This is a snippet of a chat that took place a few days back in our chat room. I just wanted to chime in with my 2 cents worth.
Quote
[01-02 20:58] <+Eris> <Evie> But I think the Ile d'Orsal is about 600 miles or more from Rhemuth, so at least that
[01-02 20:59] <+Eris> <Nezz> Ah, that's good enough. I can figure out a 600-mile-jump to Fiji.
[01-02 20:59] <Laurna> sequal? Love ti
[01-02 21:00] <Laurna> lets not jump through the core of the earth, might be a little hot
[01-02 21:00] <+Eris> <Evie> I can't recall if there is a portal jump in Canon from Rhemuth to Torenthaly or vice versa, but that would be even further
I took a look at my wall map. Yes mine hangs on the wall. And the Orsal's palace is about 325 miles from Rhemuth as the crow flies. This makes sense to me as a maximum distance of a portal jump. The reason this does make sense as a limit. Is the Law of Conservation of Momentum.
Basically distances greater than 300 miles would result in a change of body temperature, up or down, that would cause serious harm or death. Plus due to the rotation of the world, you could arrive and immediately loose your balance or even go flying into a nearby wall.
This of course all uses real world physics and the limitations it would enforce on a teleported object.
Quote from: Bynw on January 06, 2022, 08:29:33 AM
Basically distances greater than 300 miles would result in a change of body temperature, up or down, that would cause serious harm or death.
Ooh, interesting! What physics law is this based on?
It almost sounds like you're saying I'd be better off flying to Fiji rather than trying to figure out the best portalling route. ;)
Quote from: Nezz on January 06, 2022, 09:51:57 AM
Quote from: Bynw on January 06, 2022, 08:29:33 AM
Basically distances greater than 300 miles would result in a change of body temperature, up or down, that would cause serious harm or death.
Ooh, interesting! What physics law is this based on?
It almost sounds like you're saying I'd be better off flying to Fiji rather than trying to figure out the best portalling route. ;)
Well, the more obvious problem with portalling to Fiji would be needing to know the precise coordinates of a destination Portal in Fiji beforehand.... ;D
Quote from: Nezz on January 06, 2022, 09:51:57 AM
Quote from: Bynw on January 06, 2022, 08:29:33 AM
Basically distances greater than 300 miles would result in a change of body temperature, up or down, that would cause serious harm or death.
Ooh, interesting! What physics law is this based on?
Law of Conservation of Momentum for one. There is a 2nd one, I think it might be Thermal Dynamics, but I don't remember off hand. But Teleportation has been discussed at length by many with how far someone can teleport without causing their own death.
This is fascinating. I really enjoy this.
And it raises a couple of issues-- actual distances in the Eleven Kingdoms.
The Ile d'Orsal is 325 miles from Rhemuth as the crow flies? Hmmm...
Just as a comparison, it's 298 miles from Paris to London, 363 miles from Paris to Bordeaux, 341 London to Amsterdam, and 403 miles from London to Edinburgh. Or so Google tells me.
I'm wondering how far it is from Rhemuth to Valoret, or Rhemuth to Beldour?
It's disconcerting to think of how short distances in medieval times were when we're used to flying off a thousand miles or so for a long weekend.
Quote from: DoctorM on January 06, 2022, 05:35:30 PM
This is fascinating. I really enjoy this.
And it raises a couple of issues-- actual distances in the Eleven Kingdoms.
The Ile d'Orsal is 325 miles from Rhemuth as the crow flies? Hmmm...
Just as a comparison, it's 298 miles from Paris to London, 363 miles from Paris to Bordeaux, 341 London to Amsterdam, and 403 miles from London to Edinburgh. Or so Google tells me.
I'm wondering how far it is from Rhemuth to Valoret, or Rhemuth to Beldour?
It's disconcerting to think of how short distances in medieval times were when we're used to flying off a thousand miles or so for a long weekend.
According to the poster map and my string connecting the points. So as the crow flys. Not using roads. It's bit over 120 miles between Rhemuth and Valoret. And it's about 475 miles between Rhemuth and Beldour. Too far for a single Portal jump.
It is 2800 miles from Los Angeles to New York City. Now that distance is 6hours by plane, 3 days by train, 3 months by bike, and 6 months by walking. In Deryni terms it would be about 10 portal jumps of 300 each and a minimum of 4 days if you had the energy to do two or three jumps a day by yourself. That may be slow by our standards but incredibly fast to them.
Horses travel 12 to 75 miles in a 24 hour period. Desse is 15-20 miles away and at an easy ride takes two hours. Valoret is about 175 miles away and can be ridden hard in three days or walked in seven days. Kelson and Alaric ran their knights hard to get to Rhatharkin in 30 hours, They were still a few hours away from Ratharkin when they came across Dhugal and Sidana. Ratharkin is about 200 miles away, so they were practically flying. It likely took them 4-5 days to get back to Rhemuth at a better pace to save their mounts.
I am thinking that 300 miles portal jumps would be extreme. 100 mile portal jumps would be more for the average Deryni. Special portals like the CC council room might be enhanced and tuned to the councilors so that they could get to it from greater distances.
And I still think (part of the chat conversation that bywn did not quote) is that you can not portal across oceans. Wide rivers- no problem - but the expanse of oceans or even the Eleven Kingdom's South Sea from Rhemuth to Bermagne would not be feasible. That is what ships are for. and in Evie's modern world the Deryni still use airplanes. ;)
Thanks to both Bynw and Laurna! Much appreciated!
I hadn't heard that the Southern Sea was a barrier to Portals. The distance at some points only seems to be forty or fifty miles.
It was about 1400 miles from home to university for me, and it always struck me as amazing that I could have breakfast while watching snowfall and have dinner outside on a patio.
It's not that the sea is a barrier. It's the distance. You could theoretically make the jump. But the character wouldn't be alive at the end of it.
Quote from: Laurna on January 06, 2022, 07:59:13 PM
And I still think (part of the chat conversation that bywn did not quote) is that you can not portal across oceans. Wide rivers- no problem - but the expanse of oceans or even the Eleven Kingdom's South Sea from Rhemuth to Bermagne would not be feasible. That is what ships are for. and in Evie's modern world the Deryni still use airplanes. ;)
In that case, how does Thorne Hagen get to Council meetings if he is home in Autun when one is suddenly called? Portal to Bremagne and then hijack the world's fastest ship in order to reach Gwynedd's shore so he can Portal the rest of the way? And does Sofiana do this too? Both Autun and Andalon are across the Southern Sea from the nearest coast of Gwynedd, not to mention that Beldour appears to be closer to Lendour than Lendour is to Autun. The Anvillers? Also across the sea.
In Evie's modern Gwynedd Deryni still use airplanes because in order to go from one Portal to another, one needs to know the coordinates for both, unless someone else is portaling you there. Even if there was no limit to the distance one could jump, if I don't know the coordinates to any Portal location in NYC, I would still need a more mundane way to get there. And if I needed to take an entire entourage, going by Portal would be impractical, especially if there were more humans than Deryni. Also a good reason why Deryni might still prefer to take a ship even if they happen to know a Portal location overseas. Even traveling with heavy luggage might be easier using conventional transportation unless time is of the essence.
(In the opening chapters of the BoP sequel that may or may not ever get finished, I have some travelers crossing from Camberia to distant lands by means of a Portal network, so that very first jump at least would have to cross ocean because there isn't a land bridge from Camberia to the next continent over, any more than there is any land bridge from our world's Australia to Asia.)
I think, broadly, the problem with crossing oceans via Portal is the general size of an ocean. I think you can Portal across smaller bodies of water; assuming a distance limit of ~300 miles, you could go (across the Mediterranean) from Alexandria, Egypt, to Athens, Greece, with a "Portal layover" in Crete.
And of course, that assumes the existence of safe, usable Portals at all three locations and Deryni who know the coordinates of same.
So the Balance of Power sequel manages it by island-hopping, Deryni-style. ;)
I accept your challenge to portal across oceans. All things may be possible. Though I am still leery of such portal jumps.
Now I challenge Bywn's three hundred miles. Rhemuth to Coroth castle is just over 300 miles. Admittedly KK has not put a portal there yet in cannon, but we know that it will exist soon enough and be frequently used. Also Rhemuth to Bellymar is well over 300 miles, though admittedly the McLain Family could use Culdi Castle as a stop over.
As Evie states. The CC members use the portal jump from their homes and go directly to the CC chamber in the Kheldour mountains that look north over the Northern Sea. I always thought of them going from R'Kassi and Andilion where the Southern Sea is not a barrier. but if a CC member is in Autun or Bermagne then they must jump past the Sea and more than 600miles. Do they use an interim portal or can they make a direct jump?
Is the only limit knowing where you are going and being assured that it is not trapped when you get there.
Quote from: Laurna on January 07, 2022, 12:26:26 AM
Is the only limit knowing where you are going and being assured that it is not trapped when you get there.
To the best of my recollection, this is the only limit that is expressly stated in canon. Other theories such as distance limits are inferred based on knowing that there is an energy cost for portal jumps, and therefore only a limited number can be made in a short period of time without tiring. Therefore it is sensible to extrapolate from those known factors that longer than average distance could be an issue that increases one's energy cost to the point that eventually a jump becomes unwise or undoable. But that range is never specifically stated, and IMO with very good reason. If an author explicitly states "You can travel no more than X in one jump," but then ends up later writing a story in which it is vital to make a >X jump in order for the plot to work, then she's hamstrung by too rigid a limit. (Or she ignores the limit and hopes no one ever spots the discrepancy, but in this crowd how likely is that? 😅)
Known canon limitations. Both destination and origin portals must be known and within "range". But range is never really defined in this case but it doesn't seem to be the short/long range of a jump it's more of the Deryni sensing range.
For jumps we know that longer jumps take more energy to do than shorter jumps. I just skimmed over Deryni Magic and it really didn't have any more insight than that.
So this was of course to add some real word physics into the mix to explain range limitations. And of course what happens if they are exceeded. If you exceed distance from origin to destination you will have the momentum change caused by the planetary rotation. You could stumble at the destination at least or end up flying into a nearby wall if one is close and being bug splatter.
I briefly mentioned elevation changes too. Which are another limiting factor. Going from a low elevation to a high elevation caused a change in temperature. In extreme cases, enough to freeze you solid. And vise versa going from a high elevation to a lower one. You can end up boiling yourself alive. (If I'm remembering it correctly, otherwise it would be the opposite way around. I'll try to find the reference material.)
Thus the need of more Portal locations for longer distances/elevations. And why it's normally not possible to Portal across the ocean.
Are there any canon ways around it? Yes. And they don't use that horrible fantasy cliche of "it's magic" with out any explanation. Magic has rules that have to be followed. And we know, at least from Deryni Magic, that the magic practiced by the Deryni is more like the Force of Star Wars than the Harry Potter kind of magic. It's not reality bending D&D magic. The term "psionics" best describes what Deryni magic is and how it works.
So how to break the limitations and still stay within canon and the physics reality check?
First of all it takes 2 Portals. Origin and Destination. We know from canon that the older and/or more used Portals are "stronger" than younger or less used Portals. We know that the Portal itself is a matrix of energy that is tapped by the act of using it. These are our keys for longer and more dangerous jumps.
It's better to have the older portal at your Destination. The Portal itself can provide some of the excess energy that would be needed to compensate for the change in momentum and/or elevation to prevent the operator from being boiled alive bug splat. Could the operator do that themselves? Possibly in some cases. But in others the cost in energy may cause blood vessels to burst in the brain, a coma, or death anyway. So it's best not to do that unless again you are borrowing energy for the jump from something that has more energy to give.
Evie raises a good point. Thorne Hagen lives in Autun. How does he get to a Council meeting in the Rhendalls without a complicated system of Portals-plus-ships-and-horses? Are Deryni from the Forcinn kept in the south without sailing or going round through Orsal country by land?
This entire subject is going to have to go in my book to account for why teleportation is so rare. Thanks for all the delicious commentary. :)
Quote from: Bynw on January 07, 2022, 08:28:49 AM
Known canon limitations. Both destination and origin portals must be known and within "range". But range is never really defined in this case but it doesn't seem to be the short/long range of a jump it's more of the Deryni sensing range.
For jumps we know that longer jumps take more energy to do than shorter jumps. I just skimmed over Deryni Magic and it really didn't have any more insight than that.
I'm guessing that range may also vary from person to person. Dom Emrys likely had a farther-reaching range than Bishop Arilan, both because the training available to Emrys was far better than what was available to Arilan and because Emrys was one of the most powerful Deryni we've met in canon so far.
Quote from: Bynw on January 07, 2022, 08:28:49 AM
So this was of course to add some real word physics into the mix to explain range limitations. And of course what happens if they are exceeded. If you exceed distance from origin to destination you will have the momentum change caused by the planetary rotation. You could stumble at the destination at least or end up flying into a nearby wall if one is close and being bug splatter.
IIRC, a lot of people feel a certain amount of disorientation and/or discomfort upon Portal travel; it seems to be the sort of thing that has less of an impact the better-trained a person is and the more accustomed they are to Portal use.
What is the distance from Beldour to Rhemuth? Regular portal jumps were made between these two capitals by several different people including ambassadors. I also remember that the ability to make longer jumps depended on the inherent power of the person making the jump. IIRC Feyd was a very powerful Deryni and able to make longer jumps than other Deryni. I'm not sure how much a Deryni could increase his portalling ability through training and practice but I got the impression that this was possible.
Quote from: DerynifanK on January 08, 2022, 09:03:55 AM
What is the distance from Beldour to Rhemuth?
In an earlier post the distance is listed as about 475 miles between the capitals. A very long distance jump.
Maybe it's the power of the individual? We know some are more powerful than others. Alaric could do anything a "full" Deryni could do. One fo the reasons they sometimes feared him. Good thing he was a good guy!!
And how is the power required to make a jump changed not only be distance but also whether the Deryni is taking other people through and whether these "passengers" are deryni themselves or human and whether they are cooperating or being controlled by the other? Lots of factors to think about.
this thread reminds of the discussions of the basis for jumps in Pern, called "Annescience". But she added a dimension of time travel too, which someone should build into a story. And then there is Dr McCoy's least favorite activity, which might be a better parallel for portals, replacing dilithium magic with Deryni magic.
I've always wondered about the portal effects; would it be akin to going through the StarGate or maybe like "beaming in" from Star Trek? lol...weird thoughts keeping a guy up at 1am!
Matt
Quotewould it be akin to going through the StarGate
Oooh, I like the idea of portals opening little wormholes and plopping the traveller through to the other end of the wormhole, practically instantaneously due to the short distance involved.
I see it as less Trek-y since that's scattering atoms around. Magic is much cleaner, imho.
Well KK created them based on Transporters from Star Trek.
Personally, I would rather do a Deryni Portal Jump than a Star Trek Transport. Not sure I want to trust a computer taking me apart atom by atom and then reassembling me.(NOPE)
Just something Hypothetical on my part:
One thing about KK's portals, is that they are always "Grounded" with stone or earthen material(dirt and rocks). The grounding material literally absorbs the energy that is caused by Bynw's Laws of conservation of momentum. I propose that all portals are not equal. The sub-straight of the "Grounding" Material may have a very physical limiting factor on how jumps are made.
I am an ultrasound tech, we rely on sound being echoed back at us to get an image. In ultrasound all substances other than water send echoes back even air. I am thinking in portals the very last thing you want is the energy of your jump being echoed back at you. It would blast you apart. The portal must have the sub-strait that Grounds the portalling energy and sends it as far away from the portal as possible.
Maybe the reason older and more used portals are better is that the matrix of rock atoms align themselves with each use to disperse the energy like a crystalline formation. However, when a portal becomes disused that matrix breaks down and the energy is not so easily dispersed and therefor the Deryni making the portal jump has to use more of their own energy to protect themselves from the echo "backfire".
I think KK said in chat once that, despite her often signing off from chat with Portal "sparklies," the transfer portals Deryni use don't have any such visual special effects. And it makes more sense that they wouldn't, otherwise those portal jumps into and out of the Cathedral sacristy would be a whole lot riskier for Duncan and Alaric during a time when they might have been burned at the stake if they were caught at it! IIRC, there are several times when one or the other risks the jump through the portal to make sure the coast is clear, and finds a priest on the other side (or very close by) who has to be mind-altered to not know about their arrival. It would be much more difficult to catch someone on the other end completely unaware if there were sparkles, tunnels in the air, or other such visuals to herald one's arrival! ;D
I think what it probably ends up looking like is that the person doing the jump just suddenly seems to vanish from sight on one end, and equally suddenly just appears on the other end, so anyone who might happen to be present would doubtless be startled if a person just blinks into sight right in front of them, but if it happened off to the side or behind them, they might not immediately notice, and might just assume the person arrived through normal means and was standing there quietly before being noticed, which could be startling enough, but less likely to immediately cause suspicions of magic use (unless the only door to the room was also locked from the inside).
Quote from: Evie on April 06, 2022, 01:04:14 PMI think what it probably ends up looking like is that the person doing the jump just suddenly seems to vanish from sight on one end
That is exactly the way it was described in the Camber books when it was used a few times.
Quote from: JediMatt1000 on April 06, 2022, 02:27:55 AMI've always wondered about the portal effects; would it be akin to going through the StarGate or maybe like "beaming in" from Star Trek? lol...weird thoughts keeping a guy up at 1am!
Matt
I usually imagine Portal travel as being more like stepping through a door than something as flashy as a Star Trek teleportation unit. Though I've also always imagined it as disorienting for some people.
Quote from: DoctorM on April 06, 2022, 06:45:03 PMThough I've also always imagined it as disorienting for some people.
I think in one of the books it's stated that it can be disorientating to some people. Mainly Humans but I'm sure some Deryni too if they aren't the one controlling the jump.
I've always assumed that people being susceptible to giddiness or vertigo would find them more disorientating.
This looks similar to the teleportation psionic ability in the Traveller RPG.
And that includes rules for going up or down. Yes, you get warmer as you go up and colder as you lose altitude because of the potential energy that comes from height (basically, since an object could fall that distance, the kenetic energy that could be generated by the fall is referred to as 'potential energy', and replacing that is taken from your thermal energy).
Quote from: revanne on April 08, 2022, 02:12:18 PMI've always assumed that people being susceptible to giddiness or vertigo would find them more disorientating.
Me, too. I think in "Season of the Sword" I had a character say he'd only been in a Portal twice, and had been sick as a dog both times. I don't get seasick, but I do get dizzy in high places, and that's no fun.
In a FF I wrote but not yet completed, one of my characters is the captain of a fleet of ships and he is also a Cambarian Councilor, but the longer the portal jump the more disoriented he becomes. And it takes him a bit to recover when he has to portal from the Isles of Horte to the CC chamber. It is fun to play with that little disparaging flaw.
Doesn't the Camberian Council have a chamber at the top of a mountain? Seem to recall that they destroyed the only nonmagical way to get there.
Well, if so, I doubt normal physical limits apply.
I found this site to calculate how much energy would be gained/lost:
https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/physics/gravitational-potential.php
Assuming a hundred kg person for simplicity, it says potential energy is 980665 J.
Which didn't tell me a lot, so checked how many joules to change temperature by 1 degree, and found that was 4.18 Joules per gram, so 4180 per kilo, or 418,000 for our sample Deryni.
So the temperature change would be a bit over 2 degrees; 2.34 to be more precise. It doesn't matter how much you weigh.
That's certainly bearable, but should be sufficient to be worth commenting on.
Since you're talking grams and kilos, I presume you mean 2.34 degrees Celsius?
Quote from: whitelaughter on September 08, 2022, 04:28:32 AMDoesn't the Camberian Council have a chamber at the top of a mountain? Seem to recall that they destroyed the only nonmagical way to get there.
Well, if so, I doubt normal physical limits apply.
I found this site to calculate how much energy would be gained/lost:
https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/physics/gravitational-potential.php
Assuming a hundred kg person for simplicity, it says potential energy is 980665 J.
Which didn't tell me a lot, so checked how many joules to change temperature by 1 degree, and found that was 4.18 Joules per gram, so 4180 per kilo, or 418,000 for our sample Deryni.
So the temperature change would be a bit over 2 degrees; 2.34 to be more precise. It doesn't matter how much you weigh.
That's certainly bearable, but should be sufficient to be worth commenting on.
Someplace high in the Rhendall Mountains (Codex, pdf pg 21).
So, assuming a person with mass 100 kg; their weight would be 981 newtons; their height determines what their potential energy would be - if they're 1000 meters off the ground, then yes, 981000 Joules.
Are you trying to find out how much thermal energy a human body loses when falling? But you're using the specific heat capacity of water? Why? Yes, the specific heat capacity for water is 4184 J/kg-K (you're also missing an entire unity of measurement in your calculations) - the specific heat capacity is the amount of heat, of thermal energy, required to raise the temperature of a substance by 1 K. You're talking about a person - 60% of the human body is water, true, but it also contains fat, sugars - how fat is the person? Are they obese, or muscled? The mass alone doesn't tell any of that. A human is largely solid, not liquid - we don't evaporate as easily (thank you human skin), we also don't move as uniformly as a drop of water does. 2.34 joules? It takes about 10000 Joules to boil a cup of coffee; but 2 Joules would raise the temperature in a human body? And what is your calculation? You're dividing the potential energy of a human body by the specific capacity of water and then multiplying by the mass of the person; that gets you 2.34/K (that pesky unit of measurement you forgot about). Which you're equating to temperature?
This is an interesting thread. I wonder, though, if distance is relevant concerning teleportation through a transfer portal. If it is a hyperspace transit, there should be little problem with distance, per se. Of course, a transfer portal could have built in distance limits if those limits were preset by it's creators and if it's available to multiple parties.
My impression of Katherine Kurtz' descriptions of teleportation that there is little loss of time in the transfer. Following up on the hyperspace conception, within most concepts of hyperspace, time stands still within that space.
I'm under the impression that there may be a physiological stress encountered through teleportation, but I think that the effects would be minimal. I think that a Deryni is shielded from the harmful effects of any transit, since one is going through a hyperspace momentarily where within that space, oxygen, gravity as we know it, etc. would be missing. This shielding must exist to prevent a Deryni suffering from explosive decompression in the act of teleportation.
These are my thoughts on this. What do you think?
I think if said Deryni is not shielded, he suffers the same effects as we saw in Galaxy Quest: "he turned inside out... boom ...and exploded."
On a more serious side, I can see the hyperspace scenario: the original researchers of portals wouldn't know about hyperspace, and so when one portal went wrong that one time, they'd say "Oh, it must be because we tried to make it go too far," and now they just assume the limit is about x-number of miles. No one questions it because it's worked and no one else has turned inside out and exploded for several hundred years.
Quote from: Nezz on March 20, 2023, 03:37:02 PMI think if said Deryni is not shielded, he suffers the same effects as we saw in Galaxy Quest: "he turned inside out... boom ...and exploded."
he, he ;D
QuoteOn a more serious side, I can see the hyperspace scenario: the original researchers of portals wouldn't know about hyperspace, and so when one portal went wrong that one time, they'd say "Oh, it must be because we tried to make it go too far," and now they just assume the limit is about x-number of miles. No one questions it because it's worked and no one else has turned inside out and exploded for several hundred years.
I would agree with you, Nezz. I would also tend to identify the lack of education with the unevenness of education in Feudal societies where most higher education is controlled by guilds or their equivalents in Deryni society. Many times, guild knowledge would be held in secrecy to give certain guilds advantages over social competitors. I suspected that the culture of Feudalism retarded Dernyni knowledge.
I think that we cannot use the analog of human, Earth society, as an accurate understanding of Deryni society. The mere presence of psionics in that society must be considered, and how it affects their scientific understanding. I think that the thoughtful among the Deryni probably considered Deryni magic, or rather psionics, as something open to scientific, instead of a ritual, or religious explanation. Whenever I see the word "magic" in the canon, I think I'm going to see a pre-scientific explanation.
This, I believe, is an appropriate place for this question. I apologize if it has already been answered.
What precisely is the Portal Cubicle? I'm having a hard time picturing it. While reading the Legends of Camber, I just pictured it as an unmarked spot on the floor that one has to memorize its location, to then step on it to activate the teleportation. But now, as I read the Harrowing of Gwynedd, i'm aware of the word 'cubicle' which implies a box of some sort. An intangible box? Or a physical structure?
Quote from: Cronanbor on March 29, 2023, 02:19:06 PMThis, I believe, is an appropriate place for this question. I apologize if it has already been answered.
What precisely is the Portal Cubicle? I'm having a hard time picturing it. While reading the Legends of Camber, I just pictured it as an unmarked spot on the floor that one has to memorize its location, to then step on it to activate the teleportation. But now, as I read the Harrowing of Gwynedd, i'm aware of the word 'cubicle' which implies a box of some sort. An intangible box? Or a physical structure?
I don't recall Portal Cubicle as a term in the Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy. But it has been sometime since I read those books. I do know of the term "portal square" to represent where the portal is located.
A Deryni is able to sense a portal if they step on one. Unless it's like the moving portal that Camber rediscovered. Where Joram didn't trust it because it moved and he couldn't sense it.
Where in Legends is the Cubicle mentioned?
I know the portal in Duncan's study is in a hidden niche in the wall (behind either a curtain or a sliding bookcase, I think?), and that could be considered a sort of a cubicle, but the Portal in the Royal Library is in the center of the room. The one at the Library annex is subtly marked by being a different shape or size from the stones around it, but not so noticeably so that someone who couldn't sense it would notice that the Portal stone stands out from the rest of the floor.
@Cronanbor, are you reading the books in English or in a translated version? That could also explain why the term "portal cubicle" doesn't sound familiar. Though I can't think of any reason why a portal stone couldn't be located in a cubicle. I just can't remember reading about a portal that specifically is mentioned as being in one.
I'm sorry, there is a slight misunderstanding. The term "Portal Cubicle" is not in the Legends of Camber. They are found in The Harrowing of Gwynedd, Open Road publishing, Chapter 4 pg 50.
"I just finished up what you'd started," the Healer said with an amused shrug, gesturing toward the Portal cubicle. "Now let's get out of here before any of Norris' chums come along. I've told him to make whatever excuses he needs to be sure they don't but we wouldn't want to push our luck."
Nodding, Javan let himself be ushered into the Portal cubicle, his mind churning with a dozen unasked questions.
<<But, I'm not trying to split hairs about the nomenclature. I'm trying to imagine them accurately. Is there a description anywhere of the portals? As I said, currently i'm just imagining an unmarked spot on the floor that the Deryni has to memorize its placement for it to work.
Ah. In that case the Portal itself is likely just a particular stone in the floor in that cubicle (i.e.,small room), which may or may not have any particular markings on it, but which a Deryni would recognize in either case because they would feel the tingle of the portal energy upon stepping on the right spot. "Portal cubicle" in that context would just mean "the cubicle that contains the portal," in the same way that calling a particular room a bedroom would imply it likely contains a bed or at least was built for that purpose. But having a bedroom wouldn't be integral to the bed's usage;it's perfectly possible to have an empty bedroom or a bed in the living room that remains perfectly functional. The portal stone itself is what makes it a portal, not the stone's location, aside from it needing to be grounded.
Evie,
Wonderful! It's crystal clear now. Thank you.