Aether Hunter (Rough Copy)

Introduction

The Sundering did not ask permission.

It tore the Loom of the world into drifting fragments, severed time and storm, shattered earth and memory alike.
The gods faltered.
The kings fell.
The empires burned beneath Riftlight.

And where the old orders crumbled, something new stirred:
a hunter who needed no banners, no laws, no songs.

Aether Hunters.

Born in the aftermath of collapse, they are survival stitched into motion.
They track the shifting Pulse of a broken world — moving across floating ruins, navigating dead skies, sensing Riftstorms before they split the horizon apart.
Where corporations try to bind what is left, where Dragons twist elemental chaos to their will, the Aether Hunters run free —
ghosts of rebellion, anchors of memory, breath stitched between collapses.

They are not knights.
They are not saviors.

They are the thin line of survival stretching between yesterday’s ruin and tomorrow’s dream.

The Cost of the Hunt

Freedom has a price.
And the Rift demands payment in full.

To live as an Aether Hunter is to exist without walls, but also without safety.
It is to know that no land is stable, no law is eternal, no sanctuary is permanent.

The cost comes in many forms:

• Isolation: Hunters live at the edge of the wilds, rarely trusted, rarely welcomed for long.

• Endless Motion: Rest is a rare and dangerous luxury; the Pulse of the Rift demands constant movement.

• Adaptation or Death: No plan survives first contact with the fraying world — only those who adapt, who change with the shifting Pulse, survive.

• Sacrifice: Hunters often walk alone, choosing to risk their own threads so others might endure.

They do not measure wealth in coin.
They measure it in days survived, lives guided across broken bridges, stories left to seed in the ruins.

The Heart of Power

Where traditional warriors lean on strength,
where wizards mold reality with intellect,
Aether Hunters draw their power from two vital threads:

• Wisdom:
  To feel the Pulse before the Rift shudders.
  To sense the fraying edge of stability beneath a careless step.
  To know when to fight — and when the only victory is surviving long enough to fight again.

• Dexterity:
  To move faster than collapse.
  To leap crumbling skybridges, dive through gravity-twisted ruins, thread narrow paths no army could follow.

Without Wisdom, a Hunter steps wrong — and vanishes into the rift without even a scream.

Without Dexterity, a Hunter fights the inevitable — and is crushed by it.

Both are needed:
the thought and the motion,
the pulse and the breath,
the mind that sees, and the feet that trust.

The Silent Oath

"The Loom frays.
The Rift howls.
The sky cracks.
And still — we walk."

Every Aether Hunter carries the Silent Oath within them — not an order spoken aloud, but a truth lived with every heartbeat.
It is not about victory.
It is not about restoration.

It is about refusing to let collapse erase motion.
It is about stitching one more thread of hope into a sky tearing itself apart.

An Aether Hunter swears no loyalty to crowns.
They pledge no banners to corporations.

They swear only this:

• To move when the land falters.

• To hope when the sky falls.

• To guide, to survive, to endure — even if no one remembers their name.

Origins and Evolution

Before the Sundering, Rangers were guardians of forests, borders, wild places.
In a world of order, they were necessary edges.

But when the world itself became wild — when gravity tore loose and islands floated, when Riftstorms ate cities whole —
the old ways broke.

The survivors adapted.

Some became scavengers.
Some became mercenaries.
A rare few — those who felt the Pulse — became Aether Hunters.

They traded favored terrain for attunement to elemental collapse.
They traded trophies for breath and freedom.
They became survival given motion —
tracking Riftspawn through shifting chasms, guiding refugees across dying archipelagos, hunting corporate constructs that fed on ruined magic.

Their evolution was not planned.
It was necessary.

In Veilrift, only those who move with the Pulse endure.

The Purpose of the Aether Hunters

An Aether Hunter lives for no throne, no council, no dragonflight.

Their purpose is pure:

• Track Riftborn anomalies — creatures born of collapsed magic and broken elements.

• Navigate unstable territories — sensing Pulse shifts before collapse devours entire settlements.

• Guard the free territories — protecting those who choose survival over corporate chains.

• Adapt and Endure — surviving where maps die, roads fall, and the sky betrays the unwary.

An Aether Hunter does not seek conquest.
They seek the next foothold.
The next thread.
The next living step across the Loom.

They are not builders of empires.
They are the ghost-guides threading memory into a future the Rift could not devour.

The Birth of the Creeds

As the Rift reshaped Aetheria, the Hunters who endured it diverged into distinct paths — survival philosophies carved into instinct and blood.

Over generations, four Creeds emerged among the Aether Hunters:
Ghostmarks, Warden-Kin, Riftstalkers, and Skystalkers.

Each Creed reflects not only a tactic, but a truth about how survival must be earned:

• Ghostmarks vanish into the bones of collapsing worlds, striking unseen.

• Warden-Kin bond with Rift-touched creatures, forging alliances of survival.

• Riftstalkers threadwalk through reality’s cracks, folding the broken edge of the Loom itself.

• Skystalkers call upon the fractured winds and broken storms to shield and strike.

The Creeds do not war with each other —
but neither do they tread the same paths.

To walk a Creed is to accept a specific truth about the Rift:

You cannot master collapse.
You can only adapt — or be unmade.

Ghostmarks

(Gloomstalker Evolution)

Masters of the unseen hunt.

Ghostmarks are the echoes of rebellion —
the last whisper before collapse swallows the unwary.

They move through dead Riftfields and fraying ley-lines, unseen even by Riftborn eyes.
When a settlement survives a Riftburst it should not have, when a corporate convoy vanishes without a trace, it is often the silent work of a Ghostmark.

Core Techniques:

• Ghostshift: Move through terrain collapses without triggering environmental hazards.

• Ambushmastery: Strike unseen, exploiting the Rift’s distortions to vanish before counterattack.

• Pulse Camouflage: Blend into areas of high elemental instability, becoming nearly invisible to magical and natural senses.

"The Rift leaves graves empty.
We fill them."

Warden-Kin

(Beastmaster Evolution)

Bonded survivors of the Pulse.

Warden-Kin do not tame Rift-beasts.
They survive beside them.

These Hunters forge mutual pacts with creatures touched by Riftlight — predators mutated by collapse, yet still fierce and true.

Their companions serve as scouts, guardians, and extensions of their will — no less part of the hunt than their own breath.

Core Techniques:

• Companion Bonding: Form a deep, instinctive bond with a Rift-touched beast.

• Elemental Resonance: Adapt survival strategies based on the elemental influences corrupting the local terrain.

• Shared Pulse: React faster when near your bonded companion — sensing danger through the shared rhythm of survival.

"We do not leash.
We walk together."

Riftstalkers

(Horizon Walker Evolution)

Threadrunners between fractures.

Riftstalkers are the edge-walkers —
those who sense thin places in the world before they tear open, and use them as pathways rather than prisons.

They fold distance, step through instability, and strike foes from impossible angles —
masters of moving faster than the Rift can devour.

Core Techniques:

• Pulsewalking: Fold across short unstable distances — appearing behind or beyond obstacles.

• Rift Resonance Strikes: Channel minor surges of Rift energy into weapon attacks, destabilizing enemy defenses.

• Pathfinding Instincts: Sense collapsing ley-threads before they fail, granting unparalleled survival navigation.

"The edge of the world
is where we sharpen our blades."

Skystalkers

(Swarmkeeper Evolution)

Weavers of living storms.

Where others see only the horror of a Riftstorm, Skystalkers see raw potential.

They gather fragment-flocks, whisperstorms, shardwings — semi-sentient echoes of the broken sky —
and weave them into shields, blades, and barriers of motion and fury.

Their bond is not one of command.
It is one of shared survival.

Core Techniques:

• Stormcalling: Summon semi-intelligent Rift-flocks to harass, blind, and defend.

• Weatherweaving: Manipulate minor air currents, Rift gales, and unstable gravity pockets.

• Pulse Flare Swarms: Unleash stormbursts of Rift-energy to disorient and break formations.

"The sky broke.
We made it ours."

Marks of the Wild Pulse

The Rift did not only break the land.
It broke the rules the land once obeyed.

Where ancient maps once guided explorers safely, now the very bones of the world shift beneath unwary steps.
Where once forests grew and mountains endured, now storms tear open gravity, and rivers run uphill until they fall into nothingness.

The Aether Hunter survives not by memory —
but by feeling the Pulse of collapse before it sings destruction.

Their talents are not spells.
They are instincts sharpened against the edge of annihilation.
Each ability reflects a learned adaptation to the fractured state of the Real.

Pulsewalking

Mastery of unstable movement.

The Pulse hums beneath the surface of every broken island, every drifting ruin.
An Aether Hunter learns to feel it — to read the tremors of coming collapse — and move with the Pulse rather than against it.

They learn to:

• Leap across fractures milliseconds before the terrain splits.

• Glide through chaotic gravity shifts, moving light as wind across the fraying ground.

• Vanish into momentary folds of space where Riftlight flux twists the world thin.

Gameplay Inspirations:
Mechanically similar to natural terrain avoidance, dash-style repositioning, and occasional short-range teleportation effects tied to unstable zones.

"Follow the Pulse.
The stone still dances even as it falls."

Skyburn Instinct

Reaction to Riftstorms and falling sky.

When the skies tear apart and Riftstorms howl across the Loom, most run —
but the Aether Hunter reads the signature of the storm itself.

They can:

• Predict Riftstorm surges — sensing the "heartbeat" of an incoming collapse before it is visible.

• Anchor themselves against skyfall drift, hurling tethers or adjusting position instinctively.

• Turn collapse into opportunity — leaping collapsing zones to flank enemies still rooted to crumbling ground.

Gameplay Inspirations:
Passive bonuses to environmental hazard saves, advantage against forced movement, bonus movement reactions triggered by Riftstorm proximity.

"When the sky forgets itself,
remember yourself."

Companion Senses (Warden-Kin)

Shared survival instinct with bonded Rift-creatures.

The bond between a Warden-Kin and their companion is more than training.
It is a thread spun through chaos — a survival pact written not in words, but in action.

Bonded pairs can:

• Share senses when danger rises, warning each other silently.

• React together to unseen threats, moving as one against instability.

• Anchor each other across small Rift tears or skybridges by instinctive, coordinated motion.

Gameplay Inspirations:
Reaction abilities triggering off a companion's movement or attack, shared danger sense in survival or perception checks.

"One breath.
Two hearts.
One hunt."

Fracture Scent (Riftstalker)

Detecting Rift tears through intuition.

The Rift cannot open without warning —
to those who listen.

An Aether Hunter trained in Fracture Scent can:

• Sense the thinning of reality before a Rift tears open.

• Mark unstable locations invisible to ordinary senses.

• Disrupt enemy teleportation or Riftwalking by binding thin spaces momentarily.

Gameplay Inspirations:
Detect magic/portal-like effects flavored as sensing Rift instability, preemptively closing small Rift weaknesses, opportunity attacks against teleporters.

"The Loom shudders before it splits.
So we strike before the thread snaps."

Stormbind Weaving (Skystalker)

Commanding fragments of Riftborn storms.

Skystalkers do not create storms.
They bargain with their remains.

A Skystalker can:

• Summon fragment-swarms that protect, blind, or harry foes.

• Shape air currents to redirect projectiles, cloak movement, or scatter attacks.

• Turn Riftwinds into barriers that confuse or hinder enemy tactics.

Gameplay Inspirations:
Control weather-flavored effects, summoned allies functioning like spirit guardians/swarmkeepers, minor terrain control through localized windstorms.

"When the world shouts collapse,
we answer with the whisper of survival."

Equipment and Iconography

An Aether Hunter's arsenal is not a matter of ornament.
It is survival given form.

Their gear is stitched from salvage, Rift-touched elements, and necessity sharpened by failure.
Each item is a proof of endurance, a whisper of past storms weathered, a promise to future paths yet walked.

Beauty, to an Aether Hunter, is not polish.
It is persistence.

Essential Gear of the Aether Hunter

Item

Purpose

Pulseweave Cloak

Shimmering fabric woven with Rift-silk threads, adapting color and texture to blend with Riftlight flux and broken terrain. Grants camouflage across unstable zones.

Gravhook Launcher

Compact wrist-mounted device firing tethered grappling lines, used to cross collapsing skybridges or scale unstable cliffs before they fall apart.

Shard-Compass

A magnetized Riftstone suspended inside a fractured glass sphere, vibrating and pointing toward stable Pulse centers or safe paths through chaotic fields.

Tetherbolts

Heavy iron spikes with microfilament lines, anchoring Hunters during Rift surges or tethering crumbling terrain temporarily.

Voidtread Boots

Reinforced boots tuned to adapt to volatile terrain — allowing Hunters to walk across semi-collapsed surfaces without triggering breaks.

Riftmask

Lightweight respirator mask, filtering Riftlight mists, flux fumes, and elemental storms for short periods of survival in collapse zones.

"If it can break, it will.
If it can save your breath, carry it."

Survival Loadout

A Hunter never carries more than they can abandon in an instant — but what they carry matters deeply.

Typical Loadout:

• Pulse Arrows:
  Specialized ammunition infused with stabilized elemental charges —
  some shatter with controlled explosions, others bind movement or anchor Riftborn in place.

• Frayknives:
  Lightweight, flexible blades designed for rapid survival crafting, Rift-tether cutting, and close-quarters strikes.

• Salvager’s Pouch:
  A belt-slung satchel packed with scavenged artifacts — broken Riftcrystals, half-spent energy capacitors, nullmetal shards.

• Skymeat Rations:
  Dried flesh harvested from Rift-mutated skybeasts — foul-tasting but deeply nourishing in corrupted environments.

• Signal Mirrors and Threadflares:
  Silent, non-magical communication tools for signaling across unstable zones without triggering Rift-sensitive creatures.

• Memory Tokens:
  Tiny relics of the fallen — often sewn into cloak hems or braided into hair — carried not for mourning, but as living promises of survival.

"Every ounce matters.
Every thread carries a name."

Visual Identity of the Aether Hunter

Aether Hunters are not pristine knights in shining steel.
They are stories walking across collapse.

Their appearance tells the tale of their survival:

Feature

Meaning

Frayed Spirals

Spiral glyphs stitched, scarred, or branded onto gear — personalized survival marks woven from collapse and rebellion.

Tethermarks

Thin corded tattoos or bindings around wrists, ankles, and necks — symbols of major survival milestones.

Patchwork Cloaks

Cloaks stitched from salvage across dozens of islands, ruins, and wrecks — carrying the Pulse of each place survived.

Riftburn Scars

Honored scars from surviving direct Rift exposure — often traced with silver or black ink to mark both victory and loss.

Pulsebraids

Braided threads woven into hair, armor straps, or weapon hilts — each knot symbolizing survival against a Riftstorm, a collapse, or a betrayal avoided.

Craft of Necessity

Among Aether Hunters, one truth rules all craftsmanship:

Form follows survival.

• If a knife can be reforged from shipwreck plating, it will.

• If a cloak must be stitched from Rift-spider silk and ration wrappers, it will.

• If armor must be riveted out of shattered dragonbone and sky-iron fragments, it will.

There is no shame in salvage.
Only in forgetting the breath it buys.

"The Rift does not honor pretty armor.
It honors what endures."

The Brand of Freedom

Not every scar is cut by blade or claw.
Some are burned into the soul by survival itself.

Every true Aether Hunter bears the Brand of Freedom —
an invisible mark left not by ceremony, but by endurance through collapse, betrayal, and storms that devour even memory.

It is not a thing of magic.
It is a thing of motion.
A thing of will.

The Brand is survival made manifest.

It does not glow.
It does not pulse.

It whispers.

Whispers that the world might fray, but some will walk forward anyway.

Signs of the Brand

The Brand manifests subtly across those who have walked the broken paths long enough:

• Eyes that catch Riftlight strangely, seeming to shimmer for an instant in collapsed zones.

• Footsteps that move lighter across unstable ground, as if unconsciously adjusting to unseen shifts.

• Breath that synchronizes with the Pulse of a zone — shallow in falling air, deep in crushed spaces.

• A scent of ozone or storm lingering faintly after great acts of survival.

These marks are not consciously chosen.
They are survival engraved into being —
side effects of living too long on the fraying edge of reality.

Other survivors might not see the Brand.
But the Riftborn do.
The corporations sense it.

And sometimes —
the Dragons themselves notice it in the dreams between worlds.

Meaning of the Brand

Among Hunters, the Brand is honored in silence.
No songs are sung of it.
No titles are given.

Instead, when Hunters cross paths, they offer:

• A brief touch to the left shoulder.

• A half-turn of the wrist to show a tethermark.

• A single breath exhaled into the Riftwind.

These are the acknowledgments:
You endured.
You moved when the world fell.
You are still moving.

No Hunter asks how another was branded.
The story is written into the way they move, the scars they choose not to hide, the tools they refuse to discard even when broken.

"The Rift frays the world.
But the world stitches itself back through those who walk anyway."

The Final Oath: The Endless Path

At the broken edge of Aetheria, beneath skies torn by Riftstorms and stars swallowed by collapse,
the Aether Hunters do not kneel.

They stand.

At the crossing of ruins and dreams, on the crumbling bridges and dead sky-shores,
each Hunter carries the same vow —
not spoken aloud,
but lived with every motion,
threaded into every breath.

It is not an oath made to kings, crowns, or gods.
It is a promise made to the Loom itself —
to walk.

Even when memory fades.
Even when friends fall.
Even when the Pulse grows thin and silent.

To walk anyway.

To pull one more thread across the endless fracture.

The Endless Path — The Oath of Every Hunter

"I am the breath after the fall.
I am the footstep where no road remains.
I am the tether across broken sky.
Where the Rift howls, I will listen.
Where the world tears, I will thread.
Where hope falters, I will move.
I will not yield.
I will not root.
I will walk.
And in walking, the Loom will weave again."

When a new Hunter rises — when a soul threads survival into breath,
whether by choice, by accident, or by necessity —
they do not raise banners.
They do not call councils.

They take a step forward.
Across the void.
Across the broken bridge.

And that step is the oath.

It is enough.

It has always been enough.

Slang & Identity

Language is survival.

In a world stitched together by collapse and movement, Aether Hunters do not waste words.
Their speech is spare, sharp, woven with meaning learned by breath and scars.

They speak in signs and glances, in murmurs over broken stone, in single words that carry the weight of lifetimes walking the Pulse.

Among themselves, Aether Hunters share a tongue rooted not in conquest —
but in motion.

Internal Slang (Used Among Aether Hunters)

Term

Meaning

"Running the Thread"

Traveling an unstable route across Rift-fractured land. ("I'm running the thread south past Skyfall’s Remnants.")

"Pulseblind"

A dangerous state of exhaustion where a Hunter loses the ability to sense the Rift’s instability properly. ("Get him clear — he's gone Pulseblind.")

"Skyburned"

A Hunter battered by Riftstorms or environmental collapse, often bearing Riftburn scars or lost gear. ("She’s Skyburned bad, but still breathing.")

"Tethering"

Establishing a survival point or makeshift waystation. ("We’re tethering at the old drift-cave tonight.")

"Ghosted"

Moving so silently or surviving so narrowly that even Pulse sensors or Riftborn fail to detect them. ("They ghosted the whole patrol — left nothing but dust.")

"Threadcut"

When a Hunter or ally is lost beyond saving — a moment of final, necessary acceptance. ("The threadcut was clean. We move.")

External Slang (Used by Outsiders About Aether Hunters)

Term

Meaning

"Pulse Rats"

Derogatory corporate slang, implying Hunters are scavengers hiding in Rift ruins.

"Skyweavers"

Respectful term among freefolk, acknowledging Hunters’ ability to navigate where others cannot.

"Ghostrunners"

Common term in frontier settlements — Hunters who appear, guide refugees or caravans, then vanish again.

"Frayborn"

Mythic name used in folk songs — implying Aether Hunters are born directly from Riftstorms, part mortal, part collapse.

"Ashwalkers"

A name spoken by soldiers and caravaners for Hunters who survive disasters where no others do — walking the ashes when all else is lost.

RP Identity Themes

When you step into the boots of an Aether Hunter, remember:

• Movement is Survival:
  If you are still, you are either hidden or already dead.
  Hunters are almost always moving — with their bodies, their instincts, or their plans.

• Survival is Shared:
  Every Pulse Mark you leave, every tether you drop, every refugee you guide — stitches the Loom a little stronger.
  You are not just surviving for yourself.

• Hope is Breath, Not Song:
  Hunters do not proclaim hope loudly.
  They carry it quietly, step by step, breath by stubborn breath.

• Freedom is Sacred:
  You answer no call but the Pulse.
  You kneel to no banner, no throne.
  Even when captured, you remain free inside.

• The World Will Forget You.
  Walk Anyway.