THE WANDERING WALK
The Wandering Walk is a pilgrimage route through the Ninth World. No one knows the exact length of the Wander, nor can anyone point to its exact beginning or end. Many people speculate that the Wander is actually a closed circle that encloses the whole of the Ninth World and that some travelers, especially those with enhancements or otherworldly attributes, have been trekking its eternal loop since before recorded time.
For most, the Wander is too physically taxing to
be used as a trade or travel route. It slips through fluid-filled canyons, curves inside crawlspace tunnels, and winds through woods, forests, and much of the Beyond. The rewards seem few, and the dangers are many. Yet at any given time of the year and at any
given point along the known sections of the route, the Wander is laced with pilgrims, explorers, and those who are foolish enough to think it offers safe passage. Those who follow the Wander for religious, spiritual,
or other reasons are called Peregrines or just Birds (though the latter term is usually derogatory). Although their dress varies, true Peregrines carry some mark
of the Wander. Typically, the mark is an elaborate and continually growing circular bloodscar along their palm; there is little else to do along the Wander when one
is not wandering, and the intricate nature of the scar gives bragging rights to show how long a traveler has survived along the way. Experienced Peregrines carry the scar up the length of their arm or on both palms.
Of course, there are also many who trek the Wander for other kinds of growth—namely, the growth of their pockets. These skulkers who come to borrow from the bodies of the fallen often become inadvertent pilgrims themselves, either getting lost along the route or walking it to find a home where they can settle with their newfound spoils. They don’t generally make it far before they fall to the elements or to the hand of another skulker.
And thus, the Wander captures all in its eternal length.
The action begins on what’s called the Fifth Stretch of the Wandering Walk, the long, dry, mountainous expanse of the route that stretches roughly between the western point of Cylion Basin—a town filled with pools that is a rejuvenation point for weary travelers—and the eastern point of the Great Slab, a huge construction that rises from the land in a large, flat square of synth and concrete. Wise Peregrines know to go around the slab, despite the length this detour adds to the route. Those with less knowledge and poorer friends will not be warned in time. To the north lies the False Woods.
The Fifth Stretch is probably the best-documented area of the Wandering Walk, perhaps because it
has a number of small villages here and there and because the expanse plays host to an experience that can’t be found anywhere else—occasional bioluminescent swarms (if someone knows when
or why the swarms occur, they’re not telling). The swarms consist of millions of see-through organisms that spend most of their lives lying camouflaged
on the sandy landscape until they suddenly rise together, becoming bioluminescent and twisting
and turning in unified patterns of dance and flight. In fact, the sandy landscape is not sand at all but
is built from layers of blue-green detritus from the creatures. This loam quickly soils the skin and stains the clothes of those who spend much time here, and it's sometimes used as dye or food coloring. Before beginning the adventure, each PC should
establish his or her reason for being in the area.
