Finder

Finder magic deals with things which have become utterly lost and untethered from the normal rules of reality. Practitioners who concentrate on this school are called a Finder or Chaos Mage.<ref name="Docs" /><ref>Practitioners who delve into the realms beyond the established are known as Finders, often among one another or to friends, or as Chaos Mages, to enemies and the ill-educated. - FINDERS, document by Wildbow.</ref> They were once known as Dreamers, but that term has fallen out of favour and is considered misleading.<ref name=":0">Finders were originally known as Dreamers, working under the assumption that the realms they explored were dreamscapes or the dreams of now dead gods.  Many aspects of dreams run through the places and routes a Finder travels; time doesn’t necessarily have the same meaning, continuity is questionable, and areas and denizens of the far-flung realms can be sublime and fantastic in a way reality rarely matches. This notion of dreams and dreamers is something Finders have been working hard to dispel.  In reality, it’s a dangerous sentiment, because it leads some to let their guards down, and worse, it allows Others who dwell in the far places to hitch a ride back with the unwary. - FINDERS, document by Wildbow. </ref>

Methodology

These magi focus on interaction with the immaterial.<ref name="Docs">Interaction Schools [...] Immaterial: Finder/Chaos Mage
Finders work with lost and forgotten things, unpinned from the realms of the physical and even of the spirit. They tend to interact with the abyss in some form, but only in a tertiary sense - where the Abyss is where things settle when they fall through the cracks in the world, the Finder explores the spaces between realms, and the unformed void that lies beyond them. In practice, they stray from and explore places beyond the defined paths and spaces, and interact with desperate, nameless, and forgotten things. They mingle subtle transmutations, (especially of the abstract) with a collection of tricks and favors taken from nameless things that bear steep and unpredictable results. Monkey paws and granted footholds. - Pact Dice: The Practices - Wbow Version</ref> Unlike Scourges they deal with the spaces between realms and the primordial realm before it, rather then the underside of reality.<ref name="Docs" /><ref name="WDF">FINDERS, document by Wildbow.</ref>

One common practice is to use a Demesne as an anchor, connecting it to one or more Paths so that they can more easily leave and return to the same place.<ref>As a note on the kind of investment involved, many Finders will use their demesnes as a foothold and escape clause, picking an unexplored area and using their demesnes as an anchor or place they can automatically retreat to if things go south.  This enables them to make repeat visits to the same area and steadily explore it or figure it out.  A given demesnes may only allow for a set number of Lost places (a room with four sides might allow for one side to be an exit to reality, each of the three other doors opening to Lost places; a house might allow for more).  Families will often work together, with one practitioner securing the way from point A to point B, the next from B to C, and so on, to outline a longer way. - FINDERS, document by Wildbow.</ref>

In addition to the Lost, Finders tend to deal with the more abstract Others, such as Incarnations, problematic Ghosts, and certain types of spirit.<ref name=":3">As for the general Others that they'll run into & operate with, they're from the immaterial and interaction tracks. So...

Concept-driven Others - especially the riff-raff surrounding things like Incarnations. The agents or soldiers of Dream, Death, Fate, Nature, Ruin, Innocence, etc.
Envoys - These Others persist by making deals and

furthering the ends of the incarnation they represent/are.  They may be
urban legends or itinerant Others.  The deals are usually tricky or 

really loaded. "Did you hear? They say that there's a way to summon a little old man who will ask you for a name. He'll destroy a person you name, but he'll take what you cherish most from you in exchange. Everyone always regrets it." A girl with strangely colored hair finds people in enough torment that they've lost their senses- the sleep deprived, the maddened, the drunken, and she offers them a deal. She'll

take the memory of whatever it is that is maddening them out of their 

head and the heads of everyone around them, but they're given the task of re-enacting or forcing that same agony on three other 'deserving' people, or she'll give them the memory she took from the last person she visited, and somehow it's always worse than (and somehow related to) what they were dealing with before. These Envoys visit our world and seek out targets who fit their schema and generally push deals

that net an overall positive contribution to [incarnation], but when 

they aren't here, they're somewhere, and that's often the Paths. If found or visited, they may offer similar deals, or barter with whatever it is they've collected or done.
The Leftovers - these are like incarnations, but writ small. Isolated bits of 'incarnation' that splintered off or exist

in isolation.  Especially common in the Paths because there's a whole 

lot of isolation there. Characters (and 'character' is the operative word here) that are defined by single attributes and personalities. Shored up by spirits and other things. A fragment of Regret splinters off due to circumstances, gets isolated in the Paths (where it naturally

ends up), and gathers up enough pieces of other things, like a mask of a
mouse and a party dress, picks up on ideas and the tatters of echos 

surrounding those things, and builds up a persona as the Cringing Mouse,

a girl with a mouse head and a garish dress, who can't help but do 

cringeworthy things at the worst moments and then agonize over them. Once they solidify as such, they tend to resist being absorbed elsewhere. Leftovers love to attach themselves to others as traveling companions, or recur on the paths. These form some of the 'wildlife' in

the Paths.  Not all are sentient or sapient.  Unwittingly, they tend to
further the cause of their parent Incarnation.

Pawns & Playing Cards - The forms these guys can take is impossibly varied. Extensions of an Incarnation with some power that wanted soldiers, messengers, servants, builders, or whatever else, they end up in the Paths if their parent Incarnation dies and they

don't go with it.  Tend to congregate in groups, all with a theme.  The
Victims of Innocence, who are wide eyed children, beautiful, all 

dressed in pristine white clothes, with a penchant for hurling themselves into the most horrible fates available, if there's any chance

it'll break people's hearts to see it.  The Rats of Plague, who wait 

and multiply in anticipation of a chance to deliver a plague worse than the Black Death upon humanity- except they're quarantined. All they need is an open door or for one rat to sneak through and they can do just that. Tend to be really, really stupid, however, while appearing in great number, leaving diplomacy as the key to dealing with them.

Echoes & remnants. Ghosts, vestiges. Because they intersect with the Paths, they might deal with other kinds of echo.
Wild Echoes - Overlaps with Incarnations, above. Echoes (ghosts) of humans who were done away with by very dramatic Incarnation-type events. Tend to be flavorful, hard-to-deal-with echoes

who don't follow the usual tropes or tools of necromancers, so most 

necromancers won't bother. Tools and approaches with Death in mind don't apply if we're talking about an Other who was done away with by Ignonimity or Lust.
False Echoes - Echoes of people who didn't exist, except by rumor. A real pain in the ass for necromancers, but not so much a problem for Finders.

Spirits - Spirits are bread & butter, and not exclusive to the Paths, but frequently found are...
Petitioner Spirits - Spirits consolidated around a

question or set of questions.  They often ask people they see and then 

may get power to act if the answer is right or wrong. Can be hooked into echoes or have echoes as central points, depending.
Abstract Spirits - Spirits of consolidated Path-trash, may be even less defined or consistent than usual spirits, but can be useful as a kind of wet clay for those looking to mold them.

The problem is that if these guys are a blender of weird, well, 

sometimes that blender has blades inside. The trick is finding out what's at the center, holding them together.

- Wildbow on Reddit </ref>

The Paths

The Paths, also known as the far places or the Reaches,<ref name=":1">The places a Finder explores are typically categorized in two ways.  The first are termed the far places, the Reaches, or, most commonly, the Paths.  These are the places that have been explored and are mostly understood.  The key thing to keep in mind is that all have a logic, even if that logic isn’t yet known.  Finders work to codify the rules of a place, and the rules for interacting with Lost Others, and the Paths are more or less codified. The other places are entered either by misstep or after exhaustive preparation and the collection of an assortment of tools and allies.  They are known as the Lost Rooms, the Forgotten Places, the Dark Reaches, or the like.  Once a path has been walked three times three times, by at least three separate practitioners, using the rules outlined, then the greater finder community will generally allow them to be entered into record and distributed, often to the great benefit of the Finder in question.  Until this point, they are considered exceptionally hazardous. - FINDERS, document by Wildbow. </ref> are realms which have become untethered from pretty much everything - unrecoverable even by the Abyss. They may once have been a part of the Abyss, ordinary reality, or even the collective unconscious.<ref name=":2">The reaches are realms which may have been a part of reality, a part of the abyss, or a fragment of collective unconsciousness, which has come untethered from just about everything.  Without history, human attention or human logic to help pin them down, these places and their denizens unspool.  A lesser god with no connection to reality will fall to the Abyss.  When she is entirely unrecoverable, she may find herself drifting across the Paths, where sustenance is so little and so far between that she is forced to hibernate for centuries at a time, insofar as time has any meaning in those places.  Beings such as this once-god often wake only when practitioners approach. - FINDERS, document by Wildbow.</ref> They are dreamlike in nature, with fluid reality and passage of time, and filled with the sorts of wonders rarely found in the real world.<ref name=":0" /> Every Path has it's own rules, but even knowing those rules, it's easy for them to shift and trap a Finder.<ref>The Paths are exceptionally dangerous, and for the majority of Finders, new areas are only explored by accident or with heavy investment.  Even with a set of instructions, the intersection of two areas or the passing of a Lost Other can throw one far place into upheaval.  Many a Finder has misstepped and found themselves trapped on a staircase that has ceased to have a beginning or end, in a room with no exit, or turned around to find the path had changed behind them, and that they had no way home. - FINDERS, document by Wildbow.</ref>

Newly-discovered Paths are known as the Lost Rooms, the Forgotten Places, the Dark Reaches etc, and are considered especially hazardous. To be considered among the known Reaches, a Path must have been walked at least 9 times by at least 3 Finders.<ref name=":1" />

New Finders will often be escorted on several trips by their family or circle before walking the Paths alone. A common first Path to walk used for inductions in North America is the Forest Ribbon Trail.<ref>A family or circle that is inducting a new Finder will often escort that Finder on several trips before sending them on their first finding alone. This typically involves walking a path the family has thoroughly worked, or walking one of the more commonly traveled paths. The most commonly recommended path to new North American Finders is the Forest Ribbon Trail, as it is the least hazardous, is very commonly traveled to the point it is well proven, and it is, by the logic that serves it, relatively straightforward. - FINDER document, The First Finding: The Forest Ribbon Trail</ref> This can help to mark them as a Finder and improve their ability to interact with the Lost.<ref>Because it is a beginner path, there is a degree of inclusion or indoctrination that comes with walking it.  Walking the path as one’s first true ritual as a practitioner is common for a North American Finder, and being a Finder makes interaction with the Lost and Lost things or places easier.  Landmarks will be clearer, the Lost may be less hostile or more open to communicating, and journeys may be shorter or less taxing.  Successfully walking the path on one’s first visit without using the prey animal escape clause for something other than the conclusion of the ritual enhances this effect. - FINDER document, The First Finding: The Forest Ribbon Trail</ref>

In addition to the Lost, the Paths can hold abstr

The Lost

The Lost are beings which have become utterly lost and can be found on the Paths. Such beings are often the last of their kind, and are never bound to the Seal of Solomon. They include Finders who have been lost on the Paths long enough to no longer qualify as Practitioners,<ref name=":4" /> beings the Abyss failed to hold onto,<ref name=":2" /> and the servants/extensions of Incarnations who lost their connection to them;<ref name=":3" /> whatever they once were, they are no longer considered Practititioners or even Others.<ref name=":4">The Lost Others and Finders who’ve lost their way to an extent that they are no longer practitioners (Others and Practitioner being included under the umbrella term ‘The Lost’) have ceased to have an easy classification or categorization.  If they were once part of a more diverse breed, they are often now the last of their kind.  Dealing with them is often high risk and high reward - it is impossible to know these Lost, they’re never bound by the Seal of Solomon (such a tie would keep them from being lost) and can thus lie or cheat, and they have nothing to lose.  On the flip side of things, they are often prepared to give over the entirety of themselves or their power in a gambit to re-enter more material worlds. - FINDERS, document by Wildbow.</ref> This vagueness of classification is exacerbated by the tendency for Lost to absorb and borrow traits from other Lost.<ref name=":5">The Others of the Paths are defined by the difficulty in defining them.

Which is kind of circular and very problematic when it comes to dealing
with them.

Major/Native Others of the Paths:
They (and the Paths themselves) tend to be subjective. A spirit of

the rat is going to wear any number of forms that relate to the rat, 

and may shift between several of those forms as convenience dictates - a

little girl in a rat onesie, a giant rat, a human in a rat mask... 

contrast with a denizen of the Paths, which appears to wear one form for

each person.  If you're on the Path of Black Doors and you run afoul of
one of the Bone Men, then the appearance they (the path, the doors, the
Bone Men) are going to take is going to be 'locked in' for you and 

doesn't really change, but if you were to draw your recollection of them, and another visitor were to draw the same, you'd both get very different pictures.
They're often vague in label and crisp in identity & role. They tend to take in aspects of spirits and other Finder Others (described below) and really consolidate around one particular role, set

of rules, and approach.  Many may resemble fairy tale creatures from 

fairy tales we as a society no longer remember, or ubiquitous ones (the 'wolf', the 'witch', the 'foolish lad'). Keep in mind that they're subjective. Everyone's 'Witch' is different.
Dealing with them tends to involve using & playing with the specific means they use for contact. Because they're so far removed from people and normal rules, the rules they do play by become the rules

they're defeated by.  If they try to fight you, it means they can be 

fought. If they try to trap you with words, it means they can be defeated with words. Think of each one as its own encapsulated problem solving exercise. They don't present a puzzle and then get defeated with swords, for example.
They tend to be more about consistent abstract symbols or representations than anything. Firm interpretations should be avoided, and if you think you have one, you're probably off-base.
The Wolf is given as an example in the handbook - everyone's Wolf is different, but it always capital-h Hurts you deeply, but if you prepare right and negotiate right, you won't remember how and you get to carry your treasure from the Forest Ribbon Path away with you.
- Wildbow on Reddit </ref>

They commonly appear differently to every observer, based around a single symbol or archetype rather than anything rational, such as variations on a single "fairy-tale" role - the Wolf, the Witch, the Foolish Lad etc (although these may be based on story archetypes lost to humanity.)<ref name=":5" /> They often only awake when Finders approach, to conserve energy, sleeping for centuries at a time.<ref name=":2" />

A key when dealing with the Lost is to determine which rules they follow, and can then be used to defeat them. For instance, a Lost which physically attacks you is revealing that it subscribes to the rules of physical combat, and so can probably be physically defeated.<ref name=":5" />

One type of Lost are abstract Spirits that have absorbed scraps of miscellaneous Lost material. Less well-defined than other spirits, which can make them useful as raw material. They generally have an original core at their heart that is the key to controlling them.<ref name=":3" />

History

It used to be believed that Finders dealt with dreams, perhaps the dreams of dead gods, hence the name Dreamers. However, it has become clear that the places they deal with are very real, and there has been a concerted effort to abandon the old term lest it mislead people into believing that e.g. the Others they meet on the Paths cannot manifest in reality.<ref name=":0" />

References

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