3rd Edition - Forgotten Realms - Portals of Lantan (adv), Rpg, D&D 3ed

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Perilous Gateways
Portals of Lantan
By Jeff Quick
The Welcome Gates
The Lantanese government has two great desires for their people: to let
them invent, and to be allowed to do it safely. While wars and nations
raged on mainland Faerûn, Lantan has maintained peace and
noninvolvement. The most amazing facet of Lantan's obscure security is
not that they stay hidden, but that they do it without looking like they're
hiding.
In retrospect, this is not a terrible surprise from a nation whose main
inhabitants prize trickery. The Lantanese do not erect stout defenses or
possess overwhelming offenses; they just look uninteresting and give the
impression that they are too much trouble to invade. They claim to be
open and willing to trade, but they develop obtuse entry statutes and
trading policies for nations they would rather avoid. They rarely hide, but
they have a near-bottomless supply of diversionary tricks. As the old
gnome expression says, "Always smile, but do it with false teeth."
Nowhere is this policy more evident than the absurdly named "Welcome
Gates." The Welcome Gates is a large, clearly labeled (but never
advertised)
portal
leading from the Lantan Embassy in Waterdeep to an
area known as the Visitors' Vale right outside Anchoril on Lantan's southern isle. On both ends, the
portal
is
12 feet tall, 8 feet wide, and bordered by a metallic frame imbedded with countless whirring mechanical
gewgaws. Travel through the Welcome Gates is ostensibly free and open. In reality, it's troublesome and
convoluted by design.
Lantanese residents and their families have access to the
portals
whenever they it. Residents must show a
passport and proof of residence, and they may obtain a gate pass for a small fee. The process for obtaining a
gate pass by non-Lantanese is a labyrinthine five-day affair involving numerous forms, daily trips to various
official buildings around Waterdeep, and signatures from three to six different city officials (depending on the
stated nature of the visit).
Welcome Gate hours for nonresidents are only the daylight hours between dawn and dusk, except between
highsun and afternoon, when they are closed. The precise interpretation of when highsun and afternoon begin
and end depends on who is acting chief
portal
warden that day. Illiterate visitors are flatly denied entry
(according to the application handbook) as Anchoril can be dangerous to visitors who cannot read warning
signs.
The gate pass is a small wind-up toy -- a tin bird with flapping wings.
Portal
wardens inform visitors that the
gate pass is the
portal
key. The key is actually the word "enjoy," spoken in Gnome, which a warden works into
the conversation as visitors stand before the
portal
, ready to activate it with their phony key.
Most of the paperwork and runaround that Welcome Gate
portal
wardens require is perfunctory, and like many
gnome behaviors, a blind for the actual process. Regardless of an applicant's ability to fill out forms and follow
obscure directions, the wardens observe applicants' behavior and then divide them into three categories:
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Keep Out
is designated for known or suspected troublemakers.
Portal
wardens know enough tricks to keep
these types tied up indefinitely.
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Tourist
is someone who seems like a minimal security risk and has shown enough interest in visiting to get
through part of the application. But the would-be visitor either doesn't have the wherewithal to wade through
the full application process, or perhaps he or she knows someone who the
portal
wardens consider trustworthy
to vouch for them.
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Watch Carefully
is reserved for anyone who calmly threads the bureaucratic labyrinth. Anyone who shows
enough determination to jump through all appropriate hoops without getting discouraged or upset probably has
a hidden agenda. These people are allowed through, but a "Visitor Assistant" (government spy) is assigned to
"help coordinate" (monitor) the visitor's every action in Anchoril.
None of this behavior is ever presented as a security precaution, but rather as a desire to help the applicant get
the most out of his or her visit to the Multifaceted Capital, Anchoril. (The fact that other gnomes claim that
Sambar, or sometimes Sundrah, is Lantan's capital is an incidental gnome misdirection ploy. All three cities
are considered to be a capital of
something
.)
Some Basic Tasks
Portal
Wardens Assign
When the
portal
wardens want to keep out a possible threat, they first resort to some of these basic tasks:
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Literacy Test: The applicant must first prove that they can read and write Common.
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Proof of Identification: The applicant must also prove that they are who they say they are. This can include a
variety of tasks, such as bringing five people who know the applicant to vouch for him or her, getting a public
official to write a note with a bonded messenger that vouches for the applicant, submitting to a magical test of
the gnome's devising, and whatever else the gnomes can think of. This part of the process can take several
weeks of time in itself and include several stages.
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Proof of Ability to Survive
Portals
: The applicant must prove that he or she can travel through
portals
without
experiencing problems. After all, the gnomes don't want to be responsible for any imbalance within the
applicant that could lead to the applicant's death. The proof can be as simple as having a gnome
representative go through a different
portal
with the applicant and "testing" the applicant's health on the other
end.
Portal
wardens also might make it more difficult if they choose.
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Affidavits from Past Travelers to Lantan: The applicant must seek out a number of different past visitors to
Lantan and get these people to sign off on official affidavits before the local (to the past visitor) magistrate.
These three different tasks can take the applicant a long time to complete, and each can have a series of
stages if warranted.
Portal
wardens can easily add on more tasks, such as requesting a Purpose of Visit form
to be completed and notarized by a gnome in a different part of the world, verifying the identity of
anyone
who
shows up on earlier forms, and so on.
The Delights of the Visitors' Vale
Once visitors make it to Lantan, they enter at the Visitors' Vale. The Vale is a pleasant bowl surrounded by low
hills and is about half a mile from the entrance to Anchoril. This side of the
portal
requires no key, although the
pretense of the toy bird is continued for visitors. In the Vale, two 10-foot-tall iron statues flank the Welcome
Gate. These statues are of a male and female gnome, with the expression and posture of benign workers,
tinkering with the edges of the
portal
. They are, of course, iron golems who spring to life if a weapon is drawn
or if any of the five basic elements (fire, lightning, cold, acid, sonic) magically appear within the Visitors' Vale.
The golems defend themselves, but their main order is to move combatants back through the
portal
.
Though effective, statues that turn out to be golems is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Anyone who pays
attention knows that the obvious threat is seldom the only threat when gnomes are involved. The vale has a
flagpole at five points around the perimeter of the hills. Beneath the huge Lantan flag on each pole is a large
metal horn, which is known as a vale sounder. Sounders are the second line of defense, and gnome watchers
activate them only if one of the golems falls.
Iron golems (2):
hp 170 each; see
Monster Manual
page 109.
How to Incorporate the Welcome Gates Into Your Campaign
Getting into Lantan is tricky, and no one gets in without knowing someone who already lives there. Some ways
that PCs might break through the screen include the following:
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While in Waterdeep, the PCs are approached by a petitioner with a nine-page form, half written in Gnome. If
the party has a cleric of a commonly lawful and/or good god, the petitioner asks the cleric to verify that he is an
honorable and forthright person by means of divine power, and sign the form in several places. The petitioner
seems confused and doesn't know why this is necessary. However, he does mention that he's doing this so
that he can visit Lantan.
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If the PCs are an honorable lot, a gnome who seeks to be escorted from her current location (which is well
away from the Welcome Gates) to Waterdeep contacts them. As they travel, the PCs discover that the gnome
is a target of a particularly vengeful and stubborn group of assassins. Should the gnome die, she will give the
PCs a message to deliver to the
portal
warden in Waterdeep that will allow them to use the
portal
. She also
gives them an item to deliver once in Lantan. What the item is, who the assassins are, where they need to
deliver it to in Lantan, and why the item needs to go to Lantan is up to the DM!
© 2001 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. All rights reserved.
Perilous Gateways
Portals of Lantan
By Jeff Quick
Vale Sounders
Vale sounders are eight-foot-long iron horns. When activated, a sounder emits both a high screech and a low thrum
whose pitches are painfully disharmonic. The noise spreads in a 120-foot cone. Any creature caught in the cone
suffers the following effects each round:
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Creatures must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 20) or be deafened for 1d6 days.
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The low rumble causes the ground to quake so violently that creatures standing on the ground in the affected area
must make a Strength or Balance check (DC 15) or fall prone. A victim with more than two legs or who is more stable
than a normal humanoid can get a +4 stability bonus at the DM's discretion.
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Sonic energy damages all creatures for 2d6 points within the cone.
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The shrieking of the horn is so loud that listeners have great difficulty concentrating while trapped in it. Those in the
cone's area take 1d6 points of Intelligence damage.
A
silence
spell prevents all effects but the quake effect.
Caster Level:
16th;
Prerequisites:
Craft Wondrous Item,
sculpt sound
,
shout
;
Market Price:
149,400 gp;
Weight:
200 lb.
© 2001 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. All rights reserved.
Perilous Gateways
Portals of Lantan
By Jeff Quick
Lantan-Samarach Portal
Aside from a small amount of native iron, Lantan is resource-
poor. Yet serious invention requires considerable resource
expenditure. The Lantanese regularly trade goods with their
Tashalaran and Calimshan neighbors, and they trade
sporadically with other places. But Lantan lacks abundant
supplies of wood, copper, tin, gems, and a list of other goods a
gnome's arm long. Importing all these raw materials is a lot of
trouble, and it puts money in other people's hands.
Several Lantanese trading companies recently decided to put an
end to such heavy reliance on outside materials, and place more
reliance on different sources of outside materials. So they created
a consortium to explore and exploit natural resources in less
developed parts of the world.
After a few months of scouting a good location, the consortium
found a good site in the Samarach jungle near the Chult border. They talked to the locals to find a good site,
and they made sure they showed proper respect for local laws. During their talks, they discovered that the
locals had a fear of something that they couldn't explain. The consortium decided not to deem it a significant
threat to their enterprise, but agreed to help the locals however they could. The gnomes rose to the challenge
and settled upon providing illusory defenses. In exchange for advice and local labor, the gnomes have shown
the locals how to improve their illusory defenses and have given them the wonders of Lantanese clockwork
toys. The relationship is not blatantly exploitive, but it does favor the consortium, which is fine with the gnomes.
Finally, the consortium set up a small compound at the site and made it the base of operations for a logging
camp. Once the compound was established, the consortium had a
portal
erected, a standard 15-foot circle in a
simple metal frame, to cart timber home. The gnome overseers and workers usually go home at night and take
the day's work with them. The weight limit of what can be taken through a
portal
(850 pounds) is occasionally
a nuisance, but a heavy saw machine on the Samarach end solves the problem with minimal fuss.
The Samarach natives who work with the consortium are superstitious about the jungle, but confident enough
in the daytime. They do not like talking about what happens at night though, when they shut their communities
up behind tall wooden palisades and barricade their homes.
This set-up is, of course, prime fodder for prankster-happy gnomes. The gnomes are not ignorant to the
possibility that something truly dangerous might be lurking in the Samarach wilds, but danger is never a reason
to avoid having a little fun. Since the natives never seem to get the joke, the gnomes usually leave them out of
tricks. But they often use the eerie feel of the jungle and the tales of the locals as springboards for elaborate
pranks on each other. Their favorite targets are newcomers to the camp, especially nongnomes.
The camp had been operating for a few weeks when problems started cropping up.
First, the heavy saw machine, which is ten feet long and weighs several hundred pounds, is occasionally found
moved in the morning. It is never broken or inoperable, but it often has been dragged around to a different
place in the compound, its legs leaving long, deep ruts in the dirt.
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