The Portals of Alexander

When Alexander encountered the lands of Gog and Magog, he journeyed far and wide within their unclean realm. Many dark wonders (shadow versions of our wonders of the world) revealed themselves to his prying eyes, one of which proved to be the secret of these Gates. Whether this was an item or an incantation or a physical opening upon which he stumbled, it is unknown. However, the results of the discovery were plainly seen.

When he returned from his dark sojourn, he first set his army to the task of building a great wall across the pass into these dark, northern lands. Then, he ordered construction of yet another city of Alexandria to be founded opposite this wall. This city would house the first of Alexander's Gates.

As the Macedonian marched ever eastward, new Alexandrian cities were founded along the way. Each containing within its walls one of these Gates. Upon completion of this network of cities and gates, the logistics problem facing Alexander's lengthening supply lines dissipated. Supply trains became a thing of ease. New armies and supplies were arriving just when they were needed the most. And distance no longer proved a hindrance to further conquest.

The latest Alexandria, titled "Eschate" for being the furthest, was founded in Bactria and became a prime staging ground for the conquest of India. Countless Greeks, Macedonians, Illyrians, Thracians, Medes, Lydians, and other peoples would perish in the Jungles of Hind. But more were ever arriving to take their place, and it was just a matter of time before all the Indies succumbed to this juggernaut of conquest.

After the Indies, the far-eastern silk-producing kingdom of Serica was besieged. Resistance there was tough and well-organized, and this campaign had the potential to be far more trying than any previous. But as it became clear that the western armies would simply keep coming, regardless of the casualties incurred, the Seres made the prudent decision to formally submit. They would willingly enter into the Macedonian's empire as yet another vassal state, leaving the country to more or less govern itself, so long as supremacy was recognized and the tribute continued flowing west.

It would not be long, following the conquest of Serica, that Alexander would turn his attention westward, once again, and begin the process of consolidating the Celts and Iberians. The region exploded in defiance. But as Indian war elephants and chariots began pouring through Alexander's western gate, followed by Chinese trebuchets and disciplined phalanxes of crossbowmen and cavalry, resistance to Alexander's forces quickly crumbled.

To his burgeoning empire, Alexander soon attached the remainder of Greece, Thrace, and Illyria, north until the border with Scythia; the Italian peninsula, north to the boundary of the Alps; and most of the Iberian peninsula, north to the Pyrenees, as well as the southern portions of Gaul.

Each Gate provides access into an Alcove. As understood by Alexander and his companions, this was something of an otherworld, a divine realm built to be utilized by the gods, and not meant for man. But Alexander was not any man, being defined primarily by his hubris, as he was, and so to walk the pathways of the gods was only natural for him. That he was likely not welcome there only spurred his desires to step foot within.

Judging from available diaries and correspondences from the period, most of those utilizing the Gates assumed they were traveling through a chthonic entrance into the underworld — an oriental Avernus, as it were; a shortcut that led down through Hades, providing easier access to distant lands. Because of this, the Macedonians and Greeks often referred to the gates as a "ploutonion", or "House of Plouton", these being the contemporary names for shrines to Plouton, the euphemistic name for Hades, which were built at supposed entrances into their underground domain.

Besides the names "Alexander's Gates" and "House of Plouton," comparative studies across other cultures suggest further terms associated with this phenomenon, including: Songlines among the Aboriginals, Greyroads among the Taiga Folk, Caravanserai among the Alcove Guild, the Worm Road in the Low Countries, the Gossamer Way in Port Manteau, and the Flowing Horse in Organum.

Upon entry of a Gate, the Alcove that opens up before the traveler appears, at first glance, to be a separate and discrete realm. However, through exploration and a bit of luck, the Alcove reveals to the entrant the potential for external travel. Hidden tunnels branch off from the immediate vestibule, skirting around the geography of the known world and into geographies not yet properly measured or understood. Normal compasses and maps will not be of use to one within an Alcove. It would benefit the traveler inside to fashion a new compass, one calibrated to a new north star, and to adjust one's understanding of how to design and read a map.