Finder

Finder magic, or the Lost Practices deals with things that have become utterly lost and untethered from the normal rules of reality. Practitioners who concentrate on this sort of "magic" are properly termed Finders and pejoratively as Chaos Mages,<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 or Dreamers of the Paths,<ref>...the Dreamer of Paths or Chaos Mage ... - Demesnes, quoted in Demesnes Text bonus </ref> but that term has fallen out of favor 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> There are a few different names for those practitioners whose practice dips into other areas, such as Path Runners who focus on exploration of the Paths.<ref>“Definitely.  Which overlaps with shamanism, dealing with spirits.  None of these things exist in their own completely unique sphere.  Your friend Avery’s gets close though.  Lost practices are out there, by definition.  Finders, path runners, collectors of Lost things, losers, envoys of the lost, yadda yadda.” - Excerpt from False Moves 12.9</ref><ref> - PATH RUNNERS, 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> Those place that are outside of reality floating in a sea of nothingness.

To the practitioner community at large a Chaos magi deals with the really weird stuff you wouldn't expect a practitioner to know.<ref>For how practitioners interact with practitioner society, they tend to be problem solvers, riddle-managers, and have a lot of tools for handling the little, out-there crap. The items you find on the Paths tend to be weird and off the beaten track, but so is the information you get - it's like tapping into the universe's rumor mill. Sometimes you'll hear random chatter that means nothing to you, and sometimes you'll get a tidbit that indicates the location of a Grail or warns about an imminent Storm. Those things can be valuable.

The effects and boons of walking a path can be great too. The Finders can act as guides for others who want to walk the path. - on Reddit</ref>

Finders have a few base practices common to them, such as specialized curse that is somewhat similar to a Skeptics effect, Gate Goggles as useful tools for sharing and modifying Sight, barometers to track changes and Escape Ropes to get off of specific Paths when needed.<ref> [9.3 Bonus] Path Practicalities</ref> Tied with this last one, sometimes, is the 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>

Of note is that fact that completing a Path will generally come with one or more "boons", which may be Lost Magic Items or permanent magical enhancements. It is theorized that the universe sees that a Finder has accomplished a great many unrelated-seeming things, and attempts to reward them, not noticing that most of the "great personal journey" they went on was missing and so it only took a short time.<ref>The GOOD part of all of this is that it’s cool to explore, sure. But a journey that’s loaded with hidden meanings + obstacles + stuff is a cool story. Not like, ONLY as a thing you can tell people but also it’s kind of a hack or a trick that makes the universe go “Wait that person did all of that? They passed go + killed a dragon + ate a bag of garbage for some reason (Snowdrop’s contribution) + they won the lottery and turned down money? They need a whole lot of personal growth and adjustments and stuff!!! Or Lost magic items! Something!” Except we didn’t kill a dragon or eat garbage or turn down real fortunes for noble reasons… …What we actually might’ve done was figure out ways to get from A to B in a riddle of a place + skip ahead to do the journy of self discovery or the epic journey without actually doing something boring like growing as people or spending decades adventuring. And we get the weird treasure or new abilities that come with the same broken logic of free-association and dreamlike nonsense that the journeys did. - 9.3 Bonus: Path Practicalities</ref> In addition, as they run Paths enough to become slightly Lost themselves and become marked to the universe as a skilled Finder, they gain a knack for finding things (especially things which are slightly Lost or disconnected) and grasping the rules of Paths, also seen in some Lost Others. This knack for finding things is the origin of the name Finder.<ref>But we’re Finders ’cause when we run a lot of Paths we kinda end up positioned a little bit out THERE even when we’re on Earth. Which means that when something in our world gets Lost, too disconnected from everything or missing what it takes to get grabbed by the great nets of the Ruins or the Abyss, we can see or use it before it slips away. Every path we run makes us better at seeing those tattered connection-rules or things that are going to be Lost, along with other benefits like boons & Lost items. - 9.3 Bonus: Path Practicalities</ref>

Related Others

• Lost
• Founders - those lost that have found their place back in the real world.
• 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>

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" />

Known & Notable Finders

• Avery Kelly (Wild Practitioner)
• Garrick Extended Family
  • Jude Garrick
  • Adorea Prescott-Garrick
• Rhymes Family<ref>The Rhymes family, led by Sergio Rhymes, manages a Path with riddling Others that, if walked, exchanges any curse on you for a random other curse. Maybe that's way, way worse, but maybe you're suffering enough you're willing to roll the dice. Sergio is a wealthy and well-connected practitioner, as a result. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>
• Elizabeth Narcisse<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>
• Spadafora family<ref>The Spadafora family focuses heavily on the Cinderella's Run path, and focuses on gathering Others to their side. They have a small army of minor Lost and focus their energies on either gathering enough Lost in a place that it becomes a little Lost itself (and even float areas away to become part of the greater Paths as a pretty damn effective means of quarantine, once a decade or so), just having a lot of quirky foot soldiers (their demesnes anchor their homes and headquarters down so they don't float away), and as a secondary focus, specialize collect items that help specific Lost to become a Founder and get off the Paths - high value in trade for information and such. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>
• Latimore family<ref name=":1">The lovely Latimore family, the Gadsens, and the Inconnue enclave have kindly contributed- Excerpt from 100 Years Lost, Excerpts</ref>
• Gadsens family<ref name=":1" />
• Inconnue Enclave<ref>“I’d tell you to talk to Jude, the Inconnue Enclave will pay fifty dollars if you fill out the form explaining the situation, the before and after, Jude could tell you where to go and how to do that, blah blah blah.- Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.6</ref>
• Wonderkand - a company of Finders whose corporate approach makes them heavy hitters in the field.

Trivia

• Path-Finder, geddit?

References

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