The fundamentals found in this book are derived from the experiences of Vanguardian scholars who sought to create a baseline competency amongst the rank and file members of the order. The foundational pillars can change if you’re talking to an Amber mage of the Vespian Kingdom, a Master Whisperer, a Skald or Bard who’s heard the Rhythm of the World, or even the splicers and hags in their huts out in the Great Glades.

Fundamentals are contextual to the goals of the groups that teach them and we are no different; we wish to have defenders that can take hits, avoid disorientation, deftly maneuver their Soul to interact with the battlefield, and utilize equipment loaned to them to their max capacity.

We tailored our education to fall in line with the public education hosted by the Border Trading Company in Odalla, the same education that should be taught across mobile fortresses with affiliations to the Vanguard, although even this is not guaranteed. To create order in this strained chaos, we attempt to teach the fundamentals with the assumption that the individual has had no experience maneuvering the Soul beyond knowing it exists within their body.

We begin with soul shaping. This is considered an essential pillar and cannot be shirked or lacking in focus if individuals attempt to lean into the strengths of their Aspect.

Soul shaping affects the strength and efficiency of your reinforcement, the distance and detail of your sight, the range and fidelity of your sense, the range and alacrity of your kinesis, and even the strength and distance of your communions, be it item or familiar.

Without proper soul shaping, you can expect the basic techniques to be lacking and leave you entirely spent, a combination of over exertion and wasteful spending of energy for middling benefits. It is paramount that recruits and veterans alike practice with different soul shaping techniques, as a grasp on this essential building block will make all future techniques more effective in one capacity or another. Even Hollows can benefit from these practices and should doubly invest time and effort to meet the basic qualifications necessary for field work.

It was mentioned in passing but the five pillars that the Vanguard cares about are Reinforcement, Sense, Sight, Kinesis, and Communion.

Reinforcement is a skill where one coats the body in the soul and, at the basic level, toughens it. The thickness of such reinforcement and its hardness vary depending on the soldier's skill level, but it is versatile in its simplicity, allowing the body to be a weapon and shield both.

Sense is a skill where one ‘pings’ the surrounding area for signs of other souls and in the process creates an image for your scouting purposes. The skill provides a mental topography of whatever it scans as it passes through a given area. Soldiers can rely on the topographical information to maintain a sense of balance and continue the fight, even if the physical senses are disorientated.

Sight is a nebulous skill. It can be used to magnify the detail of objects being inspected. It can also allow the naked eye to survey the area at great distances, a built in pair of binoculars that gain in draw distance the further along you are in this pillar. It is also a very useful technique for soul shaping practice as it allows soldiers to see how exactly they succeed and fail on their exercises instead of relying on basic instinct. I don’t have to belabor the importance of this technique to our Arcanists.

Kinesis and Communion are skills that have been recently added at the behest of our research and development department and are commonly taught in basic education as “possession” and “bonding” respectively. Their additions have proved fruitful insofar as preliminary Vanguard groups have seen, and thus they are added as essential skills in this latest edition.

Kinesis allows for the maneuverability of objects and terrain through the use of the Soul. Reach out with this skill and your Soul will extend towards your target given it has enough length to do so. Having the ability to reach out for weapons cast aside when disarmed is its own insurance when confronting monsters in the heat of battle. The skills that can stem from Kinesis, though, are far more wide reaching and will be covered in the later portions of this manual.

Communion is a skill that, to put it bluntly, had no reason to be absent from our pillars. Our Vanguard is supplied with standard battlements and it was assumed that simply acting as a conduit for the equipment would be enough to realize their potential. Yes, there were those actualizing their equipment better than others, but the idea that they were bonding to their equipment in the same way an Arcanist bonds with a spell or Skald their Muse was unexpected, to say the least.

Where anyone can utilize their equipment given basic training, Communion skills focus on the efficiency at which they can power their equipment and even actualize dormant skills hidden within their arsenal given time and dedication. We can look to the other fields of bonding, to the actualization of Chariots with their Riders for examples of advanced techniques that stem from the Communion skill.

What pillar you focus most of your efforts on depends on your Aspect and your role out in the field.

Scouts benefit from a focus on Sense and Sight, with advanced techniques like hiding one’s soul to the sight of outside forces or changing how your sight functions to better suit the personality of the individual being the sort of skills a soldier can acquire given dedication to these pillars.

Sappers benefit from a focus in Kinesis and Communion, having tools in reach that have been separated from a unit and utilizing said equipment to its max capacity with minimal expenditure on the users end. The Advanced techniques under these pillars vary but they range from recalling bonded objects and familiars regardless of distance to affecting the very arena units fight in.

The Bulwark must focus, in some capacity, in Reinforcement. They stand at the front of battle, dealing heavy blows into enemies while diminishing the damage they might take from the enemy's blows. Advanced techniques also vary in this department but the simplicity in hardening one's body to be as tough as iron should be enough of an incentive to maintain this pillar.

Although there are more units that can be covered, like the Medics or the Lancers, these examples showcase the tie between skills focused on and what impact they’ll have while out in the field.

The later chapters will cover practice exercises soldiers can perform to train towards any of the five pillars. I forewarn that even though this skillset is a baseline that all soldiers must meet an adequate competency at, it should not supplant the unique talents of any soldier. It is in the diversity of the individual Vanguard soldiers and what they bring to the battlefield, be it knowledge or crafts passed from generation to generation, that have kept our organization afloat when defending affiliated fortresses and fending off Scourges.