The Vestige is a term for any object that can be used to travel back in time. They are like a time compass for members of the Order who can use them to navigate back into history. The most reliable ones are man-made, their slow, passive journey through history creates a clean set of trail markers back to key events (called nodes or Locii by the order) for the traveller.
There are other kinds of Vestige, some of the order are able to use sound, others, especially Seers, can use people’s memories – the key is always to find a Vestige that has some association with the period you are trying to reach.
Museums and libraries are often the best locations for Vestigial artefacts, especially if the designated time is pre-Industrial; books tend to be one of the best sources, but ancient artefacts – albeit rare, will be required if travelling back beyond the age of writing.
Natural assets, like animal bone carvings and especially gems, are generally avoided. The chaotic, and in some cases million-year-lifespan, produce the most chaotic and unreadable paths, leading back to time epochs that no one would ever be able to return from.
The traveller uses the vestige through a process they call ‘Weaving’ – unravelling the history the object and using its locii like co-ordinates on a sat-nav, they are able to shift back into the appropriate point in time.