Portals

Scattered throughout the multiverse, ancient portals allow travel between worlds. Each portal is paired with another in a parallel world.

The device works on the principle of teleportation. The portal must sense the traveler's intention to cross over to the other side. The shape of the arc makes it easier for simple-minded beings to formulate such an intention in their minds.

Each portal is equipped with a perception filter that prevents the inhabitants of the world in which the portal is located from remembering contacts with visitors from other realities. The filter has a planetary-wide range and does not affect anyone who has ever passed through any of the portals.

Portals pair up based primarily on similarities between the worlds they are in, or based on similarities in their location. If the factors that underlie the connection change significantly, it causes an increase in the energy demand needed to maintain the connection. Too much power drained by the device from the network can cause the portal to reconfigure itself. This means that the current connection will be severed and the portal will seek out a new one that has a lower energy cost to maintain.

Portal Rangers

Portal Rangers are responsible for finding new portals and securing routes between already known ones. Their activities are funded by the Portal Cities Alliance.

Portal Rangers come from multiple realities. Their basic training includes weapons skills and reconnaissance. As their careers advance, they specialize in science, engineering, first contact, diplomacy, or coordination between groups from multiple realities.

Portal Rangers are posted at portals on trade routes between member cities of the Portal Cities Alliance to control the goods that flow through them. Introducing too many non-natural items into the world can overload the portal's perception filter and result in the portal being reconfigured due to too much power being drawn by it.

One of the Portal Rangers' primary interests is research into the physics and origins of portals themselves. They have the most extensive and advanced network of portal monitoring devices in the known part of the multiverse.

Portal Rangers Headquaters

The Portal Rangers HQ is located in Crossroads City. It is an unusual city due to the large concentration of portals within its borders. From this location, the Rangers can quickly travel to many realities.

The facility serves as a center for scientific research into portals, a neutral place for negotiations between communities from different realities and a haven for adventurers from distant worlds.

Portal Rangers buy artifacts from distant realities from portal travelers to use as research material on the multiverse. The further away an artifact is from Crossroads City, the higher the reward for bringing it back.

Portal Cities Alliance

The Portal Cities Alliance is a community of cities whose governments are aware of the existence of portals. The cities themselves are friendly to portal travelers and easily accessible from the routes leading between portals, which is a basic requirement for membership. No communities larger than a city unit are allowed to join, because the influence of such communities on reality is too significant and their activities on behalf of the Alliance can too easily lead to uncontrolled reconfigurations of the portals.

The Alliance ensures proper use of portals so that trade connections between member cities are not interrupted by portal reconfigurations. The main tool used for this purpose is Portal Rangers, but their use is not mandatory. If a city is able to provide adequate security with its own forces, this is acceptable.