[cklepacz]

Dear Friends,

I have been looking for this in the FAQ and other sources and cannot seem to find it anywhere. I am currently reading HoC, and Pearl is in the Imperial Warren. Anyway, I have always been curious about travel via warren. Does one start with the destination in mind and the warren simply "obeys", or is there some sort of warren mapping system?

Also, in the "real world" and in "real time" is the travel time pretty much instantaneous?

It seems like some warrens are other dimensions of the world and some are actual worlds themselves.

Any thoughts? Any recommendations for further inquiry?

Cheers,

Chris

[Aptorian]

It's a bit of a mystery this whole warrentravel business.

The Imperial Warren is a bit of a wild card because it's a dead warren that doesn't seem to move much.

Other warrens wander and change. Time moves different inside them and distances become blurred.

Generally it seems as though you just open a hole jump in, hope you don't get torn to pieces by the denizens of this place, get an idea of were you're going and jump out when you're there.

How it works specifically is anyones guess.

[D'rek]

The manner of each warren tends to be unique. Some, like Serc, don't seem to offer any realm or 'layer' you can physically enter into at all.

Here's some examples I can think of that we've seen by HoC:

Imperial Warren: It seems in the Imperial Warren, so long as you keep your destination clearly in mind and remain resolute you can reach it with much less walking then it would take in the Malaziworld. However, there is a sort of geography to the place with important things laying around (like pits containing Otataral Dragons?!). We know from the MoI prologue that the IW is the devastation of Jacruku from the Kallorian Empire. Since the IW is accessible in 7C as well, it seems like the geography of the IW has been stretched across part or all of the Malaziworld, and that may be why traveling a distance in there equals a greater distance in the Malaziworld.

Meanas: The Shadow realm (at least the one containing Shadowkeep is certainly a realm unto itself, and is said to sort of float around the world untethered to any particular spot. So if you exit the Shadow realm next to a certain tree one day and end up in Lato Revae, you might exit at the same spot some other time and land in the ocean next to Capustan.

Thyr: In GotM Tattersail uses Thyr to travel across the land more quickly. Like many of the Paths, Thyr seems to be more like a 'layer' of the world that you can access and observe, such that Tattersail was traveling through the layer of Light across the land. And of course since Light is so fast, it makes sense that traveling with her warren opened around her would make her go faster.

[Silander]

Some warrens cannot be entered into for whatever reason or at least no-one in the books has done so that we know of eg Serc, Denul and Ruse. It could be that those warrens still have a God residing within them, or that they simply cannot be entered into for some reason inherent to their nature.
It's mentioned by Quick Ben that there isn't a true High mage of Ruse in the Empire and that it is the hardest to master.
Is this because the owner still lives in it? Probably and that owner might be Mael (elder God of the oceans).
Perhaps only disembodied or flying creatures can enter the Serc warren bodily?
It might be that warren is just a catch all term for other dimensions. Interestingly, in Deadhouse gates we learn that Mappo has with him, a satchel (or bag of some sort) which is mentioned as having it's own warren within it, like a pocket warren, one of the things the witchs of his tribe invested with sorcery and gave him.
The books are also littered with other dead or pocket warrens, which have fallen into disuse for whatever use, whether Ascendants or tribal spirits resided within them but then for whatever reason they ceased to exist and therefore the warrens became disused (it's mentioned that Fener also has his own warren).
So they seem to be worlds/areas that Powerful beings, be they Elemental forces such as Mother dark is hinted at being, or elder gods or spirits.
Within these warrens we sometimes see creatures that are native to it and possible aligned to it, or have an affinity, though that probably comes from living there.

Indeed, again in DHG, we see Kalam trying to navigate the Imperial warren and as D'rek rightly points out, he focuses on a Street in Aren and remembers that QB told him that if he did that the warren would just take him wherre he visualised. Though QB seems to be infuriatingly vague on matters of sorcery when he explains them to others.
Shadow seems very difficult to navigate and has a habit of changing as mentioned again by D'rek.
Thyr it seems won't operate over bodies of water, is that because light refracts and reflects through/off water? The fundamental nature of each warren is almost certainly tied to the element it is derived from.
When traveling in warrens, Kulp says (In DHG) that warrens (or at least his - Meanas) always led the practitioner from Land - land and water to water, which is lucky for him and the guys on the ship he was on when they (or the insane mage that was attacking them, I can't remember which) ripped a hole in the warren wall and they passed through it, they went from been on water to being on something like water.
Shadow often defies this.

[leviathin]

Doesn't Quick Ben travel D'riss in MoI?
It was at the part right before he encountered Bauchelain and Korbal Broach.
I am too lazy to find the passage, but I know its after the siege of Capustan.