GossamerAndIce/TheWyld
the Wyld in Gossamer and Ice
In the interest of everyone having the same basic image of the Wyld, I'm going to present some of the basic viewpoints relating to the Wyld here.
Levels of Wyld Influence:
The Wyld comes in a few different levels, and I'm going to go over them here briefly:
Bordermarches of the Wyld are places that are mostly static, especially as you experience them. The main reason these are Wyld is because they might be different the next time you return, and more importantly because there are numerous weird and amazing things. While there are probably few things in a Bordermarches that couldn't exist in Creation, the Bordermarches are filled with these things at a fairly high density. However, there is still a lot of normal stuff as well. This is one of the safest places in the Wyld for mortals, and some people choose to live here their entire lives, and do so.
Middlemarches of the Wyld are much more chaotic and primal places, and can change in radical and impressive ways. They usually won't do this while your actively looking at them, but you can expect to experience change while you are there. Similarly, the Middlemarches are full of all manner of impressive and totally amazing things, that would have a hard time existing in Creation itself. Here is where you have vast seas of fire, floating continents, and other such weird and amazing things. These places also tend to be somewhat dangerous for mortals, but they can find ways to survive and prosper, but it's pretty obvious that any mortal who lives in the Middlemarches will feature a few changes here and there.
The Deep Wyld is the most impressive area of the Wyld outside of the Pure Chaos, and it is the most fluid. Reality can shift and twist right under you and it almost certainly will do so. The Things in the Deep Wyld can be utterly nonsensical, from entire worlds inside a painting in a hallway to a sudden encounter with a tea-party hosted by intelligent tyrant lizards. The most important part of the Deep Wyld is that it is very iconic. Each wyld zone in the Deep Wyld tends to have one (or occasionally two) things about it that it just IS; this is what prevents it from being Pure Chaos, it has some definition. Examples might be "made of Ice", or "painting of a Ship." Other than this one iconic trait, everything else in the wyld zone can shift and change at whim.
Elemental Associations
I'm playing these as very strong, but not entirely so. Especially in the Middlemarches and the Deep Wyld, you can end up with weird things that aren't entirely aspected toward their element. However, in general, the Wyld is going to be colored according to it's direction. Unlike in E:tFF, the central iconic traits of Deep Wyld Zones are often but need not be elemental in nature.
Mutation:
I'm a huge fan of the Wyld as a place of legends, raw unyielding change and chaos. The Wyld is a place where all things can happen, all things can be found, including many things that don't make sense or just aren't entirely sensical. This is the Wyld of Outcastes, of Exalted: the Fair Folk. It's not so much the Wyld found in other Exalted books, however. Mostly, I've found, there is one particular aspect of the Wyld that I didn't like. All I had to do was get rid of that one little aspect, and everything was fine!
That aspect is the image of the Wyld as a place that, simply by existing, twists and mutates others. So my Wyld does not work like that. Now, this does not mean in any aspect that the Wyld is safe. Nor does it mean that mutations never exist and we don't get weird freakish monsters. It just means that it's possible for relatively normal things to live in the Wyld, at least in the short term.
In specific, I'm going to assume that it takes some action or event to initiate change and mutation. Moreover, this change, while chaotic, isn't necessarily completely random. There might be a spring in one waypoint that can change the gender of anyone who bathes in it, or a tree whose apples cause one to develop various Avian features after eating one. There might be roads where, walking down said road, everything seems to shrink -- because the character is growing into a huge freakish giant. These events are not orderly; the apple tree might be gone the next time you visit a location! However, in general, if you are careful and knowledgeable, you can probably remain mostly whole while in the Wyld. Similarly, this is how Wyld Quests work; a shaman can gain some insight into what kinds of actions and events will trigger what kinds of events.
