Camouflage: Physical
Physical Camouflage
Physical Camouflage.. the art of hiding anything you need to using anything that is available to you, be this every resource in the kingdom or your waistcoat. This complex art is a major part of the Ranger lifestyle, and most Rangers are adept at it. Using nature, their own possessions, and other techniques, they hide themselves and other things from the naked eye, to be seen or unseen whenever they please. An extremely useful skill, it can help you evade certain situations, gather information, and most definitely help with your hunting skills.
There are, however, many different handicaps and obstacles you must overcome in order to become adept at camouflage. You must be very discriminatory of every little detail, and how it could help you and aid you. The primary source of this knowledge can be gained from your own knowledge of three principles of Camouflage; sight, sound, and movement.
The first principle of Camouflage, sight, is one of the most prominent and quickly comes to mind in Camouflage. Depending on how technical you want to get, even just the color of your clothes on the landscape makes a gigantic difference. If you walk into snow covered hills wearing a purple robe, you won't have as easy a time camouflaging yourself to the land as someone wearing a snow covered waistcoat. If you want to camouflage a trap, you don't use bright blue dye and a giant yellow rope, you use colors that will blend in with the type of land you are hiding your trap in. Many masters of camouflage get more technical, and change their appearances such as hairstyles and facial features to blend in as well.
If you're just standing out in the wilderness with some green robes and dark green-dyed tangly hair, you won't have as good results as someone lying down on a clump of moss behind a few rocks, will you? Another essential sight-based characteristic of a successful Camouflage specialist is using the landmarks around you to the best of your ability. Let's take tracking someone in close quarters for example. If you're thirty steps away from someone, and they look behind them for someone, you'd want to be behind a tree or a rock, rather than lying right at his feet, right? If you use the land to your advantage, you'll have much better results than someone who just dyes themselves and walks off into the wilderness.
Sound is another major figure in the art of camouflage. The snap of a twig, the rustle of a cloak can be the difference between an arrow in your chest, or an arrow in the heart of your enemy. Learning how to successfully stop making sound is a very useful skill for a camouflage specialist. While hiking in hostile territory, it's important to know how to keep your feet silent and your breath quiet. These two skills will make or break a person. While eavesdropping on someone, for example a poacher, would you hear much if you're twenty feet away and breathing heavily, snapping twigs and walking around dazedly? No. How about when you're in close proximity behind a rock or some other resource, keeping still and completely silent? The ability to keep quiet is very important.
The last really important principle of Camouflage is movement. How you move can be a major factor in how well you hide yourself in certain situations. What if you're tailing someone? Do you want expose yourself by running between trees and not making it in time? Do you want to snag your cloak on a branch and fall over? The secret to good movement in Camouflage is patience. If someone is running top speed through the wilderness, chances are they won't hear you running fast either. If someone is creeping through the wilderness, there's no need for you to run like a madman, take your time. Make sure your moves are silent and you aren't seen by your prey. If you rush it, chances are you'll make a mistake you regret.
`-Ouned Lee