Portable hole
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In Dungeons & Dragons and in cartoon physics, a portable hole is a magical device that can be used to contravene the normal laws of physics. It resembles a circular black cloth that could be placed on a surface to create a hole. If placed on a wall, the user could then crawl through the hole and come out on the other side. If placed on the ground, the user could place objects in the ground or allow enemies to fall in, as if he had dug a hole, and then remove the portable hole, causing them to be buried where the hole was placed (though depending on the work of fiction, an object placed into the portable hole may stay inside the specific hole even when the hole itself is moved, functioning more like a bag of holding). Players could also use them as foxholes if they wished.
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[edit] Dungeons & Dragons
[edit] Early Editions
Portable holes were categorized by the circumference of their opening and their depth. Thus, a hole with a 1 foot circumference and 3 foot depth wouldn’t be suitable for breaching a wall, but perfectly fine for burying or extracting some small treasure.
Some Dungeon Masters allowed them to be used as weapons, saying that if the hole was affixed to a living being it would cause whatever innards it covered to spill out. Also, a living being put into the ground via a portable hole would be buried alive and die of suffocation.
Like a bag of holding, other portable holes, bags of holding or extra dimensional spaces placed in it would cause catastrophic results at the DM’s discretion. For example, a portable hole placed in a bag of holding might tear the bag, turning it into a bag of devouring.
In 1995, Issue 221 of Dragon magazine included an article "(More Than) 101 Uses for a Portable Hole" that discussed various approaches to the physics of a Portable Hole as well as listing innovative uses (a telescoping tower, portable apartment or workshop, connecting two to form a "tunnel," etc.) to which such a device might be put.
[edit] Third Edition
In D&D 3.0 and 3.5, a Portable Hole placed on a flat surface did not open into the space behind it, but rather an extradimensional space 10 feet deep and as wide as the Hole (generally 6 feet in diameter). Every Portable Hole has its own particular extradimensional space. Anything placed inside this space remains there when the Hole is closed, and can be retrieved when the Hole is again placed on a flat surface. The extradimensional space when closed contains enough air for one Medium creature to survive for 10 minutes.
If a bag of holding is placed inside a portable hole, a rift to the Astral Plane is formed. This rift sucks in the bag and the hole, and they are lost forever.
If a portable hole is placed within the bag, it instead opens a gate to the Astral plane, sucking in every creature in a 10 foot radius, and destroying both the bag and hole. The contents of the bags are either scattered throughout the Astral Plane or destroyed.
[edit] Appearances in literature, games, and other media
In Disney's Toontown players visit places by pulling holes from their pockets and jumping into them.
Portable holes are sometimes created and used in Looney Tunes cartoons, including such variations as foldable doorways. One entire cartoon ("The Hole Idea," directed by Robert McKimson and released in 1955) depicts the invention of the portable hole by one Calvin Q. Calculus.
In the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, rather than a cloth, portable holes seemed to be made of a rubber-like material, and have the thickness of a gramophone record while being manipulated or held. The hero uses one at a critical moment to create a gap in a giant horseshoe magnet which is pinning him down.
A portable hole plays a key role in Jack Vance's "Liane the Wayfarer", published in The Dying Earth in 1950.
Various devices in Doraemon act as portable holes.
In King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow Prince Alexander solves many problems with the use of a 'hole in the wall' he finds on the Isle of Wonder.
In Yellow Submarine, Ringo picks up a hole he finds in the "Sea of Hole", folds it up (which apparantly deactivates it until unfolded) and puts it in his pocket, leading to his classic line of dialogue "I've got an 'ole in me pocket".
One of Terry Gilliam's cartoons in Monty Python's Flying Circus has the police using a large portable hole in the road to catch criminals, they "fall-in", then hole is taken to the lockup and thrown upon the ceiling causing the criminals to "fall-out".
There is a comic character called Horrible Hole which is a living portable hole. Similar characters include The Spot (a Spider-Man villain) and Doorman, a mutant member of the Great Lakes Avengers.
In episode 695 of the Final Fantasy-based comic 8-Bit Theater, Fighter, after buying some items and a portable hole with Red Mage, decides to work "smarter, not harder," and put all the items into the portable hole. He then proceeds to fold the portable hole into itself. [1]
In the 1988 film They Live, directed by John Carpenter, the hero Nada (Roddy Piper) is saved from certain death by an assault of riot police/aliens when his sidekick Frank (Keith David) accidentally activates a temporary and portable escape portal with an alien's wristwatch.
