Trail marks are the oldest form of writing known among the Dwimmerling. Signs from the First Age were simple pictograms cut into bark, stone, or bone to guide travelers through the forest. Mark of a bent thorn near a bramble ticket, a scratched spiral near a deep cave, a forked line beside a branching stream. Each mark carried a small kenning known to those who walked the paths. Each are unique, but all are contained with a cartouche. bounding the character within a ring, as Dwimmer are bound with a talisman. A mark might mean “water beneath the roots.”, “safe hollow ahead.” or “follow the star that never moves.” In those early days the trails themselves were laid with the guidance of the heavens. Wanderers steered their journeys by the fixed stars and the slow wheeling of the once brilliant star Sonn, placing marks where the sky’s path met the land. The signs named places rather than people.

In the Second Age the marks grew more elaborate. Settlements formed, clans took root and the old trail signs were claimed as emblems of lineage. A thorny circle might mark the lands of one house, a split spiral another. As war shifted boarders and folk were displaced by plague or fire, they carried the signs with them, divorcing them from their original context. These signs were now carved above doorways, stamped into trade goods and worn as charms. As dreams and legends of folk bearing these marks grew, Dwimmer were kindled within and took the marks as their sigils, making them potent devices in spirit summoning.

In our time, the Third Age, much of this meaning has faded. Trail marks endure as monograms used for binding oaths, sealing letters, and marking property. Hexen still harbor an oral tradition of their older forms, but most Dwimmerling know them only as personal names. Few now recall the kennings or the star paths they once followed. Even so, when a Dwimmerling sets their mark to a document or carves it upon a stone, the Dwimmer remember, even if the mortal does not.