Let's skip Nobility, Part 2, since it would basically be a recitation of the Seikai canon material. For completeness the two royal ranks are given below; we shall dwell on them no further unless needed.
- King (larth)
/Queen (lartnéc): A ruler of one of the eight Kingdoms (faicec) that compose the Empire.(Uniquely, this rank is gender-specific.) - Emperor (speunaigh): The ruler of the Empire.
Travel within a crystal sphere (and some astral domains) is typically by means of airship; travel external to a crystal sphere is typically by means of astral skiff. This generally means that travelers from one sphere to another will take a shuttle-airship to a saudec*, whence they will board an astral skiff that will take them to their destination sphere, whence they will board another shuttle-airship to take them to the surface of the world within.
Astral skiffs are also faster: multiply all speeds in their stat-block (4e MotP p.159) by a factor of 5 when traversing the Astral Sea proper. (The listed speeds are still correct for travel within astral dominions.) Crystal spheres remain the same distance from one another — namely, exactly however far the GM wants — so this does not affect travel time on a nonlocal scale.
In the region occupied by the Empire, the Astral Sea is remarkably dense in objects; many spheres are no more than a week's travel from one another. However, astral travel is always direct, rather than via color veils (see below).
Portals (loc, also the word simply for "door") are uncommon, but not entirely unknown, and fall into three categories:
- Intrasphere portals. The echo-planes, the Feywild and Shadowfell, are per-sphere, so this includes portals to them. (It is possible that other spheres have different echo-planes, but this is up to the GM.) Some of the more populated spheres may have portals set up to their saudec.
- Portals to demiplanes. There are not many of these, and it is incorrectly believed that a demiplane cannot have more than one portal, making them irrelevant to travel. (Sigil has never had a gate here.)
- Portals to the Ethereal Chaos. While it is known that these are all connected, the Ethereal Chaos is generally considered too dangerous to use as a travel route, especially when compared with the Navy-patrolled Astral Sea.
*A saudec is a gate in the boundary of a crystal sphere, looking from the interior much like a star, and from the exterior like a silver color-veil. Saudec will typically have travel-stations built at them where skiffs may be parked, rented, hired, purchased, or stolen, depending on the sphere's ruler and on your PCs.
(Edit 2009-01-14: Fixed error caused by misreading the dictionary: lartnéc means "princess" (王女), not "Queen" (女王).)
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