Spawned by the discussion in this thread:
https://felarya.forumotion.com/t3924-teleportation-is-implausible-make-it-impossible#121564I started to make my own thoughts on how teleportation is, should, or could be performed in felarya. It is apparently widely assumed that Teleportation would break the setting in more than one way if it was too easily achieved, yet it offers too many possibilities AND is already canonized in many ways, so it cannot simply be disregarded as something that does not work.
When researching on how teleportation works in the wiki, the mangas and common thinking of community users, I decided to write all that down and tried to put some sense into it that hopefully pleases the minds of both proponents and opponents of dimensional travel / teleportation.
Without further ado, here's the article. I kinda wrote it with the wiki article lengths in mind and tried to keep it short, though I am sure many might find it too long (once again) ^^'
Also, please mind that as of now, august 20th, this is the FIRST DRAFT of the article. So please note me of any errors or typos or whatever.
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Teleporting via travelling through Lydus
Concept:Dimensional Magic is used primarily to move something through means other than physical accelleration. Simply called Teleportation in the common tongue, it allows a person or object to be transported without having to cross the distance inbetween start and target location, allowing them to travel the distance in a much quicker, and, compared to the many perils that await any traveller in Felarya, safer.
Dimensional Magic comes in many different forms, from the use of summoning circles, to portals, to abstract teleportation bubbles, forcefields and other things.
The concept of dimensional magic is relatively simple. Usually, the closest distance between two points would be to move from start to finish in a straight line. Even if someone was to ignore any terrain and hindrances on the way by means such as phasing out of reality, they still would have to travel that very distance. Dimensional magic however attempts to fold reality around the user, creating a straight connection between start and finish, as if one was to fold a piece of paper in a way that makes start and finish connect straight to each other. However, dimensional magic users see themselves unable to simply "fold" a hard, material material world such as Felarya, thus their dimensional magic aims at another target: The Lydus.
The Lydus is a dimension inbetween all others, serving as an endless sea connecting any place of the multiverse with another. In Lydus, time, distance and physics are but mere everchanging concepts and even reality is bent and folded with every single one of the countless waves littering the surface of this sea. In fact, when it comes to distances within the Lydus, sometimes a whole different planet or dimension might be closer nearby than the bakery around the corner of your street and distances may be closed within the blink of an eye or the lifetime of a dryad.
Function:A user of dimensional magic will usually tear a hole into the borders of reality, opening an unnatural entrance to the Lydus outside Felarya. Some especially brute methods will appear as something like a physical portal floating in midair, some instead pull the traveller into a tiny portal, while others are subtle enough that the user simply seems to disappear with the blink of an eye, the actual teleportation unseen to any onlookers or hidden by a flash of light. Regardless of how exactly the traveller is brought to the Lydus, for convenience, the entrance and exit points will be referred to as portals, even though the need for a physical portal to exist is not given.
Any place in Felarya or other worlds has a corresponding position inside the Lydus, and opening multiple portals on the same location will most likely also open at the same location in Lydus, even though within Lydus, that location might have moved to somewhere else already. Mutiple portals right next to each other however might open in very different locations within the Lydus, as is not simply a parallel dimension. They will still be comparatively close to each other, however, distance is a moot thing when it comes to the Lydus, and one could walk days to get from one portal to the next where these portals have been placed right next to each other in Felarya. Knowledge of these very specific locations is key to many teleportation users, and if one ever stumbles across a locally fixed teleportation circle or -device, it is likely the creators have placed it at a very important spot rather than on a whim.
Once an opening is created, the user will shape some sort of pathway through the Lydus itself, by twisting and warping the masses of liquid that carries the floating dimensions on top of them. Lydus is vast, and any portals are naught but mere drops inside the endless ocean, subject to the elements of the Lydus the very moment they are spawned. While the real functions are far too complex to be broken down at this point, the portals will be described as specific droplets inside the sea.
Again, the methods differ. While some ways are best described as throwing a huge stone into water, forcing waves to float to the center of the impact, thus closing the distance between the start-"drop" and the target location. Some may attempt to move the start-"droplet" towards the target location or pull the target closer instead, while others try to create a safe path inbetween the points rather than manupulating start and finish. Even others instead focus on manipulating the user, accellerating them as they traverse the Lydus, or create vortexes through which they are sucked and forcefully transported. There are even instances of some users, that make use of the many sea monsters found in Lydus, to take them to their target destination. Whatever the ways are, their creativity is only restricted by the amount of force it takes to make a large manipulation of the seas like that, and it can safely be said that many means of transportation through the Lydus are much more dangerous than others, causing people and goods alike to get stranded, shred to pieces, drowned or devoured during their journey.
The means the dimensional magic is working by not only determines the safety, but also the time it takes to get from one point to the desired location - should they ever reach it, because it is easily possible to get lost in an astral storm, carried away by a huge animal, or being chased in an attempt to not end up as Monster chow. Assuming that the target location is being approached safely, some dimensional magic users may bring start- and target location right next to each other, folding them perfectly so close together, that one can literally see into the entrance and through the exit, not even noticing that there is an actual dimension inbetween. However, those are the best case scenarios, and usually entrance points do show little else than a vast amount of colours, grey smoke, water, or the tunnel or vortex thats about to carry the traveller through Lydus. Some of the most impressive, yet dangerous means of teleportation cause the traveller to walk down a bridge of light across the stormy sea, forcing them to walk all the way through Lydus towards the destinated exit, while others might even cause the traveller to become unconscious for the duration of the travel, especially on long distance travels between far away dimensions, making the trip rather convenient, even though many people fear this travelling method with good reason as they will never know if something goes terribly wrong and they might or might not wake up in time to notice their predicament.
Assuming the trip is successful, there has yet to be opened a portal at the target location, to re-enter reality, be it the same world the traveller started in, or some completely different plane or dimension. Many dimensional magic users open this portal before they actually enter the Lydus themselves, making sure to have prepared the way all the way from start to finish before putting their lives on the line. Others use fixed exits and beacons through installed teleportation devices. The many dimensional gates in felarya can be put into that category. Other especially adventurous - or skilled - users however might enter Lydus and traverse it with little but a map and compass, relying on their navigational skills to hopefully end up in the right spot. However, seeing how Lydus is an endless sea with no stable magnetic fields, very specific maps and compasses are needed, or else unintended predicaments are bount to arise.
Usually, someone is unable to tell where they are going to end up when opening the exit portal back into reality, and thus they need to rely on knowledge, coordinates, sensual or spiritual impressions or sheer luck. However, magical and technical devices are known to exist to make travelling more reliable, and some beings or species even posess whats commonly called the navigators eye or the third eye, allowing them to "see" through the walls of reality themselves, though a lot of training and focus are required to make actual use of that and most seers suffer greatly from seeing the Lydus from within their home dimension all the time, causing them to be considered blind or crazy by the common, unknowing folk. thus, having a helping device or even a Navigator at your side, greatly increases your chances for success, even though experienced travellers might even get a natural feel for the habits of the sea and the places where they might end up in.
It is worth mentioning that the Lydus isn't entirely empty either, and beacons or even strange settlements and crossroad signs might be found on the way of commonly used pathways.
Multiple Portals and interferences:Having covered the basics of teleportation, it is already apparent that teleportation is a difficuilt task unless performed by the right people. What the most stable connections are via fixed gates, such as the well known dimensional gates in Negav and Ur-Sagol, and the most primitive ones such as the first steps of a new apprentice magic user have in common is that they manipulate the waters of the Lydus, as was stated before. Now, any disruption of water causes waves, and spreads, and thus disrups even more water. As has been stated before, the methods of travelling vary greatly, and there are travelling techniques that are far more disruptive to the waters than others, causing the start and finish location of any non fixed portals to be permanently tossed around, sometimes even similar to being the leaf in a storm. the stronger the magic user or the portal device are, the safer, yet the more disruptive their own connection becomes, effectively causing a competition between all pathways through the Lydus, with the strongest being the safest, and the weakest potentially being washed away in the formers waves and magic concussions. this means that the more portals are being in use, the less safe travelling becomes, causing malfunctions to happen, with "not ending up in the desired locations" being one of the better outcomes. There have been countless cases in which the roads of a traveller got washed away by the disruptions of another traveller, causing them to get lost or even drown in the vast ocean of Lydus and the victims of such cases are without count. There are places, especially around very powerful devices such as fixed installations of dimensional gates, where dimensional travel through means other than these specific portals is either restricted by society to not interfere with the main portal or way too dangerous to perform due to the portals strength, even though extraordinarily skilled individuals might still pull it off and get through successfully.
Innerfelaryan Travel:In Felarya, dimensional travel is exceptionally hard to pull off due to different reasons.
First, there are the different dimensional gates, with the most well known being located near Negav and Ur Sagol. The disruption they cause to the Lydus, especially the Ur-Sagol one, are so great that it is very hard if not impossible to traverse the Lydus from or towards a close by location in Felarya. even while not in motion, the mere wake of the portals use can disrupt the Lydus' waters long after their last action, causing them to be dangerous enough to still affect and endanger other travellers within their radius of influence. Thus, one is safe to say that dimensional magic is safer to use the further away the user is from any fixed portal that is regularly being used. However, Felarya has more issues to offer than just that.
There are many unstable regions within Felarya where the Lydus is often, if not permanently interfering and being interfered by Felarya and its inhabitants. Areas such as Miragia Forest create huge opportunities and even larger dangers to anyone courageous or crazy enough to attempt traversing the Lydus from that place.
And lastly, there is the vanishing land phenomenon, effectively naturally occuring cases of mass teleportation, transporting entire landscapes through the Lydus to a different place. And while these natural phenomenons are some of the most perfect and stable cases of dimensional magic one might come across, merely by the sheer size of the land in question and the way they often seamlessly connect to Felarya, they also have by far the largest impact on Lydus' oceans, creating huge waves that influence or drift any other connection in its wake, even long after they are gone.
It is impossible for anyone lesser than a allknowing god to be aware of all the fluctuations of the sea around Felarya because of this, and even skilled teleportation users see themselves being heavily challenged when trying to make use of their magic in Felarya.
Commonly it is safe to say that, due to the hefty disruptions caused by known and unknown sources, even remotely precise long distance teleportation is considered near impossible to anyone thats not able to make use of the most stable connections, ergo the dimensional gates or the most powerful portal creators. The further the distance becomes, the more likely the traveller is to end up in an entirely different spot and it is safe to say that if someone were to try and get from Negav to Chordoni Waterfalls, they are just as likely to end up in acaptor desert as they are to end up in Delurah - a whole different world as they might get washed away on their way. Thus, even the most powerful travellers suffer from very unreliable and inprecise teleportation and put themselves at a huge risk when trying to travel far distances.
Short range teleportation is much more likely to occur, and even commonly used by some species, such as canopy fairies. However, even if teleportation is natural to a species, it is no safer for them than it is for anyone using magic or technological means, and regardless of who makes use of the lydus, even when teleporting short distances the exit of the portal might deviate multiple meters from the desired location, so teleportation is usually seen as some sort of "cone of possibilities" where the traveller might end up, rather than a specific location. Naturally, the more reliable dimensional magics will ensure that the target location is somewhat safe and will try to prevent expelling the traveller in a place they are unable to be in, such as exiting inside a large rock, though many stories tell of teleportations that have gone awfully wrong, with people ending up overlapping with existing objects, leading to slight discomfort, injury or immediate death. However, even if the dimensional magic or device ensures the exit has enough toom to accomodate the traveller, they might find themselves ending up inside a cave, or even within the guts of a large beast. Given the size and empty space within some of the largest predators, accidentally feeding a hungry giant is actually kind of a real risk, especially when the user is unable to teleport back out, seeing how dimensional travel is one of the most "expensive" kinds of magic and only few are able to teleport multiple times within quick succession.
However, as with dimensional magic in other places, specifically prepared teleportation aids may help in the use of short range teleportation, such as the use of small teleportation runes, circles, signs or devices, that all serve as mini-beacons within the Lydus. Others may make use of their natural feel or the aforementioned third eye, and even others might make use of artificial versions of these, which may come in the form of special scanners, spectral goggles or magic masks the user needs to put on before performing the dimensional magic.
Summoning Magic:A last noteworthy exception is summoning magic, where the concept is turned around, and the subject or object of desire is instead pulled in from the exit and being brought towards the entrance, thus the summoner - not necessarily with the approval of the recently transported (summoned) being. As with any attempt of using the Lydus for transportation, some means is needed to "find" the to-be-summoned target in question. For persons, there are many ways to pull this off. Especially sensitive users may use a part of the summoned person to locate them from within the Lydus, such as a strand of hair or part of an important (and hopefully unique) piece of clothing. Others use specific charms that have been attached to the summoned person beforehand, them effectively serving as small personalized beacons within the Lydus. Others use summoning beads, used to specifically pull a predetermined person through the Lydus. Another kind may use rituals to magically mark a target right before the teleportation is performed, with this method requiring no previous preparation, though being much, much harder to perform properly. And in some special cases, when trying to summon some entity whose exact name and identity are not known or cared about, one may simply ask someone to allow themselves to get summoned through offerings or chants. This is usually the case with cultists who attempt to summon angels or devils and either don't have the power, or the knowledge to target a specific individual.
For objects, it is a whole different case and usually, these are much easier to summon, causing dimensional summoning for items to be common practise in many places.
Due to the stormy and everchanging nature of the Lydus it is not recommended to store objects right inside the Lydus, as these are easily swayed away without any means to fixate them in place. And even if one does that, there is still the issue that the user always enters Lydus from a different spot depending on where they open the portal, effectively being as able to access their goods as if they had stored them in some safe or cabinet.
Thus, for objects, it is common practise to just use a small pocket dimension, that is carried along with the rest of ones equipment. Since the pocket dimension is always right next to the user, the distance within the Lydus is - usually - extremely short, allowing the magic user, or in the case of high quality products, the dimensional pocket itself, to create a reliable portal through which to access the goods, even though a small trace of a risk is always still involved and more than one adventurer accidentally had their hand bitten by a Lydus shark when they were searching their pocket for some change money.
Subject: A guide to Dimensional Magic (Teleportation) 
Thu Aug 20, 2015 5:33 am
