Copyright ©1998 Jonathan Cardon
Amber DRPG is Copyright ©1991 Erick Wujcik

Have you ever driven down a road or walked down a hallway, turned a corner sure that you were on the right path, only to discover that you had taken a wrong turn? Have you ever glimpsed what looked like another land, another room out of the corner of your eye, but when you turned it wasn't there? A shadowpath is something like that. For people who knows the path, and know what is supposed to lie around the next bend, the path is there. They take the turn, and step from one world to the next. To anyone watching, it's as if they just went around the corner and disappeared. To the travellers on the shadowpath, they are just where they wanted to be.

Sometimes people find a shadowpath by accident. State of mind has much to do with this. Those fixed firmly in the rational world, believing in the solidity of their own world seldom stray from it. It is more common for the very young, the senile, the mad, the drunk, the drugged, and the eccentric to turn that corner and find themselves in someplace new. Of course all but the most firmly rooted in their reality can follow someone else, if shown the path.

Then there are those who know very well about the paths through shadow. These come in three classes. First there are those who have just been led down a path at one time, and know the markers and the signposts. In some parts of shadow, the paths are even well marked. Once you have been down a path, it is but a matter of belief, memory, and concentration to follow a path again. Second, there are those who can find shadowtrails. Some people just have a feeling for shadowpaths, a knack, a sixth sense that helps them find new paths. Most of those who dabble in magic can learn to find a weakness in the veils, and the trail that leads from there. For those who have the mystic sight, a trail is immediately obvious. They can see along the path into the next world, looking like some strange double exposure, a phantasm overlaying the world in which they reside. Finally there are those few that can forge new paths. Instead of following an existing path, they rip across the veils that separate one world from another, joining here to there. In the process, a link is created, a path from one world to the next.

Shadowpaths aren't stable, they can alter or even disappear over time. How long a trail will remain through shadow depends on many factors. The strength of the one opening the trail, whether they used a point of weakness, or just punched through, and on the nature of the shadows themselves. Some worlds have strong veils, some are weak, some close rapidly, and some seem to remain breached permanently once opened. One thing does appear clear, trails that are often used are strengthened by use. Frequent traffic can reinforce shadowtrails. Shadowpaths left alone for years, are often gone, nothing left but a weakness in the veils when once again visited.