Planar Travel

Sigil Prep, of course, is in the Center of the Multiverse, but the Multiverse is pretty big.  And not all of it is connected properly.  So how do people get from all over the known planes, to the school which for five years they'll call home?  There are a number of means.

PORTALS

Portals are common in the City of Sigil, and they go everywhere.  Many have been collected or created in the Hall of Portals in the Administration Building, keyed to your student ID.  It's as easy as that to get home, or go on Spring Break in Xen'drik.  Most school portals in the large cities on the core planes (Eberron, Faerun, Greyhawk, Krynn), are attended on the other end as well by school employees.  On the other hand, a number of school portals dump out in swamps, sewers, and slaughterhouses, so make sure you know where you're going.

There's also Jov's House o' Portals in town, for portals to smaller planes, or odd locations on larger planes.  Jov charges a pretty penny, though, so don't use it to go to Cormyr or Sharn.

PLANEWALKING

Walking the Planes.  Great fun, but is it practical?  Each Material Plane has its own cosmology.  Spells such as Plane Shift, or even Gate, only work within a given cosmology, so you can shift from, say, Greyhawk to Sigil, but not from Eberron there.  Some planes co-exist in multiple cosmologies, which makes things somewhat easier.  Shift from Faerun to the Abyss, then from the Abyss to Sigil.  Bingo.  It gets harder with places like Eberron or Rokugan, which don't share any cosmological points with other planes, so portals become your best option.

Transitive planes (Astral, Ethereal, etc) go everywhere, but you have to travel to get from one plane to another, and the distance is often huge.  It can take several years to Astral Travel from Eberron to Mystara.  It's a pain.  Portals, portals, portals.  Don't get cute.

SPELLJAMMING

For several years, Spelljamming had been disproven, and stopped working.  However, it has now been reproven, and works again.  All Material Planes are encapsulated by shells called "Crystal Spheres".  Spelljammers allow people with a boat and a helm to travel through the space between the prime world of their plane, through the Wildspace of their plane's sphere, and pass through the sphere itself into the Phlogeston.

The Flow (Phlogeston) has been recategorized as a transitive plane.  It only touched material planes, but with a Spelljamming vessel, it becomes possible to travel from any material to any other material plane, which, barring portals, makes it the best way to get from relatively shut off cosmologies like Eberron or Athas, as opposed to planewalking, despite what the 'Walkers would like you to believe.

Helms

Any ship can become a spelljammer, simply by attaching a Helm to it (though many are created specifically for that purpose).  (These rules are greatly modified from the 2e AD&D rules because this isn't 2e, and also because nothing I've seen takes into account new options, such as Incarnum and Invocations.  Blame it on the change in theory).  A Helm must be manned by a magic-user of some sort to enable the ship to fly.  Once the Helm is manned and activated (Spellcraft check DC 15), the ship is capable of flight, and can be guided by the Helmsman.  The Helmsman's senses encompass the exterior of the ship, and she can see in all directions around the ship.  The Helm grants ships gravity relative to the recognized "bottom" of the ship (or toward the center, if that's the way it's designed), and a breathable atmosphere.  The Helmsman can also will a portal to appear in the crystal sphere's wall to allow entry and exit from the Flow.

The Helm is a chair, which the Helmsman sits in.  Minor helms can only power crafts size Huge or Smaller.  Major helms can power any size ship.  There are several varieties of Helm:

(There is not presently a helm type that utilizes Vestiges)

Anything that would disrupt a caster's concentration may also disrupt a Helmsman's concentration.  This includes damage to the ship itself, which the Helmsman can psychically "feel" (even though it does not damage her).  If the Helmsman loses concentration, she must make another Spellcraft check to regain it.  A suddenly unhelmed ship will slow to a stop in Wildspace, or drop within a world's atmosphere.

Most Helms are able to hold enough risidual power to allow a ship carefully lowered in place, to hover above the ground.

Phlogeston

Once out in the Flow, there are natural currents and "winds", which allow the ship to be sailed, almost as if it were on the seas.  The Helmsman can rest, because the ship can be guided by wheel and sails.  The Flow is flammable, so fire spells and effects that extend past the ship's atmosphere (10' from the ship's edges) are always Empowered, Maximized, and Widened.

Ships in the Flow travel at the speed of Plot.

 

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