American Gate

Chapter 6: The Recall

Published 9/9/23

Worldbuilding: Portals and Demonic Entities

Portal magic is an archaic art that dates back many thousands of years. Opening a stable portal to a precise destination requires a high level of magical and scientific development. Portals make use of magic to tunnel through three dimensional space, providing near instantaneous travel between two far away points, similar to a wormhole.

Occasionally, a comparatively primitive society discovers or rediscovers the very basic fundamentals of portal magic. They are sometimes able to create extremely crude portals to random or generalized worlds.

However, unbeknownst to them, these portals are only semi-stable. Semi-stable portals lose integrity the longer they are open. After a few years, they will begin to rapidly decay, with disastrous consequences.

If a semi-stable portal remains open for too long, it will decay to the point where it becomes an unstable portal. On the other side of unstable portals, there exists a hellish dimension inhabited by malicious semi-corporeal magical entities: the Demonic Realm. Unstable portals do not last more than a few weeks, or a month at most, but that is more than enough time for demonic entities, aka demons, to pass through.

Out of necessity, societies that use portal magic also develop a crude way of closing semi-stable portals before they can decay. A stable portal requires a large amount of both mana and energy to maintain, and the process of stabilizing an already existing semi-stable portal is comparatively simple.

Primitive societies that use portal magic are able to close their semi-stable portals by stabilizing them. Without the large upkeep of mana and energy, the stable portal immediately collapses. They mistakenly believe that they are closing a 'normal' portal, when in reality they are stabilizing a semi-stable portal.

Stable portals swirl with blue magical energy, semi-stable portals swirl with purple magical energy, and unstable portals swirl with red magical energy. All three take the form of a perfect sphere, or a dome if embedded within the ground.

Demonic entities are semi-corporeal magical creatures; they are neither purely physical beings, nor are they purely noncorporeal beings. Demonic entities use a rare tenth type of mana called demonic mana. Whereas light and dark mana are opposites and form a neutral balance, neither having any inherently good or evil qualities, demons and demonic mana are in fact inherently evil.

Whenever an unstable portal opens up, demons come through and consume intelligent life. Demonic entities consume the entirety of their victims; their physical body, their consciousness, and magical essence are all consumed by the entity.

Physical wounds inflicted upon demonic entities heal almost immediately and cause them no pain. The same can be said for purely magical attacks. Killing a demonic entity requires a weapon that is both physical and magical, so that the wound on the demon is both on its physical body and its noncorporeal essence.

Demonic mana is not natural to the physical world, and thus mages do not have a natural demonic mana pool, nor is there any ambient demonic mana in the environment. To use demonic magic, a mage must build up their demonic mana pool by studying and performing demonic magic, however this is extremely dangerous.

Practicing demonic magic can cause small and temporary unstable portals to appear in the mage's vicinity, risking a minor demonic incursion. The main reason mages study demonic magic at all is because it is the only known purely magical method of harming demonic entities.

Semi-stable portals occasionally cause small and temporary unstable portals to open up in their vicinity. These spontaneous portals are far too weak to allow a sentient demonic entity to come through, and they usually collapse within a few hours. However, demonic fauna will occasionally manage to pass through them.