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> and previously as the Dream or Dreaming.<ref>“If I can’t come to any agreement for your requests or you can’t agree to mine, will we agree to a compromise where you return to the paths?”

“The paths?”

“It was called the Dream, incorrectly, before.”
[...]
“No need. We’ll go back. To the Dream.”

“Nomenclature changed,” Verona noted.

The Tearaway Kid looked up at her, annoyed. “Again?”

Verona shrugged. - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.5</ref> Are a collection of 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">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> Every Path has its 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 initial and initiation Path 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. - FINDERS 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. - FINDERS document, The First Finding: The Forest Ribbon Trail</ref>

Note that these Paths are the ones walked by Practitioners, Others also use the Paths and can expect different effects.<ref>“I am located at four-one-one-one-one-eight-eight-three-four-five-six-two-four Oak Avenue!” she called out. “May I please request an operator!?”

The trajectory of her fall shifted to a right angle, plunging her into bright daylight. The remnants of a neighborhood with brightly painted houses tumbled through the air with her.
[...]
“I’m sorry this reunion is so short. I can’t go back home to the stairwell, and this place only deposits humans on an Earthly Oak Avenue. It would send me back. Can you give me a hand?” - Excerpt from Back Away 5.d</ref>

Boons and Trinkets

Going through a Path is like going on a amazing journey.

One needs to be a Finder to get the full benefit of a Path.<ref name="vp8.7"/>

List of known Paths

Paths exist in a sea of nothingness.<ref>So it’s just kludge at the edge of spirit or the edge of ruins or abyss or Faerie or the magic side of Earth. With this idea of things the stuff just drifts loose in Nothingness and clumps together because of gravity. But stuff without the connections is just weirdness. It’s the connections and the stuff that comes with connections that knit it together or give it any kind of logic at all. Connections = Paths.

(That Nothingness may be important. It’s why travel between any Paths seems so seamless or close together. There’s Nothing in between them. Not even empty space or time) - [9.3 Spoilers] Path Practicalities</ref>

Named Paths:

The Amaranthine Conundrum - A place where everything's purple and one has to paint themselves purple to enter, which was used as a prison for tricky or problematic Others.<ref>“The Amaranthine Conundrum. Everything’s purple. Purple place balanced on a purple animal’s back. We’d have to paint ourselves to blend in,” Avery said.

“Doable with glamour,” Verona said.

“The place was used as a prison for some Others that aren’t strong enough to break free, but are tricky or problematic. Stuff like close this one door, another two open. Move an object and doors disappear, and things move, accordingly. They filled it up, then sold the instructions for visiting, with specific instructions. Looks straightforward.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.10</ref> Has a killer Lost called the Clod.<ref name="FK">The Clod, from the Amarinthine Conundrum. Sick Girl, from the Hospital Hallway. The Killer By Night from the Neverending Night. The Cigar Smoker from the Up in Smoke. Pumpkin Belly from Cinderella Run. Those were just the ones she could identify.

Forty-nine killers from various Paths. - Excerpt from Let Slip 20.2</ref>
The Blade's Length<ref name="TBL">

A path that extends down the flat side of a massive blade (knife, sword, etc), which serves as a road.
[...]

Blade's Length suggests confrontation (esp. given the meaning of the blade/sword/knife in the Otherverse), so perhaps it's a relatively narrow path with a series of Others at set intervals, to be fought in wordplay/riddle or physical confrontation.

[...]
The Blade's Length

Each meeting with a Lost will be unique. There are a couple thousand possibilities and each has their own approach, offering a test of battle or a test of words, and some may be as easy as asking for the punchline to the same joke every time, or a fight against a literal six year old with the face of a mouse, or it might be as difficult as fighting a gunman who can move and react as fast as any human and who never misses, with bullets that cannot be prevented from doing harm. Each contest allows asking three questions about the upcoming contest or the Lost in question, and then the practitioner must decide. On success, they get offered a Lost item or boon, and they get the choice of taking it or continuing on. Each subsequent item/offer is better than the last. The contests are purely random and it's possible to have six incredibly easy ones... or get a nigh-impossible on on the first round.
Depending on how many contests one faces, one loses or rises in station. Leaving this Path without facing anyone can lead to one finding themselves destitute soon after they return to reality, while facing the final contestant can result in quickly finding out you're destined from royalty or that a long removed family member has left you a fortune.

[...]
The Blade's Length is a little unsatisfying so something could be tacked onto the end. I like the notion, also, of a certain breach or failure (perhaps to answer a riddle, or waiting too long to give a response/exchange blows in the fight) causing the blade-shaped path to turn 90 degrees and slice anyone who was standing on it in twain, perhaps turning them into Lost with parts missing. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref> - A giant blade that one transverses and has to confront Lost on at set intervals. Individual confrontations vary randomly in difficulty but offer increasingly valuable rewards. Upon completing a challenge, one can chose to accept the reward or continue on to the next challenge.

Bound to the Party - A path comprised of seven lengths, each length contains an animal going to a party, if your unable to deal with any of the animals you or either turned into that animal, killed and mounted on the wall or hunt you down. Different animals present different challenges. You reach the path by knocking of a group of toy animals off of a table.<ref>“Okay,” Avery said. “Well, it’s a puzzle path. Seven lengths, each length has a different feel and aesthetic, punctuated by animals. All the animals are going to a party. If you can’t deal with an animal by the time you arrive, you might turn into that animal. For good. Or they kill you and mount you on the wall as a side activity for the party, turn you into a pinata, or decide today’s a fine day for a hunt and get their hunting gear and rifles, while you run. Ideally.”

“Yeah,” Avery said. “So if you run into an issue, stay put. No backtracking- you won’t get anywhere, and it changes things to be more negative and hostile. Try too long and the animals will all turn into fancy little Lost murderers.”

“They’re only ‘animals’ in the sense of the theme. Might be people in clothes that evoke the animal, could be people with animal masks, or t-shirts like Snow wears. Could be there are literal animals. Whatever they are, you change to match. Anyway, if someone ends up on the Bound to the Party or if they don’t pick the animals carefully, for whatever language they use on the papers, the animals and their issues are random. It’s chaos.”

“You know what to expect. The squirrel will hide something away, the fox will try to fox you, trick you, in other words. The badger will badger you, the ape will copy your actions, the parrot will repeat what you say, the rat will betray your confidence, the duck will try to escape, or duck out of the situation-”- Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.5</ref>
The Broken Road - A straight path that is difficult to traverse due to cracks, pits and an increasing slope. Shops and houses flank the path on either side.<ref>I fell through. I arrived at the opening of a place I would call The Broken Road. A straight path led up an increasing slope, with shops and homes on either side. Cracks and pits in the road made progress impossible.</ref> This was the first Path Hazel encountered and it has been used to introduce some new Finders to the Paths in place of the Forest Ribbon Trail.<ref>Second, as I alluded to in the last editor’s note, I’ll stress that the Latimores have made a point of inducting their children into the Paths by way of the Broken Road, rather than the customary Forest Ribbon Trail.</ref>
The Build Up - The finder has to climb a building whilst new layers are being added.<ref>“He’s sent me a write-up for The Build Up. Straight climb up. Few puzzles, lots of Others, some Others can be obstructions or hostile, just like people can, I figure. Seems to be common, that part. Looks like it’s focused on athletic prowess. Climbing a building as new rooms get dropped on, rammed into, strapped on, welded on, or otherwise attached to the structure. Gotta stay ahead of the floors that are getting demolished. Low to moderate difficulty. The ‘dismount’ as Jude put it is the hard part, getting the boon and leaving the path, and I guess you’d be tired by then.” - Excerpt from Fall Out 14.4</ref><ref>The building was as large as anything Avery had ever seen. Maybe as large as Kennet, but turned on one side. And much like a dollhouse, one exterior wall was missing. There was a section of the building that had a colossal windmill, with the blades sweeping the front face. As it rotated, it blocked out the sun, then revealed it. Avery, Snowdrop, Liberty, the Tearaway Kid and the small group of Garricks were cast in shade, then bright light, then shade again. Red ribbons a mile long trailed in the breeze, bunches tied to the ends of the windmill’s blades.

Avery could see the Lost denizens within the building, with the ones at the very top climbing into bunk beds. At the very bottom, people who’d climbed into bunk beds presumably a short few minutes ago woke up from their power naps, all wearing varying forms of nightclothes, or just underwear, if they weren’t just naked. They came in all ages.

They scaled the stairs, dashed into the open bath area. As cranes managed what looked like a giant rolling pin with spikes on it through the lower floor, the structure tilted and bathwater sloshed out, bringing some people with it. They braced themselves against the wall, hurrying to soap up, dunking in to rinse off, then swimming or climbing over one another on wet floors to get to the locker room. There, they grabbed towels, dried off, opened lockers and milled around, pulling out possessions and checking fits. A man pulled out a young woman’s dress, then threw it in a ball across the room to someone of approximately the right size. Even with a distance separating them, Avery could see the girl’s distaste. But she got dressed.

As the first of them reached the dining area, they snatched up trays of food, some sitting, others shoveling that food into their mouths as they hurried. As the middle of the pack got into the room, the big destructive rolling pin started tearing through the bath area. Water sprayed as it was caught by the spinning roller. Someone who had been knocked unconscious when the building had tilted was caught by a spinning spike and flung into the air.

And so it went. A rushed move out one doorway to the exterior of the building, where they found space on platforms with ropes tied to the corners. Those platforms lifted them up a floor to the factory area, people running around to find positions. A man with an upper body that rotated a few degrees every second and faces on both sides of his head watched as people got to work. Children picked up clipboards, standing at the very edge of the floor where it just ceased to be, a drop to the rolling pin or the ground several hundred feet down just a step backward. They took notes on what the adults were doing, while adults fabricated construction materials, lockers, clothes, soap… often with no rhyme or reason behind what the factories were producing where. Raw materials had to be brought over, fed into the right machines, and products had to be pulled out and stacked. People did what they could, fled their stations, moved to the next area, picking up tasks and products and shipping them. Crates of things were packed and rolled down tracks to the side window, then carried upward into the clouds.

They made headway, considering the speed of the roller and the amount of work required. Here and there, some people tried to slip through. The man with the rotating upper body stopped them. Grabbing one, flinging them over the edge, where they were struck by the windmill blade. A skinny man with suds still in his hair and no clothes on started working, only to get seized by the man watching things and fed into churning machinery. He reviewed a little girl’s clipboard and then swatted her repeatedly over the head with it, before getting distracted by someone else trying to sneak through.

A few minutes of work, rush, move forward. Through an indoor arboretum, where fruits were grabbed from trees, stragglers having to lose even more time by needing to climb to get more. Some who had kept their hats from the work area held those hats out for a bipedal cow with human hands gushing milk from udders, catching spraying milk in their hats, chugging it, passing the hat back to others. The bipedal cow struggled to stay standing, hooves slipping on milk-muddied ground, milk gushing out with enough force to keep her off balance and periodically splash someone, knocking them off their feet and toward the open face of the building.

Then more work, more stations, more things produced. Which led into another dining hall and a final stretch of relaxation areas. Some stopped there, others went straight to the bunk area, stripping down or pulling nightclothes out of the footchests by each bunk. Some slept, or tried to sleep. A couple climbed into one bunk, the man looking over and giving Avery what she was pretty sure was the finger, then put up a sheet to block the view.

Sleeping for the five minutes it took the top floor to become the bottom floor. Then repeating. Slightly different rooms, different work, different Lost.

There was another cycle at work than just that. Ropes with giant hooks on the end lowered rooms and segments of building into place. Each came with Lost and teams of Lost humans who worked to lash them into place. The more unusual Lost quickly sorted themselves out to stations in the new rooms, where they provided services. Some humans disappeared into the background, while others stuck around, presumably filling in for the people who’d died along the way.

The resulting structure was filled with holes and barely-tacked on rooms. There were dead ends and areas that required navigating some of the construction and chaos around the building, stepping onto platforms and other things. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.3</ref>
Burning Daylight - Dangerous Path with three Suns of different sizes moving across the sky and casting insanely bright light that burns everything it touches.<ref>The largest sun was slow to move, casting a shadow with edges so sharp they could cut. Flowers were incinerated, the ashes burned up, and the smoke was annihilated with such intensity that a shadow of the smoke was burned into the soil. - Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.10</ref> One has to navigate through an area of ruins and keep to the shadows cast by them. The Lost who inhabit this Path are immortal and while the sunlight does burn them, they are reanimated once they find themselves in shadow again.
The Cakewalk - A particularly dangerous path<ref>“I don’t know all the combinations of paths you can pair together for a way through, but the Cakewalk first, followed by the Watched Way should give you a clear route.”

“The Cakewalk is a Finder killer.” - Excerpt from Summer Break 13.9</ref> that involves serving cake to a party full of murderous Lost killers.
Cinderella's Run - a path filled with clock faces, if you make a hard contact on a surface either you or some thing on you will shatter and break.<ref name="CR">*A Path themed loosely off the Cinderella tale - glass slippers as a concept and clocks. The Path means navigating the clock faces and gears on a downward slope. The plants at the edges, the clocks, and the glass can vary depending on who walks the path, the glass could be stained glass or stacked champagne flutes, eyeglasses or windows. The clocks can vary in style.

[...]

For Cinderella's Run, the theme of the glass slipper provides the hazard, as does the clock-based path, a number of giant clock faces touching or arranged near one another. The hands of the clocks move at different speeds and generally speaking will bludgeon or slice anyone who they come into contact with. But if you jump or make hard contact with a surface in this path... something on your person shatters. It could be an article of clothing that turns to glass and cuts. It could be that your face shatters and you're Lost.

[...]
Cinderella's Run

Finishing Cinderella's Run grants a boon where, twice a day, you get some powerful effect for a very short time. A common one is to become invincible for 3-6 seconds at a set time of day or night, decided at random. During this time you'll shrug off hostile practice and attacks. You also get another effect that tends to be more double-edged, at another time of day. Like, say, not existing for all intents and purposes for five seconds at 5:04am. Stuff very closely tied to you may be affected. (Ties to the 'fragility' theme of the path and the time element)
Five Others appear on the path, randomly assorted from those who need help, hostile Others, and bystanders.
Of those who may need help (not all clocks are perfectly flat, some sit at a steep angle that make it easy to slide off, some Others may be hanging from clock arms, others may be in the process of being attacked by hostile Others). They can be rescued; if they are, they will tether themselves to the practitioner. They'll appear in the practitioner's vicinity in reality, often with a positive bent. Rescuing an Other three times across three separate visits lets it return to reality in full. This is very much a judgement call type of thing, but a family of Finders could use this to accumulate helpful Lost who could then help manage open doors to Paths and keep Paths afloat.
Bystanders may offer trade, advice, or warnings.
Hostile Lost try to screw you up. They're obligated to follow the 'no hard impacts/no jumping' rule of the Path, though, making for tense fights with lots of maneuvering.
Cinderella's Run has a diplomacy related effect with other Paths. There's no special rule regarding entry or departure, but careful attention about the disposition of the Others is important: If most of the Lost on Cinderella's Run are hostile, then Others on the next Path(s) the Finder runs that would be hostile are more likely to be nice, and vice-versa.
[...]
Cinderella's Run is fairly robust and the difficulty feels fairly even - descending is necessary and probably means stepping onto the right clock hands, the risk is high, but if we draw out the rule about how something random on you or about you breaks, then people are incentivized to carry a shitton of individual items with them (1000 baubles and doodads = 1000 things that could break. Past a certain point (more by quantity than weight), we might provide the path a rule that carrying 100 or more individual things just means every step you take will break something. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref> Has a killer Lost called Pumpkin Belly.<ref name="FK"/>
The Clock Vault Climb - A Path based on timed gates.<ref>The Clock Vault Climb is time gated. Specific intervals, schedules, careful movements, a puzzle that forgives no missteps.” - Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.5</ref> There is an amazing party in a number of clocks, hope you bring enough gifts for all the guests.
The Coin Flip - A path were everyone gets coins and has to get rid of them before the Taxman comes.<ref>The ecosystem here in the Coin Flip was one where everyone got coinage somehow- down chimneys, in drawers, and so on, respective to how much they had and how important they were. Then, by midnight, they had to fill out a convoluted tax form with calculations based on how much they had left. So it was a constant struggle to deplete the money you had.

Thing was, coins could only be given away according to certain rules, every Lost just trying to collect something, fill a role, make something, or render a service. Some Lost here were auditors in plainclothes who stalked the streets looking for people cheating in how they got rid of coin, or keeping track of details to find discrepancies in the tax forms that were handled overnight.

So people collectively supplied what was needed to keep a restaurant like the fish and chips place running, whether it was newspaper, fish, or fries, and then accepted coins, which they then filtered down and got rid of as they were able. Supporting the place by helping to divest it of coin meant it could stay running, handing out the food, and so it went.

And then in the evening, before the fresh coins were deposited, everything turned upside down and The Taxman swept through the entire city, taking a proportion of things matching the excess of coin people carried. - Excerpt from In Absentia 21.14</ref>
The Common's Thread - A town in which everything hangs suspended from threads and individual parts are loosely connected by threads. The first Lost one meets on this Path will dictate rules, with more rules being added for every three step one takes. Breaking the rules is answered with harsh punishment.<ref>“A town suspended in more ways than one. You will be told the rules, and you will be told more for every three steps you take thereafter. Obey those rules, or you may find yourself in stitches, hanging, or Lost,” Avery recited. “One ‘x’ of difficulty, one dash.” - Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.10</ref>
Coursing Mounts - Opulent hallway with walls covered in animal trophies, which come to life along with other hazards to attack intruders. Currently locked down by a Finder group for research.<ref name="CM">I drove him through the window and tumbled after him, taking us out of the Keyways and into a new place, a twisting corridor with antlers, animal heads, and animal skulls mounted on each wall. I was able to run to the hallway’s end, and my Wolf of a husband made it barely three steps before some of those beasts proved to be much less dead than they had been, with a bear and a stag lunging out of the wall to assault him.

I seized the opportunity and ran until I thought I was far enough away, then used a key meant for unlocking the heat of a fire, and inserted it into a stately fireplace, turning it backward. I crawled through the roaring flame, now unable to burn me, and up through the chimney, to another Path. Then I fled through a forest of chimneys and rooftops with no homes below them, weeping bitterly at the fact I had lost the company of the Marzipan Ape and the dull scholar.
[...]
Let us begin with the Coursing Mounts, the location referenced by Hazel. It was visited six years ago and mentioned in the eighth edition, but it certainly wasn’t entered by passage through a window. Our attempts to find the window in question in the Keyways wasn’t any more fortuitous. However, this year, the Inconnue enclave traded with a new Finder based in Egypt, who had found the way in. Contact the Inconnue enclave for more information, as they are currently preparing an in-depth examination of the Coursing Mounts. Expect a release from them in the coming few years and a fuller examination in the next edition of 100 Years Lost. It proves a very useful if double-edged option for the Finder on Earth who is fleeing trouble. If one is fleeing, the Path can make itself known, with a higher likelihood as one carries more Lost things. It quietly enacts a tax of some of the items one is carrying, which are promptly lost to the Paths. - Excerpt from [Spoilers 16.4] 100 Years Lost, Excerpts</ref><ref>It was a rich building, with lots of animal heads mounted on the wall, and a velvety rug with gold trim running down the length of a long hallway.

“Coursing mounts,” Avery noted.

“Hm?” her mom asked. “Safe?”

“No. And… politically problematic,” Avery said, frowning. “Because that’s a Path that got locked down by someone else. Like how the Garricks locked down the Promenade. The… either the Latimores or the… shit, name escapes me.”
[...]
“One of the non-family groups. They’re doing some research, locked it down temporarily, but ‘temporarily’ became a year and a half, I still think I’d make enemies if I were caught wandering through there. Not that I would.”
[...]
A fireplace that was set halfway down the hallway roared out a blast of flame, stopping just short of charring wall and floor, but covering just about everything else. Pictures of men with rifles fired their rifles, sinking bullets into the opposite wall-
[...]
-and a blade on a pendulum slid out from between two bookcases, sweeping the hallway. - Excerpt from Go for the Throat 23.3</ref>
Crash Course - Where things implode with regularity then dumps those who walk it somewhere worse.<ref>Elizabeth Narcisse and her apprentice are experts in the Crash Course, a path where, from the moment the first step is taken, the world implodes. Flying dishes, knives, explosions, collapsing building, dam giving way to floodwater, car collisions with vehicles flipping through air- but there are places to stand at key times that let you navigate the disaster in progress, with arrangements and positions getting more complicated as more people are on the path at the same time. The Crash Course dumps people into deep Abyss or the Warrens, depending, after they finish walking the course, at least for a little while, but after they fall down or jump down once they'll find themselves at home again. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>
Down the Tubes - A dangerous slide that connects to the Abyss. Can be reached indirectly from Bound to the Party.<ref name="DtT">But the music was too loud for an explanation. Avery took her mom’s arm. She wanted out of here in case the Path tried to move things along to another length. Bound to the Party could connect to the Party Down, which could connect to Down the Tubes, which was best described as going down a child’s slide with a razor blade embedded in it, a fast track down to the Abyss. But the Party Down wasn’t the only option. This place could become the Party Crash, which was a fast and frenetic transition to Crash Course. - Excerpt from Crossed with Silver 19.14</ref>
The Draw Near - A claustrophobic alleyway with killer graffiti.<ref>Into the Draw Near. An alley so narrow that the cart scraped both sides at once. Graffiti grew, elaborated on itself, and stalked them, depicting Lost figures armed with weapons. Snowdrop went small, riding on the cart’s upper layer, ducking low, while the Absent Companion switched off the steam, and for a while, the cart moved on its own power, rolling ahead. It was Bob who suffered worst, as blades were drawn and thrust out of the graffiti. Slicing and cutting.

It was good they still had Bob, though, because enough practitioners had died here that their bodies were forming an obstacle for the Companion’s cart. Some had been pulled into the wall, flesh sinking into the brickwork or concrete, and had dissolved into diffuse particles of spray paint. Others just lay there, freshly dead, stabbed to death. - Excerpt from Hard Pass 22.z</ref>
The Forest Ribbon Trail - An initial and initiation Path regularly used for nascent Finders, a wood strewn with ribbons and treasures you get an animal companion but beware the Wolf at the end.
Falling Oak Avenue - A broken-up street in the middle of a clear blue sky. Intermediate path used to travel from any Path to any street named Oak Avenue, Oak Road etc.<ref>Description by Wildbow</ref>
Hangman's Hall - A Path consisting of various types of furniture suspended over a void by ropes and cords. One has to follow the Path's etiquette which involves the type of furniture one steps on and the interactions with Lost. One can expect to find single-use items, explanatory notes and Lost to have conversations with. The Boon allows one to survive a dangerous fall unscathed once per day. <ref name="HH">*A path of furniture suspended over the void, ropes and cords tied to legs of chairs, tables, beds and couches.

[...]

For the Hangman's Hall, you could say well, there's different varieties of acceptable for what furniture you're permitted to stand on, given etiquette. What if walking on a chair was more okay than walking on a table? What about a table that's nicely set with a feast on it? We could say that every step ramps up the tension somehow, to a degree based on the severity of the etiquette breach. For example, stepping on a chair could mean one rope somewhere in the Hall snaps. You may not want to hang off the ropes themselves, though - could be they just stop holding things up and you're falling as you hold onto a limp rope.

[...]
Hangman's Hall

The path is littered with primarily consumable (that is, one use or limited-use) items with various effects. Getting caught stealing is an etiquette breach, though. Napkins and papers around the path will, if written on or scribbled on, produce writing that explains the nearest relevant item. These papers themselves can be valuable, if inconsistent, if taken away from Hangman's Hell. Tone & nature of explanation ranges from succinct typewriter font to doctor's note scribbles. Items not wrapped in (the same) paper may not leave the path with the practitioner. Getting caught writing or scribbling on paper is an etiquette breach.
Lost may invite the practitioner to sit and talk with them for a while. This requires time - sometimes hours of talking, but depending on the Other (with something of a system that can be worked out), they grant a benefit at the tail end. This is something of an ongoing cost and test; sitting in a chair and maintaining the wrong posture, interrupting, not talking enough, not eating enough, eating too much, and such all count as etiquette breaches, which snap random ropes all down the path, at a rate depending on the practitioner's discipline and social graces. It's inevitably a slow and steady rate of rope snaps over time, which become the cost of entertaining the Other. Rewards here could include hints about a random path (might not be one the practitioner ever sees), help locating something (with answers ranging from 'in the western hemisphere' to 'in a drawer of a desk belonging to man named Aaron Peter Markham'), answers to a question, or give the answer to a riddle.
Completing the path provides a boon that saves you from one fall per day in reality or once per path (either use voids the other) - you could jump off a high building and be fine, or fall from the Forest Ribbon Trail. Can be completed multiple times, but each full piece of furniture that drops with no rope to hold it up will equal one snapped rope on each future run.

[...]
Hangman's Hall could use a bit more difficulty, so maybe throwing in something like a rule of, "If an Other insists on something, you have to do it, or it's a severe breach of ettiquette", and some incentives to travel to side paths. Each area might have a theme and that could be elaborated on, both in the types of item found there (the main concourse could be things you eat & drink, bathroom could have soaps and oils, sitting room could be music or books you can only listen to or read once). - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

Hell and High Water<ref>You saved us some trouble, though I wouldn’t have complained if the way to Hell and High Water was closed. - Excerpt from In Absentia 21.1</ref> - A town where the sea is floating in the sky and falls down when the tower is tall enought to reach the water.<ref>“The tower,” Avery said, once she could get around the digression, “gets finished, breaks the surface tension of the water, and then everything comes down. It gets pretty intense. - Excerpt from In Absentia 21.1</ref>
The Hospital Hallway - Has a killer Lost called the Sick Girl.<ref name="FK"/>
The Keyways - A Path filled with keys and keyholes were every almost every action - even simple ones such as taking your first breath of the day - requires turning a fitting key in a keyhole.<ref>I thought myself quite a fair hand at the key business. In fact, that very morning I had barely batted an eyelash on waking when I had needed to, for the fourth time, put a keyhole to the right spot in the air to unlock my ability to breathe my first waking breath of the day. I knew that to the natives I was still little better than a fumbling infant, fiddling with the four hundred odd keys on six different keyrings that I had accrued over my five days in the Keyways, but I was still proud at my dexterity and system.</ref> The Lost encountered in the Keyways will be key- and keyhole-themed and hand out keys.<ref>A little girl with keyholes for eyes approached to pat me on the back, and a burly matron of a woman with a need for keys to get her body properly moving set to work, pushing up sleeves, inserting and turning necessary keys, and taking over with my washing, to my protest.</ref> Boons may be hidden behind specific locks.
Kickcan Alley - Kick a can down a fifty foot road for a prize of eight dollars.<ref>“The Path is fifty feet long, you need to kick a can down the road while walking without stopping, without losing the can off to the side. The can is an empty beer or soda can of a variety that doesn’t exist on earth. It is not special, it is not large, there are no tricks. There are no puzzles. There are no Others. The boon reward for Kickcan Alley is roughly eight Canadian dollars worth of random currency, slipped into your pocket.” - Excerpt from Fall Out 14.4</ref>
The Left Field - A field and a road separated by a fence. Going through the field can get someone lost, the road has obstacles, and walking on the fence requires balance. The Scarecrow Keeper asks questions, deeds, or demands, and will attack if her sickle isn't freed. Soon to be brought to Earth and dismantled by Wonderkand.<ref>Crossed with Silver 19.3</ref>
Mug Mile - A footpath made of heads and faces of a bunch of people crammed in. There are redecorating crews on the path which one has to walk between, with a few spots where one can ask certain faces certain questions.<ref>“Mug Mile. The footpath is heads and faces, from a bunch of people who are all crammed in, shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, back to back. You walk on their up-turned faces. There’s a system for timing it. Apparently a redecorating crew sits a certain distance up the path, and a crew sits behind. You don’t want to get redecorated, so you have to stay between the crews.”

“I like how casually that’s said,” Verona said. “Get redecorated.”

“A lot of the time you get Lost. Other times, you might get transformed. Depending on the crews, a lot changes. One puts masks on every face and paints the walls red. The masked faces try to bite you while you walk. Another washes the walls and drowns a lot of the faces, giving you really limited time because the water level rises faster if you’re far enough back.”

“I don’t know why you like these,” Lucy said. “I get crazy anxiety imagining this.”

“There are a few spots where you can ask certain faces certain questions. The treatments of the redecorating crews change how they behave. If you can deal with the hazards and bystanders… it looks like Mug Mile has a lot of bystanders, huh.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.10</ref>
The Neverending Night - Contains a black sea with white water, moon on the horizon melting into the sea.<ref>A black sea with white water. It looked like the moon was at the horizon, melting into the sea and tainting it.

“Neverending Night,” Cliff said. - Excerpt from Let Slip 20.2</ref> Has a killer Lost called the Killer By Night.<ref name="FK"/>
The Party Crash - Connects Bound to the Party to the Crash Course. Might be transitional or an extension of Bound to the Party rather than a full Path.<ref name="DtT"/>
The Party Down - Connects Bound to the Party to Down the Tubes. Might be transitional or an extension of Bound to the Party rather than a full Path.<ref name="DtT"/>
Rolling Aisles - You have to navigate a store while avoiding Mr. Stockman.<ref>“Rolling Aisles.” - Excerpt from Let Slip 20.9</ref>
The Run-Down Kingdom - Queen Sootsleeves' Path which consisted of a difficult to navigate maze of streets leading down to the castle she resided in. While navigating the maze one was expected to complete tasks for the queen every two minutes. Failure to complete them was met with punishment by the Lost citizens of the kingdom. Upon meeting Sootsleeves, one had to beat her in a series of games to be able to chose from a set of boons. <ref>Playing a Part – 15.7</ref>
The Run-On Sentence - A prison for dangerous Lost.<ref>“There’s a door. To the Run-On Sentence.”

“Ahhh,” he said, as the meaning of ‘dangerous’ became clear.

They pushed their way through the door and then made their way up the stone path to the concrete edifice that seemed to stretch up to the sky and out as far as the horizon.

Here, where some of the more dangerous Lost were interred. Some were free to roam, kept in bounds by other forces and the four guards, and others weren’t allowed to leave their cells.

They didn’t make it far in before the inmates came after them. - Excerpt from Hard Pass 22.z</ref>
The Settling Stir - A quaint little town with two versions that it changes between after every five steps that are taken. In one version snow falls from the sky and there are black signs and construction, in the other the snow is changed to black soot and signs are changed to white. It is a puzzle room-type Path where one has to combine symbols painted on signs by soot or snow with objects that cast shadows in the shape of those symbols. <ref>[Spoilers 16.4] 100 Years Lost, Excerpts, Year 39, Day 76</ref> Completing it grants a boon of being able to alter the shape of shadows.<ref>With the magic granted to me for finishing the Settling Stir, I altered the shadows for added effect. - Excerpt from [Spoilers 16.4] 100 Years Lost, Excerpts</ref>
The Shining Bridge - Takes one from their world to an adjacent reality. Light in the Path is elastic and tactile, allowing one to walk on it. There's no ground below, but a lot of things to grab onto if one falls.<ref>“The Shining Bridge. Apparently it either takes you from our world to an adjacent reality, or an adjacent reality to our world.”

“Not exactly what you’re looking to do,” Zed said.

“Share the grisly details,” Lucy said.

“Light in that area of the Path is elastic and tactile, at least for visitors. There are a few paths to take, but they recommend the one where you tightrope-walk on the thin beams of light. It’s apparently very kid-friendly, except for the part where you kinda have to get there by going through some scarier places, or it dumps you in one of those scary places, and there’s always some Lost hanging around.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.10</ref> Also called the Tightrope of Lights.<ref name="vp8.7">The Tightrope of Lights path had given her a minor boon of balance. It had blessed Lucy and Verona with the same, but less, both because they weren’t Finders and because she’d done the ritual and led the way. There were ways to do that ritual and take away trinkets and boons but they’d mostly just wanted a way home after a long night - Excerpt from Vanishing Points 8.7</ref>
Stairwell Web - Keep at least one foot on the stairs at all time, or something else might put their foot down in your place.<ref name=":6">“Were you there, once? Were you a Wolf?”

“No,” Miss said. “I was by the wayside. A memory without anyone to have it, or a person forgotten even by the Abyss, or an echo forgotten even by the Ruins. I waited by a place called the Stairwell Web. Someone made a wrong turn, they panicked, they ran, and for a moment, neither of their feet touched a stair. I put my foot down before they did. I took their place, they took mine. I walked the various Paths for a long time before I made my way to this world. I was trapped for a long time in the Yellow Flower Spiral, and I walked the Forest Ribbon Trail by instinct alone.” - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.8</ref>
The Station Promenade - Path with around 200 Lost on it, trains regularly arrive and take them onto other Paths. The floor is tiled and Lost move from tile to tile based on the time.<ref>9.3 Path Practices</ref> Known in German as Der Schachbrettpromenade (The Chessboard Promenande).<ref>Some had text in German. Avery Kelly, Löser der Schachbrettpromenade. - Excerpt from In Absentia 21.4</ref>
Star Crossed - Riding a boat on a river of stars.<ref>“Star Crossed,” Avery said, pushing the door open. She added a quick, “I hope.” - Excerpt from Let Slip 20.6</ref>
The Stretched Truth<ref name=":4">“From any path, I can enter Falling Oak Avenue. From there, there’s a route, either through a chest of drawers with the drawers pulled out, or through the back of a wardrobe, both to be entered upside down. That takes me to the Commons Thread. From there, I have three possible Paths to take. The Wind Down, the Stretched Truth, or the Burning Daylight. The first two have ways for me to get to Cinderella Run. From Burning Daylight or Cinderella Run, I can get to the Watched Way. From there, I can reach the Stuck-In Place.”
[...]
“Those two are easy,” Snowdrop remarked, pointing to Burning Daylight and Cinderella Run.
[...]
“Falling Oak Avenue, as it’s called here, is well known, and often visited,” Sootsleeves noted. “It requires a certain bravery or recklessness, or a comfort in moving in unusual ways. I know what your Miss is calling the Wind Down, but we always called it the Wending Fences. I would avoid the Burning Daylight.” - Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.10</ref>
Stuck-In Place - A place that Miss was nearly "defined" in. Consists of a building and a large field.<ref> - Excerpt from Back Away 5.d</ref>
Tortoise Stampede - Has a boon that grants short bursts of speed.<ref>I began whistling, a thing I knew my husband was on the lookout for, ever since I’d crossed the Tortoise Stampede. Ever since, I’d found that I could whistle and spirit up a burst of speed, and I often used it to try to escape him. - Excerpt from [Spoilers 16.4] 100 Years Lost, Excerpts</ref>
Up In Smoke - Offers a boon to prevent obscured vision.<ref>“You should have run Up In Smoke,” Peter told her. “There’s a boon for that.”
[...]
“Along the way, an Other will blow smoke into your eyes. Leaves you mostly blind. Five to ten percent of your vision left. But once you find your way through, the most something can ever blind you is that same number. Five or ten percent.” - Excerpt from Wild Abandon 18.3</ref> Has a killer Lost called the Cigar Smoker.<ref name="FK"/>
The Watched Way - A major street in a town on sunset with large numbers of black animals gathered on the rooftops, constantly watching the person on the path. Finding landmarks and animals that stick out can give rewards that can help with surveillance and information gathering but may lead to paranoia for the user. <ref name="WW">*A path that takes you through a major street of a town at sunset. The town is empty but on the rooftops animals gather in large (by the thousands) numbers, watching the person on the path. Depending on the person walking the path, they could be crows, cats, rats, or anything else large enough to be recognizable from a distance, black in color, and capable of gathering in large numbers. Lost may peer from the windows or doors left ajar.
[...]
The Watched Way is intended to evoke the feeling of being monitored and watched, and mixing some consequences or threats tied to that (say, don't make eye contact with any of the 6000 crows that are perched on rooftops and such) with other distractions and little things you need to figure out, akin to the Forest Ribbon Trail.

[...]
The Watched Way

We draw on the notion of the multitude of watchers. Finding the right landmarks and collecting the animals who don't match the rest grants minor boons for the purposes of information and information gathering. A cat with a white tuft at its chest hacks up a piece of paper. Once uncrumpled, it gives details. Crumpled up again, it can provide new intel every day, about a target or thing. A small spyglass, given to any mundane animal with the capacity to hold it (rigging a hat with the spyglass attached and having them wear it works) will see that animal take the spyglass, go to do their best at spying on the target, and then wait for instruction - a single word or name, ideally. They'll slip notes under the door and stop in once a week to return the spyglass or take new instructions. More nuanced instructions can be given but the chance the animal turns traitor increases over time with excess words.
More items may be found along the way. Care should be taken for both the sentinels and the fact that most items on the Watched Way generate pathological paranoia, or justify paranoia. A fireplace poker that protects things on the practitioner's person from breaking, and makes their enemies' things break more easily, so long as it's held, doubly so if held two-handed, but each time it is touched, the practitioner is treated to any hostile whispers, disparaging thoughts, suspicions about them, and insults, either thought, spoken behind their back, or whispered. If there is nobody around to provide these thoughts, the 'best of' list of prior thoughts and comments repeat ad nausuem. A knife that creates wounds that reopen & become fresh wounds again the next three times the subject contemplates the prospect of dying, but also makes suicidal individuals in the knife-bearer's company want to murder-suicide with the wielder instead, oftentimes abruptly - dragging the target and themselves into the way of traffic or off a ledge.
The Watched Way can deposit someone right in the middle of any area with heavy surveillance. It cannot necessarily get them out.
[...]
The Watched Way could use a final boss or something to really drive the finale home. I'm picturing that as you walk down this street with houses and white picket fences on either side, one rat or one blackbird will scale improperly and seem to grow, until they dominate the horizon, peering over it. A King of racoons or a lord of crows. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>
The Wind Down - Also known as Wending Fences.<ref name=":4"/>
Yellow Flower Spiral - Details unknown. Visited by Miss.<ref name=":6"/>
Zoomtown - A Path where one jumps from house to house as they zoom towards the horizon, used primarily for travel.

Unnamed Paths:

A ribbon of small stone platforms stretching across the sky with strong winds shaking the stones back and forth. Only the stone that one stands on is frozen in place and offers safe footing.<ref>I chose to stumble through a shop, in through the front, past the displays, and out the back door into another place entirely, where the stone path was a ribbon stretching across the sky, all parts but the one I stood on flapping about madly in the strong wind. I had to move back and forth to let the wind move the path before hurrying forward to freeze it. - Excerpt from [Spoilers 16.4] 100 Years Lost, Excerpts</ref>
A forest of chimneys and rooftops with no homes below them,<ref name="CM"/> possibly Up In Smoke.
A train with thousands of primevals outside the window. Might be related to the cascus wilds.<ref>On the other side, there was a subway car, a dingy hospital green, roaring along its track. Others sat on either side of the subway car, a few of them looking up, others not even bothering. Past the windows on either side was a sea- a storm– a rolling explosion of swirling, snarling, overlapping animals. Eyes as big as the double doors punctuating the length of the subway car swept by in a flash, glowing red, illuminating the interior.
[...]
“That’s a few thousand beasts of the cascus wilds. Primevals,” Avery said. - Excerpt from Let Slip 20.c</ref>
A wide street packed with crowds of indestructible figures to be navigated, who start as immovable objects and become unstoppable forces after runners go through a costume change, and become hostile if climbed on. Being caught on camera summons the Finder, a hostile doppelganger of the most powerful Finder on the Path. Other dangerous Lost can also appear, advertised in advance by billboards.<ref>Excerpt from In Absentia 21.4</ref>
A dark desert with glowing sand and floating, run-down buildings with trailing roots.<ref>She shifted her focus, trying to recall what symbol meant what. Bell, pen and ink pot, weird indistinguishable blob- she cracked that door open. There was a steep drop from door to the sandy wasteland below. Below a deep blue-black sky, multiple buildings drifted twenty or thirty feet above the ground, creaking as they did, dilapidated, abandoned, and vaguely haunted looking, each with trailing ‘roots’, like plants that had been pulled up. The sand had a glow that illuminated everything from below, the only light available, but didn’t really reach high enough to shed any light on the silhouettes of the Lost sitting, standing or riding on the roofs of the towers, houses, and other buildings.

She had an ominous feeling about that one. - Excerpt from Go for the Throat 23.3</ref>
A sepia toned gangland with a harbor full of tea.<ref>A city, dark and gritty, to the point of being noir, but in tints of brown, not black and white, with steam rising from manhole covers, and men and women in old fashioned gangster suits, with Lost features. Several had shadows instead of skin, and the shadows they cast were various textures like grass and loose boards with nails sticking out. Others had animal heads, with cheap and battered top hats propped on top.

In the distance, Avery could see, was a harbor, with what might’ve been a great lake or ocean. Massive teabags and cages with teabags in them bobbed in it, some dangling from cranes, and the water had a tea color, and a strong tea smell.

They gave Avery sharp and wary looks. Several of them had cups of tea they casually held. Some had knives and batons. Some had both. - Excerpt from Go for the Throat 23.3</ref>

Trivia

Wildbow has given advice on making your own Path.<ref>Pale gets into finders in more detail. This page has some background concepts and practices but does include minor spoilers & character mentions from partway into the story.

A path is gong to have a startpoint and an endpoint. For each visitor, there are going to be some things that are locked in, both aesthetically and for rules, and there's going to be stuff that, much like the Sight, changes for each beholder.

Paths tend to have some kind of precarious arrangement, where movement is tricky or has certain conditions, and gets arranged this way. So, to start with, think of the basic premise and/or why it's difficult.
[...]
From there, you can look at the hazard or theme and decide ok, well, how do we take that and make it a proper hazard or scenario?
[...]
Work out possible rewards. You've hashed out the risks to some degree. If you've reached the basic point of "Oh god, why would someone want to risk doing this?" then you can try answering that question. Boons may be tied to some aspect or theme of the path, and items tend to have function that's a bit divorced from what they actually are. Finally, the Path itself may serve a function that relates to entry (Falling Oak avenue as a dangerous escape route from a bad path), ways it ties to or impacts other Paths, or where it deposits you afterward (allowing paths to serve as a fast travel system or way of accessing places you shouldn't).
[...]
Finally, fine-tune. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

References