A straight line is far from the shortest distance between two points — here, let me show you.
The World of Darkness can be a very strange place indeed. Occasionally creatures from the Abyss or other even less explicable phenomena warp and twist space in ways that can cause changes as small as altering the exact location of one of the interior walls in a house or as major as causing both an entire building, and all knowledge of it to vanish forever. Although such phenomena naturally erase themselves from the minds of Sleepers, mages notice and remember such events. This combination of warping both space and perception fascinates some mages who wish to learn how to duplicate these effects. Those mages who become sufficiently fascinated with these phenomena or with the more general idea of warping space and perception often learn this Legacy.
According to the doctrine of the Reality Stalkers, the structure of the Fallen World is filled with hidden cracks through which the practitioners of this Legacy learn to peer and eventually move. Known to outsiders as Sneaks, these mages often become obsessed with such distortions in reality, and some are convinced that ancient secrets and wondrous treasures are con- cealed in this fashion, including potentially a physical path to the Supernal Realms. However, most Reality Stalkers are not theoreticians or mystics interested primarily in knowledge or spiritual enlightenment. Instead, the majority of Sneaks are people fascinated by all manner of secrets and hidden objects and take great joy in uncovering them. As a result, Sneaks are eager to observe and gain access to the world’s hidden places, including places purposefully hidden from thieves and intruders.
The major internal tension among the members of this Legacy is between those Sneaks who are fascinated by the various cracks and discontinuities in reality and those whose appreciation for these distortions of reality is purely practical and who find these cracks and faults in the Fallen World to be little more than exceptionally useful tools. Many Sneaks either seek to explore and understand the various breaks in reality or simply appreciate the beauty and wonder of such faults in space. However, an almost equal number see these cracks as little more than little-known and utterly invaluable paths to all manner of desirable goods. To many mages, Reality Stalkers have a reputation for being amoral thieves whose fascination with goods and knowledge belonging to others often verges on kleptomania.
Many Sneaks are more than happy to use their knowledge of the secrets paths through the fabric of reality to study or steal all manner of precious and useful items. The ease with which they can gain access to locations that are effectively impossible to access via mundane means has caused the Mysterium to look upon the Sneaks as one of the order’s primary tools in its continuing efforts to learn the secrets and collect the artifacts that others have hidden away. Because Sneaks’ travels avoid all risk of Paradox, they are usually far more willing to use their particular forms of transportation than other mages.
However, almost half the members of this Legacy are dedicated, if often deeply eccentric and reckless, explorers who are more interested in exploring and understanding the nature of the fractures in reality than they are in exploiting them as a way to steal from others. In addition to taking great joy in using the Attainments of this Legacy, these mages also seek out vari- ous discontinuities in reality, including both ones created by ancient and powerful magics and those due to more exotic and mysterious causes, and seek to explore them using their Legacy and their magic. Because of the obvious dangers of this sort of exploration, occasionally members of this Legacy simply vanish and are never seen again, while others develop and unhealthy fascination with the Abyss and its denizens. Although this is not a Left-Handed Legacy, the fact that a not-insubstantial number of the members are either thieves or mages fascinated with the Abyss serves to make many mages wary of the Sneaks
Attainments
- Gazing Through the Cracks
- Cracking Open the Flaws
- Tame the Flaws
