Rift-Gates¶
"Using a Rift-Stone or a Rift-Gate can be dangerous if you are not already familiar with it, as many gates lead essentially to prisons or other inescapable or deadly situations." — Lore - The Rift (S017)
Rift-Gates are the powered portals that join the Material Plane to the Rift, and one rift island or fold to another. Lesser kin share the name and the work: Rift-Stones, the broken or cheap remains of gates; warp-stones, which move a gate's far end; and Jumpstones, which leap within one rift. Around them grew the travel gear of the Rift's people, made chiefly by the Guhvils.
Rift-Gates¶
The gates are possible because the Rift is a wound: the decay of the Mithis Astral Shard "has caused the shard-space to merge with the Shadow Realm and punctured holes directly through to the Material, allowing for Rift-gates directly from the Material to the Rift" (S001). A Rift-Gate is "a stable portal between the rift and other planes" (S050), and "a fully operational and powered gate that anyone can use. It is point to point. There were more of these, but many have been destroyed ... leaving them as Rift-Stones. Some Rift-Gates have been 'locked' with wards, making them one-directional to those that cannot pass the wards" (S017; also S002, S009).
Gates also join the Rift's separate folds, which "cannot be navigated to except through fissures (and powerful Rift-Gates)". A new fold can be found only from the Material when a natural fissure opens; "once inside, however, gates between known folds can be created using Rift-Gates construction" (S017). Warlocks, Demons and the Riftborn use gates and stones, or flight, to move between islands (S017).
Rift-Stones¶
"Either the remains of Rift-Gates or a cheap and lazy version of a gate, Rift-Stones require power and knowledge to operate. They are also point to point and the stones must have been attuned together at some point. Moving them considerably away from their original creation locations will make their link no longer operate (its internal coordinates will be off)" (S017; also S002, S009).
Warp-stones¶
A warp-stone "alters the gate's location": in the last outline of the Into the Rift mini-campaign, a Rift-Gate to the Cave of Uiren is made at a tower "using a warp-stone ... controlled by studious, weak, human wizard" (S011).
Gates in the Proturan Campaign¶
Gates are the arteries of the Rift's trade, and their loss strands whole towns. Urdhar was "once an important trade node through several gates to a Wood Elven realm in the far east (now deactivated)". When the elves on the far side were destroyed, so was the settlement of Orchard; Edgemark fared better because "it's gate on the far side was destroyed, stopping the enemy's forces from getting through" (S050; also S045, S046, S048, S049). The old gate at Urdhar lies outside the stabilizers' radius by the docks, and the townsfolk speak of those who vanish as "taking the gate", a one-way trip (S049).
The Proturan party's road to the Etterwood ran through gates. "A tower in Etterdun has a secret rift-gate to a DIFFERENT fold. It is TWO-WAY. Operated by Eksuru's agents", and beyond it lay a ruined Lorsythian outpost "where the rift-gate has been repaired", matched by a repaired gate on the far side in a cave held by Kobolds (S052). The agents were Eksuru's; what came of the crossing is told in the Proturan Campaign chronicle.
Travel in the Rift¶
The Rift is hard on bodies, and those who travel it carry the Guhvils' answers. In the rules notes, crossing by gate, jump or shunt strains whatever passes through ("Molecular Disorder"), and staying too long without proper food brings Rift Sickness, which cannot be cured until the traveller has spent time back on the Material (S050). The Rift's own hazards are described on the Rift.
Jumpstones¶
"An enchanted fixed object (usually a large stone), which can be activated to jump to another fixed location in the same rift" (S050; also S045, S046, S048, S049). At Urdhar the town is "supplied via Jumpstone" to Edgemark, and an upper Jumpstone leads to the ruins (S050).
Jumpers¶
"Bracers (Guhvil origin) that allow blink like capabilities only in the Rift." They take skill to master, wear on their user, will not work inside a stabilizer's radius, and are dangerous near a gate: "jumping near a full rift-gate will suck you in" (S050).
Temporal Stabilizers¶
The devices that make the Rift's towns possible. A stabilizer "allows normal people to live in the Rift. Normals must spend at least 10 hours a day inside the radius to not get Rift-Sickness. Jumpers don't work here. Temporal Stabilizers also won't work near an active Rift-Gate. Rift-Dirigibles can't fly near stabilizers as gravity is higher (near normal)" (S050). Urdhar has one at the castle and one in the town (S050).
Gutblock Potions¶
"A potion taken to delay the onset of RIFT SICKNESS. It makes it take 2 days to get RIFT SICKNESS. However, it blocks the effects of any other potion or elixir for its duration. It also leads to really bad constipation" (S050). Once the sickness has set in, more potions do nothing. The expedition Malathar's steward Perithus led into the Etterwood carried fifty of them (S052).
Fissures¶
Not every way into the Rift is a made gate. In the opening of Into the Rift, Guhvil warlocks hold open a fissure with red metallic orbs, and a Verimagus sorcerer keeps a stable fissure in stasis in the Fissure Chamber of his tower, "a circle of pillars over a deep crevasse in the earth", where "fissures disassociate on contact with the 'earth' in the Rift" (S006). Fissures themselves belong to the Rift; the mini-campaign is told in Into the Rift.
Gap
No source says who built the first Rift-Gates, how one is powered or made, or how many still work. The Guhvils are credited with the Jumpers only; who makes the stabilizers and the potions is not said.