I'm doing some world-building on my homebrew setting in preparation for an upcoming campaign arc, and I'm a little bit stuck one detail of the Teleportation Circle spell. The spell description reads, "any creature that enters the portal instantly appears within 5 feet of the destination circle or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied." So my question is: does a water-filled area count as "occuped?" Could a person travel to a previously-unknown circle and suddenly find themselves at the bottom of a sea? Or could the end up standing on a shore somewhere with no destination circle in sight?
Could there even be a teleportation circle at the bottom of a sea, used by merfolk or tritons or aquatic elves? Or does the need for "rare inks" as a material component mean that the spell can't be cast underwater?
Ruling either way has larger implications for my setting, so I'm tempted to say that it can either be decided by the caster at the time of casting, or that an underwater version of the spell exists.
But I'm curious whether any examples of this sort of thing exist in D&D content I'm just not aware of, or whether anybody has had to address the question in their own games.
"Unoccupied space" in a D&D rules context usually means a space that doesn't have any creatures or objects blocking a creature from standing there. A space filled with water wouldn't typically count as "occupied".
I don't see any reason the spell couldn't be cast underwater or that a teleportation circle in general couldn't exist underwater. If teleportation circles are common in your setting, it makes perfect sense that underwater communities would have their own.
Water does not occupy a space, no. Creatures occupy spaces. So if you go through the circle, and someone is standing on the other side, you end up next to them, not in the same square.
Yes, there could certainly be an underwater circle. Those special inks are magic, they work underwater, because that’s what magic does. (Of course, if you’re world building, and the DM you can always decide they don’t, but I’d be careful about other implications like how does a triton craft a scroll or have a spellbook.) Or if you don’t want to have the circle be created underwater, it could always have been made on land, then something happened, and the circle sank to the bottom of an ocean, or lake or what have you. Or made on land and brought in a great expense by the queen of the sea elves.
A space is occupied if a creature is in it or if it is completely filled by objects.
Water is not "objects." There's nothing stopping an underwater race from having a circle. You have to know the sigil for that other circle, so I suppose it would be good practice to not buy one from shady characters.
Great answers from everybody, thank you very much. Having some underwater teleportation circles would certainly make this campaign arc more interesting -- just for context, my players would be going to visit the civilization of merfolk that one of their NPC friends came from, and while they're there, to look for a deep-sea leviathan known as "the lurker below." So traveling between a few island and underwater locations, including various populated settlements and ancient ruins, is going to be a big part of it.
If your players do try to use a portal to an unknown location that is underwater, perhaps add an Arcana check just before the spell is finished, where if succeeded the caster feels distinctly aquatic vibes from the sigil and gets warned that it will arrive underwater - and/or else prepare some friendly NPCs to be near the destination portal to help out if they find themselves unable to avoid a full party death by drowning. Might be fun to watch them panic for a little bit, and take some damage or lost resources, but it doesn't seem a very heroic way to end the game...
Keep in mind that permanent circles on their own don't form anything like a "portal network" by RAW. All a permanent circle does is provide a "landing pad" for long range teleports, allowing a caster to either conserve energy in-universe/a spell slot in gameplay terms by using a 5th level spell to make the journey, or guarantee that regular Teleport/Plane Shift will be on target. This of course in no way precludes your use of a portal network to facilitate player traversal in a campaign, but if you do that it would probably be better to be clear that they're something separate from the spell available to players.
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I'm doing some world-building on my homebrew setting in preparation for an upcoming campaign arc, and I'm a little bit stuck one detail of the Teleportation Circle spell. The spell description reads, "any creature that enters the portal instantly appears within 5 feet of the destination circle or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied." So my question is: does a water-filled area count as "occuped?" Could a person travel to a previously-unknown circle and suddenly find themselves at the bottom of a sea? Or could the end up standing on a shore somewhere with no destination circle in sight?
Could there even be a teleportation circle at the bottom of a sea, used by merfolk or tritons or aquatic elves? Or does the need for "rare inks" as a material component mean that the spell can't be cast underwater?
Ruling either way has larger implications for my setting, so I'm tempted to say that it can either be decided by the caster at the time of casting, or that an underwater version of the spell exists.
But I'm curious whether any examples of this sort of thing exist in D&D content I'm just not aware of, or whether anybody has had to address the question in their own games.
"Unoccupied space" in a D&D rules context usually means a space that doesn't have any creatures or objects blocking a creature from standing there. A space filled with water wouldn't typically count as "occupied".
I don't see any reason the spell couldn't be cast underwater or that a teleportation circle in general couldn't exist underwater. If teleportation circles are common in your setting, it makes perfect sense that underwater communities would have their own.
pronouns: he/she/they
Water does not occupy a space, no. Creatures occupy spaces. So if you go through the circle, and someone is standing on the other side, you end up next to them, not in the same square.
Yes, there could certainly be an underwater circle. Those special inks are magic, they work underwater, because that’s what magic does. (Of course, if you’re world building, and the DM you can always decide they don’t, but I’d be careful about other implications like how does a triton craft a scroll or have a spellbook.) Or if you don’t want to have the circle be created underwater, it could always have been made on land, then something happened, and the circle sank to the bottom of an ocean, or lake or what have you. Or made on land and brought in a great expense by the queen of the sea elves.
edit:ninja’d
Occupied Space
A space is occupied if a creature is in it or if it is completely filled by objects.
Water is not "objects." There's nothing stopping an underwater race from having a circle. You have to know the sigil for that other circle, so I suppose it would be good practice to not buy one from shady characters.
Thoughtwire If it's interesting to you, I remember a similar conversation about water and Occupied Space here: Can You Misty Step Through A Door With a Window? What Is A Space You Can See?
PS. I agree with the answers given.
Great answers from everybody, thank you very much. Having some underwater teleportation circles would certainly make this campaign arc more interesting -- just for context, my players would be going to visit the civilization of merfolk that one of their NPC friends came from, and while they're there, to look for a deep-sea leviathan known as "the lurker below." So traveling between a few island and underwater locations, including various populated settlements and ancient ruins, is going to be a big part of it.
If your players do try to use a portal to an unknown location that is underwater, perhaps add an Arcana check just before the spell is finished, where if succeeded the caster feels distinctly aquatic vibes from the sigil and gets warned that it will arrive underwater - and/or else prepare some friendly NPCs to be near the destination portal to help out if they find themselves unable to avoid a full party death by drowning. Might be fun to watch them panic for a little bit, and take some damage or lost resources, but it doesn't seem a very heroic way to end the game...
Keep in mind that permanent circles on their own don't form anything like a "portal network" by RAW. All a permanent circle does is provide a "landing pad" for long range teleports, allowing a caster to either conserve energy in-universe/a spell slot in gameplay terms by using a 5th level spell to make the journey, or guarantee that regular Teleport/Plane Shift will be on target. This of course in no way precludes your use of a portal network to facilitate player traversal in a campaign, but if you do that it would probably be better to be clear that they're something separate from the spell available to players.