Introduction to Travel

Some Aetherstreams bear wounds—places where the current fractures, slows, or spirals violently in place. These are known as Stream Scars, often the result of catastrophic magical events, long-lost skyship battles, or the collapse of Driftgates mid-transit. Residual echoes linger in these zones, distorting perception and time.

Travelers report seeing phantoms of the past, ghostly images of ancient ships or unknown figures drifting silently beside them. These aren’t undead—they’re memory imprints, somehow “taped” into the resonance. Some scholars try to decode these fragments to reconstruct lost history.

The brave (or foolish) sometimes enter the eye of a scar to harvest Riftglass—a volatile, mirror-like crystal believed to hold condensed moments from the Sundering itself.

Before a ship’s maiden voyage into a new Aetherstream, Streamfarers perform the Ritual of Feathering—a ceremonial blessing involving the plucking of a single silvashade leaf, pressed between pages of a driftlog, and whispered over with a promise. The ritual is meant to “soften” the vessel’s tone and ask the stream for mercy.

Though widely practiced, it’s more than superstition. Records show ships that skip the ritual are 3x more likely to suffer harmonic dissonance or encounter stream predators during initial entry.

In some ports, this ritual has evolved into a community event. Children sing the leaf to sleep while elders mark the hull with drifting symbols that glow faintly only when the ship is in tune.

Certain Aetherstreams defy logical geography, looping back to their own beginning or forming massive rings that orbit around floating islands. These are called Memory Rings, and they are as useful as they are unsettling.

Navigators can ride a loop multiple times to buy time, wait for conditions to change, or allow injuries to stabilize—yet each full pass risks subtle psychological effects. Prolonged exposure can lead to Stream Drift, a condition where the traveler begins to lose track of time, repeating actions unconsciously or slipping into déjà vu.

Some parties deliberately use Memory Rings to relive treasured moments. Others fear them, believing that time itself watches those who linger too long.

Aetherstream routes are notoriously unstable, meaning conventional cartography is almost useless. Instead, Streamfarers use Living Charts—semi-sentient scrolls, tattoos, or crystal orbs that adjust in real time to the song of the stream.

These maps pulse, change color, hum, or rearrange their runes depending on stream conditions. Some must be sung to before they update. Others bond with a ship’s helm, becoming extensions of its will.

Some who use Driftgates too often become what Arcanum scholars call Echobound—individuals whose emotional frequency begins to permanently entangle with the gates themselves. Their memories resonate across multiple locations, occasionally causing Driftgates to open at their presence without a sigil.

While useful, this condition is a double-edged sword. Echobound travelers sometimes experience vivid flashbacks from other users of the same gate. They might momentarily speak with a stranger’s voice, or remember a life they never lived.

The most dangerous side effect is displacement layering—the phenomenon where a traveler leaves behind a partial version of themselves at a location, visible only during specific resonance alignments.

Not all Waypoint Sigils are used immediately. Deep beneath Nexus cities or inside sealed vaults of the Arcanum lie repositories of archived sigils—some tuned centuries ago to places long forgotten. These are often hoarded for political leverage, sold to the highest bidder, or locked away because their destination is deemed "contaminated by paradox."

The existence of a sigil often becomes more valuable than its use. Factions engage in memory-trade black markets, where ancient echoes are bartered like gold. Some vaults require emotional resonance to even enter—meaning only those with ties to the original memory may unlock them.

Rumors whisper of a First Sigil—crafted at the moment of the Sundering itself. None know what gate it opens.

Skilled Riftbinders and forensic archivists study tuned sigils as emotional documents—artifacts that can be read, not just used. This process, known as Memory Forensics, is delicate and often invasive. Practitioners must carefully extract layers of meaning without destabilizing the crystal.

This technique is used in criminal investigations, missing persons cases, and even inheritance disputes. A contested sigil might hold the difference between exile and absolution.

However, misuse of memory forensics can shatter a sigil—or worse, imprint the reader with someone else’s trauma. A few unfortunate scholars have walked away believing they were someone else entirely.

Each time a Driftgate is opened, it leaves behind an aetheric wake—a brief but measurable ripple in the surrounding magical field. Sensitive instruments can detect these Driftwakes, which fade within hours unless stabilized by environmental resonance.

Pirates, rogue mages, and Arcanum trackers use Driftwakes to follow gate usage and trace hidden sigil paths. There is even a black-market tool known as a Wakeleech that lets users “ride” these echoes to their source, appearing moments after a gate closes.

In war times, Driftwakes are used as magical tripwires—if a gate opens, entire regions might activate wards or mobilize defenses, unsure whether a friend or foe is arriving.

Some Driftgates are damaged—corroded by failed sigils, corrupted emotions, or cataclysmic events. These are called Weeping Gates, and their surfaces leak streams of resonance fluid that shimmer like tears.

Using a Weeping Gate is possible, but risky. The gate may open to unintended places, splinter the party across multiple timelines, or awaken Echoforms—strange memory-beings made of pure resonance, bound to the sorrow within the gate.

Still, some travelers seek these gates deliberately. They believe the strongest journeys begin not with certainty, but with grief. For them, the Weeping Gate is not broken—it is honest. A threshold of pain that, once crossed, promises transformation.