Like some aviation orienteering, rangers orient firstly by referring to a source of viewpoint; 'my' or 'your' (or occasionally someone's name, as in 'It was on Brownboy's devant').
Secondly a directional indicator is used. A directional is based on the way the viewer is facing, not by his relationship to a landscape. The space around a viewer is broken into eight equal parts. The space directly in front of a viewer is always 'devant' (front.) The space to a viewer's direct right is 'droit' (right.) The space directly behind a viewer is 'arrier' (back.) And the space to a viewer's left is 'gauche' (left.)
Four additional spaces are assigned between each of these primary spaces. The original full names for these additional spaces are no longer in use as the rangers have condensed the words into a more useful slang. Thus, 'de'droit' is used instead of devant-droit (front-right), 'a'droit' instead of arriere-droit (back-right), 'a'gauche' instead of arriere-gauche (back-left) and 'de'gauche instead of devant-gauche (front-left). See the diagram below.
(Art
by Monica Visinsky)
Thirdly, if necessary, a ranger will direct by 'air' or 'earth', meaning that an object is above the viewer's level or below it. If neither of these directionals are given, it's assumed that the object is on the same level as the viewer.
Other adjectives that can be applied informally to the orientations include 'approaching' 'retreating' and 'crossing' to identify objects in motion, 'near' and 'far' to describe distance or 'petit' and 'grande' to describe size.
Thus, "Your a'droit air crossing near grande" means that a ranger is calling your attention to the flight of dragons that is passing above, behind and to your right. Just in case, you didn't notice.
This system is slightly adapted when rangers are orienting for wind direction. The word 'brise' is used in front of a standard directional to indicate that the wind is being referred to. Rangers always name a wind for the side of the ranger that it is blowing against. Thus, a 'brise your devant' means that you are facing into the wind.
A brise devant is where a ranger almost *always* wants to be. Brise de-droits and brise de-gauches are acceptable. A ranger gets edgy when he finds himself in a brise droit or a brise gauche. Brise a-droits or brise a-gauches are to be gotten out of as quickly as possible.
And a brise arriere? Unless a ranger is looking for an extremely long range archery shot, he will never never let himself get into this position. There are jokes and cliches among the rangers regarding the brise arriere; it's the last word in being screwed.
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