Warding

Practitioners who specialize in Wards are called Wardens amoung the most respected of practitioners.<ref name="Docs"/>

Methodology

They deal with the metaphorical walls that keep civilians safe. They also craft totems and barriers and imbue them with spirits, along with other methods of reinforcing boundaries, some subtle and some blatant. The most effective wards are highly complex, with many rules governing their behavior, almost like crafting a computer program.<ref name="Docs">Wards
Wardens are often among the most respected practitioners, typically handling the most fundamental of the management of the practitioner-to-mundane divide. Their practice involves overt and subtle practices to maintain metaphysical walls. They create totems and wards using materials and imbue them with spirits. The most effective wards are almost like computers, with complex operations, contingencies and constructions. - Pact Dice: The Practices - Wbow Version</ref> Warding ones abode is one of the most basic defenses a Practitioner can have. Remember the basic rules of binding - like can cancel out like, but opposite can cancel out opposite even more strongly and roughly. Ordered, geometric, artificial barriers help to guard against the most common types of Other, which are natural and chaotic. Other effective wards include protective signs and regular ritual sprinkling of water along boundaries.<ref name="4.1">Collateral 4.1</ref>

Wardens exist on a continuum with Sealers and Binders, who wield similar powers and techniques in more offensive ways.<ref name="Docs2">Sealing
Sealing magic uses ofuda or the like, but can do what they do with simple words and orders spoken as short rituals. The emphasis is on imposing restrictions that activate effects when broken. With greater puissance, the restriction is mandated (ie. can’t move from the spot) for a short time, with the affected party gaining the ability to break it at a cost later. Sealers are a middle ground between Wardens and Binders, but frequently play out their power as a defensive, chess-like game of frustrating and stymying opponents. </ref><ref name="Docs3"> Binding
If connections are like threads, tying people to one another, then binders tie people up with threads. They manipulate threads and follow them to sources. Very strong at finding people, turning them elsewhere, etc. At high puissance, can outright control others. Binders lean heavily on the ‘make a contract with an Other, use that Other’.</ref>

Known for taking the chain implement.<ref>The Chain binds the wearer if wound around them and can be turned around to bind another.  The chain may be a fine silver chain or a rusty steel one with a hook on it, meant for towing cars, or it may be something in between.  The nature of the chain determines its focus, and the fine silver chain could be stronger for binding than the heavy steel one, if what one wants to bind are specific ethereal Others.  Versatile, strong, and sometimes used by those who would bind themselves more than anything else, to restrain that which dwells within them.  As a part of a diagram the chain can be likened to the border, warding off or containing.  A favored choice of binders, wardens, and sealers.

Exercise: Consider how the rope might differ.  Conversely, the thread is very different from the chain, but how might they be similar? - excerpt from Implementum, quoted in Bonus Material: Implementum Text</ref>

Notable Wardens

• Mann, Levinn, and Lewis Firm Chauffeur<ref name="4.1"/>
• Milly Legendre<ref>[Milly] wasn’t sure what being a great warden or knight of seals might look like, but a part of her was terrified that it looked like this..- Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.y</ref>
• The Hoghs<ref>The Hoghs were originally a young couple with very limited practice knowledge that Howie Hogh was able to recollect from his childhood- taught to him by his father before his mother divorced the man and moved away. They owned a hotel, purchased at a steal because it was haunted, secured the wraith in the basement, and set up their modest business. However, due to some errors made, compounded by the mechanisms they used to help a guest (for a fee, of course) with a spiritual problem, left active for five years to absorb bad spirits and ghosts, what they ended up creating was a modest Gu Jar scenario - Others drawn in by the diagram work in the basement, concentrated into a single locale, where it condensed into a singular, very dangerous compound/complex Other.
  
  Their efforts to secure the escalating situation drew attention, and Wardens came to secure the situation, on the request of a Lord of a not-too-distant territory. The Gu was sealed more securely, the couple was taught some practice to maintain and improve the warding, and all was well... until they realized a few things. In a bad situation, it was common for Wardens to come and secure the situation, teaching others to maintain it so they didn't have to come themselves. And Wardens were territorial and didn't collaborate much if they didn't have to, not wanting to have to take ownership of others' work. So the Hoghs removed much of what others had done, contacted other Wardens, and repeated the process. They got some items, knowledge, and they got greedier.
  
  Fast forward twenty years. The Hoghs are among the more respected Wardens, their son is starting at a magic school soon, and they have just enough clout that when another Warden family clued into how the Hoghs had risen so meteorically, they were able to remove them, raid them, and take their stuff. They are on the cusp of greatness, but it's a precarious cusp, and the Gu throbs and strains against its many bindings beneath their hotel. - Wildbow on Discord</ref>
• Avila Family (Fate)<ref>```The Avila family line was cursed generations ago, and every member of the family dies in the week they turn 40, in particularly unpleasant, horrible ways. Kidnapping and torture by an Other or human, a plane crashing into a building they're in and roasting them over a long period of time, or horrific medical issues arising out of nowhere, leading to issues like prolonged, muscle-tearing seizures. None survive. The family knew it was the fault of an Other tied to Fate, but the identity of that Other has been lost to time and partially blocked by that Other's powers.
  
  They've taken to binding Others, especially those relating to Fate, and planting rings of trees around them. As the trees grow, the Others face the prospect of being bound for however long it takes the trees to rot and die. Each Other is given a bell, which they are to ring if they have information for the Avilas, though ringing binds them to deeper service. They've become information brokers, with a gallery of Others, some partially ringed by close-knit trees, speaking through gaps, who supply answers on demand. Their hope is to find who it was that cursed them, but what they've ended up creating is a comprehensive information map of the wider area, especially when it comes to matters of Fate.``` - Wildbow on Discord</ref>

Related Others

• Trussed
• Sphinxes were wardens of a sort, created to guard holy places.<ref>The lion, the bird of prey, neither suggested slow reflexes. Her mother had been made to be a warden, a guardian of a holy place. - excerpt from Void 7.3</ref>

References

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