Who maintains the portal system?

[Sartain]

So as I'm sure we've all noticed there's a bunch of portals scattered all over the servers. I'm not expert but as far as I understand it, portal magic is advanced, costly and potentially unstable magic, especially in an area like Arelith where the Weave is getting hammered by high and epic level spellcasting day after day after day.

So, who makes sure these portals are spic and span, properly maintained and well-functioning to avoid any accidents like sending your bottom half to Sibayad and your top half to Andunor?
Would it maybe be interesting to tweak the current system so some level of maintenance is needed, requiring high-level spellcasters to invest time and resources into keeping them running or risking breakdowns or malfunctions in the teleportation magic involved? (I know I think it would)

[Xerah]

A wizard did it.

[Sofawiel]

I would highly recommend some IC, IG research into the history of portals on the archipelago. They are only -momentarily stable. They have gone totally bonkers to the detriment of many a character many times.

There are resources ig and characters ig that can and will totally enable and encourage the line of rp you are suggesting

Not sure it needs a mechanic though, as the existence of portals is/has been used quite well by the dm/Dev staff to explain world changes

[TimeAdept]

Leylines are a natural phenomenon, not artificially maintained.

[Queen Titania]

This would be a better thing for a DM Quest, personally. And we have actually shown their instability through these quests a time or three.

[JubJub]

Would be neat if the portals did have a chaos factor, 5% chance it sends you to the wrong place or kills you from something going wrong like dropping you in the ocean. Or every 100th time the portal is used something will happen.

[Ork]

That would not be neat.

[TimeAdept]

That would not be neat.

[Kuma]

I actually think it would be neat but I'm weird and I recognise QoL is of higher importance.

That being said, ley-lines aren't the basis of the portal network, they're the basis of attunement potions. They often get conflated. The Arelith portal network was created, but this can all be learned IG. More portals can be created if necessary, but this is incredibly hard and often the basis of DM events and the reasons for module changes.

It also seems to be at least somewhat organic, as they appear and disappear without an external force. It's left purposefully vague and IC interpretation encouraged.

[JediZero]

The only 100% for sure still artificial portal source on the island that I am aware of, due to DM events and situations where the Tower had to perform maintenance on it, is the portal inside of the Arcane Tower. I will respectfully disagree with Kuma, in that I believe the leylines are if not directly tied to the network (For FOIG reasons/spoilers), then it's very closely tied to it as the presence of leylines seems to correspond with where portals happen to be.

What I've always operated on is the occasional 'natural' portal source is where a bunch of different leylines happen to intersect or come very close to it, whereas portal destinations are where one or two intersect or nearly touch. Cities that noticed this tendency would have likely set up a position somewhere nearby one of these natural sources to better aid transportation. This is why a lot of towns are if not right next to, then there's a portal destination somewhat nearby as that'd naturally make the resultant area that much more attractive to settle.

The natural leylines thing also works because it looks like just about every single portal destination is somehow accessible, and the leylines being massive naturally flowing sources of magic, and with how there are some theories on how Arelith actually came into being, it makes sense that if the leylines are how the portals are tied together, then the reason they're all accessible in general is due to that leyline somehow affecting how the land was formed. This is most easily seen in a few rather obscure and interesting portal points. Though I suppose since the Island has druids that a druid could have conceivably attempted to ensure these destination points are all in general accessible, though I'm unsure as to what the reasoning would be.

There's a lot of wiggle room for theories and ideas, and nothing I've said or offered should be held as 'The one true answer'. It's just what I've cobbled together over time and thinking it out. Please, as always feel free to come up with your own answers.

[Kuma]

Yeah fair, I can't say for certainty that the portals aren't connected to the ley-lines. But Thayans built the portal network, just as they brought along enchantment basins. How, exactly, they did this, what methods they used, how much credit they're taking for exposing a naturally occurring phenomenon, how much maintenance this network requires (and by whom), etc. etc. aren't really known to us and are the subject of IG conjecture.

There's also the inference of "tech increase", or, rather, magic advancement - enchantment basins were once required and imported by the Thayans, and enchanting magic was somehow tied to them. Now "Arelithian magic" has advanced, so to speak, to the point that even a wholly mundane craftsman can conceivably develop items of identical power to anything "basin crafted". Further, the decoupling of improving items from basins and proliferating dweomercraft implies that overall understanding of how to do it is no longer the realm of the hyperspecialist. In this way, the fact that people can create temporary portals, and even teleport themselves with just GSF Transmutation implies that whatever exclusive magic the Thayans had to create, manipulate, adjust, or whatever, the portal network, is gradually becoming better understood by the magical population at large. One portal source at least was definitely created by a character, in a certain Tower in a certain Hell, for instance. The Tower's isn't unique, just often focused. We can also probably assume that the portal in the Cordor guard barracks (and other guildhouses) was created, and not that the leylines just so happened to configure themselves in Graash's latrine and is actually super convenient. Probably built by Cowled Wizards. And then there's the Long Range Portal in the expedition hall...

this is of course all ooc/ic conjecture for what are really just quality of life updates, and trying to fill in the blanks for events that aren't really given ic explanations - "why does it take less effort to teleport than it did before? how come that paladin with gsf transmu can do it now?" - so really, anyone's guess is as good as anyone else's. that being said there's definitely some solid establishing facts, even if there's not much detail. this is probably going to be a topic of discussion and theorycrafting i'm gonna come up with IC and hold some discussions on.