Nature: Item
Type: Shrine
Form: Portable Shrine
Cost/Weight: $4,000 (10 Gold Crowns), 50 lbs
First Encountered: NA
Known Powers:
Waypoints are magical shrines to the god of travel which allow for near instant transportation to nearby shrines. Once set up in a suitable site and carefully attuned, a minute of prayer and meditation is sufficient to move yourself and up to a Heavy load (6x Basic Lift) to any nearby Waypoint. For adventurers, this allows for the creation of shortcuts into the heart of a dungeon, making it easier to explore deeper.
The god of travel provides some protection to these shrines. First and foremost, Evil creatures cannot use the network to travel, so setting up Waypoints in a dungeon doesn't endanger nearby Towns. Secondly, desecrating the shrines takes a significant amount of time and effort for Evil forces. Local temples to the god of travel generally receive visions warning them of such attempts with enough time to spare that they can hire a group of adventurers to stop the attempt. Third, the shrines are imbued with a constant Sense Foes spell with an 11 hex radius1 which will automatically warn anyone who begins meditating with the intention of reaching a Waypoint. Candles at the Waypoint burn red when foes are detected.
Setting up a shrine takes 3 hours; one to assemble the altar and set up the rest (makes a lot of noise!) and 2 hours of chanting and prayer. The prayer requires someone with the Religious Ritual skill (the druidic version works as well as the regular one) but doesn't require a roll unless the person doing it takes damage or takes any other action than Concentrating on the ritual (in combat, roll once per turn). The ritual can be sped up by rushing (Exploits 6), but then it definitively requires a roll. Rushing only affects the two hours of chanting and prayer.
Description:
The semi-portable version of this shrine, designed to be carried into a dungeon and set up in a suitable location, weighs 50 lbs and costs $4,000 at the local temple of Futix the travel god. The pack can be divided up into 10 lbs chunks for transport. It consists of a beautifully carved wooden statue of a Heron in flight set upon a pedestal carved to resemble a gust of wind. Around the pedestal eight candles are set up in the cardinal directions (North, North East, East, etc).
Information:
To use the shrine, one sits down cross legged within the circle of candles facing the alter. Six people can fit comfortably around it, but more could squeeze in. Each person places one empty hand on the pedestal and does their best to empty their head of distractions. At least one person in the group must visualize their destination and focus their will towards getting there. This requires a Meditation, Will based Religious Ritual, or Will-3 roll. Multiple people can roll if desired. Total up the degrees of success (min 1) for every one who succeeded, and subtract the degrees of failure for those who didn't. If the result is positive, the process takes 1 minutes divided by the result. If the result is negative, it takes one minute times the absolute value of the result.
Only bother with this roll if time is off the essence. If you have to portal out before the orc horde beats down the door, the degree of success matters. If you just want to get into the dungeon from the safety of Fulix's Portstown shrine, it doesn't matter.
Known Locations with Waypoints in the Dungeon: