Mistwalker

Mistwalkers are a pretty mysterious lot, and they like to keep it that way. Fortunately, I've met a couple in my time who have shared some of their experiences with me. Mistwalking is, of course, the most prestigious of the thirteen Seer gifts, but it's not one you pick. Instead, every Seer family gives their second child to the Mistwalker Council. This is so common that in Seer hospitals, doctors the doctor will just call the nearest Mistwalker school when a woman has her second child. Then they keep the baby in the hospital until someone can pick it up. Most of the time, the parents don't even see the kid. It's supposed to keep everyone from getting attaching (even the kid, apparently.)

THe Mistwalker schools are usually separated from the Seer communities. They may be a short drive away, but they think it's important to be isolated. And they need a big patch of wilderness for the initiation. Mistwalkers are raised to be loyal first to the Mistwalker Council. Oh, they tell the kids they're all the second child, and thus they were chosen for this prestigious postion, yadda yadda, but they're not supposed to consider anyone but the other Mistwalkers family. They're even all given the last name Walker, just to reinforce that.

Alternative Names

Deathwalker

Type

Arcane

Used By

• Mistwalker Council

Ranks & Titles

• Rogue Mistwalker

Final Initiation

You can't expect things to go perfectly the first time you try. Did you expect things to go perfectly the first time you used Mistwalker magic?
Well, yeah. You kind of die otherwise.

— A Mistwalker and a Tenganaw discussing magic

When they're eighteen, a Mistwalker takes a vow of silence for a month. At the end of the month, they hold a vigil during the night and fast the following the day. Then, at midnight, they venture into the wilderness around the school, and cannot return until they have a vision of their own death. If you don't see your death, it's probably because you died from exposure, so when someone doesn't come back, they look for a body, or at least the remains of one (oh yeah, there are animals that might attack you, too.) IF they don't find anything, they report you as a possible rogue.

Duties

Mistwalkers are trained to sense death. They can feel when a death is imminent, and they can sort through them to sense which ones are natural (like someone dying of old age), and which ones feel... out of place. Mistwalkers usually describe this as disturbing the balance of life and death. Any deaths like that, they report to the Mistwalker Council, who makes a decision about whether or not they should try to prevent it. If the answer is yes, they select a Mistwalker to go live in the area until the balance of life and death is restored. No one is ever sure how long this will take, so some Mistwalkers move around every year or so, while others have been known to stay in the same place for a decade. They do try to avoid that when they can, though. Again, attachement is considered problematic.

Mistwalkers don't usually get to decide where they go, but there are sometimes exceptions. A Mistwalker who is familiar with an area might argue they should take a certain job because they have background knowlegde, or sometimes even a member of the Mistwalker Council will take a job themselves, usually because they have background knowledge from their days in the field. Sometimes, Mistwalkers go rogue because they want a particular job, like my friend Damian, who decided he was going to save his birth family from a vision he had. Even if he had reported that one, there's no way the Council would have let him take the job. But if they catch him, he'll be in big trouble. Mistwalkers are pretty powerful, playing with magic of life and death, so rogues have a high execution rate. He could get lucky, but it's better to just not get caught.