[What-If] A portal appears to Creation

[Sandact6]

One day while you're setting in your room a portal opens up in your house. Looking through the portal you can see that is a portal leading into a city of Creation. You are not sure where exactly in Creation, but you just somehow know. A voice in your head tells you that you have one hour to prepare. You then have an overwhelming feeling and knowledge that going into this portal is the best thing you can possibly do.

How do you prepare? What would you bring with you?

Also in case you ask "Does X work in Creation" or "Do I know X", then the answer is you don't know. Those are things you'll need to account for yourself.

[Boston123]

Why the hell would I want to go live in an Iron-to-Bronze-to-Stone Age crapsack of a world, where I am canonically on the bottom of the pecking order, any modern pieces of equipment or conveniences will run out, and where I am likely to die shitting myself to death from bad water within a couple of days?

No thanks. "best thing I can do" or not, I will stay right where I am, a world with antibiotics and pizza available just one phone call away.

[JohnDoe244]

Well, I'd grab my machete (good quality steel with a saw-back), mobile phone, solar charge bank, Leatherman and Swiss Army Knife.

Canteen, backpack, box matches, hand soap, toothbrush, woodwork tools, pencils, ream of paper, change of clothes, bottle of vodka. Just put the entire medicine box in the backpack.

Put on my hiking boots. Probably should grab some food and water. I'm going to take a compass. Definitely packing my cast iron skillet (delicious steaks and anti-Fair Folk).

Probably grab the ukulele rather than one of my guitars.

Leave a note for the family. Quick text to the boss.

Definitely going to bring my deluxe edition 3E corebook.

Multiple thousand year life-span plus the super-powers of the Sun? I'd gamble on that lottery ticket.

So much stuff that would be useful. I have an End of the World library filled with... everything. But I gotta carry this stuff.

I guess I would set up a printing press and start disseminating books of questionable first age lore. Try to attract Sidereal attention -- clue them in on the Great Curse. See where it goes from there.

[AnubisXy]

I guess I'd grab some basic supplies and go through the portal.

First thing I'd try and summon up a Second Circle demon (there's a bunch like Mara who have conditions that can be used to summon them). Then I'd convince them I know the secrets of Creation (well, I know a bunch anyway), and then I'd try to finangle my way into getting an Infernal Exaltation from one of the Yozi. After that, if a portal could open up between Earth and Creation one time, then it would be able to do it again, so I'd figure out how to re-open the portal and come back to Earth.

[thedonnie]

Cover up the portal so no flat-earthers can find it and think that they are right.

[hachiman]

I will jump thru immediately. Either i get Exalted and i make it or i dont and then die horribly from drinking the water or whatever else grimdark the fates can imagine. Taking tech or anything with seems pointless since the laws of physics are very different in Creation. So either i hit the Jackpot and die or just die.

[Jefepato]

The overwhelming feeling is lying to me. I won't go through the portal.

I know I'd spend the rest of my life feeling desperately curious about what might have happened if I crossed over, but I don't care. If I wanted to die of dysentery I'd play Oregon Trail.

The only way I'd willingly enter Creation like that, is if I somehow knew for certain that I would Exalt as a Solar or Lunar. And I'd only accept that deal because it should be entirely possible to get myself back home with a sorcerous working eventually.

And let's be real here: I would not Exalt as a Solar or Lunar. I'm not that impressive and I don't have the qualities or ambition of a hero.

[JohnDoe244]

I will jump thru immediately. Either i get Exalted and i make it or i dont and then die horribly from drinking the water or whatever else grimdark the fates can imagine. Taking tech or anything with seems pointless since the laws of physics are very different in Creation. So either i hit the Jackpot and die or just die.

I'm not sure that's a great idea.

Argument's sake. You plunge through a portal to another world and arrive just outside Nexus or better yet, Whitewall. The Unconquered Sun looks down and says "What a brave explorer! Eclipse Caste!" You Exalt immediately on the spot. The Wyld Hunt is relatively weak out here, you're far enough from the city to wait out your anima dying down but close enough to make it in by nightfall.

Let's say, again for arguments sake, you get 15 charms just on the spot, no training.

How many Abilities do you have above 2?
How are your new Charms going to pay the bills? You may be Exalted but you still need food and shelter. And sleep.

Do you speak Airtongue? Or Riverspeak? I mean, absolutely best case, you've got the Linguistics dots to buy a translation Charm. (I guess there's an outside chance that Riverspeak is English -- they have kinda similar origins.)

Solars die in Creation.

The dream scenario would be something like month to prepare so you can get some silver coinage, buy a horse and what-not. And even then you have a serious risk of death even if you Exalt immediately. You want to do some kind of prep.

I guess I'd grab some basic supplies and go through the portal.

First thing I'd try and summon up a Second Circle demon (there's a bunch like Mara who have conditions that can be used to summon them). Then I'd convince them I know the secrets of Creation (well, I know a bunch anyway), and then I'd try to finangle my way into getting an Infernal Exaltation from one of the Yozi. After that, if a portal could open up between Earth and Creation one time, then it would be able to do it again, so I'd figure out how to re-open the portal and come back to Earth.

That is a pretty good plan.

****

Here's one. You get the overwhelming feeling going through the portal is the best thing you can do. But you don't want to die of dysentery and you like having pizza delivered to your door. You sit down in front of the TV and try to make the feeling go away. All the channels show the same thing -- an emergency news broadcast. An asteroid is about to hit the Earth, Russia has fired its entire nuclear arsenal at your country, coronavirus victims are now rising as zombies, bird flu is back, an enormous dragon has just swallowed the moon, Trump has had the election results overturned and is President again (if you like Trump, his first Presidential order is that everyone evacuate the Earth; if you hate Trump then he's saying the giant asteroid which is visible to the naked eye is fake news; if you're neutral on Trump then he says both), the leader of an alien fleet of space ships has announced that all our bases are now under their control and we should "make our time", and the Genshin Impact, Netflix and Disney Plus servers are down. In one hours time, the Earth will be destroyed. Your only chance is to escape to Creation.

Now what?

[hachiman]

I'm not sure that's a great idea.

Argument's sake. You plunge through a portal to another world and arrive just outside Nexus or better yet, Whitewall. The Unconquered Sun looks down and says "What a brave explorer! Eclipse Caste!" You Exalt immediately on the spot. The Wyld Hunt is relatively weak out here, you're far enough from the city to wait out your anima dying down but close enough to make it in by nightfall.

Let's say, again for arguments sake, you get 15 charms just on the spot, no training.

How many Abilities do you have above 2?
How are your new Charms going to pay the bills? You may be Exalted but you still need food and shelter. And sleep.

Do you speak Airtongue? Or Riverspeak? I mean, absolutely best case, you've got the Linguistics dots to buy a translation Charm. (I guess there's an outside chance that Riverspeak is English -- they have kinda similar origins.)

Solars die in Creation.

It's a gamble sure, and it's more about my reaction to that scenario than what would be optimal game theory. If i am exalted, hopefully Solar or Lunar, my excellencies and basic charm load out should see me thru with some subtlety and care. If i dont get exalted, welp that's all she wrote, i'll be dead in days. But i'm willing to take that gamble.

[Boston123]

After thinking about it for a few days, I suppose if I had to jump through a portal into a shithole, I would first start by grabbing my 1750s reenacting gear.

You can't go wrong with wool and linen. Linen shirt, woolen waistcoat, woolen coat, woolen breeches, woolen stockings, woolen leggings, leather moccasins. Add in some hats (slouch-hat for the sun, knit-hat for the cold), some mittens and a matchcoat (a woolen blanket made to wear as a cloak), and I will be good pretty much anywhere in Creation other than the depths of the South. Best yet, everything is capable of being mended or outright replaced with stuff found in Creation, unlike modern gear

Camping equipment? Some more woolen blankets, another linen shirt and pair of woolen stockings, a wooden bowl and spoon. A brass kettle is going to be much lighter than a cast-iron pot. My gourd-canteen is essentially foolproof. A couple knives and 2 axes (a forest axe and a tomahawk) round out tools.

Other equipment? Some flint-and-steel as firestarting equipment. A length of hemp rope. Some whiskey or brandy, I suppose, maybe even some Everclear. An entire modern First Aid Kit dumped into a sack, along with a big ol' bottle of Doxycyline and several tubes of Triple Antibiotic Cream. Most of a medicine-cabinet, ranging from painkillers to stool-softeners to anti-diarrheals and more. Plenty of sugar, salt, tea, maybe some spices if you wanna get frisky. At least 2-3 pounds-worth of flour, or failing that parched nocake (hominy corn). Beans and peas.

In my opinion, if you aren't taking a gun, you are doin' it wrong. Why would I (unless I Exalted, which is far from a guarantee), a soft doughy-ass modern city-dweller, want to fight in melee if I had any other option? Even a modern cartridge-based firearm would be worth its weight in gold, at least until the bullets ran out and the gun becomes dead-weight. Myself?

Im bringin' my musket.

Unlike modern firearms, every part of a musket is capable of being manufactured in Creation. I can get spare parts from effectively any competent Blacksmith in Creation, and the gun itself is stupid simple, just a couple of flat-springs that can be removed using tools I carry in my shooting bag. Just 3 lbs of lead is 60 shots, and I can carry tools to make more of the lead that is presumably well-known in any civilized part of Creation. 1 lb of blackpowder is a little under 100 shots in my gun, and I can carry multiple pounds...... and given a close reading of the "Harbor Cannon" in Arms of the Chosen, Firedust works the same way Blackpowder does, which is amusing. (Black powder burns, it doesn't explode like modern smokeless powder).

The 20 gauge smoothbore musket was used to kill everything on the North American continent, from mice to men to moose, so I am confident it could handle most appropriately-sized things in Creation. I would love to have a pistol to match the musket, as a backup, but I don't own one IRL (looking for one, though!)

[Erinys]

If I could pull off AnubisXY's plan, I would try it. But I'd want to be prepared to survive in the meantime ... with things I don't own nor know how to use, like the stuff on Boston123's list.

Does boiling water even work to make it safe in Creation? If diseases are caused by plague gods instead of microbes, who knows how to stop them?

[Erinys]

JohnDoe, if the Earth was going to blow up then yes I'd go through the portal, but I wouldn't expect to survive.



Here's a different scenario:
A portal opens to Creation. You know for certain that you almost certainly won't exalt, but you also know with absolute certainty that when you die you'll reincarnate as a Sidereal, with fully intact memories of this (your previous) mortal life.
Now would you go through?

[Boston123]

If I could pull off AnubisXY's plan, I would try it. But I'd want to be prepared to survive in the meantime ... with things I don't own nor know how to use, like the stuff on Boston123's list.

Does boiling water even work to make it safe in Creation? If diseases are caused by plague gods instead of microbes, who knows how to stop them?

IIRC, the general consensus-es in 3E is that:

1. Unless specifically noted otherwise, reality in Creation works the same as in real life.
2. Keeping in mind the above, Gods don't necessarily control "their thing" to the same degree as in earlier Editions. A river floods because rivers sometimes flood, not just because a bunch of gods decided to be shitty that day

[Baaldam]

Honestly, no freaking idea whatsoever - but half-tempted to announce and sell the "opportunity" to flat-earthers just to see what comes out of it, while making some fast bucks in the process.

(Rakan Thulio is going to either love or hate me with the caustic rage of a hundred green suns for that, i guess)

[Accelerator]

First of all, grab a few dozen books on things like mechanical weaving and automation and bring it to the other side. Maybe some physical laws don't work, but factories work, so do clockworks. At the very least they can have some more clothes.