Sounds nifty, huh? Mk, so here's the skinny on this idea. It's really just another suggestion for an idea that's been going around this board for some time now, but it's not simple reiteration. The coding end of this will be a bit convoluted so I am going to try to keep the explanation of this idea as simple as I can while including as much of the intended back-story as possible. Let me break it down for you:

- As you upgrade your stable, you begin to gain more rights as a business within the state in which you operate. The more pets you own, the greater your privileges to operate your business. At some point, your affluence and success as a large farm grants you permission to obtain a very special license to hire a very highly-trained and skilled mage normally only available to large farms and the State itself, a Portal Specialist. These mages train for decades to ply their trade, and they do not come cheap! Neither are their projects easy to accomplish or free; quite the opposite really. That brings us to...

- What can these special mages do? They are the sole possessors of the most intimate knowledge of portal crystals, the only known way to expand the capabilities of a portal. Every portal has one, but most never get more; only the State Portal Service and select large farms are ever granted access to such high-level magic. And for good reason: an improperly created crystal has potentially catastrophic effects. Portal Specialists must train for decades and pass rigorous tests before they are approved to actually begin work in this most challenging field. Speaking of portal crystals...

- Portal Crystals, while amazing in function, are somewhat limited in scope. That is to say, each additional crystal (after the first) must be tied to an amulet in order to function. The amulet is the “key” to the crystal's “lock”; it is how each crystal identifies the owner of the storage bank. These keys are assigned to owners in a very long and strenuous magical ceremony that takes hours and a great deal of energy to accomplish, not to mention several magical resources. Basically, a little Vermillion, a Quartz Crystal, some stone & lazulite, and a bit of cotton are provided for a spell that takes 4 hours to cast and leaves the owner, usually a trusted pet, completely exhausted. It is possible to transfer ownership of an amulet that has already been given an owner, but the same spell that ties the amulet to its owner must be performed in reverse, and in the process the amulet is usually rendered magically inert (destroyed). The process of removing ownership is no less time-consuming or strenuous than assigning it, and in order for the crystal to function again, it must be tied yet again to another amulet. [Essentially: you spend the resources to get the amulet made; to remove it, you spend twice as much vermillion to break it as you did to make it and your pet is yet again rendered without energy – then the process of assigning is repeated for the new “owner”. The pet would have a small icon placed somewhere on its profile page that would mark it as the owner of a portal amulet, preferably to the right of its name. Also, because of the strenuous, taxing nature of the ritual, the same animal could not go through this process more than once in a week, unless you want to add in some special food or something that could feed it that would somehow lessen the time. About the reasoning for the amulet from a story standpoint: Can you imagine trying to finagle a way to make two (or more) different spells, all performed by different people at different times, work together as one on the same apparatus? Preposterous. Such magic would be unduly taxing and highly unreliable, as everyone knows that a spell once cast takes on a life of its own. Such is the nature of magic, after all. No, the spells on the portal apparatus itself are what actually allow the use of multiple crystals, but even this is limited for the sake of reliability. A portal may recognize more than one crystal, but will only attempt to actively access/use any additional crystals beyond the first if it has been marked as owned. In affect, it's a safety feature.]


- Now, admittedly, if you so desired, this could simply be an upgrade option that requires a certain Stable level to gain access to. The main idea here is to allow players with a certain Stable size to upgrade their portals within certain limits; the secondary idea of tying the crystals to amulets and thereby to specific pets is just an arbitrary way of attempting to make upgrading portal capacity difficult, time consuming, and most importantly costly, without being so ridiculous it becomes more trouble than it's worth. If you would like to give us the opportunity to upgrade our portals without all the rigamarole, then by all means, cut out the middle man (amulet/talisman/ring/bracelet/whatever). That certainly would be nice, especially for those with max-capacity Stables who are struggling to keep their pets fed. This is an attempt at a compromise. Please do comment and let me know your thoughts.