The trees have told me that those who seek us draw near.
In seeking to grasp the higher order of the Supernal World, many mages look beyond the artificial reality constructed and maintained by mankind, toward the world of nature. While others leaf through dusty tomes or gaze into the smooth, polished surfaces of mirrors or glass balls in their secluded sanctums, there are those willing to step outside and draw knowledge and power from a greater world not of their own making. They read their incantations and prophecies in the stir of branches in the wind and the fall of leaves. They draw power and strength from the green, growing world.
There is a secret language in nature, and from those who are able to read it nothing in the Fallen World may be hidden, for all things are interconnected and everything is reflected in everything else. Nature displays its treasures for all to see, but unfolds in ways that few can ever fully comprehend, changeless only in its ever-changing evolutions, devolutions and revolutions. The diligent mage may divine the intricate syntax and grandiose grammar of this secret language, glimpsing even deeper secrets in the Mists that enshroud mysteries beyond mortal comprehension.
Most would halt or turn back, but some press on into this nature beyond nature, this “supernature,” if you will. In the Mists can be found the implicit order from which the visible world grows, the sleeping giants whose bodies are the land, whose breath is the wind, of whose voices the thunder is but an echo. Here is where the faces of nymphs shine through flower and fruit and leaf, where the dances of sylphs trace breeze and gale, where gnomes churn away at the molten heart of the mountain. This is where magic is born, and even the mightiest mage must tread carefully or not at all.
The Walker in Mists reaches beyond the seen into the unseen, tapping magic at the source of all life as was done in times long forgot. Other mages look within themselves, or up at distant heavens, but the Walker actually travels in the world seeking realms of pure enchantment. He knows the deep caverns of the earth where dragons yet sleep, and what ancient invisible roads lead to the fae countries.
It was the Walker in Mists who first taught mankind to mark the trails it followed and to recognize landmarks that could lead unerringly from region to region. Rather than following seasonal growth or available game, mankind could choose its own path to its destiny. In short, he taught us not simply to migrate, but to actually travel. To the more settled folk he gave games of chance — the vagaries of which teach, in miniature, the mysteries of fate and destiny — that they too might experience the adventure of the unknown.
But with the spread of civiliza- tion, mankind forgot the wisdom of the Walker, taking his gifts for granted and detaching itself from the rhythms and cycles of the natural world. Even his games of chance — once used to divine the very will of the gods themselves — degenerated into a competitive orgy of materialistic greed, attracting crime and corruption. As broad, well-traveled roads carved up the wilderness and creased the face of the earth, the Walker found it increasingly necessary to rely upon ley lines to guide him invisibly through the Mists from grove to lake to mountain as he visited the few remaining sacred sites. In modern times, he is completely marginalized, a loner patrolling the fringes of the overdeveloped world.
Attainments
- Peer into the Mists
- Mist Haven
- Paths Through the Mists
