Ranger Path ( Preserver, Pathfinder, Seeker, etc.)

Rangers, ‘Those who Range‘, seek fulfillment through a path of broad experiences woven in a mixed context of untamed wilderness and the organized achievement of civilization. Ranging is a calling to wisdom and vigilance as an agent of the living world itself. They embrace an authentic connection to the natural order as vital and imperative in creating a stable, healthy and sustainable civilization alongside it. As an Agent of the world, they form an essential mystical bond to it, to experience life in a primeval state without much regard for the barrier of materialism. The strength and nature of this bond allows them to directly commune with principals and spirits of nature and the wyld. They share their perception directly with their principal, even to the extent of allowing them to be possessed and forged into a weapon by need of circumstance. Rangers constantly travel far and wide with their senses open, tracing the interactions of natural features, beasts and organisms, as well as community leaders and organizations of settled lands. They collect, analyze and share information of the happenings which are likely to disturb the relative harmony between the sides. They facilitate understanding to prevent greater imbalances, conflicts, and threats which could destabilize populations and resources. They combine the ideas of Druids and Warriors pathways.

Becoming a Ranger

They will, growing up, typically have spent a lot of time outdoors and felt a kinship with the beasts who have freedom of the open spaces and the community of natural locales wherein many species of flora and fauna live together, and often symbiotically. They will feel a deep draw, an uncontrolled urge to connect more and have a stake in the natural world around them. Rangers will either find (or be found by) a Druid who will guide them, or lose themselves in a wild place; Either way, they will make their “Green Passage”. They will spend a great deal of time, sometimes years or more, experiencing the wild places, communing with nature and the soul/essence of the world they are on, binding themselves to it in heart and mind. They temper their bodies and minds in extreme privation of sustenance, weather, and company. Their senses will become acute in strange ways, ‘feeling’ the world around them like previously unimaginable. They learn the ways of fighting, like the predators they observe and will mimic. They will learn to see the natural order in things, keenly aware of the cycle of life.

• Green Passage
• Sworn to Service: The ranger will use their powers to safeguard their world as a loner, through loose associations of the like-minded, or a formal order. Divine followers generally use Conviction and progress through the States of Grace. The later must balance out their duties to their faith with the greater ones of their sworn oath to ‘protect the land’ in various forms.

Continuing as a Ranger

Although their Green Passage takes them from civilization and makes them feel like outsiders and loners initially, they often acclimate over time. Learning their role as a communicator between nature and civilized folk exposes them to many cultures and diverse customs and people. Rangers range far and wide to cover everything around them, like the wind and rain. Traveling and remaining constantly vigilant for unnatural threats, disasters, calamities, and violence take their toll though. They have a hard time forming closer bonds, though collaborating with a group to achieve goals becomes easy enough. A ranger will never take up a cause that conflicts with their bonds to the world. When presented with the choice between siding between the needs of the natural environment and the constructs of civilization, nature will always win. A ranger will always feel more comfortable and safe sleeping and foraging in the outdoors over civilized means. They are rarely evil or malicious (unless righting a great wrong against Nature), eschewing codes of conduct which dictate specific values or outlooks that conflict with their primary connection of protecting the land.

Unabating Hatred of the Undead: The undead have broken the natural cycle of life, and are unnatural in their very existence. Every effort must be made to remove this blight, or at least to ensure it does not spread. Those willingly made this way who cannot be redeemed must be destroyed. The Ranger is the ‘natural predator’, ordained by nature itself, to discover the means to accomplish this. Animations are just obscene magic, repulsive but not a flagrant interruption of the natural cycles/passage; even the dead in nature have a purpose to aid the living – just usually as food.

Return to Nature: A Ranger must make Offerings to reinforce the enhanced benefits of their bond through the Green Passage. Offerings can be accomplished in many ways:

• Destruction of Material Wealth (buried, sunk, etc. – returned to its ‘natural state’ somehow).
• The buying and freeing of animals (assuming they can return to the wild safely and without starving). A Ranger will not have a multitude of ‘pets’.
• The purchase of or negotiation for setting aside land.

A Ranger’s Roles: For those living amidst the wilderness or traveling through it, they can be very valuable – providing safe exploration, safe hunting, and safe traveling. Rangers will befriend travelers, assisting with advice to stay safe and healthy, even traveling with them if need be. They carry word of disasters, wars and violence, unnatural disturbances, provide reconnaissance for and vehemently oppose (through advice and action) the over-exploitation of natural resources and pollution of natural places and unchecked expansion of settlements. Ignorance is met with education, meanness is met with sabotage and violence if need be. They are always bound to assist in communication between Druids and civilization when they can, and are a balance to the (often) narrow minded zealotry of the Druids in dealing with their perceived sleights. Ranger’s are always interested in hearing from ranchers and farmers on new ways of doing things, and spreading such knowledge (sometimes preventing it from being uttered near by the jealous or greedy) if it benefits (e.g. the knowledge of crop rotation, a local fungus being more effective at healing, easier source of water, etc.). For the natural places and creatures, they are the protectors against unnatural effects and entities seeking to assault or exploit them. They ensure the natural order is not disturbed, while recognizing that creatures, like humans, are driven by natural urges to seek to control and ‘civilize’ the areas around them.

• The Shepard: Protecting and secluding, guiding and enjoining.
• The Seeker: Searching for and finding those lost and uncovering unnatural destructive influences.
• The Hunter: Provider of sustenance, husbanding and planter of wild resources.

The Green Temperament: A Bond to the World

Once the “Green Passage” is complete, the bond (a minor Green Temperament for them) with the land is secure. From that moment forward, as long as they are standing upon a natural feature/surface, they very land around them will support them and enhance their survival as long as the bond is adhered to. Some world souls are greater than others, and may grant additional capabilities. A ‘passage’ only applies to the world on which it was taken. A character can have an active bond with no more worlds than their Divine aptitude. They are not driven strictly by the precepts of law, chaos, good or evil. For the most part, they are benign and helpful, though gruff and aloof to most. Like Druids, they can seem enigmatic and inscrutable because their oaths take them away from civilized ways and outlooks. Rangers takes oaths to serve others and ask for little themselves, though often the world provides in some form or another.

• Sworn and Beholden oath: One with the Land (a Code of Conduct)
• Sworn and Beholden oath: Tied to the Wyld Ways (a Code of Conduct)

While they do not take any official vow of poverty, they are travelers. They eschew wealth and property (unles as a refuge or set aside to remain wild), taking only what they need and helping others and safeguarding nature with the rest. They carry enough wealth for their dealings with the folk of the lands they range in that use such, but never enough to attract attention.

Advantages of the Green Temperament

Speech of Snout and Leaf: The ability to communicate using Leafspeech – a subset of [Ut] Sylvan. A ranger will often befriend domesticated animals wherever he goes to get a consistent source of information as they travel from town to town.

Supported Footing: When making any checks to resist being knocked prone, check Initiative, move through difficult or unstable terrain

Safe Respite: The Ranger will be automatically alerted in their sleep if some natural flora or fauna is about to attack them, in anger or in self-defense. This includes flash floods or unstable ground. They will always have a chance for themselves to avoid the worst outcome, though it does not affect others or provide much time for warning.

Warm Reception: Food, rest, shelter – all these things are likely to be provided in exchange for information and the safety of their company. Rangers prefer the common folk though, as the intrigue and deceptions of politics often lead to information distorted and/or incorrect. Some rangers actually develop skills at story-telling, nothing epic like a poet or rhymist may trade in, but to amuse and couch lessons for youngsters in.

Primeval World Senses

Divine Connections: If the world bond is with a specific Divine Principal. With Conviction, this class can use Divine Connexion to call on small intercessions and counters.

Animus Sensitivity: If the world bond is a Primal Bond. Powerful Anima Fonts, anima manifestations, etc.

Land Bond Connections: Others who are similarly primevally bonded – druids, rangers, etc. can also be detected by they are great in power (fantastical creatures of natural places such as Unicorns, Basilisks, Dryads) or share tenets or litany.

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