A thousand years ago, General Durus Valens was one of King Benedict's right-hand blades. Proud warrior son of Gerard, Durus remained loyal to the King when others turned against him, and was one of his last standing defenders. However, things changed with the deaths of Benedict, the Unicorn, and the Serpent.

Freed from his service, Durus wandered Shadow. After being instrumental in the deaths of the gods, Durus pondered the nature and necessity of divinity. This questing has lasted for hundreds of years. Seeking philosophers and holy men across Shadow, and using his Pattern abilities to shore up the local reality, a following sprang up around the man known as the Seeker. Today the Church of the Seekers can be encountered widely across shadow, a philosophical search that became a belief system, perhaps a religion of anticipation, seeking understanding of the divine. While they recognize no current gods, they revere Sakura the Keeper. Their symbol is a tree whose branches form a portion of a Path that might be familiar to Amberites.

Durus the Seeker is a huge, dark, bald man wrapped in yards of bark-brown cloth that form a long hooded robe. He carries a large, rough-hewn wooden staff.