The Eastern Wilds
Mist-runners
Hunters of the eastern wilds, who move while the mist still lies on the ground.
“But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.”
Their story
Every morning of the world, a mist rises out of the earth. It lies white and thick on the fields and in the forests, deep enough to hide a deer, deep enough to hide a man. In most of the world people wait for it to burn away before they set out. In the oak forests and foothills of the Eastern Wilds, the Mist-runners set out because of it.
They are hunters and scouts, lean and fast and silent. They grow up running through the mist before they can properly walk, learning to read the shapes of things by sound and smell and the stir of the white air. A Mist-runner can cross a meadow at dawn under the eyes of a watchman and never be seen. They can see farther through mist and darkness than any other people, and they trust two things in all the world: their eyes and their feet.
Both cities hire Mist-runners as scouts, and neither fully trusts them. That suits the Mist-runners. They go where they are paid to go, see what they are paid to see, and keep the rest to themselves. In the lodges of the Eastern Wilds, though, a Mist-runner's word to another Mist-runner is iron, and a debt of the hunt is never forgotten.
Their look and ways
Grey-green wraps that blend into the mist, soft boots that make no sound, a bow or sling always close to hand. Before every hunt they blacken their faces with charcoal and fat, a band across the eyes and two stripes down each cheek, so that a face in the mist is only shadow. Their hair is cut close at the sides and bound in one long tail or braid, and their Mistweave gear of grey-green, moss and charcoal carries a charcoal pouch and an antler-handled knife at the belt. Mist-runners are quiet company, quick to notice and slow to speak, and they sleep lightly with one hand on a blade.
Starting attributes
| Attribute | Start | What it does for you |
|---|---|---|
| Agility | 26 | Together with your Defense skill, your chance to dodge a blow. For hunters, it also makes every hunter's art strike harder. The most agile people in the world. |
| Strength | 22 | Adds force to every weapon blow and physical art, and lets you carry more. For defenders, it is also the well of their power. |
| Stamina | 20 | Raises your maximum health. Every calling needs it. |
| Wisdom | 18 | Strengthens every healing and ward, deepens a healer's well of power, and adds a little resistance against all eight kinds of harm. |
| Intelligence | 14 | Makes signs, spells and songs strike harder, and deepens the well of power for wielders of signs and voices of the company. |
Innate resistances
- Cold, from the chill of a thousand dawns.
- Mind, from the stillness of the hunt. A Mist-runner's thoughts are hard to trouble.
Both grow stronger with every level you gain.
Innate gifts
- Mist-veiled
- while the morning mist lies on the ground, enemies notice you only when you are much closer.
- Far Sight
- you see farther through mist and darkness than other people.
Traditions
At every tenth level, choose one:
- For the body: Fleet, Lean Strength or Long Wind, raising your Agility, Strength or Stamina.
- For protection: Dawn Chill against cold, Still Mind against the mind's terrors, or Hunter's Gut against disease.
- For skill: Bowstring with ranged weapons, Light Foot to dodge, or Skinning Knife with daggers and spears.
- Gifts found nowhere else:
- Into the Mist: vanish from sight for a few heartbeats, even in the middle of a fight.
- Sharp Sight: spot hidden enemies from much farther away.
- Swift Pursuit: enemies you wound are slowed, and your snares hold longer.
Natural callings
Choose the Mist-runners if
You want to be fast, silent and free. You love the hunt, the scout and the arrow from nowhere. Every dawn the world is hidden for a little while. The Mist-runners are the ones who know what moves in it.
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