circles could be rented out; taxed, if you will. A flat 10% tax on a merchant's net profits per year in exchange for them using teleportation circles to move their goods, for instance, would undoubtedly bring in a lot of revenue for a government. Now, while a lot of people would have stuck to the expansive road system, traders probably wouldn't if there was a quicker, and safer, way to get their goods to market, so most well-to-do merchants would most likely make use of such services, especially when it comes to seasonal goods such as certain delicacies, wool, etc. When the season can turn and completely devastate your profits on a certain good, it's sort of important to get that good to a market ASAP.

What this means for the government utilizing it? More taxes, more consistent taxes, and the even more necessary hiring of a skilled team of mathematical and legal experts to make certain no merchant is cheating them out of their taxes. And most importantly, a government that lives longer and doesn't go broke.

Discuss.

Why wouldn't merchants, traders and caravaners utilize such services if they were available?
Why would a government restrict the use of teleportation circles if they could be utilized in such a fashion?
Would teleportation circles available to the public be a bigger risk (in the case of invaders) or reward (in the situation outlined above)?


I'm not bringing this up for altruistic reasons. I'm working on a campaign setting and this struck me all of a sudden, wanted to see what other people thought about the idea.

Glimbur
2009-09-13, 08:14 PM
How prevalent are the circles? Does every town have several to lead to every other nearby town, or does each city have a few to nearby cities, with farming towns radiating out from a central city?

If the latter, city-states seem a natural progression. Perhaps by treaty teleport circles are required to land outside of town proper, which is inconvenient for everyone but makes invasion slightly harder. They would greatly change logistics for war, though.

RelentlessImp
2009-09-13, 08:23 PM
I'd think that most major cities (seaports, bazaar cities, trade outposts, and empire outposts) would probably have a teleportation circle; getting it cast is only slightly harder than having someone who could cast permanancy on it.

And, of course, the capital would probably have a teleportation circle for every attuned, matching "trade circle" to increase its accessibility to merchants.

Raum
2009-09-13, 09:30 PM
If you're just thinking taxes you're thinking too small...consider the military implications. Logistics problems become easily solvable. Sieges will be ineffective as long as an external power is willing to supply food. Now you have to reduce walls with artillery or take cities by storm. You'll end up with strategically mobile armies who are still tactically immobile.

bosssmiley
2009-09-14, 06:42 AM
Teleportation effectively annihilates distance. Jakandror, one of the old 2E settings, had a post-apocalyptic culture (the Charonti, a bunch of ancestor-worshippers and necromancers) which had historically integrated teleportation portals into all of their cities.

Net result: their entire urban culture functioned as one large city with the teleportals acting as ward gates, checkpoints and firebreaks. Besieging the Charonti was effectively impossible, as they could transfer troops and supplies in, and civilians out, as fast as people could walk to the teleportation plazas.

Although flawed and grotesquely under-explored, the Jakandor setting had a great wilderness/dungeon-crawling conceit in that all the lost city areas were ancient Charonti ruins that had been cut off from the teleport network. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, was to be lowered over the city walls and march off to rediscover these cities, map their exact locations, and - hopefully - reactivate their teleportals.

On the subject of teleporters as Roman roads. The Forgotten Realms "Unapproachable East" sourcebook did exactly this. One semi-disused wilderness trail was surrounded by weird monoliths. In the right circumstances walking between these would instantly teleport you to a corresponding road in Kara-Tur. Effectively it was a long-forgotten teleport shortcut to the FR equivalent of the Silk Road.

Aux-Ash
2009-09-14, 07:21 AM
Beyond the benefits of a teleportation system interconnecting an entire empire is several drawbacks. Since all cities would essentially become one. If famine or disease would hit one city it would automatically hit the rest too (even if you put up a guard around the circle, these guards will use them to move their family and friends through it and thus spread the disease).

In addition, if one city would fall to an enemy suddenly the capitol itself will be directly threatened. Even if it lies on a separate continent. What if the main army is still months away from being battleready?

Also mercenaries and tradehouses more or less lives on the fact that it is a long and perilous journey to transport goods. If goods can be instantly transported as soon as it enters one city then the need to outfit caravans or build tradeports vanish. Any merchants who cannot afford to use them will quickly have their business ruined by those who can. In fact, one could argue that merchants as such becomes redundant since the peasantry that produce the goods can in fact sell it themselves to anyone in the empire.

Furthermore, exploration to find new and better traderoutes is also pointless. Why fund a expensive expedition, that have a great risk of vanishing or failing, when you can simply stay in town or use a teleportation circle? Quite simply... the economical need to explore is very small (the only reason at all would be to find new resources once your source has run out).

In my meaning, a system of teleportation circles would be convenient for the people but crippling for the culture. I'd personally it to cause the same effect as the slavetrade did for the greeks and the romans, causing a stagnation.

Slowly influencing the entire population to stay close to the cities, alienating themselves from the outside world. The ease of transporting goods means that all goods produced within the empire is extremely cheap, scaring off foreign merchants. That if the system was shut down the entire empire would collapse in anarchy overnight.

RelentlessImp
2009-09-14, 07:29 AM
Military strategies are all very well and good, but what about in times of peace, after all the nearby land has been conquered and your neighbors converted by the simple expedient of using a sword to get your point across?

Teleportation circles would most likely probably only be laid down after the conquering/peace alliances/etc were done. It seems to me that magic could effectively create a longer-lasting government by bringing in additional sources of revenue. A government doesn't have to be a magocracy in order to take advantage of magic like this. Aside from the initial four castings (teleportation circle + permanancy twice) for each circle, the mages can all go hang.

What I'm trying to get at here is, would this work? Jakandror is a good example of how it could work, but has the problem of being post-Apocalyptica, which most likely involved a great deal of military thinking in their placement. But what if trade, rather than military, was the primary point of their creation? Creating a global community (or, at least, a continental community) via magic and profiting from it to keep a government alive. It brings up the question of why anybody would assault the government, knowing that if they toppled it they'd most likely disconnect the world.

Would world-conquering villains show up more frequently or less frequently in the face of a society set up this way? Taking over the central government and then having access to a large-spanning empire by proxy, if you can get past all their defenses, seems to me as if it'd take a very skilled villain to have even a hope of pulling it off.

charl
2009-09-14, 08:10 AM
About the siege thing. Couldn't you interrupt the circle somehow and use it to teleport your own forces into the city? It seems to me that those circles are serious security concerns in times of war.


which most likely involved a great deal of military thinking in their placement. But what if trade, rather than military, was the primary point of their creation? Creating a global community (or, at least, a continental community) via magic and profiting from it to keep a government alive. It brings up the question of why anybody would assault the government, knowing that if they toppled it they'd most likely disconnect the world.

If this setting is based on the Romans, then there is nothing wrong with that.

RelentlessImp
2009-09-14, 08:18 AM
If this setting is based on the Romans, then there is nothing wrong with that.

The setting, and houserules about teleport effects, is what got me thinking in this manner, and starting to ponder the effect of mid-level magic on governments. Mostly for the setting I'm working on. While yes, the teleportation circles would be useful for military matters, if their primary purpose was something entirely different...

I'm not even sure where I was going when I started this discussion. I've entered free association thought on the entire subject. I guess I'd like to see the way other people might see it, both for military strategy and not - the latter more than the former.

EDIT: As for security issues; wouldn't it be possible to lay a protection on it with another spell that requires an attuned item to use the portals, typically only in the hands of someone in charge of that specific teleportation circle? Except in the case of capture/turncoat, it seems a reasonable precaution against people coming in and teleporting directly into your capital with a giant force bent on conquering.

talus21
2009-09-14, 08:46 AM
EDIT: As for security issues; wouldn't it be possible to lay a protection on it with another spell that requires an attuned item to use the portals, typically only in the hands of someone in charge of that specific teleportation circle? Except in the case of capture/turncoat, it seems a reasonable precaution against people coming in and teleporting directly into your capital with a giant force bent on conquering.


And now you have just added another problem. Foreign trade. Do you cut yourself off from the outside world? Also who gets control of the gates? Who gets to use them? I think for the exact reason of security these would never be wide spread enough in any culture for trade. The balance of security vs. the tax income just isn't there.

Yora
2009-09-14, 08:58 AM
Eve if you can teleport from ony city to every other, the cities still need some connection to the outside where all the farms are located. Sure, if you lay siege to one city, the population can get their food and industrial resources delivered from another city. But the occupied farms and mines are still lost to the imperial economy.
It's probably not such a big loss if it happens once, but if one or several invading armies manage to occupy the farms of four or more cities, the remaining open cities will have lots of trouble to sustain those under siege.

If I were to build lots of gates in one central city, I would include means to shut them off in situations for emergency. If any city is taken by some way, the invaders may manage to capture the gate and establish a bridge head on the other side in the capital. And once they have the capitol under control, there's no hiding place for the fleeing government, as the invaders have no the means to get inside the walls of every city.
Of course, this would be prime targets for terrorists. Shut down a portal and you can take one city without anybody being able to come to their help. But I guess you can make a single-use command word item that cast disjunction anyway.

One way to regulate the use of gates, would be to limit their capacity. If there's a fixed number of mass that can be send through a gate every day, their use would go to the people who pay the most for that previlege. And the military will probably demand a certain emergency quota, that may not be sold to merchants.
Or the other way would be to make the gates requiring energy supplies to run. So anyone who wants to use them would have to pay a fee to use it.

RelentlessImp
2009-09-14, 09:04 AM
And now you have just added another problem. Foreign trade. Do you cut yourself off from the outside world? Also who gets control of the gates? Who gets to use them? I think for the exact reason of security these would never be wide spread enough in any culture for trade. The balance of security vs. the tax income just isn't there.

Control of the teleportation circle is delegated to the people who are nearest to them - typically Captains of the Guard in the city where they're located, appointed by the higher-ups of the government. Give them a token that allows the activation of it and let them choose who to let through or not. It's a bit of power the leaders are letting out of their grasp, and a chance for subversion against foreign invaders, but it's one of the few options left open if they decide to use the circles for trade.

Another, of course, would be not to let anybody through except for those traders/caravaners/merchants etc. that have contracts with the government to move their goods through them, and for military purposes in crises.

But yes, foreign trade is a sticky problem, but if you set up regular caravans from outside your sovereignty that come into the borders and immediately take a teleportation circle from the border-town to where they can trade their goods, you're allowing an attempt at invasion, but you're also increasing revenues. If the mightiest Empire in the world is kindly asking you not to abuse their trust, most people will listen, and upstarts will be asked more pointedly.

Another security would be setting up an advance warning system, utilizing sending spells, at which point someone activates the fail-safe which shuts down the teleportation circles - possibly an anti-magic field linked to an item, or even the room it's hosted in, that is activated by a control device in the capital or near to the circle. The one in the capital would necessarily be linked to all of them, shutting down trade but also forcing invaders to come overland.

It's a delicate balance but I think any empire/kingdom/whathaveyou might realistically utilize such a set-up, giving easy access to the capital for all, but also having ways to shut it down in case of an emergency.

Another set-up would probably involve a series of teleportation circles forcing people to make 'hops' - bouncing across the continent to reach their destination, forcing them to utilize each circle in turn. Invaders would have to subdue several cities and take the risk of them getting off their warnings to the capital, possibly trapping them on the far side of the continent when the fail-safe is hit. The bonus to this is that the military leaders will know exactly where their enemies are when the fail safe hits, allowing for a counter strike and the grinding of their enemies to dust.

So while the elaborate series of hops might be a slight hindrance to traders, I can also see it being a boon. It lets them set up several trade outposts of their own in those cities, which increases taxes, which increases profits for the government, and is somewhat a sound military decision.

Zombimode
2009-09-14, 09:11 AM
The setting's loosely based on the Roman Empire era, plus magic. Teleportation effects have been toned down, but they got me to thinking. What sort of effect should (or could) teleportation spells (especially teleportation circles) have on the effect of actual governments?

It pretty much boils down to what you would like the effects to be. You see, only because something exist doesnt mean it has or could be utilized in a modern instrumental rational sense. If you introduce teleportation like a form of technological achievement, then this is likely but not mandatory. Technology can always be restricted by the ruling class as measure of preserving power.

If you introduce teleportation as magic it pretty much allows what you want. Dependened on how you see magic in your setting, it would be possible to have teleportation and even teleportation circles in your setting without effecting politics or economics (or culture in generell) in a meaningful way (thats the fundamental fallacy the Tippy-verse falls for: it precieves magic as sience which achievements can be used like technology; but this is only one possibility on how magic works).

RelentlessImp
2009-09-14, 09:26 AM
It pretty much boils down to what you would like the effects to be. You see, only because something exist doesnt mean it has or could be utilized in a modern instrumental rational sense. If you introduce teleportation like a form of technological achievement, then this is likely but not mandatory. Technology can always be restricted by the ruling class as measure of preserving power.

If you introduce teleportation as magic it pretty much allows what you want. Dependened on how you see magic in your setting, it would be possible to have teleportation and even teleportation circles in your setting without effecting politics or economics (or culture in generell) in a meaningful way (thats the fundamental fallacy the Tippy-verse falls for: it precieves magic as sience which achievements can be used like technology; but this is only one possibility on how magic works).

That's kind of boring, don't you think? Having near-instantaneous transport of goods should affect an economy, having broad-range effects across the entirety of the civilization it exists in. Creating a living, breathing economy in a campaign setting is a nigh-impossibility, but providing means that such an economy can be achieved in a world with magic should be somewhat simplistic. And simple means to achieve an end always have the most complex details to prevent them from being abused.

I'm not certain what sort of political effects might be established, but it does open it up for the possibility of changing political policy almost immediately, with the right steps taken to do so. World-conquering villains have the means to conquer what would be, in my opinion, one of the wealthiest and most influential city-states in almost no time at all, but working out the details to such a broad-range plan would be almost impossible. The sheer logistics boggle the mind, especially if a security system as outlined above were in place. Really, if you were wanting to conquer such a place, do you want to take the chance of the warning being sent out as you bounce all around the continent, or would you just take the easier, direct path of the roads that government's laid out?


Eve if you can teleport from ony city to every other, the cities still need some connection to the outside where all the farms are located. Sure, if you lay siege to one city, the population can get their food and industrial resources delivered from another city. But the occupied farms and mines are still lost to the imperial economy.
It's probably not such a big loss if it happens once, but if one or several invading armies manage to occupy the farms of four or more cities, the remaining open cities will have lots of trouble to sustain those under siege.


Each farm has a teleportation circle that allows them to transport their goods to one of the outlying cities (as in, near to the borders) as possibly a one-way trip, from which they can be transported to disparate cities across the continent. It'd allow goods to get to the citizenry and the empire at large, cut down on travel time, and so on. The only problem then, is if the farmers trust the government enough to pay them for what their goods are worth - but trust is a problem all governments face.

But the roads are still maintained, and there for anyone who doesn't have access to the teleportation circles.

I know I'm overlooking at least a few things. I covered security with what might be a decent plan (assuming that revolutionaries/invaders don't subvert those in charge) while still allowing for a limited free trade. I'm just not well-versed enough in economics/politics, I think, to see the big picture...

RelentlessImp
2009-09-14, 09:36 AM
Missed this one.


Beyond the benefits of a teleportation system interconnecting an entire empire is several drawbacks. Since all cities would essentially become one. If famine or disease would hit one city it would automatically hit the rest too (even if you put up a guard around the circle, these guards will use them to move their family and friends through it and thus spread the disease).

In addition, if one city would fall to an enemy suddenly the capitol itself will be directly threatened. Even if it lies on a separate continent. What if the main army is still months away from being battleready?

Failsafe outlined in the post below. If a warning is sent out through the sending, shut down the circles and prepare for war, forcing them to come over sea/overland to get at you.



Also mercenaries and tradehouses more or less lives on the fact that it is a long and perilous journey to transport goods. If goods can be instantly transported as soon as it enters one city then the need to outfit caravans or build tradeports vanish. Any merchants who cannot afford to use them will quickly have their business ruined by those who can. In fact, one could argue that merchants as such becomes redundant since the peasantry that produce the goods can in fact sell it themselves to anyone in the empire.

Furthermore, exploration to find new and better traderoutes is also pointless. Why fund a expensive expedition, that have a great risk of vanishing or failing, when you can simply stay in town or use a teleportation circle? Quite simply... the economical need to explore is very small (the only reason at all would be to find new resources once your source has run out).

In my meaning, a system of teleportation circles would be convenient for the people but crippling for the culture. I'd personally it to cause the same effect as the slavetrade did for the greeks and the romans, causing a stagnation.

Slowly influencing the entire population to stay close to the cities, alienating themselves from the outside world. The ease of transporting goods means that all goods produced within the empire is extremely cheap, scaring off foreign merchants. That if the system was shut down the entire empire would collapse in anarchy overnight.

Hm. I'm not really sure how this would be solved. I suppose that they should strive to ensure intelligent people are in power. While such a set-up could lead to an insular empire, intelligent rulers would surely realize that they can't live in a vacuum. Foreign trade would have to be established, but it'd have to come to them to utilize their system that's in place. Trade outposts would still be a good idea to trade with, stock, resupply, etc caravans from far-off civilizations on their way to the empire's borders.

I guess I just see it as, 'why wouldn't foreign powers have trade agreements with this power?' rather than the reverse. But then again, I see your point about stagnation. Exploration would take place outside the borders and the country I've outlined would, basically, be living in a vacuum with little contact with the outside world; just trade. And even if the nation slowly stretched out to cover the entire world, there's still a problem of stagnation, even with such a disparate collection of citizenry.

I'm really not sure how this could be solved...

Aux-Ash
2009-09-14, 11:10 AM
I'm really not sure how this could be solved...

My suggestion: Don't.

The process would take many generations to really become noticeable, truthfully only in hindsight should anyone be able to to point out that this was a problem. Much like the romans couldn't predict that the Marian reforms (which saved the republic) would ultimately mean the doom of a empire.

Instead, have it as a part of the background, that ultimately the same teleportation circles that gives the empire power will bring it down. You could even allow your players to have a chance to realise this if you wish. I'm sure the flaws of the system could be integral parts of many different campaigns and plots.

Kosjsjach
2009-09-14, 12:32 PM
Now this is a topic I feel I can contribute to.

One thing that seems to be overlooked is the price tag on these permanent teleportation circles.

17*90 (cast Teleportation Circle) + 1000 (material component) + 17*50 (cast Permanency) + 4500*5 (XP cost) = 25'880gp.

Seems a bit prohibitive to making teleportation circles to farmsteads. :smallwink:

Keep in mind that's for a one-way circle. A two-way circle would obviously cost twice as much.
(Unless you're using Faerun's portals where the return-trip portal costs half as much, except the first one costs at least 50'000gp + 4'000XP (unless the caster has the Portal Master feat from PGtF, in which case you halve this amount).)

*cough* Anyway. Assuming we're dealing with permanent Teleportation Circles and not Faerun portals or custom magic items, that's a pretty hefty deposit for being able to move your citizenry from point A to point B.

One way to mitigate this and still have every point connect to every other point (eventually) (instead of leaving instances where travelers end up stranded at a circle's destination) is to have a bunch of one-way circuits with points connecting to other circuits with a few points connecting two-way with a hub. It's a bit difficult to explain without being able to sketch a diagram.


Let's say you want to travel to a point in a different circuit. You take your circuit around to the connecting point, which will take you to another connecting point, until you reach one that connects with the circuit your destination point is in.
For your return trip, you just continue the rest of the circuit until you get to the connecting point again, which you then take around until you reach your origin's circuit, which you then travel from point to point until you reach the point you started from in the beginning.
You also have several points in different circuits (perhaps not every one) connecting two-ways with a central point, or hub. (This is more costly, but worth it.) This allows shortcut travel without having to traverse the entire connecting circuit. This hub would also most likely be the seat of government and the military, as it would be easy to transport troops and resources anywhere in the network expediently.

Well, that's the most logical layout I could think of. It makes sense that a "real-life" network would be a lot more organic, with points being connected to further-reaching circuits or hubs depending on how influential they become over time. Still, my point stands that one-way circuits make the most sense if you don't want to spend over 1000 pounds of gold to be able to step back and forth between two (and only two) locations.

Friend Computer
2009-09-14, 12:46 PM
I am surprised noone asked this already, but I guess I will now:

How prevalent is magic (or rather, those able to cast powerful spells) in your game?
More importantly, comparing to IRL where most people don't get beyond level 2 and the most legendary are around level 5-6, what levels are most normal people, and how rare are those who can cast the necessary spells to make these gates?

If we imagine that level 9 people (those who can cast Teleport) come only every century or so, it shouldn't be surprising to imagine that those powerful enough to cast Teleportation Circle are so rare they only come every few centuries.

If you decide to take this view, then mid level magic is much less of a problem, and Teleportation Circles may have been put in place by the founder of the empire, some Alexander the Great expy.

As such, in the centuries between then and now, when the PCs--the next teens level characters to appear--arrive on the scene, much info may have been lost. Maybe the mage who knew the arcane secrets to a particular circle was killed when a city was sacked, and the Circle he locked has not been opperable in a hundred years.

Maybe the opposite happened to another one, and the secrets were told to all and sundry, and so the circle is perpetually open, linking two cities as a united capital.

Also important to remember is the little importance attached to trade in those times: most who had money only used it for luxuries. Food and other essential items were produced on their massive plots of land through their giant gangs of slaves. because they could produce everything they needed there was no need for merchants on a large scale for small stuff, instead people would trade directly.

Also important to think about is the growth of cities since the original castings. Not all modern cities would have Circles because not all the cities existed back then. More, if the Circles could transport large masses of people and were situated outside the cities for security, they would now be within the suburbs of some cities, possibly within the expanded wall network, if such exists.

RelentlessImp
2009-09-14, 01:32 PM
Now this is a topic I feel I can contribute to.

One thing that seems to be overlooked is the price tag on these permanent teleportation circles.

17*90 (cast Teleportation Circle) + 1000 (material component) + 17*50 (cast Permanency) + 4500*5 (XP cost) = 25'880gp.

Seems a bit prohibitive to making teleportation circles to farmsteads. :smallwink:

Keep in mind that's for a one-way circle. A two-way circle would obviously cost twice as much.

(Unless you're using Faerun's portals where the return-trip portal costs half as much, except the first one costs at least 50'000gp + 4'000XP (unless the caster has the Portal Master feat from PGtF, in which case you halve this amount).)

I don't mean to burst your bubble, but those costs are for purchasing the services of a spellcaster. If you've got a lot of friendly spellcasters around when you start setting up a long-reaching government, they're going to cast it at cost - that is, the 1000gp material component, and nevermind the experience, no charge Emperor Sir, for the glory of the Empire.

Even if only 1% of the population are spellcasters, and only 1% of those are high enough level to cast teleportation circle, there's bound to be a few friendly to the Empire to lend their aid to constructing both the physical and magical roads to help enhance the viability of the nation.

The price tag is immaterial. If you've got friendly, state-sponsored spellcasters that are willing to do it for the betterment of their government and the people, the costs drop drastically. State-sponsored farms start getting teleportation circles to help get their goods to the people. See what I'm getting at?



*cough* Anyway. Assuming we're dealing with permanent Teleportation Circles and not Faerun portals or custom magic items, that's a pretty hefty deposit for being able to move your citizenry from point A to point B.

One way to mitigate this and still have every point connect to every other point (eventually) (instead of leaving instances where travelers end up stranded at a circle's destination) is to have a bunch of one-way circuits with points connecting to other circuits with a few points connecting two-way with a hub. It's a bit difficult to explain without being able to sketch a diagram.


Let's say you want to travel to a point in a different circuit. You take your circuit around to the connecting point, which will take you to another connecting point, until you reach one that connects with the circuit your destination point is in.
For your return trip, you just continue the rest of the circuit until you get to the connecting point again, which you then take around until you reach your origin's circuit, which you then travel from point to point until you reach the point you started from in the beginning.
You also have several points in different circuits (perhaps not every one) connecting two-ways with a central point, or hub. (This is more costly, but worth it.) This allows shortcut travel without having to traverse the entire connecting circuit. This hub would also most likely be the seat of government and the military, as it would be easy to transport troops and resources anywhere in the network expediently.

Well, that's the most logical layout I could think of. It makes sense that a "real-life" network would be a lot more organic, with points being connected to further-reaching circuits or hubs depending on how influential they become over time. Still, my point stands that one-way circuits make the most sense if you don't want to spend over 1000 pounds of gold to be able to step back and forth between two (and only two) locations.

That's sort of what I was getting at back in my post where I was talking about 'hops' - a long circuit of one-way trips that eventually terminates in the Capital and then extends out to start all over again. I was thinking of it for security purposes, since most people were concerned with invasion, but it seems we've hit on the same point for the same reason. I still think having it do a zig-zag across the continent, gradually growing closer to the capital, is a better idea, so that whenever an invading force tries to utilize it they wind up even further from where they started, and have to start the conquering process on an entirely new village/town/city.

The exact pattern, of course, would have to be determined/adjusted/altered over time as more and more places fall under the sway of the Empire.


I am surprised noone asked this already, but I guess I will now:

How prevalent is magic (or rather, those able to cast powerful spells) in your game?
More importantly, comparing to IRL where most people don't get beyond level 2 and the most legendary are around level 5-6, what levels are most normal people, and how rare are those who can cast the necessary spells to make these gates?

If we imagine that level 9 people (those who can cast Teleport) come only every century or so, it shouldn't be surprising to imagine that those powerful enough to cast Teleportation Circle are so rare they only come every few centuries.

Let's suspend RL discussion for the moment, as this is about a fantasy world that for some reason I insist on enriching by determing the economic effects of fast-travel spells.

Let's adjust the numbers just a little bit. Let's say that those able to cast teleport come along every generation or so (6-7 people per 100 years at most) and those able to cast teleportation circle come along every generation as well, but in smaller numbers (1-2, at most, in the same time frame). That's a little more reasonable for a fantasy world, in my opinion, and makes high level heroes just as influential.

Peasants, of course, would be 1st level. Conscripts would be 1st level. Career soldiers would top out at 4th-5th level. Legendary generals would hit 10th. The guy who created the Empire was 18th or 19th level with several 15th-17th level advisors, a couple of specialized units of 10th level people, whole regiments full of 5th-6th level people, and legions of 1st-4th.

That's more or less my view on mid magic, fantasy worlds; where high levels aren't unheard of, and most don't go past 10th without some kind of crisis, goal or something else that pushes them up beyond the norm. High magic would have a lot more epic people, and would eventually implode on itself.



If you decide to take this view, then mid level magic is much less of a problem, and Teleportation Circles may have been put in place by the founder of the empire, some Alexander the Great expy.

As such, in the centuries between then and now, when the PCs--the next teens level characters to appear--arrive on the scene, much info may have been lost. Maybe the mage who knew the arcane secrets to a particular circle was killed when a city was sacked, and the Circle he locked has not been opperable in a hundred years.

Maybe the opposite happened to another one, and the secrets were told to all and sundry, and so the circle is perpetually open, linking two cities as a united capital.

Also important to remember is the little importance attached to trade in those times: most who had money only used it for luxuries. Food and other essential items were produced on their massive plots of land through their giant gangs of slaves. because they could produce everything they needed there was no need for merchants on a large scale for small stuff, instead people would trade directly.

Also important to think about is the growth of cities since the original castings. Not all modern cities would have Circles because not all the cities existed back then. More, if the Circles could transport large masses of people and were situated outside the cities for security, they would now be within the suburbs of some cities, possibly within the expanded wall network, if such exists.

I like a few of these ideas. Adventure hooks and whatnot. Just remember that all it really takes to cast teleportation circle is a first level Sorcerer or Wizard with a requisite casting stat and a scroll. Scrolls that may or may not have been stockpiled by the wizard or whatever that laid down the scrolls. Hell, combine them and you could have an entire campaign.

The Empire is expanding beyond its borders, but contact with the outlying communities is difficult. The scrolls that allowed the placing of a teleportation circle have been used up far faster than your ancestors could have realized, leaving many cities without this necessary tool for survival in the Empire. One of these outlying cities claims to have been the birthplace of the original layer of the Empire's first magical network. For the Empire, you must go to this city and find out what you can about the creation of the circles!

Aux-Ash
2009-09-14, 01:38 PM
Also important to remember is the little importance attached to trade in those times: most who had money only used it for luxuries. Food and other essential items were produced on their massive plots of land through their giant gangs of slaves. because they could produce everything they needed there was no need for merchants on a large scale for small stuff, instead people would trade directly.

Well... the nobles only bought luxury products because they got everything else through taxes (or from their slaves). The population of cities had to rely on money to buy their food though. This food was not sold by the peasants/slaves though (because they were busy working the fields), but by merchants who bought it from the peasants and the nobles and hauled it to the cities. In some cases they even brought cheap food abroad and transoprted it home (like egyptian wheat in the Roman empire) The food trade was what more or less kept cities running back then.

Merhchants made their living on the fact that it took time to haul goods (especially food) and someone had to do it... for a price.

Dervag
2009-09-14, 02:18 PM
Beyond the benefits of a teleportation system interconnecting an entire empire is several drawbacks. Since all cities would essentially become one. If famine or disease would hit one city it would automatically hit the rest too (even if you put up a guard around the circle, these guards will use them to move their family and friends through it and thus spread the disease).True, but if you have magical disease-curing you can keep things under control by limiting access through the portals. If everyone who comes through gets slapped into quarantine for three weeks and then gets cured or turned back by protected personnel (golems, paladins, whatever), it acts as a fairly effective block to infection. It's only if portal traffic is unmonitored that there's a problem.

Likewise a famine; if anything famines are less of a problem because you can cart food in through the portal at reasonable prices. In real life most famines are caused by distribution, and teleport circles make for very efficient government-controlled food distribution at low marginal costs.


In addition, if one city would fall to an enemy suddenly the capitol itself will be directly threatened. Even if it lies on a separate continent. What if the main army is still months away from being battleready?Quick! Brick up the portal on our end! Or dispel it, if you're really worried.


Also mercenaries and tradehouses more or less lives on the fact that it is a long and perilous journey to transport goods. If goods can be instantly transported as soon as it enters one city then the need to outfit caravans or build tradeports vanish. Any merchants who cannot afford to use them will quickly have their business ruined by those who can. In fact, one could argue that merchants as such becomes redundant since the peasantry that produce the goods can in fact sell it themselves to anyone in the empire.The peasants don't own enough goods to make it economically viable to carry it through the portals themselves unless there are a LOT of portals.

Trade takes roughly the form it did in the Age of Steam: the transportation network involves expensive fixed infrastructure with limited access (railroad stations), so you cart your goods to a central collection point. From there, the large-scale traders kick in, hauling the goods wherever they're needed in heavy freight wagons and using portals as necessary. But unless your peasants organize a co-op, they can't sell their produce in distant cities themselves, because of the tolls placed on the portals.
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Furthermore, exploration to find new and better traderoutes is also pointless. Why fund a expensive expedition, that have a great risk of vanishing or failing, when you can simply stay in town or use a teleportation circle? Quite simply... the economical need to explore is very small (the only reason at all would be to find new resources once your source has run out).Or to find new markets that you can link to, or new sources of stuff you didn't know you wanted before (The English did not become the world's leading demanders of tea until after they discovered large supplies of cheap tea).

Remember, in most territory that's been settled for hundreds or thousands of years, people have already mapped out the best overland or oversea routes to the places they want to go using the available technology. The only time anyone bothers to map new routes is because the technology for travel just changed (I tame camels and the Uncrossable Desert is now crossable, I build ships that don't sink in the Sea of Sea-Monsters and decide to find out if sailing around the continent is faster than walking across it).
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In my meaning, a system of teleportation circles would be convenient for the people but crippling for the culture. I'd personally it to cause the same effect as the slavetrade did for the greeks and the romans, causing a stagnation.

Slowly influencing the entire population to stay close to the cities, alienating themselves from the outside world. The ease of transporting goods means that all goods produced within the empire is extremely cheap, scaring off foreign merchants. That if the system was shut down the entire empire would collapse in anarchy overnight.I don't know; I'd think it would have roughly the same effects that modern transportation infrastructure has on us. Not exactly the same for a lot of obvious reasons, but I don't see why it would cripple the culture as you imply. For that matter, encouraging people to stay close to the cities is probably a good thing for D&D; it means they're more bunched up where a smaller number of people can protect them from the monsters in the wilderness.
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And now you have just added another problem. Foreign trade. Do you cut yourself off from the outside world? Also who gets control of the gates? Who gets to use them? I think for the exact reason of security these would never be wide spread enough in any culture for trade. The balance of security vs. the tax income just isn't there.Stick the gate inside a massive fortress; anything that isn't a freight wagon or a guy with papers signed by your ambassador in the city the portal connects to doesn't get out of the building alive. Or: build the portal five miles outside the city limits, and outside the fortifications. Anyone who wants to attack through the portal now has to come through a narrow passage in single file (more or less) along a predictable line of attack.
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Eve if you can teleport from ony city to every other, the cities still need some connection to the outside where all the farms are located. Sure, if you lay siege to one city, the population can get their food and industrial resources delivered from another city. But the occupied farms and mines are still lost to the imperial economy.
It's probably not such a big loss if it happens once, but if one or several invading armies manage to occupy the farms of four or more cities, the remaining open cities will have lots of trouble to sustain those under siege.Yes, but there's a catch. My army can only maintain so many men under arms at a time; someone has to stay home and raise crops. Therefore, I may simply not have the manpower to besiege several separate cities containing tens of thousands of people. So having your besieged city linked to unsieged cities around the region is still a huge advantage. Look at the Peloponnesian War: the Spartans could besiege Athens easily enough because they dominated on land, but they couldn't cut off Athens from the sea, and they couldn't besiege all the Athenian allies and vassal cities at once. So the war lasted for years.
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Each farm has a teleportation circle that allows them to transport their goods to one of the outlying cities (as in, near to the borders) as possibly a one-way trip, from which they can be transported to disparate cities across the continent. It'd allow goods to get to the citizenry and the empire at large, cut down on travel time, and so on. The only problem then, is if the farmers trust the government enough to pay them for what their goods are worth - but trust is a problem all governments face.Teleportation circles cost too much for this to pay off: the cost of the circle is vastly more than the cost of what the individual farmer (hell, the individual farm village) produces per year. So there's no way to reap an effective return on the investment of creating circles to service small communities, and therefore no reason to build the circles in the first place.
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Even if only 1% of the population are spellcasters, and only 1% of those are high enough level to cast teleportation circle, there's bound to be a few friendly to the Empire to lend their aid to constructing both the physical and magical roads to help enhance the viability of the nation.

The price tag is immaterial. If you've got friendly, state-sponsored spellcasters that are willing to do it for the betterment of their government and the people, the costs drop drastically. State-sponsored farms start getting teleportation circles to help get their goods to the people. See what I'm getting at?The government would have to be idiotic to do it with farms; the minimum cost (materials plus keeping your wizard alive while they earn back the XP they put into the portal) still vastly exceeds what you can get from the farm. There are still hard economic limits; even patriots have to eat.

Aux-Ash
2009-09-14, 03:17 PM
I don't know; I'd think it would have roughly the same effects that modern transportation infrastructure has on us. Not exactly the same for a lot of obvious reasons, but I don't see why it would cripple the culture as you imply. For that matter, encouraging people to stay close to the cities is probably a good thing for D&D; it means they're more bunched up where a smaller number of people can protect them from the monsters in the wilderness.

Well... our modern world has had a couple of thousand years of gradually increasing the speed of transportation. Going from: "The caravan with textiles comes once every two years" to teleportation without express-carriages, trains, automobiles, airplanes and all the economical evoloution these brought with it is quite the leap.

Even the introduction of trains ruined the economy in some areas during the 19th century and I assure you... teleportation is a lot faster than a 19th century train :smallwink:

Sure, I probably exaggerated some things or ignored some aspects that are integral to DnD (mostly since I don't play that game). But you have to admit... for most people in a supposedly mediveal world... trade over teleportation is going to be very convenient. Any other form of transportation is just going to be extremely expensive, dangerous and slow. One way or the other, it will leave a significant mark on the culture.