The Worlds of Katherine Kurtz

I've wondered why no mention has ever been made of the mundane uses tranfer portals could be put to.  An ecclesiastical portal network kep monasteries, churches and Michaeline outposts held together in a what seems to be little used network of communication.  In Camber of Culdi the Michailines hide all their knights and supply them using portals, so it sems obvious that a fair amount of material CAN go through a portal.

Camber used portals most often to keep in contact with his family and act on issues of the Camberian Council.  He even discoverd old hidden portals to good effect.

But consider the following, and you may want to use Google maps and get directions from Paris France to Istanbul, Turkey.  I could mention 11 Kingdoms names, but using Google I can use the trade routes information from Wikipedia and it makes more sense.

Paris to Istanbul is between 2800 and 2900 km, or about 1800 miles give or take.  In the medieval period it was journey on horseback of months. 

Now suppose an enterprising group of Deryni began from their homes outside Paris and travelled across Europe.  Every 50 to 100 miles they find a family with an unused room in the basement, or have a shed built, or do something that lets me finish this example.  And they take out their Wards Major Cubes and they build a transfer portal.  It can be done, it has been done in the books several times.  So now there is a matrix that they have the coordinates to.

They carry on east, and using 50 miels as a conservative benchmark they build 40 portals across Europe.  Once they get to Istanbul they buy pepper, cloves, butmeg, saffron and silk, taking advantage of the trade center that is Istanbul at the time (Constantinople actually, but Istanbul on Googlemaps).

So if they buy 50 pounds of spices they then begin to go home.  Let's assume four jumps a day to make it easy and not a strain, although more jumps per day are almost certainly possible.

At 4 jumps a day that is 200 miles per day travel, and they get back to Paris in 10 days.  Pepper in the medieval times sold for its weight in gold, cloves and nutmeg and the spice trade in general started wars to see who had control of the profits.

A short jaunt north from Nuremburg to Berlin is 300 miles, and they could tie in the amber trade as well.  Frankincense, 'the breath of God' was the source of huge trade and income, hauled from Egypt all over the known world.  It could be moved without tolls, tariffs or taxes.

Geeky post, but teleportation always offers a means of smuggling and escape (as used in KK's works), information transfer, and making money. 

Convert this to the 11 Kingdoms and there may be stories of a Deryni smuggler underground network that funds itself selling incense to the very church that hates them so much.

Such a network could also be used for illegal trade too.  Drug smugglers could use a portal network to transport/distribute drugs to many areas.  And until the authorities catch on and devise ways to cut off this network, the smugglers could make an incredible amount of money.

This is true, and I left out the Opium trade.  Smuggling of anything can be very profitable. 

Now the network would be vulnerable to severing, since each portal would only be within range of two other portals, the one east of it, and the one west of it.  So as a smuggler's route it is easy to get cut.  Alternate pathways coul be built in different locations, paid for by a single successful run.

I figure a Deryni could carry 50 pounds of material in a backpack.  Think of the value of 50 pounds of anything illegal and expensive. 

Not saying that this isn't a valid point of discussion (please, discuss away.  Have fun with it!), but as KK herself said in Deryni Magic (referring to Jewish people), "absence of proof is not proof of absence."

We haven't spent a lot of time in the Deryni world with the merchant class, and the few merchants we've seen were not Deryni.  That is, of course, not to say that there are no Deryni merchants; I should think there would have to be some, somewhere.

So who's to say that Deryni merchants or non-Deryni merchants who aren't afraid of Deryni don't use Transfer Portals to transport their goods?  There's just no telling.

it's partly an interesting intellectual excercise in what one could do with teleportation.  Jump disc and teleport booths of Larry Niven, Jumper by Steven Gould.

As for Deryni, any survivor who could make a Portal would (in my fanfic efforts at least), have a safe room with a portal, and the knowledge of at least 2 portals to escape to, one being a friend's house, and the other a small shack on the Moors as a last ditch getaway. If an angry mob comes calling, blip, out the sideways door and be 20 or 30 miles away in the hills.

As for not being in trade.  They do not have to be the face of the organization, they are the batteries or engines of it.  They carry the material for the merchants.  Certainly they might rise to mercantile power by not carrying anything on any but their own networks.  Any Deryni can use their power to operate a portal from what I understand, even if they do not know how to make one, they could still make a fortune carrying small amounts of material.

A pound of pepper used to be worth a weeks wages in Roman times, and swapped weight for weight in gold in medieval times.  So if a Deryni got to carry material for a network, and made the 40 jump trip in 10 days, that is a years wages in Roman times.

Swap the concept for the drug smuggling mentioned by Derynifanatic64 and the North South trade in cocaine and you have millions of dollars that could be moved from basement to basement per day.  I cannot think of an illegal drug from Medieval times, so I jumped to present day. 

I just find the idea interesting, and thought I would share with the class.  :)

It's not smuggling of goods, or carried out on a huge scale, or done for profit, but I used Transfer Portals to establish an "Underground Railroad" sort of evacuation route in my story "The Least of These", about Deryni fleeing persecution during the time of the Custodes Fidei and a human family who aided in that effort.

There's a more fundamental point, though: are these "beam me up Scotty" mechanicals or "special intercession" I-made-it-so-I-can-bend-My-own-Laws divine gifts? The consacration rite for a portal suggests the second. And if so, then it explains why there is no trade usage - moneychangers-in-the-temple not being something the Divine encourages, not to mention refusing to work through those who have not seriously cleansed themselves in repentant confession first. That's why the rite isn't a million miles away from warding, both adjust the boundaries of space-time to obstruct the unauthorised. What might be interesting is to discover exactly what they're warding against: if you invoke the Archangels or higher Powers, then does it attract the infernal? Is Helena about to be visited by a succubus? Another area to investigate is what would happen if the Archangels were invoked in the wrong places? Nothing? St Michael ordering matters, flaming sword in hand?

Quote from: Rahere on November 12, 2011, 07:49:20 PM
What might be interesting is to discover exactly what they're warding against: if you invoke the Archangels or higher Powers, then does it attract the infernal? Is Helena about to be visited by a succubus?

Say-what-HUH???  Helena wasn't even mentioned in this thread, so what exactly is it that you're on about here?  I iz a confuzzled kitteh!   :D

QuoteThere's a more fundamental point, though: are these "beam me up Scotty" mechanicals or "special intercession" I-made-it-so-I-can-bend-My-own-Laws divine gifts? The consacration rite for a portal suggests the second. And if so, then it explains why there is no trade usage - moneychangers-in-the-temple not being something the Divine encourages, not to mention refusing to work through those who have not seriously cleansed themselves in repentant confession first.

Unless I've missed something in your theory, there seems to be one fatal flaw in your proposal:  the events in KK's novels themselves don't seem to bear it out.  It's not only the Deryni bent on good and noble purposes who are able to utilize the Transfer Portals.  Charissa uses one (the one in the sealed off chamber that later becomes the Royal Library Annex) in order to secretly gain access to Rhemuth Castle when she is plotting against Kelson, and later on, Wencit of Torenth (or was it one of his henchmen?  At any rate, not exactly someone with altruistic intent!) uses the Portal that Denis Arilan built in order to snatch little Brendan away from his mother Richenda.  So unless you're arguing that perhaps these uses were somehow allowed by the Divine in order to aid in some Higher Purpose that Our Noble Heroes on the Side of Light missed completely in their non-omniscience, then I don't think the theory holds much water.  And even if one argues that point, then that still leaves open the possibility that the Divine might allow smugglers to misuse a consecrated Portal for some time, if their use of it ultimately ends up serving some higher purpose.   :)

Personally, I think the warding of the Portal area during the creation of one is more of a protective measure against the massive upswelling of power involved in that creation process inadvertently becoming uncontained and injuring bystanders.  But once the Portal is fully created, I think it becomes essentially neutral, like fire (able to be used for good purposes, bad ones, or purposes that have no particular moral alignment) or, for that matter, like Deryni powers.  And just like someone with a divinely bestowed gift or talent can certainly choose to misuse it for selfish ends, I suspect the same thing holds true for items crafted by the use of Deryni powers, such as Portals, Ward Cubes, etc.

Agree that there is nothing in the novels to suggest that there is any sort of "Divine" purpose or aspect to the creation or use of transfer portals.    Indeed, I would argue the contrary: as Alaric eloquently explains to Dhugal in TBH (using the example of conjuring fire), the Deryni powers themselves are neither good nor evil.  It is the use to which those powers are put which is the issue.   In the case of objects created using those powers, such as portals, the analogy still holds.  The object itself is neutral, but it can be used for good / bad / neutral purposes.  

And whatever the relevant thread, for the life of me I just cannot see anything in Evie's current story which would indicate that Helena has been, or is about to be, visited by a succubus!  If you want one of those, you will need to go read her story "Possessed"  :)

I personally do a lot of gaming. And my homebrew game world has had Deryni in them long before the Deryni RPG ever came out and back to the point where the Deryni were written up in a Dragon Magazine article for the 1st Edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. In my game world of Teara Adan, the Deryni are very well known and not a repressed race at all, unlike how  they are in the 11 Kingdoms. In Teara Adan, the Deryni are merchants, craftsman and rulers along side their human and a few other races.

Teara Adan does indeed have several Transfer Portal networks. There is the Ecclesiastical network, used by the Holy Church. These Portals are in Churches and monasteries the same way they are found in the 11 Kingdoms. There are also private portals as well, used by families and closed to outsiders, just as we find many of these in the 11 Kingdoms. Then Teara Adan also has "public portals". These are located generally within a city square someplace and are accessible to anyone who wishes to learn the coordinates of the portal. Used for trade, travel and whatever the user wishes. In Teara Adan it is customary to drop a few coins when departing from a portal and when you arrive at the destination portal (for the public ones). An honor system and not really a tax or fee to use the portal, just a gesture of goodwill for having one built in the area.

Ahh Dragon #68, Introduction to the Deryni, and the first Psionicist as a class writeup.  I still have that issue.

Teleportation has been a long time standard method of moving plot from setep A to B.  In a world as rickly detailed as KK's, you can start looking at what happens when scenarios.

Information.  10 days to have news in person from 2000 miles away, battles, storms, lost ships.

Telepathic long distance communication could mean real time diplomacy.

Or you have 40 Deryni working one in every portal location.  Portal 1 jumps to portal 2 and hands over the mail bag and delivers anything bound to portal 2 area over to local works.  Portal 2 person jumps to portal 3 and repeats the action.

You can have a letter hand delivered in 3 hours across 2000 miles.  Any mail going back is handled the same way, and each person only jumps twice a day.  So with careful planning, and jumping only when the next person in line hands over the goods, you can get from one end to another in a day.

Even humans can get paid to do this.  They can be used as power sources for Deryni.  So the network could be used several times to move more goods and services up and down the linkages.

Your scenario about the mail service is fine, except that it does seem to require a LOT of Deryni, all basically standing by to make it work 'whenever'.  :D    And if I have read the books correctly, the Deryni were not very numerous anyway, even in their heyday.  Although they are more numerous in Torenth and some other kingdoms, they are still only a very small proportion of the general population.  In one of the books (forget which), it is pointed out that because a number of the ruling families happen to have Deryni blood, their influence has always been a little disproportionate to their actual numbers anyway, and after 200 years of persecutions and killings, it will take quite a while for Deryni numbers to get back to anything like they were even in Camber's day.   

There is such a lot of lingering suspicion, fear and often hatred of the Deryni that it is going to be very much a case of "hasten slowly" in Gwynedd and related kingdoms, so I suspect that a network of public transfer portals will be a long, long way off yet.  Don't forget that if "anyone" can use them, what is to stop an invasion force using them and moving troops through to take over key locations very quickly?  Bring troops through to sympathetic private portals, plus take over a few key public ones - I don't know that the Eleven Kingdoms are ready for that concept just yet!

You can see the value of a public network for trade, but there could be some interesting issues about fair competition.  If your normal human merchants have to take their goods by land or sea in a lengthy and costly process (exposed to dangers on the way), but Deryni can move them 'instantly' via a TP network, then you can just see the complaints arising because the Deryni merchants have an instant cost advantage.   That is not going to do human - Deryni relations much good, as you would quickly get a very disgruntled human merchant class.  It would of course be open to enterprising Deryni to set themselves up as shipping agents for human traders, but the humans would have to pay for the service, once again putting them at a disadvantage to Deryni in the same business who can use private portals freely.

The same would go for smuggled goods.   There'll always be humans attempting to smuggle goods and evade taxes, but at least they are operating on a 'fair' human/human basis and taking the risks.  If there's a suspicion that there is a Deryni smuggling network going on - well, apart from any ruling Deryni landholders not wanting to lose income, you are also going to get that natural human jealousy.   It's a fairly short step from jealousy to stirring up trouble and re-igniting old hatreds ...   (An out of pocket Deryni ruler chasing Deryni smugglers might be interesting fanfic fodder!!)

I'm sure there already are various Deryni merchants and craftsmen in the Eleven Kingdoms, but certainly they would be few and far between in Gwynedd these days (and very well hidden) and they would take great care to do business in a normal human way so as not to arouse any sort of suspicion.   The society in Bynw's gaming world is obviously very different to that in KK's Eleven Kingdoms Deryni world, so that a public TP network would not have the same issues as would potentially face it in Gwynedd, etc.

Real-time diplomacy? A contradiciton in terms, having observed the real thing in action.
What happens is somebody has an idea and runs it up the flagpole in one of the international sherpa forums.
It gets noted by the other sherpas who pass it on to their ministries after the meeting. They've gone home by then so it's tackled the next morning.
The reply has to be typed and approved, so that takes all day, and gets sent back the next day, by which time the original bod is in the next meeting and doesn't see it until that night. He discovers the reviewer hasn't grasped the original point, wanting to twist it for the purposes of his own internal policy ambitions, and has to refer it back again for clarification. The cycle repeats, but by that time the sherpa's had fresh instructions for the next meeting which cut across the reply and so by the time the next conflab happens a week later all they've done is add confusion. Multiply that by however many nations are involved and you have a recipe for fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Alkar:  The number of Deryni needed to make this work would be 1 per 50 miles, or 1 per 200 miles if you jumped 4 times in 1 day. So 40 Deryni or 10 Deryni.  Since any Deryni can use a portal (since a Deryni can provide the power to the portal), they can even use humans as batteries as I mentioned.  In the Camber series there were a lot of Deryni families.  Arranging a house and such in Camberian times would be far easier than the later series I grant you.  As I said before in the thread, this is just a mental excercise in looking at what is possible with portals, and making a portal network in a long line rather than a web.

As for the number of Deryni around, I thought the Michaelines had high numbers of Deryni, and all the courtier families prior to Camber the Heretic were Deryni families.  Get the second and third sons to carry stuff for a tenday and make a years pay.  ASk commoner Deryni to man the portals if the nobles are too refined to actually carry something.

Heck you could make a portal with half a dozen Deryni, if I recall Deryni Magic Camber made have done it solo, possibly using Guairre as a human battery. (sadly I cannot find my copy right now, so if somone could fact check that for me.)

You could make portals in odd locations, old ruins, caves, shacks out on the moors etc.  So in the end, worst case scenario.  You have six Deryni who know the locations of 40 oddly located portals who use it to make a lot of money for themselves.

As for competition complaints, yup, probably be a lot if people knew about it.  That's sort of the point of the whole thread, using the teleportaion concept as more than a trope to move plot, it BECOMES a plot issue.
Would humans want to/be willing to be drained by Deryni to move their own goods along the network?  Are governents going to want to have a system of portals that can bypass tolls and move troops across their borders unchecked? Will merchants fight to make caravan carried goods get tax breaks?  Spice caravan camels could carry 500 - 1000 pounds per camel, and a single driver could ride one and lead 6, so 3 tons per man got moved. You would bneed a lot of men to carry that much through a portal.  So bulk carrying may be beyond the capability.  Which is why I focused on high value items. If a pond of spice is worth a weeks pay... I'd carry 50 pounds of it and make a yearts pay in a week and a half.  Do it once a month, I will even pay taxes.

So do merchants get stuck carrying the bulk comodities and the slower bulk spices, and miss out on the prime deals of "first in port".  Will they ahte teh Deryni for it?  Probably.  I just think it is a cool idea, it does not necessarily have to be a magic wand solution for all Deyni problems.  But  a story could be written (and I am geeking out writing a fanfic one myself).  Of the growth of a private network, and what they do to make money, protect themselves, their secret, and  fight for what they think is right.

Oh, it would certainly be "possible".   I was just tossing up some of the very real practical and political issues that would undoubtedly arise, and as I said, even in Camber's time, we know that the Deryni families weren't numerous in comparison to the rest of the population.

The other main aspect is the actual construction, and the training and energy that are required.  It is not a simple matter, nor something that would be taught in your basic Deryni Skills years 1-5  :)     Quote from Deryni Magic:-
Given the technical skill and energy output required to construct a Transfer Portal, we can surmise that Portals probably were never really numerous, even at the height of Deryni ascendancy.  We do know that an ecclesiastical Portal network existed, at least amnog the religious houses with Deryni members, but we have no indication of the size of this network.  In any case, it seems to have been in decline even by the time of Camber.

Perhaps your smuggling network would be more likely to use existing portals, the participants finding convenient excuses to be there in the various locations at set times, or at least having reasons to be there if discovered.  What about a corrupt priest or bishop?  ;)   One who had a hankering for the finer things in life and wasn't above taking a cut of any proceeds by letting certain high value items come through - or decided it was a good way of getting some financial support for various charitable works.  "My son, I will indeed look the other way once a month, but you will need to make a large donation to St Simon's Home for those of Unsound Mind each time.  Just leave it in the black chest."    Could even be an active part of the network himself :)  If you have a portal network in cathedrals, I'm sure there could be a blackmarket in cheap but excellent Church wines, not to mention gold, incense, spices to liven those boring meals, etc.

Well finding 40 homes of Deryni with portals and going into business with them would be an excellent way of getting across country.  There is no reason the Church itself could not go into business, bring back Frankincense  to burn for their own uses, and sell spices to others to get money.

The taking 'donations' is another excellent example of how such a thing could be done. 

As I said, this is just looking at the portals with an eye to using them for a different purpose than what KK used them for originally.  And given the profits we are talking about, even if it were incredibly difficult and took a couple of years to make, using a single team of people that DID know the ritual, it would be worth it for all those involved.  If the profit is high enough, a group of interested parties will find a way.  Heck the drug smugglers built a submarine in South America, why? because it was worth it to do so.

The group that DID make a portal network would be in possession of a very profitable source of money and information, and would access to the entire continents resources for trade, and people for knowledge, art, science, everything.  Would that also cause problems, heck yeah! I bet KK could write a book's worth, maybe three, since she writes in trilogies.  :P

Quote from: MerchantDeryni on November 14, 2011, 12:06:34 AM
  I just think it is a cool idea, it does not necessarily have to be a magic wand solution for all Deyni problems.  But  a story could be written (and I am geeking out writing a fanfic one myself).  Of the growth of a private network, and what they do to make money, protect themselves, their secret, and  fight for what they think is right.

Potential fanfic writer, hm?  *happy dance*  Welcome to the Forum!   :D

Quote
Now suppose an enterprising group of Deryni began from their homes outside Paris and travelled across Europe.  Every 50 to 100 miles they find a family with an unused room in the basement, or have a shed built, or do something that lets me finish this example.  And they take out their Wards Major Cubes and they build a transfer portal.  It can be done, it has been done in the books several times.  So now there is a matrix that they have the coordinates to.

They carry on east, and using 50 miels as a conservative benchmark they build 40 portals across Europe.

You know, I don't think you'd need quite that many Transfer Portals.  In KKB, Kelson's party is able to evacuate Araxie, etc., from the Hort of Orsal's palace straight to Rhemuth, and looking at the Kingdoms map from the RPG (which is the only one I'm aware of with a handy mileage scale on it), that's a distance of at least 300 miles as the crow flies, I'm estimating.  (Have to estimate because I'm viewing the map on my notebook computer, with too small a screen to view the whole map at once, and I don't have a ruler handy, but it looks like at least that distance to me.)  So why build six Portals to cross that distance if it's already been shown that one will suffice?  (Unless, of course, you simply want some closer together for other purposes, such as having a handy one in Desse and one in Concaradine, and one in Nyford, and one in Insert-Your-Favorite-Port-Town here....)  In Sunday chat, I think KK confirmed fairly recently (i.e. in the past few months) that distance as well as the individual Deryni's level of training and experience with Portal travel can all affect difficulty of portal travel, but since our heroes were able to stage that evacuation without suffering undue exhaustion, I would assume the maximum range of Portal travel has probably got to be even farther than 300 miles.  A 500 mile range might even be possible, given enough focus, concentration, energy levels, experience, etc.  At any rate, if you're wanting to pursue this idea, you might want to search through the KK Chat transcripts to see if you can unearth that discussion.  It might be impossible or unlikely for anyone to take a Transfer Portal straight from Rhemuth to Byzantyun, but from Rhemuth to Beldour might be achievable.  Teymuraz definitely Portaled in from somewhere, so unless he slipped in from some much closer Portal we don't know about (and while we know he had an ally in Autun, that's really not any closer), the ability to do longer range Portaling than every 50 miles certainly seems likely.

This thread reminded me of a post I made in the comments section of one of my early story chapters ("The Demoiselle and Derry", Chapter Seven, page 3 of the comments), but since it's relevant to MerchantDeryni's musings, I'll repost it here in case it might prove helpful for plot-bunny development purposes:

Quote

QuoteQuote from: Alkari on August 12, 2010, 04:27:03 pm
Just checked Deryni Magic, and it says: "Given the technical skill and energy output required to construct a Transfer Portal, we can surmise that Portals were probably never really numerous, even at the height of Deryni ascendancy."

And there would be extremely valid reasons for this which would have as much to do with the number of Deryni in general who would have access to training as anything else.  OK, let's take a look at it this way.

Gwynedd in the time period of the books covers the 900s to the early 1100s, yes?  OK, so just to look at what population figures would be like for the Kingdom during this time, let's do a comparison with England of 1066.  It's roughly analogous in terms of type of society plus ease of finding stats on the Internet about that year.

So....Estimated population of London in 1066 seems to vary widely, but most seem to fall between 10,000 and 50,000.  I would imagine this would be comparable to Rhemuth, so for the sake of comparison, let's say 50,000.  That's a huge city in an era when the average major city would have at most 500-1000, and most villages would have a few hundred at most.  I've been looking at some manorial records lately for knights' lands (comparable to Chervignon) where the entire manorial estate--including the village, would be closer to 25 to 50 persons, if that.  It's an agrarian society, so the population centers are very spread out, and centered around locations ideally situated for water supply and defense.

OK, if Rhemuth has 50,000 (and that's the high estimate), Coroth would probably be, due to its location, the only comparable sized port city.  IF it is comparably sized, but let's assume it is.  So that's 100,000 people accounted for so far.  But of course, most people would live outside these towns, so looking at estimates for the population throughout England during this time period, they tend to fall between 1.25 and 2 million for the entire kingdom.  Let's call it 2 million to make the math easier.

Of these 2 million, most would fall under the "Third Estate"--i.e., the peasantry.  The small remainder would be clergy and nobility/royalty.  Only these far smaller segments of the population could afford the time and the possible expense of full Deryni training.  (That is to say, even if the Scholae don't charge, you'd still have living expenses, travel expenses, etc.  Your average peasant Deryni would be working dawn to dusk, leaving little time to learn formal Deryni training even if this were permitted.  They would probably only have the most rudimentary abilities like Truth-Reading, handfire, and what the common folk would think of as "hill magic.")  So what percentage of the population would have easier access (such as it ever was "easy") to specialized training?  Maybe 5% at most.  So 5% of 2 million brings us down to 100,000 individuals who are clergy, landed knights, barons, earls, dukes or royals.  I doubt adding in the very few wealthy non-landeds wouldn't inflate this figure too much, if at all, so let's add them in too.

OK, out of all of these, you have a population which has an extremely rare genetic trait in common.  I'm going to guess this is roughly 1% of the population.  That's rare but not unheard-of rare.  My personality type happens to also occur in this percentage to the general population, so I know several people who share it, but not a heck of a whole lot.  So, of the Deryni in Gwynedd theoretically in a position to get proper training, that brings us down to...1000.

Personally, I wonder if that figure might not be a little bit high, but then again, that would be clumped in a smaller number of families who carry the trait.  So assuming a generation in which at least one parent and all children surviving to adulthood are Deryni, I'll guess in any given year you might have an average of 5 members of a household with the trait.  Some would have fewer and some more, of course, but that makes 200 households total.

Some of these, of course, don't even know they're Deryni.  Of those who do, some are afraid to pursue training, or can't take the time away from Gwynedd to seek it elsewhere, so in modern-day Gwynedd there'd maybe be 50 to 100 households at maximum that might be able to send someone to get the training needed to create a Transfer Portal.  And not all would, of  course.  Some simply don't have need for one.  (You have to know at least one other location to go to, and have a need to go there frequently enough to justify going through the trouble of making an easy access to it.)  Some could certainly use one, but the risks of having something that says "Deryni live here" outweigh the advantages of one.  Or to have one built, if they don't know how themselves, they'd have to have someone with the required training have free access to their home.  Even in peacetime, most people would be uncomfortable with handing just anyone the psychic equivalent of a housekey, but for most of Deryni history, they've been in what is essentially a war of sorts.  A Cold War, if not outright fighting for their lives.

Since all of these numbers were rounded up, I actually think the true number of Deryni in the trainable population is lower.  So at most, there might have been, at one time, 40 to 50 private homes with TPs installed.  Ever.  And you'd have to have the skill and energy output AND enough motivation to make the effort worthwhile.  But none of that negates the fact that this also means at least that many people could, at least in theory, have had access to the training at one time, or have had access to at least one person with that training, and would also have access to a few willing friends (or household members, more likely) willing to supply the energy required.

40 to 50 private homes is definitely not very numerous in a kingdom with 2 million souls, of whom up to 20,000 (including peasantry) could possibly have at least some trace of Deryni blood.  And a lot of the homes from Camber's time boasting TPs have probably been destroyed, and few new ones rebuilt or reactivated due to the dangers in the past 200 years.  But that doesn't mean they can't be.

My home portal just delivered my copy of the Codex from out of the heap of boxes, and two comments arise in support of your arguments:
1. Léthald's price for Kelson's escape was the establishment of a diplomatic courier system by portal with Gwynedd and Torenth
2. "Portals" cites "large triports designed to facilitate the transport of many men and other matériel"
BUT 3. Sulien: "Portals are forever" so they cannot be destroyed, just run down.

On the practical side, one post filled 24/7 actually requires 5 staffers, as a week of 168 hours ÷ 40 hour working week = 4 and a bit, the rest being the time taken for national holidays and sickness. OK, a prior might be able to bully a junior monk or novice into a longer shift, and undoubtedly the working day was much longer then, but losing men to such policies should they lose concentration through tiredness is not exactly in the Deryni tradition!

An extrapolation of the "triport" word makes me wonder, though, whether it's actually necessary to have a Deryni accompany the shipment. Perhaps if he can just visualise the destination and send it, there's a huge saving in not needing backup couriers. Something like that must be happening in any case as there's no mention of sonic booms as people teleport: if the air displaced isn't shipped backwards to fill the void created by the departing traveller, there'd be one boom at the departure gate as the vacuum left by the teleporter imploded, the inrushing walls of air meeting in the middle with a fairly big thump, and a worse one at the far end as the windows of the chapel get blown out by a momentary hike in the air pressure when two volumes of matter find it impossible to fill the same space simultaneously. Not to mention heatstroke from the sudden pressurisation, the deafening of the travellers as they arrive, and the cursing of the Sacristan at needing to replace yet more expensive stained glass.

Quote from: Rahere on November 14, 2011, 03:24:13 PM
BUT 3. Sulien: "Portals are forever" so they cannot be destroyed, just run down.

Maybe that should be "Portals are forever...unless one deliberately destroys one or it runs down," given that St. Neot's seems to have been deliberately destroyed (at least Alaric and Duncan found it inoperable and the message imprinted in it shows that the Portal was closed deliberately), so unless KK has contradicted herself, I suspect what's meant is that, under normal circumstances and regular use, they would last forever.

QuoteAn extrapolation of the "triport" word makes me wonder, though, whether it's actually necessary to have a Deryni accompany the shipment. Perhaps if he can just visualise the destination and send it, there's a huge saving in not needing backup couriers. Something like that must be happening in any case as there's no mention of sonic booms as people teleport: if the air displaced isn't shipped backwards to fill the void created by the departing traveller, there'd be one boom at the departure gate as the vacuum left by the teleporter imploded, the inrushing walls of air meeting in the middle with a fairly big thump, and a worse one at the far end as the windows of the chapel get blown out by a momentary hike in the air pressure when two volumes of matter find it impossible to fill the same space simultaneously. Not to mention heatstroke from the sudden pressurisation, the deafening of the travellers as they arrive, and the cursing of the Sacristan at needing to replace yet more expensive stained glass.

ROFL!  Yes, it might be hard to hide a Transfer Portal given those circumstances.   ;)

On the other hand, it might be an excellent form of air-conditioning, shipping air from Netterhaven and the Anvil, according to the season, and water from St Dymphna's, according to need...

QuoteBUT 3. Sulien: "Portals are forever" so they cannot be destroyed, just run down.

There is a discussion in Deryni Magic about destruction of Portals - and yes, they 'can' be destroyed, as we have three instances - Arilan's desrtruction of the quickly-rigged portal in HD, the St Neot's one, and also Kai Descantor's destruction of one in Camber the Heretic.  But in two of those cases, the person doing it died in the process.

I would substitute metal intensity for "spiritual dimension".  That is why very evil people like Wencit can perform high magic, and also why different rituals based on a persons's particular religion are possible.  I expect an atheiest could be a functioning Deryni.  religious beliefs make it more efficient to focus.  In the begining I believe KK was implying Deryni powers as the explanation for miracles and saithood, but she moved away from that as the books eveolved (is Camber a real spirit saint or just a man caught in a high level of magic)?

Its like the discussion of life after death, is the white light God or opiates acting on the human brain? Or maybe the opiate is the way God manifests himself to dying people?

QuoteI would substitute metal intensity for "spiritual dimension".  That is why very evil people like Wencit can perform high magic, and also why different rituals based on a persons's particular religion are possible.  I expect an atheiest could be a functioning Deryni.  religious beliefs make it more efficient to focus.

Agreed.   Effective use of Deryni powers demands the ability to focus completely and concentrate deeply, especially when talking of the highest levels of magic, but does not require any particular religious or spiritual element.   If someone is used to entering certain trance like states, or concentrating deeply as part of one's religious beliefs, then those techniques will undoubtedly carry over into the practice of Deryni magic, but "a" particular set of religious beliefs is not a pre-requisite.  

Nor does a belief in unseen "powers" or acceptance of the necessity to shield against unwanted interference or protect other people from use of magic that may channel those powers (as with warding) require a religious / spiritual element.  You can't see gravity, electricity or magnetic force, but you can prove their existence and see their effects, and to carry out certain processes you may need to shield or isolate the processes from some of those forces.  You can accept modern cosmology, quantum physics and the existence of sub-atomic particles, including the possibilty of dark matter and dark energy, without having a scrap of religious or spiritual belief.   In terms of the formal warding process, the rituals we see just happen to use the Judeo-Christian archangels, but you could use any imagery that helps the particpants focus.  

The Good/Evil or Light/Dark imagery is a convenient shorthand: you can just as well use the concepts of Wanted/Unwanted.  The warding process is essentially erecting a barrier to protect the participants against unwanted ('evil') interference, or else to protect those outside the barrier against the potentially hazardous impact of the forces being controlled inside by the participants.  The concept of "protection" does not require the moral overlay of Good/Evil or Light/Dark.   

I utterly disagree, you are trying to bend the thinking of the time to modern mores, thereby creating an anachronism. It would be perfectly OK if you were able to create a parallel to the Enlightenment in the World of the Deryni - go to it! - and write about that time, but the world as it stands is one where faith is important. Even as late as the early seventeenth century, Fludd is explicit about malific influences - I've just dug out of Joscelyn Goodwin's work his thinking on the baleful influences of various demons on health, portraying a citadel, the warded body (Ps 91 10-11), defended by the archangels against demonic attack as in the following table:

	Archangel	Demon	Element	Angel	Demon
East	Michael	Oriens	Fire	Seraph	Samael
South	Uriel	Amaymon	Air	Cherub	Azazel
West	Raphael	Paymon	Water	Tharsis	Azrael
North	Gabriel	Egyn	Earth	Ariel	Mahazael

There is an enormous amount more in his Medicina Catholica and Philosophia Sacra, but it shows that KK has cut us a considerable amount of slack in repositioning the Angels in the World of the Deryni and reattributing their attributes. Better safe than sorry?

What it does show is that the field is not clear as far as the malific is concerned: he shows those demons in various combinations as responsible for illness, and therefore it is quite possible for malific humans to draw on that power. This is the entire philosophy of witch-burning, after all. They're not drawing on some neutral gaiic force, they're drawing on a different and mutually intolerable source of power based on the inchoately-defeated demonic. Part of this was of human invention, true, in the early 15th Century when it became clear the Black Death was simply a taster of things to come, but some of those references are much older. I'll let you know what I get from the Warburg seminar at then end of the month.

That really pretty much covers the bases as far as secular interpretation is concerned: it's not correct in the creed of the time, right or wrong. Applying rationalism to it just doesn't work, the furthest you can go is the qualification that they were utterly deluded, but none the less this is what they believed and any interpretation of their writings must reflect it. You cannot invoke angels you don't believe in in establishing Shields. I'm only sorry I didn't have this to hand in the Guildhall seminar on the Tempest, as it places Shakespeare's Ariel, absolutely contemporary, quite definitively in the camp of Gabriel the messenger, master of codes and everything hermetic. As it is, Anthony Rooley (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis) is utterly persuaded that there is also an alchemical interpretation to be made in almost everything of this period. Indeed, my homework this week was on that exact subject - which reminds me, I must fly to get there on time. When my portal releases the source text, I'll also post Puteanus' slightly later alchemical table of planetary alignments with metals.

Rahere, what you are essentially suggesting is that the Deryni won't be able to function at all in a later 'rational' world.  That in (say) 400 years their time when / if their world changes so that religion no longer plays such a centrol role, they won't be able to work their magic because they no longer have such deep beliefs in angels and archangels.   And perhaps that there could not be a functioning Deryni of another religion altogether, or - as tenworld suggested - a functioning atheist Deryni.   

It is perfectly true that the Deryni of that time call on the Archangels of the quarters in the warding process, but that is because it is an important part of their ritual.  Religion played a very central role in everyone's life at that time (12th century Gwynedd time for the Kelson books), and they honestly believed in these forces and the fact that these beings had the various powers or authorities.  

But the actual existence of the fantasy Deryni magical powers is independent of religion i.e. the powers themselves simply exist  (see Morgan's discussion with Dhugal in TBH), so calling on the archangels is basically a ritual that is relevant to the people of that time and their beliefs.  "Ritual" is most certainly not "Religion".   As the books make clear, the Deryni powers themselves, including the Haldane type potential for assuming them, are inherited - and even in KK's fantasy world, that requires biology and genetics, not religion  :D     Jehana indeed believed that the powers were evil and anathema to the Church and religion - but that didn't prevent her from calling up those powers in a pretty spectacular way at Kelson's coronation :)  

Quoteit shows that KK has cut us a considerable amount of slack in repositioning the Angels in the World of the Deryni and reattributing their attributes

Perhaps that is because KK is creating a fantasy world, Rahere?  The Deryni and their magic are a fantasy creation!   Yes, KK draws very strongly on certain aspects of our world and its history, as of course do many other fantasy authors, but her Deryni world is NOT an exact and direct parallel to anything in our world.    So as a fantasy author, she can do whatever she likes in terms of "repositioning" the angels, archangels, and indeed anything else!  If it is necessary or desirable in her world, that's fine   :D   She is writing Fantasy, not Real Life history.  

I think the thing that must be remembered is that we are discussing works of 20th/21st Century fantasy written by a modern writer (albeit one who is quite learned in medieval history and sticks to more historical accuracy than a lot of fantasy writers do...but NOT 100% slavish adherence to accuracy either!), and not histories written by actual medieval authors with a truly medieval mindset.  Yes, to fully understand medieval writings, whether they're about the arcane or the mundane, one must read those with an understanding of the medieval mindset, but the Deryni books are not medieval novels.  They are novels written about fantasy kingdoms that happen to be garbed in the trappings of the medieval period, and that happen to be depicted with a fair degree of historical accuracy (though with quite a bit of creative license tossed in when it comes to things such as clothing, education, tech level, etc. for the period she's depicting), so I don't expect that her magical theories and practices are going to line up 100% with what actual medievals might have believed and practiced, given that she's adapted history to serve the ends of Story in every other aspect of the novels.  And as she has taken such creative liberties in every other area (as do most fantasy novelists), why would she suddenly treat only the magical practices as if she is writing a wholly accurate dissertation only thinly disguised as fiction?

That's why I don't strain my brain too much to think about such things as how the physics behind Transfer Portals works, to give just one example.  KK has said herself that it was basically her fantasy equivalent to the Star Trek transporter technology; she needed some sort of plot device to get characters quickly from Point A to Point B.  So I doubt she spent hours trying to suss out the magical or scientific principles behind how it works.  It just works, because the Story demanded something of the sort, and voila, the Author obligingly tossed it into the plot.   :D  Because KK is not out to teach real world history, arcane or otherwise, any more than any other 21st C. fantasy author is.  She uses enough of it to make her settings come alive and seem plausible, but she also has enough understanding of what the average 20th/21st Century reader knows and doesn't know of the period to be wise enough to know how much accuracy to put in to make her fantasy world come to life, and when it's time to check it at the door and just let Story be Story instead of an attempt at a history lesson (or, in this case, a treatise on actual medieval beliefs regarding magical practices and theory).

Quote from: Rahere on November 15, 2011, 06:30:15 AM
You cannot invoke angels you don't believe in in establishing Shields.

I might be more inclined to believe this if it weren't for Lady Kyri of the Flame, who is enough of a Deryni Adept to be on the Camberian Council, so let's hope she has managed to figure out some way to establish Shields, yet there's a scene or two where Kyri is depicted as being a skeptic on religious matters.  So at least in her case, it would seem that she must be invoking "Angels" in some symbolic sense rather than the purely literal, if she's not the sort who would be inclined to believe in literal angels.  And that's fine; in a purely fictional medieval-like world, genuinely medieval mindsets and rules need not apply.

Possibly because Lady Kyri understands that the higher uses of Deryn powers require the practitioner to put himself/herself in a psychologially 'receptive' state of consciousness, but that this does not require religious belief.    

This is exactly what tenworld suggested earlier:  

QuoteI would substitute metal intensity for "spiritual dimension".  That is why very evil people like Wencit can perform high magic, and also why different rituals based on a persons's particular religion are possible.  I expect an atheiest could be a functioning Deryni.  religious beliefs make it more efficient to focus.  

The key is the practitioner's ability to enter the required state of consciousness for the working of magic.   In Lady Kyri's case, the angels could well be symbolic, but as symbols they still play an important part in the rituals to establish the necessary mental focus.

As KK herself expresses it in Deryni Magic:   "With few exceptions, the use of one's Deryni abilities must be learned, like any other skill - and some Deryni are more skilled and stronger than others.  Primary proficiencies have to do with balances - physical, psychic and spiritual - and mastering one's own body and perceptions.  All such control requires the ability to enter an "altered state" of consciousness, usually achieved by some form of meditation."

Wow, I never realized there would be this much controversy over using portals to make money off pepper.

If a portal could go 300 miles and cut the number of portals down to eight it makes it even easier to establish a profitable trading business/smuggling operation.

I wish I could find my Deryni Magic, but I leant it to a friend, got it back and filed it somewhere other than the fiction bookcase, and it is now lost. :(  KK listed some interesting points on distance and energy (I think it is a geometric curve against distance). 

As for the energy source, I am of the camp the energy is neutral in and of itself, although at Cinhil's Death Four Presences that were something 'other' showed up and collapsed a warded Circle ( Camber the Heretic pg 96).  All in the imagery of the 4 Archangels they used to form the circle. 

As for portals I think they could be made by any religion flavoured Deryni, using whatever rites they wishes to achieve the mental state focus.  Shiral crystals could work for Christian and non-christian meditators.

Quote from: MerchantDeryni on November 15, 2011, 11:45:40 AM
Wow, I never realized there would be this much controversy over using portals to make money off pepper.

Heh.  Where two or more sentient beings are gathered together, there will be some disagreement.  :D

Quote
If a portal could go 300 miles and cut the number of portals down to eight it makes it even easier to establish a profitable trading business/smuggling operation.

Yeah, I thought you might like that better.   ;)

QuoteI wish I could find my Deryni Magic, but I leant it to a friend, got it back and filed it somewhere other than the fiction bookcase, and it is now lost. :(  KK listed some interesting points on distance and energy (I think it is a geometric curve against distance). 

Another resource you might find helpful is the newer Deryni Adventures role-playing game book.  It's at least semi-canonical in that KK gave direct input and was one of the copy editors for it.  Of course, in the event of any contradictions between the RPG and the novels, the novels trump, being canon.

Quote from: Alkari on November 15, 2011, 08:35:35 AM
Rahere, what you are essentially suggesting is that the Deryni won't be able to function at all in a later 'rational' world.  That in (say) 400 years their time when / if their world changes so that religion no longer plays such a centrol role, they won't be able to work their magic because they no longer have such deep beliefs in angels and archangels.  

Perhaps they won't be able to do magic because they no longer believe they can.

I may be hijacking my own thread here, but the conceptof belief in magic and the ability to do magic is an interesting point.  If that were to apply to Deryni they may lose their heritage as in the later books, and only a few might aintain what they could actually do, the rest being lost to history as tales of all Deryni being witches to make it okay to kill them and take their land.  Many Jews were accused of similar things in Medieval times.

But the flip side of the coin, is that it is very easy to prove that magical effects are possible to anyone, by showing them.  The most doubtful Deryni who knows nothingof his heritage and abilites may scoff at a Deryn practictioner when told that some Deryn can heal.  If he is held down and cut, and then teh healer Deryni then heals the wound in front of his eyes, that is pretty good evidence that Healing is possible.

The same argument for teleportation as a means of cultural resistance.  Take a Deryni who is untrained (but as Deryni still has the innate energy of a Deryni), and take them through a portal so they can have lunch 300 miles away, and then teleport them back in time for dinner.  That is good evidence that magic is real.  They may doubt their senses, but at some point (for example make them walk back 300 miles), they will know they travelled pretty far.

Handfire, telekinesis, all abilities that a Deryni can do when trained would be able to convince a Deryni that they have to shift their focus to training of their racial abilities.

Happily I will soon have my copy of Deryni Magic and can post all sorts of page lawyering goodness on portals.

Quote from: MerchantDeryni on November 16, 2011, 03:34:53 PM

I may be hijacking my own thread here....

No worries, it never ceases to amaze me where trains of thought will wander off to in a thread.  I went off for a long weekend once and returned to find the comments on one of my story chapters had evolved into a discussion on what opera singers different people would cast if we were to have a Deryni opera!  I learned more about opera that day, Googling all of those names and checking the posted links....   :D

MerchantDeryni, speaking as a mod, we don't moderate the threads for staying on topic.  :D  Basically, as long as you're respectful to your fellow board members and as long as you keep it PG13-ish, I'm certainly not going to fuss.

Quote from: MerchantDeryni on November 16, 2011, 03:34:53 PM

... the conceptof belief in magic and the ability to do magic is an interesting point.  If that were to apply to Deryni they may lose their heritage as in the later books, and only a few might aintain what they could actually do, the rest being lost to history ...

But the flip side of the coin, is that it is very easy to prove that magical effects are possible to anyone, by showing them.  

Oh yes, you are absolutely correct - the belief that something can be done is a critical element in many achievements, the corollary often being that if you don't believe something is at least 'possible', then you won't achieve it.  A famous RL sporting example is running the four-minute mile, which people (including many top athletes) 'knew' was impossible.  Until Roger Bannister believed in it, and went out and ran under 4 mins.  He broke this psychological barrier, and of course now it is routine to run times well under that mark.

I am wondering whether this loss of belief was one subtle factor in the loss of the Healing powers for so many years.   Healing was always a rare ability anyway, but in the aftermath of the terrible events of 948, with the deaths of so many Deryni (including Healers), plus the fact that others fled Gwynedd or went underground with their identities and abilities, it is easy to see how many Deryni would lose contact with the few remaining Healers.  And any surviving Healers would not be able to use their powers openly, and may evenhave suppressed their skills themselves.  It would be a very short series of psychological jumps from the situation where many of the surviving Deryni didn't any Healers, to forming the belief that the Healing powers were 'lost' and that Healing was 'impossible'.    And if Healing was known to be impossible, then even those few Deryni who may have inherited the necessary power / gene, perhaps even ones that have formal training, would either not even try to Heal, or would not succeed because they didn't believe they could.

Then along comes the partly-trained Morgan.  He doesn't know that Healing is impossible, only that he's heard about some fully trained Deryni in the past being able to Heal.  He is desperate to save Derry's life, but his mindset is more around his own lack of training in use of his powers.  Yes, he lacks training but he's going to give it a go anyway, so he focuses and does his best to bring all his powers to bear - and of course, Derry IS Healed.   

As we see following DR, Duncan and then Dhugal see that Healing is possible, and find that they too can manage it.  In QFSC, Dhugal doesn't even have the level of training that Duncan and Alaric have, yet he manages to Heal Kelson because he's seen people being Healed (including Duncan, and he knows it is possible.  Of course we know that all three men have the necessary genetic basis for this skill, but their belief in the existence of this power was surely an important element in their achievement.

I have always found it interesting that the Camberian Council had no idea that the healing talent was not completely lost until Morgan rediscovered it.  With all of their contacts throughout the Eleven Kingdoms, some of which at least tolerated some openness among the Deryni, it appears to not have surfaced anywhere else.  Or at least no one was admitting to it.

There's some reference to the Torenthi Court still having a few trained Healers hidden away in their employ, but these being only rumored insofar as the Camberian Council was able to verify.  That's where I got my "Master Janos" from in my current story-in-progress.  I don't recall now which of the books that reference was found in, or if it's just one of the tidbits tossed into the Codex and/or Deryni Magic and not found anywhere else, but KK has also mentioned them in chat when the topic came up there.

Quote from: Elkhound on November 16, 2011, 09:33:43 AM

Quote from: Alkari on November 15, 2011, 08:35:35 AM
Rahere, what you are essentially suggesting is that the Deryni won't be able to function at all in a later 'rational' world.  That in (say) 400 years their time when / if their world changes so that religion no longer plays such a centrol role, they won't be able to work their magic because they no longer have such deep beliefs in angels and archangels.  

Perhaps they won't be able to do magic because they no longer believe they can.

"Spell or Spell not, there is no try", "that is why you fail" - attributed to diminutive Deryni master far far away.

Quote from: tenworld on November 17, 2011, 03:22:37 PM
"Spell or Spell not, there is no try", "that is why you fail" - attributed to diminutive Deryni master far far away.

You're sure that wasn't an English grammar or Language Arts teacher?   :D

Interesting concept. My books are packed away so I can't be sure of my references...

Most formal Deryni training was under religious auspices. Ethical precepts would probably not condone the use of portals for profit. Tavis O'Neill's Varnarite training, however, was secular and practical (CH and KJY).

Most of the Deryni in the books and fanfic are of the nobility. They benefit from the movement of goods and information but are not themselves "soiled" by trade. (The anti-merchant bias of the nobility extended well beyond the early middle ages.)

If there were Deryni merchants and traders, it is reasonable to think that they would to use portals to gain advantage over slower means of transportation. Maybe that was the mysterious crime of Lewys ap Norfal. (Methinks the Camberian Council wouldst not approve.)

Well-to-do and "respectable" Deryni families of Kelson's time could have gained or regained their wealth, lands, titles, and influence by trade. In the years following the persecutions it would be easy for embittered survivors to justify--or at least excuse--unethical behavior. Subsequent generations could earn titles through military service and/or marry into the nobility. The "tarnish" of ill-gotten-gains would diminish over time.

Imagine if it came to light that the Arilan lineage included an unscrupulous trader or two. Morgan and Duncan would would love it; Denis would hate it. It would help to explain Denis' rigid scruples regarding the casual use of Deryni powers.

Sofiana's family, Rothana's family (including the mysterious Cousin Rohays), the Hort of Orsal and the Anvillers could all have benefited from the earnings of traders-by-portal. A legitimate "human" business could have a secret Deryni sideline. Easy wealth could further the causes of Furstans and Festils, who would be more than willing to take advantage of humans and Gwyneddans.

QuoteSofiana's family, Rothana's family (including the mysterious Cousin Rohays),

LOL - I don't think there is anything too 'mysterious' about Rohays.  The Codex shows that she is Sofiana's youngest child and is thus Richenda's first cousin (a closer relative to Richenda than Rothana is).  Rohays is six years younger than Richenda and is married to the heir of Nur Hallaj, so it's perfectly normal for the cousins to be writing to each other in TKJ.

The potential links of the Deryni "nobility" to trade are interesting.  Although nobles may not themselves have soiled their hands with trade, they certainly reaped the profits through taxes, marketplace fees, etc.   The 'living' of a good marketplace town was very valuable, and even if the local baron landowner took the initial profits, their feudal overlord certainly took his ultimate share.  If the earl or duke happened to have the rights directly, so much the better!

I've often thought it was highly likely that there are some Deryni merchants and tradespeople quietly operating in Corwyn for example.  Coroth is a busy trading port, and the Deryni dukes there have managed to retain their rule even through all the persecutions.   There are a couple of remarks in Deryni Checkmate about Corwyn generally being a 'refuge' for Deryni under Alaric's rule: he certainly wouldn't have been concerned about whether or not a merchant was Deryni, and it seems that Bishop Tolliver and his predecessor were both tolerant and didn't share in the anti-Deryni crusade waged by certain Archbishops.   Also, look at Coroth's strategic location - near the border with Deryni-ruled Torenth, and a short voyage across to the Orsal and other southern states such as Joux, where we know there are powerful Deryni families.  If Deryni merchants were fleeing from persecutions in the rest of Gwynedd, busy Coroth was a sensible destination, and if things got too bad there, it would be easy to escape further.  There are also trading towns such as Kiltuin and Farthane along Corwyn's river border with Torenth, again providing opportunities for Deryni traders.

I don't have the Codex but I do recall that Sofiana was related by blood or marriage to anyone who was anyone in her part of the world. I think of Cousin Rohays and the peddler Ludopholus ? (Prince Azim) as Conall did in TKJ.

I agree that Corwyn is a likely haven for Deryni traders. And I think there's an old portal in the grotto that Briony and Kelric should discover...

Although the idea of Deryni Traders is a nice anachronism, the practice of using Transfer Portals for long distance travel would never become routine.  Trade is only sensible if the risk, cost, and requirement are outweighed by the expected profit.

How much would a sufficiently trained Deryni cost?  How much risk is there between jumps?  How little can a Deryni bring without extra energy being drained?

The greatest loss would be of the death or capture of the party of traders.  It is true that each extra Trader would increase the security of the party and multiply the potential profit.  A whole loss is still possible, so any venture could be considered too risky.

Deryni sometimes pretend to be traders, but most seem to be scholars, soldiers, clergy, and other aristocratic callings.  While an aristocrat might personally travel to bring a precious item for an honoured recipient, the idea of risking life and limb to flavour the dinner of anyone with enough coin is demeaning.  It is one thing to die for King and Country, and quite another to die for a spicy stew.

Wow, I never saw the last comment on the thread. I just read it, and have to reply.

we know large amounts of material can be moved. The Michaeline outpost/Sanctuary was supllied via portal for a year. That was in Camber of Culdi.

As for the cost of a trained Deryni, the use of Portals is a learned event, and can hold dangers, but they are used by many Deryni in the books. The comment of the decline of the Ecclesiastical network seems a rather odd one, but it is KK's world.

As for the aristocrat risked life and limb for money far more often than for glory. Letters of Marque, Drake and Elizabeth. It was about Spanish silver and gold, and the Spice islands. Sailors were paid in pepper. Wars were started to control spice islands. Entire villages wiped out for nutmeg and cloves.

And the importance of Pepper (and salt) historically is a litle difficult for us to understand. It was worth more than gold at one time, or swapped equal to its weight. It was the cornerstone of trade for years. The phrases 'worth his salt" and "above the salt" marked social distincition in regards to where you sat in relation to the salt shaker.

And in relation to my concept of a Deryni based trading system I was thinking in terms of the second or third sons who inherited nothing. In our past these were the ones that went on Crusade to try and hack out an income from something, or went on voyages around the world looking for spices, or settled the New World. in a magical universe these poor relations could stay at home and bring in an income. Their other option is to ride around like the goons in the beginning of Camber of Culdi and get into trouble. If they had cash they would not be so upset over things.

Aristocrats often risked life and limb for material rewards, but getting involved in trade directly was considered beneath the dignity of an aristrocat.

Even the Hort of Orsal would provide the protection for traders who would then pay taxes to his agents in return.  Physical protection and the administration of law, at least the secular kind, was the concern of nobles.  Trade, however, was the concern of merchants.

The concept of different estates provided a ridgid framework social framework that was the halmark of medieval europe.  There were extraordinary exceptions that crossed the estates.

In England Cardinal Wolsey is a most obvious example a Cardinal and the Chancelor of England from the son of a merchant.  If it weren't for the need of Henry VII to demean the aristocracy with talented commoners, it is possible that Wolsey might have never had any strictly secular authority at all.  Wolsey's enemies talked about him being the son of a butcher - a slur about the nature of his ancestry.