The Law of Crossings

If a symbol looks familiar, "the door has your scent."

Recognition, the third rule of crossing, is already at work. Magick is access, and crossing comes first on that list. There are five rules, and every crossing between jurisdictions answers to all of them.

The five rules

1. Every crossing requires a threshold.
2. Every crossing requires a state change.
3. Every crossing requires recognition.
4. Every crossing has a toll.
5. Every liminal space has a custodian.

Four cover the crossing. The fifth covers the ground it happens on, and whoever keeps that ground.

Recognition

The third rule carries a gloss: "Recognition is consent-adjacent."

What the door does with your scent isn't written down.

Anchor, map, exit

Anybody crossing needs three things: an anchor, a map and an exit condition. People who go without them get lost, and they "don't come back as themselves."

For Verone the anchor is a list, kept under The Mantle. Without one he comes back from the Shift "more mantle than man."

Tolls and tunnels

Into a Below-city, the threshold is "always through infrastructure that goes under the city." Storm drains, sewers, utility tunnels.

The fourth rule has a creditor. Hexorius, who speaks for Stillwell Below, holds a grudge about unpaid tolls.

Source of record: Series Bible. Cleared. Revised 2026-10-17.