Gate magic causes discontinuities in Euclidean space, warping dimensions to allow instantaneous passage to other places. It can either manifest as a teleport, or as a lasting distortion or wormhole between two places.
Gate backlash result indicates a random teleport. Your final location is up to the sadistic gamemaster, who will usually try as well as he can to be ingeniously sadistic. Did I mention that your gear might also be lost in transit?
The difficulty of Gate Sorcery depends on the distances to be bridged, according to the following table. The power of various Gate effects will be mentioned in the effect descriptions, below.
Teleportation is "noisy", it has spectacular side effects and anyone within Magic *10 meters near a teleport site will feel it.
| Power | Distance | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 km | |
| 2 | 10 km | Local Distances |
| 3 | 100 km | Regional Distances |
| 4 | 1000 km | New York to Cairo |
| 5 | 10 000 km | Anywhere on Earth |
| 6 | 100 000 km | |
| 7 | 1 million km | Luna |
| 8 | 10 million km | |
| 9 | 100 million km | Mars, Venus when close |
| 10 | 1 billion km | Inner planets |
| 11 | 10 billion km | Outer planets |
| 12 | 10^14 m | Netherworld tunnel |
| 13 | 10^15 m | |
| 14 | 10^16 m | |
| 15 | 10^17 m | 1 Light Year |
| 16 | 10 ly | Nearby stars |
| 17 | 100 ly | Aldebaran |
| 18 | 1 000 ly | Most visible stars |
| 19 | 10 000 ly | |
| 20 | 100 000 ly | Entire Galaxy |
Calculating range is simple when the caster is tyrying to teleporthimself from pojnt to point, but when teleporting others, it gets more copmplex. Add the range from the caster to the initial target, then from the target to the teleport desitination, and then from the destination to the point the caster is at after the teleport.
Gate Effects
Combat Teleport
You teleport to a spot very close by, no more than your Magic meters away, and not across any difficult-to-cross barriers (use Line of Sight Teleport for that). The effect is a combination of defense and combat positioning.
When you use this effect, you disappear until your next shot comes up. You can do this as a 3-shot defensive action, giving you an active dodge value of Sorcery +5. Once you do appear, opponents are mildly surprised (unless the have some kind of spatial or extra-dimensional sense) and you get a +3 bonus on your first action after the teleport. Teleporting this way costs a Magic point.
Line of Sight Teleport
Also known as "blink".
You can teleport to a spot nearby. It looks real cool because you disappear in a puff of smoke (or a flash of light, whatever you want). You must be able to see something of your destination, but you may ignore any intervening pits, transparent barriers, people etc. The difficulty of this check is 5, with penalties for Cover and Range. Teleporting costs a Magic point. A failed teleport causes backlash.
Madrazgul the Magnificent is trying to teleport behind a nearby couch. The difficulty is ten, plus the couch almost completely covers the area behind it. This increased the difficulty by 6, to 11.
Long Distance Teleport
You can teleport yourself and a small group of willing passengers over long distances. You have to pay a number of Magic points equal to the power of the teleport (see above), plus one more if you want to take passengers (no more than you Magic attribute). You can only teleport to sites you know of. Any failed teleport is considered a backlash.
| Familiarity | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Home | |
| Familiar site | 5 |
| Studied site | 10 |
| Vaguely known site | 15 |
| Described | 20 |
Be careful; teleportation may often disrupt a story, with appropriate penalties. Hot teleports are not recommended. Long distance teleporting is full-Sequence action if you try it in combat, and you hang around until all those ten shots expire. You and your passengers suffer 1 points of {Rules/Impairment] due to disorientation for some minutes after arriving.
Teleportal
This is a long-distance teleport that actually opens up a temporary gate. It lasts for a scene, and during this time anyone can pass through. The Magic point cost is twice normal.
Gates
Gates are non-Euclidean arrangements of objects or lines in peculiar patterns. By harmonizing with these patterns, the Gate can be activated, transporting the user to a linked gate far away.
A Gate is as permanent as the substance it is made of; as long as the geometrical figures exist, anyone with a Magic attribute can activate the Gate. Certain gates can have other effects as well, changing those transported into a form suitable for survival in the new environment, for example. These effects require additionalSchticks to create and are best left to the gamemaster.
Gate Creation
Creating a gate is no easy matter. It requires complex calculations and the proper knowledge. It also requires a period of study (days to months). Gates can only go to places whose exact location you know. It requires no die roll per se, but is very much subject to GM fiat.
Gates have a power rating, an indication of how far they go. In order to create a gate, the creator must have a Magic rating equal to the power rating.
Using a Gate
You don't need this schtick to activate an existing Gate. It takes a Powers, Sorcery or Magic roll with a difficulty equal to the Power of the gate to go through one. One character can take action penalties to send several people. Some gates have "passwords" or other protective measures, that require additional Arcanowave or Sorcery rolls to bypass. It also costs a number of Magic points equal to the power of the Gate to open it.
Extradimensional Space
You can create small extradimensional spaces, either to store things in or to hide away. The basic extradimensional space lasta a number of minutes equal to your of Magic, and can hold a number of small objects equal to your Magic. It is immobile, and can only e accessed from one point in space. This effect can be improved by spending Magic points, one for each improvement.
- The duration can be extended (first to hours, then to days).
- The capacity can be expended (to people, then to really big things like cars, then to huge things like airplanes)
- The opening can be fixed in relation to some object rather than to a point space.
Spatial Sense
Distance is an illusion; it cannot restrict your perceptions.
Touch the Web
You can feel any disturbance in space, much like a spider feels movements in her web. Any attempt to use Gate magics or similar teleport powers near you (within a distance of Magic *100 meters) is immediately obvious, and you can pinpoint where it took place. You cannot see where such a teleport went, only the end of the teleport close to you is felt this way.
Space Probe
When at a spot where someone has recently teleported, you can probe the fabric of space to determine where he teleported to. The difficulty is the AV of the skill he used to teleport.
Finding Gates
This is the ability to locate already existing gates. Such portals can generally be felt when they are within a distance equal to the Magic *100 meters, but a high Sorcery roll can often give a vague intuitive feeling at far greater range.There is a gate nearby, in a wet place. Perhaps the sewers.
Divination: Astral Sight, SenseChi and similar effects can also sense gates.
Remote Sense
You can create a limited gate, that only transmits sensory input, but does not allow teleportation. This works like a gate, but the Magic point cost is half normal (with a minimum of one point). You can use all your senses this way, and sensory magic as well, but you cannot move the sensory point or affect the world at that point in any way.