Witchgate

Witchgates are magical anchoring traps created by Tar-Baphon to protect Gallowspire, the tower from which he ruled all of Ustalav, from invasion via teleportation magic. They are the namesakes of the Witchgate Forest located near Gallowgarden.

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History

The existence of witchgates date to the Shining Crusade, after Tar-Baphon realized that opposing forces could use teleportation to outflank his own.

Creation

Witchgates are created by entangling and distorting points along ley lines, a necessary component of teleportation magic. Dimensional travel routes that rely on ley lines are then drawn into these entanglements instead of their intended destinations. As side effects, these entanglements warp the natural planar physics of the area, corrupt the flow of energy between planes where the ley lines intersect, and prevent attunement to ley lines.

Control

Tar-Baphon and his forces controlled witchgates from a black pyramid within the Upper Crypts, the third sub-level beneath Gallowspire that served as a storage area for corpses.

Destruction

A witchgate can be destroyed through a difficult occult ritual that requires extensive knowledge of nature and planar theory, incense made from plants of the First World, and careful manipulation of the fabric of reality in order to access and unknot the affected ley lines.

Known witchgates

See also: Category:Witchgates

• Failfaith Gulch, in Ghorcha Pass
• Starving Mountain, located a mile beneath the Hungry Mountains
• Tolurro, a village in the Ebonwall Forest
• The Witherwill Copse of Witchgate Forest, where the witchgate corrupts the forest with evil emanations

References

Paizo published a major article on witchgates in Shadows of Gallowspire.