Hi,

can Spiral place one of her portal markers on special terrain squares o hindering/blocking terrain?

It says they can be placed in any square on the map so I would say yes. I don't believe it would change the type of terrain they were placed on though.

That would be the next question, does the marker change the type of terrain of that square? If that square has special rules, do they still apply?

The only thing that would change about the square would be that it is now considered adjacent to the square the other portal occupies.

3) THE RULE OF OCCUPANCY
Any game effect resulting in two or more characters occupying the same square, or characters, terrain markers, or objects occupying a square of blocking terrain, is prohibited (except for Debris markers, see Terrain, p. 12). If part of a game effect would cause this to happen, that part of the game effect is ignored. If moving or placing a character, terrain marker, or object would cause this, then the character, terrain markers, or object must instead move to or be placed in a different square. Characters using certain powers and abilities may freely travel through other characters and/or blocking terrain, but if it will end its movement in the same square as another character or blocking terrain, the moving character must end its movement before entering the occupied square.

I believe the underlined section would prevent you from placing Gateway markers in blocking terrain. Or maybe not, since it is not explicitly stated that they are terrain markers. Either way, it won't change the terrain of the square, so anyone who cannot move through blocking terrain would be unable to use the Portal should it be placed in blocking terrain.

I don't think they are terrain markers, so I'd say you could place them there. But as you say, you now have one end of the portal in blocking terrain so it limits who can move through.

Of course, but if both you and me have Spiral I can place the 2nd marker on blocking terrain and use my "IM: Ignores blocking terrain and destroys it" character so you can't use the portal so easily, for example.

Wouldn't hurt to verify the intent though. Either Spiral or the Rule of Occupancy might need tweaking if the intent in fact is that you cannot put the markers on blocking terrain.

Absolutely. I'd always prefer to know the intent rather than guess.

Due to some upcoming changes, this is a moot point...

Duh duh DUH!

"Well that's not foreboding at all."
I would argue that the rule of occupancy is pretty specific about what is prohibited and that there is nothing to tell you this is a terrain marker. I would point out that by contrast Jennifer Kale specifies that her marker is a terrain marker, and since this one does not it is logically not terrain. I would argue that clarification/errata is needed if these are to be treated as terrain markers. I would do that, but since the point is soon to be moot I won't.

Still, would be nice to know for sure what the intent is.

I think the intent was to make an over powered figure that would drive sales.

I'd love to know how soon "moot" is! LOL

We have a big tourney ROC tourney coming up in December....hopefully we'll know in advance of it! If "moot" has the alpha strike team building impact I think it will have.

If there was errata / clarification issued, it would be contemporary to the changes I mentioned, and that would be useless. I'm not going to speculate on when those changes will hit so I'll kick this up for intent.

I agree with all you said above. I'm saying that not calling it a special terrain marker may have been an oversight. So yes, intent is needed, but what I posted was my insight into the intent. Since no change / clarification will be issued on it other than a ruling, I felt that would suffice for the time being.