Krepta Eve Walker

World Walkers, also known as Way Walkers, or just Walkers, are an endangered species in the multiverse. This isn't to say that there aren't other beings that are capable of traversing freely between worlds, but the Walkers themselves as a family of those beings has dwindled to nearly nothing. Once there were many Walkers-- enough that some of the oldest texts and beings may still remember them and their reputation as somewhat of a mixed blessing.

In fact, Walkers were once well known across the multiverse for their hare-brained heroics. They had a penchant for dropping out of nowhere into a dangerous situation, often on the eve of defeat just in time to turn the tide. They had a reputation for being troublesome meddlers who followed only their own code, which often seemed indecipherable to outsiders. Not all of the Walkers were good people, but the most problematic of the black sheep were usually handled by other Walkers before they could do damage. Overall, many considered the Walkers a force for good in the cosmos, if perhaps an occasional annoyance as well.

And then one day the Walkers just stopped coming. A once mighty empire of otherworldly travelers became a sad trickle of haunted refugees, and then even they vanished, and with them it seemed, much of the public’s knowledge of the Walkers. Outside of some half forgotten dusty tomes in a few old spellcaster's attics, they had faded into obscurity, purposefully hidden it seemed, by some distant and sinister hand.

Tall Tales
*The origins of the Walkers are not meant to be taken literally, though Krepta does encounter gods and god-like beings, and the source of the Walker's power considers itself a god, though it really isn't. Qyinn is depicted as a tree with a bunch of eyes, but it isn't the world tree, and though there are four families and four elemental beings as well, the rest is just meant to be fun and vague. Make up your own 'maybe' Walker rumor for your character if you'd like. I'm sure there's tons of stories out there. This is just one that is likely to be common.

The origins of the Walkers have been long lost to time, and there are many competing theories and legends out there that all claim to be the truest tale. The most popular of the stories is that long ago there were actually four families, each of which worshiped the spirit of one of the four primal elements, Earth, Air, Water, and Fire - The Gryphon, The Unicorn, The Leviathan, and The Dragon.

The clans took to warring among each other over whose spirit's teachings should be followed, as those of differing faiths often tend to, and a competition arose as a result. The competition was this: whoever could climb the world tree and bring back one of its branches would be declared supreme over the other three spirits, because whoever could complete such a herculean task was clearly the wisest and strongest among them.

And so a chosen bearer for each of the spirits was selected out of each family to take on the task and sent forth to the foot of the world tree, which in those days could be seen from anywhere in existence. The four scaled the tree, fighting and sabotaging each other the entire way up.

Most of the branches of the world tree were enormous. They had to be big enough to hold the fruits of entire universes, after all. Most of these branches were far too large to carry back to the clans as proof of their completed task, and so the four had to travel quite a ways up the tree while they looked for the perfect branch. Eventually a branch small enough to break off was found, a very small branch with an infant universe just beginning to bud from the end.

All four spirit bearers having reached it at the same time, they of course fought over this too, and eventually with each hand grasping the branch, they snapped it away from the tree. The baby universe was snuffed out in the ensuing scuffle.

The world tree woke then, furious at what they had done. Not only had they destroyed the little universe, but they had each damaged the tree itself too. The dragon had scorched the tree's trunk, the unicorn had blown away its leaves, the leviathan had flooded its roots, and the gryphon had buried in earth many of the tree's lowest hanging branches.

The World Tree shook itself and spoke.

"See now the hole where the world used to be. See now the ash and rust how it spreads. See now the never was. I charge you four to tend to the dust of the ways between worlds until this folly is undone. I charge you four to scour the blight from my roots, to mend the burns in my bark, to find my scattered leaves, and unbury my suffocating branches. I charge you, and I charge those who are to come after you, as is my right, until the task is done."

And so it was, and so it has been since, or at least that's how the one story goes. The Walkers, by nature, have always had a penchant for myth and dramatic flair. The truth is that the real story is unknown, and likely far stranger than any bedtime tale that you might find here.

Perhaps someday that too will be unburied.

Where did they really come from?
*The following is not common knowledge, nor is it known to Krepta, currently. Qyinn is a sneaky, self serving bastard and it intends to keep its secrets if it can, and therefore it controls the truth carefully. It has even geased the other four Tesseracts so that they may not directly tell the Walkers about their true origins, or help them without exacting a price, ensuring that there's no little love lost between the Bearers and their respective donors.

To find the true origins of the Walkers, one will have to look to a far stranger place than myths and folklore. For the purpose of our explanation, we'll look at the Tesseract connected most closely to Krepta-- Ven. It was the donation of a portion of Ven's power so long ago that led to the first Dragon Bearer, and it's a combination of his life force and Qyinn's that make up the energy well that Krepta draws her abilities from.

Ven is an entity that survived the death of his own universe. When he and four others like him found themselves in the current universe, they found it to be at a lower dimensional frequency than their own, making it as malleable to them as a crayon drawing to a four year old, and at first they were just as destructive and irresponsible. Eventually the four encountered life, in this case, Earth, and it drew their fascination. Four of the Tesseracts, including Ven, decided to bind their true selves to physical avatars in order to protect this newfound life from themselves, and to better interact with it. This would come at a significant loss of their abilities, and the fifth Tesseract, Qyinn, refused, still harboring dreams of recreating the universe they had lost.

Qyinn was deemed too destructive to be allowed to wander free. It's plans to resurrect their old universe would destroy the life in this current one, and so the other four Tesseracts converged on their companion and locked them away entirely.

Shortly after Qyinn was captured, it split a part of itself off to form its own earthly avatar in order to continue its work. But the part it split from itself was formed from all of its worst urges, and instead of working to recreate the original universe the five came from, it began spreading its rot throughout the great web that makes up all universes. Realizing that it could not undo this error itself, Qyinn begged the other four Tesseracts to help it contain this threat.

They agreed, for the sake of protecting the life and world around them that they had fallen in love with. Each, including Qyinn, put a piece of themselves into four mortal individuals, binding them to elemental avatars to help guide them and help them fight-- Ven's, the dragon and fire; Edin, the unicorn and air; Atobias, the gryphon and earth; and Maron, the leviathan and water. Qyinn also poured its own power into these individuals, to gift them the ability to heal the rifts being torn in the universe, and the corruption already done.

These individuals were the first of the World Walkers, each which spread into its own family with their own unique gifts and ways of stepping in between the worlds and completing their sacred duties.

But because Qyinn is a petty creature, and resented the other four for keeping it locked away in the first place, it also used that shared connection between them all to prevent them from ever revealing the true nature and origins of the Walkers to them, or from directly aiding them in any way without exacting a price from them equal to their boon.

As such, it also locked away significant parts of the other four's power within whichever mortal held their avatar, weakening the other Tesseracts forever more. And should the last bearer of each avatar perish before passing it on, that part would also be extinguished, preventing the four from ever regaining their lost essence. This all began a very, very long time ago, but it is a power struggle that still very much continues to this day.

The Walker's book is a large, leather bound tome that contains much of the Walker's secrets and family history. It reacts to its environment and the people around it, including questions and conversation. The book doesn't talk, but it may open to a certain requested page, or if it doesn't like someone, snap its cover down on their fingers. It can't move much beyond opening and closing.

Krepta isn't entirely sure just how sentient the book really is, but sometimes Qyinn will communicate through its pages, as well as echos of the memories of lost family members. Krepta doesn't entirely trust it, and the book often gets left at home much of the time, tucked away in a safe place. She has a lot of mixed feelings about The Walker's Book, but she can't deny that it has often been useful in the past.

The lock that holds the book shut will only open when given Walker's blood.

Krepta is also writing her own book on the subject, based on her own experiences, though the going is slow, and uncovering the truth of matters is difficult.


Enclaves
Back when the Walkers were more prominent across the multiverse, it was common practice for a Walker to create a home base in whatever land they found themselves working in. It was a place where they could rest and keep supplies, or retreat to if they were in danger. Each of these places were specially created to be slightly offset with the reality of that universe, so that they existed in a sort of pocket space that could only be accessed by other Walkers or their guests.

These safe houses became known as Enclaves, and though the Walkers who built them are long gone, there are still many of these spaces scattered across the multiverse, hidden and forgotten. The Hallow is just such a space, one that Krepta created herself. Being just one Walker, Enclaves are much easier to find than make however. It took Krepta nearly a full year of work to form and then stabilize The Hollow on her own.

Krepta has found several of those lost Enclaves over the years, but none that she's gone back and properly stabilized. Should that change, they'll be listed and described below. Enclaves sometimes hold traps or wild creatures as well as supplies, or their lack of use may have caused them to start to degrade, so it's important to get them stabilized if intended for long term use.

Modern Walkers
♢ Agents of the Multiverse
♢ The Omphalos - AotM HQ
♢ Active Threats
♢ Sanctuary

Magical Properties

The Dragon Line
The Dragon Line is tied to the Tesseract Ven, who carries the power of fire and the summer elements. His power is tied to passion, violence, and sacrifice, and he, like his winter brother, is a predatory creature with distinctly vampiric traits. As such, similar creatures also fall under his domain, as do many of those with reptilian traits. The Dragon's herald bearer can, as the name might suggest, take on the shape of a dragon at will, though no one is entirely sure what happened to the herald bearer before Krepta. The connection to its new bearer seems to have been damaged somehow, and the Dragon's soul is too badly wounded to tell its story.

Other Lines
The Unicorn, The Gryphon, and The Leviathan all seem to have been destroyed, and all knowledge of their lines along with them.