Ley-Lines

Frater IAM, Magister Templi of Ordo Rosae Crucis:

(According his home-page, he means himself)

"As I see it, ley-lines are flows of quintessence inside reality. They don't have to be large, and can exist on many scales, ranging from huge lines connecting continents and spanning realms to small lines connecting the places inside your room. They interconnect into a kind of fractal network, which distributes the quintessence into all patterns. This network is constantly shifting and moving, but the largest parts of it are quite stable, and seldom move very much. But when they move, things really happen...

Well, lets get back to the ley-lines. These are the larger lines, which are conduits for much quintessence and have practical uses for us mages. Exactly where and how Quintessence enters reality is disputed, but since there are different amount of it at different places, it flows. Since quintessence in itself is just potentiality, it will tend to form patterns. The simplest patterns of Prime are immaterial and abstract ones, like the ones which make up the ley-lines. In a way a ley-line is like a river, where the flow of water builds up banks of sand and mud on the sides, keeping it in.

Most ley-lines become encapsulated in this way, thus shielding their quintessence. The smaller lines leak more quintessence, and the capillary ley-lines spread the tiny amounts of quintessence required to feed the patterns around them. One thing to note about ley-lines is that many seem to run "below" reality, on a different plane than we exist. They are hard to influence, and impossible to tap quintessence from. Thats where nodes come in handy.

When the lines meet nodes appear. Or rather, they can appear. Most branchings or crossings are stable and imperceptible, where the flow is smooth and laminar. But at other places the flow becomes turbulent, vortexes form and nodes appear. This is especially true about the largest lines, where the flow is already strong. Skilled mages can even "awaken" other crossings, turning them into nodes or vice-versa. At nodes, the quintessence flows over the banks of the river, and can be used to water your fields, or rather, your patterns. Or we could say it leaks into reality before its real destination. Of course, there are big nodes and small nodes and the miniature nodes where the smallest lines meet (there are quite a few such nodes just in your own room!), but we'll only discuss the useful ones here.

Where do we find ley-lines? It seems that they form a complex web across reality, connecting everything. The largest seem to follow oceanic currents, mountain ranges, great rivers and such. Whether this is due to that the lines create the objects or vice-versa is unknown, but it seems that ley-lines and physical reality interact to strengthen each other. Maybe a small river will influence nearby ley-lines to run along its course, thus becoming bigger and making the lines stronger, until it turns into a great river. This is also true for man-made objects like roads, holy places and cities. Since ancient times the lines have been marked and controlled by roads, caravan routes, holy sites and cities. Those with the Sight can often see their paths, which is not always straight or obvious. Some lines dart in and out of reality, others lie deep in the ground or high in the air, and some seem to run through the Umbra.

Now, how do we control the ley-lines? The Technocracy is unfortunately good at it. By creating superhighways, railroads, television towers or powerlines they redirect them into paths of their design, draining old nodes and sacred sites and powering their own. More gentle methods are used by us, by placing enchanted stones, buildings or markers along the new course, guiding the line by our magick. But the lines do change, and its not always easy to predict the consequences of such changes. Sometimes the whole web of power shifts, causing untold disruption to both magickal and mundane places."