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[XXXXYYYY]

        You left some time ago from your hometown and took the roads north. After travelling a good ways, the plants began to take on stranger and stranger forms. You swear you saw them reaching out for you. You hurried through that area, and emerged into a bleached, pitted wasteland. After travelling for a couple days, you notice a small village on the horizon and run there, your rations having run low.
        When you arrive, you go to the only building that seems to sell food, a squat little bar at the very edge of the town. The inside is exactly as you would expect, with dirty tables set in dim lighting amid the puddles on the floor. The counter's front is covered with a dozen different medicines and drugs, but they seem old and dingy, like everything else in this place. You order a soda, and that's when it hits.
        You'd been having minor headaches intermittently over the past week or so, but you'd assumed it was just from the relentless glare off the wasteland. This is worse, and definitely not normal. You double over in pain, and in your reflection in a puddle on the floor you see something horrifying.
        Your chest and head are covered with hundreds of humming branches dripping with multicolored goop that dissipates as it strikes the floor. The very earth seems to writhe away as the puddle shakes and trembles and a freezing phantom wind brushes across your face. When the burst of pain fades, the branches fade into nothing, though you feel like a part of you has changed, in some way that you can't quite understand. One of the other patrons looks at you and shakes his head, muttering as he turns back to his drink.

Who are you?
What do you look like?
What element are you newly attuned to? [see below]
What do you do now?

Spoiler: Elements (click to show/hide)

Basic:

Earth.
Earth deals with moving that which is solid. It favors in moving unshaped stone, but it can, with a bit more effort, move nearly any solid, though it gets far harder with an increase in complexity. In the body, it represents the bones and incites courage, stubbornness, and strength. At the moment, all you could control is raw, untampered soil and stone, though you would be sure to improve with practice.

Fire.
Fire is the most volatile element, dealing with fire and frost, heat and cold. At its most primal, it governs only flames and burning heat, but advanced practitioners can manipulate the opposites and milder forms of these as well. In the body, it represents the flesh and incites determination, fury, and inspiration. In the present, all you could control is existing fires, but that could broaden immensely with time.

Water.
Water deals with those things that flow and ripple, governing liquids. It is most intimate with pure water, but other liquids can be controlled with more effort. Impurities make controlling liquids far harder, but it can be done. In the body, it represents the blood and incites creativity, indecision, and calm. If you gained this now, you would be able to move pure liquid water only, though other liquids would be possible with some practice.

Air.
Air controls the transient things of the world, moving gasses around. It finds manipulating the air easy, but other gasses are able to be controlled as well. It has a large amount of potential, but is hampered mostly by the relatively little force it has to offer - a blast of air carries far less power than a rock. In the body, it represents the breath and incites energy, absentmindedness, and the the urge to wander. If you choose this, you would be able to move plain air around, though other gases will surely come as you progress.

Advanced:

None Discovered.

[3man75]

Rainer Zuko

A gauntly young man with yellowish eyes and brown hair. Most of your hair is ragged and long due to the long tracks through the wastelands we were just traversing. Our clothes are little better also.
Fire.
Ask around the village to the nearest city and who runs it.

[Spiderking50]

Jon Noj
5 foot 8 inches. Blond hair and lean build. Sharp face and soft blue eyes.
Water.
You stare into your drink and behold the majesty of liquid. You try to regain your breath and composure.

[Tomcost]

Stone

I'll let you guys do the rest.

[ATHATH]

Stone

I'll let you guys do the rest.

+1

[Andres]

Air

Unless we're expecting to go up against tear gas, this would be the most useful to us. Air is everywhere.

[Detoxicated]

Stone

I'll let you guys do the rest.

+1
Draghan Rustwear
A musculous but somewhat stout man with dark brown skin colour. Green eyes of and no hair
Stone
You look at the other patron in annoyance, as you do not like this particular fellow

[Generally me]

Stone

I'll let you guys do the rest.

+1
Draghan Rustwear
A musculous but somewhat stout man with dark brown skin colour. Green eyes of and no hair
Stone
You look at the other patron in annoyance, as you do not like this particular fellow

+1

[vjmdhzgr]

I like all suggestions so far, but I think my favorite is

Rainer Zuko

A gauntly young man with yellowish eyes and brown hair. Most of your hair is ragged and long due to the long tracks through the wastelands we were just traversing. Our clothes are little better also.
Fire.
Ask around the village to the nearest city and who runs it.

+1
Hopefully though someone will come along with a good character for air then the choice will be much more interesting.

[XXXXYYYY]

       You look at the man, narrowing your eyes in annoyance. The barkeep steps in, speaking.
       "'E doesn't mean any harm. You've got a pretty big problem, and I've not seen it solved yet. That image you saw right there? That wasn't a hallucination, and we all saw it. It was... a portent more like. From tha look on your face, I presume you're not from around here? Of course you're not. You've picked one of them up. You're probably gonna start feeling a connection, sorta, soon. I'd advise using that sparingly. Those that don't lose themselves faster." -She hesitates for a moment- "Is there anything I can get you? We've got a couple of things that can slow down your affliction, but it builds up a resistance to them fast."

        You sip your drink as you ponder, but it isn't long until pain lances through your skull again as you feel something within you twist. Your life flashes through your mind at a dizzying pace, as if whatever you "picked up" wanted to get to know its host better before it does... whatever it's doing. As the images fade, you realize that you can feel the stone below you, untrammeled and hidden beneath the surface's skin. It feels almost like a part of you, though distant and numb.
         As the pain fades from your skull, you inquire as to the whereabouts of a larger city and its governance. "A bigger city, eh? There aren't too many larger cities in this place, but I think there's one about fifty miles to the northeast, and even that one's not too big. They've got a pretty simple government, if I remember. Basic votes on stuff of importance and people generally keep to themselves. They've got a pretty big crime problem though, last I heard. Be careful when you travel if you go there - the warplands are not a safe place."

Spoiler: Character (click to show/hide)

Name: Rainer Rustwear
Description: Before you left, you were quite muscular, if a little heavy, but your travels have taken their toll. You lost most of your fat and a small amount of muscle, giving you a more weathered look than you originally had. You possess tan green eyes and what little hair you have is of a dark color. Your clothes are worn as well due to your travels.
Attunements: Earth

[Detoxicated]

Leave the bar, look for a quiet spot. Sit down on the Earth and feel and listen and understand

[XXXXYYYY]

       You excuse yourself from the bar for the moment, and kneel on the hard, pale earth of the wasteland. You stretch into your new connection, examining the long strand connecting you to the ground. When you reach the stone and dirt packed beneath the surface, you audibly gasp. The stone is not dead and still like it is so often called. No. It's alive, vibrant with controlled energy, softly humming with power as it slowly wars amidst and against itself and moves ever, ever so slowly. It's beautiful, with strands of crystal stretching like veins among the layers of rock.
        You hear what little life remains move beneath its surface, strange and warped and twisted though it is. You feel that this earth is, for lack of a better word, sick, in a way. It feels like it was... tampered with, in a way reminiscent of you. Not the same, but the changes feel similar. The life that remains, barely, within the soil and stone feels fundamentally wrong, changed and edited unwillingly and haphazardly.

[Detoxicated]

Decide that something must be done to help earth. Go back to the bar and find out as much as possible about these spirits and the land itself.

[XXXXYYYY]

        You stand up from your connection, resolute to cure the earth and return to the bar. You ask the bartender about what happened here to cause this sickness in the earth, and how to cure it. She initially seems a little confused, but replies after a moment.
        "Sickness? Oh, the Warp, I getcha. In short, it's a result of a bunch of people messing with the world in a similar way to your bond with tha earth. Both make that weird liquid-gas stuff that you made when you had your first vision. It's not really inanimate though. It's living, sorta, and it doesn't wanta die. For tha most part, it just sits inside creatures, changing them when it accumulates too much. If the thing dies, it'll usually lash out in an attempt to pass itself on. You had to have passed through tha forests around this place. That's a minor example of a Warp-infested area.
         Anyway, those people ended up dying, and there was enough Warp in their bodies that it exploded out, and that didn't end well for anything living nearby, as you can see. If too much Warp is in a body, it starts to breed, for lack of a better word. That happened for basically everything living in the region, and it set off a cascade of death and Warp that lasted for months. Eventually, it stopped, enough of tha warp evaporating that it ended. Nothin that lived in the area emerged unscathed, as I guess you've seen.
        You've got a little passenger, as I think you know. It's not Warp, so to speak, but it'll make some as you mess with the world. It'll shape the Warp inside of you, but it'll change you just the same. Not just your body, though it'll do that. Your soul. It'll fracture your soul and make changes as it wishes.
        Curing the Warp? Hmm. I don't think there's a way to reverse the changes, but you might be able to remove the warp itself and possibly put it in something. That way, the changes'll go away in a generation or two, rather than being passed on. It'll probably end up with you making some Warp inside yourself, though I guess you could just store that too."

[FallacyofUrist]

((I'm beginning to think that symbol at the top is relevant. Some sort of puzzle...))