Botanical Portals

What Are Botanical Portals?

The Portals which lead exclusively to the Arboreal Plane are the Botanical Portals. These Portals are unique in that they are the only variety that involve an organic component and can be grown with the correct variety of seeds. While this does make Botanical Portals less difficult to create in terms of the skills, resources, and Aethyr required, Botanical Portals do have certain obstacles to their creation which other Portals lack. Primarily, the seeds need the right soil, water, light, and Aethyr supplies in order to grow into Botanical Portals and they take far longer to reach a size conducive to use by vehicles and, by extension, caravans. Additionally, unlike other kinds of Portals, Botanical Portals have the potential of permanently closing if the plants that generate them die from a lack of nutrients or are killed. Botanical Portals are quite resilient, but between the time it takes them to grow and their unique vulnerabilities, they tend to be seen as less viable for use by civilizations. However, individuals, particularly Nature Wardens, can create private Botanical Portals for personal use as opposed to the way other varieties of Portals tend to be used collectively by societies.
Another unique quality that Botanical Portals, at least those on the Arboreal Plane, is that they can lead to multiple destinations, so long as those destinations are not on the Arboreal Plane.  The Portal Plant located on the Arboreal Plane is called the Hub Plant while the Portal Plants situated on other Planes that are linked to the Hub Plant are called Satellite Plants.  Satellite Portal Plants are grown from the seeds produced by the Hub Plant but can only grow on Planes other than the Arboreal.  These seeds are not transported to other Planes from the Arboreal by people alone.  There are a variety of animals that migrate across the Planes and some of these will consume the fruits of the Hub Plant then deposit the seeds on other Planes.  Some species will knowingly transport seeds from the Hub Plant to other Planes then choose a specific location in which to grow them into new Botanical Portals that they can use as shortcuts.  This was, in fact, how people discovered the means by which Botanical Portals were created on other Planes.  The observed animals planting and growing them for their use and realized that they could do the same thing.
Hub Plants have a limited number of Satellite Plants to which they can link and they will not produce seeds once that limit has been reached.  As the Hub Plant grows and matures, the number of Satellite Plants it can have increased.  While a Hub Plant can produce many seeds, far more than the number of Satellite Plants that can link to it, the plants grown from those seeds will not generate a Botanical Portal in all cases.  If other Satellite Plants have already created a link to the Hub Plant and the Hub Plant cannot sustain any more, the potential Satellite Plant will remain inert as far as any Portals are concerned.  Once the Hub Plant is old enough to sustain an additional Portal, that may change, but only if the potential Satellite Plant is either the only one that exists or if it is the most mature of the number that exist.  Age is the determining factor in the case of multiple potential Satellite Plants existing at the same time.  If a working Satellite Plant dies or is killed, then the next oldest potential Satellite Plant will become active in its place.  This is what enables those who grow Botanical Portals to manage networks.  They can grow dozens of potential Satellite Plants at once but kill of one active Satellite Plant that is no longer needed in order to activate another.  It's just a matter of keeping track of which Satellite Plants are the oldest and which are the youngest.

Tree Portals

Tree Portals are

Vine Portals

Vine Portals are

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane