The World of Dreams

Obsidian Soul

Obsidian Soul

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The World of Dreams has been only briefly mentioned in the Exalted books.  It is mentioned in the Time of Tumult in relationship to one of its adventures, in the Player Guide in relation to the Pearl Courtesan Style and a sentence or two in the other books.  One wonders what it is, what resides in it and what can access it.


I am currently working on that question.  The answer to the last should be obvious.  Any creature that is capable of dreaming should be able to access the World of Dreams (I am actually accessing Australian aborigine mythology to help me with this as, if Exalted is supposed to be the 'true' history of the world and the Australian aborigines have the oldest contigous culture in the world, they must know something we don't, not that it helped them against the diseases and genocidal avarice of the European invaders).  This means that the World of Dreams should be accessable by anything living that is sufficiently complex: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish.  The Yozis seem to have unlimited access to the World of Dreams, though their powers are strangely limited.


Mortals, including Exalted, seem to initially have access only to their Dreaming.


The Primordials were probably aware of it, and they might have made behemoths who live within the Dreaming.  If one is alien to the Dreaming, as most of the entities native to Creation, Yu-Shan, Autochthon, Malfeas and the Underworld seem to be, then one has limited power in the Dreaming.  I would say that Charms that effect the Wyld can effect the Dreaming.


I would say that the Dreaming is literally the remnants of the Wyld that exist within every paticle of Creation, the Dreams of Creation.  As Cyrenthea and Gaia made Creation from the Wyld, some portion of the Wyld still resides in Creation, allowing it to change and the life within it to adapt.


The Primordials would have made gatekeepers to the World of Dreams, one for every species that could access it, to prevent too many of their members from getting lost in their Dreams and therefore going extinct, undoing the hard work of the Primordials and to prevent anything who would kill the entire species from doing it through the World of Dreams.  These behemoths, which I call dream guardians, are perfectly immortal until their species becomes extinct.  If they are 'killed' in the World of Dreams, they will reform within a turn and may reform at any location within the World of Dreams.  This is a perfect effect.  If they embody within Creation, which they will not do unless their entire species is at risk of extinction, and are killed, they must take a full month to reform.  This is a perfect effect.  The dream guardians have an immunity to shaping equal to that of tattoed Lunars.  


The Dream Guardian of humanity, I have named Aya.  She is the Mistress of Dreams, the first human to have been shaped by the Primordials and the first woman to give birth to a child, and therefore the first dreaming human.  Within the World of Dreams, she has power unmatched by any entity.  The Yozis, due to the limitations of their Oaths to the Gods, cannot use their full power within the World of Dreams.  Due to her respect for her creators, she does not challenge their right to pass to the dreams of humans.


Aya's power is linked to the quantity of humans and to the quality of their dreams.  Aya can tap into the temporary Willpower Pool of any human who has dreamed within the last month, even the Exalted.  She may only take one temporary Willpower per dreamer per month, which automatically becomes three motes of Essence, but that still gives her an effective temporary Essence Pool of 900 million motes.  She also gains, on average, one gossamer for every 100 dreaming humans per month, or three million gossamer per month, which may only be spent within the World of Dreams.  Among the Dream Guardians, Aya is the leader, as her species has great quantity and great dreamers.  If Aya leaves the World of Dreams, she is considered to be an Essence 10 Fair Folk with an awesome form of immortality.


Humans may learn the Path of Dreams, which allows them to access and shape the World of Dreams more effectively.  Aya will demand one temporary Willpower a week for the rest of the humans life to teach them the Path of Dreams.  Other entities will be less reasonable.  


The Path of Dreams gives the human the ability to manifest a Dream Avatar.  Their Dream Avatar is effectively one of the Fair Folk who can only manifest in the World of Dreams and whom the human has control of their Heart Grace.  It has a Dream Essence equal to their (Path of Dreams) and a Dreaming Essence Pool equal to their Dreaming Essence*10.  Their Dream Avatar has a Dreaming Heart Grace equal to their (Path of Dreams).  Someone with the Path of Dreams may sacrifice one of their experience points to give their Dream Avatar (Path of Dreams+1) Dreaming experience points.  This is still a work in progress.
 
memesis beat me to it.


Then again, there's also the huge amount of work that Neil Gaiman did too--perhaps more apropos for a more modern game, but still a good mine for ideas.
 
Don't forget Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, even though it's absolutely massive and perhaps you don't have several lifetimes to give over to reading it. It has a World of Dreams that's used quite well.
 
I have read all three: all of all three.  I think I got the idea of the Guardians from one of them, I just cannot remember which.


Since WW isn't doing anything with the World of Dreams, I want to do something with it.  I would like to have any suggestions you all are willing to give me.  I do think that the Exalted should not be the most powerful creatures in the World of Dreams, as it has not been mentioned much in relation to the Exalted.
 
Don't be knockin' my favorite fantasy series there, Jakk.  Thems fightin' words!  <insert fierce glare>
 
If that's your favorite fantasy series, you seriously need to pick up on your reading ;P
 
Well, since when you're in your dreams you aren't really using your body, all your powers should be based on your mental and spiritual abilities. You might want to look in the 2nd Ed. DB book, for the section on the Sea of Mind; that's basically a dreamworld. You can do things there like spend a point of Compassion to bring someone back to life... but only within that world, of course.


I do think people with awareness of Essence, at least, would have an advantage over those without; high Essence makes everything better! But I imagine there'd be a lot more use of the Virtues, Willpower, Mental Attributes, Charisma and Manipulation. I haven't read the Fair Folk book though, so you've probably already borrowed that kind of idea from there.


Something to think about is the difference between the greater World of Dreams and individual Dreams. Are an individual's dreams seperate from the World of dreams, or part of it? Is most of the World made up of those Dreams? Is a person more powerful in their own dream and less powerful in another's?


Another question is spirits, particularly Dream-gods. Spirits have Charms that allow them to manipulate and even enter someone's dreams; how deeply does the connection go for some of them? Could some spirits even have their sanctum entrances inside the World of Dreams?
 
According the aboriginal tradition there are two planes to the World of Dreams: the Dreaming, which is internal and specific to each living creature, including humans, and Dreamtime, which is external and living common to all creatures.  


All living creatures have access to their Dreaming.  Within their Dreaming, they have home ground and potentially have incredible powers.  I would judge an individual's Dreaming to effectively be a Dream variant of a Freehold with a rating equal to their lowest Virtue.  They would also automatically have a Dream variant of a Stronghold, Glory, etc with a rating equal to the relevant Virtue.


Living creatures rarely have access to Dreamtime.  Everytime that a living creature sleeps, roll Willpower (difficulty 6).  If the creature is successful, they enter Dreamtime that night.  If not, they remain in their Dreaming.  A living creature accidentally within Dreamtime is much more vulnerable than they would be if they were within their Dreaming.  They are still connected to their Dreaming, represented by a Dream cyst with a rating equal to their Dream Freehold rating, but they do not have the powers they would have within their Dreaming.


While in the World of Dreams, a living creature has a Heart rating equal to their lowest Virtue and an individual Grace rating equal to their relevent Virtue.  They have a Dream Essence equal to their Essence and a Dream Essence Pool equal to their Dream Essence*10.  It is unwise to use non-Dream Charms in the World of Dreams as non-Dream Charms are not designed to use Dream Essence.  If an entity uses a non-Dream Charm while in the World of Dreams, roll Dream Heart.  On a success, the Charm works as intended.  On a failure, the Charm fails to work, but its cost must still be paid.  On a botch, the Charm reverses catastrophically, and the ST is encouraged to be sadistic.  Fair Folk Charms do not suffer from such disadvantages.  Dream Charms are, in fact, varients of Fair Folk Charms and suffer the same limitations as Fair Folk Charms.  A Dreamer may buy Dreaming Charms for the same price that fair Folk pay for their Charms.  


An entity may move from Dreamtime to another entity's Dreaming with a Willpower (difficulty Dreaming Freehold rating+6).  Reduce this difficulty by (Freehold) if the entity is expecting them and chooses not to resist.


The Path of Dreams increases a living creatures' effective Dream Essence by one per level and reduces the difficulty to enter Dreamtime or another entity's Dreaming by one per level.  The Path of Dreams may not exceed the entity's lowest Virtue.


If an entity dies within a Dreaming or within Dreamtime, they die in Creation and become Dream Folk.  Their Dreaming becomes a Freehold with Dreamtime and adds to the total size of Dreamtime.  There are millions, if not billions, of Dream Folk within Dreamtime, as a high number of living creatures tend to naturally go to sleep right before they die.  Even if the entity becomes a ghost, they may still form one of the Dream Folk, though neither may be aware of each other.
 
Glares won't make Jordan any more readable...
Click to expand...
*picking at the scab*


The LotR series is more convuluted than Jordan's stories.


I personally like the L.E. Modesitt Jr. Recluse series.  Nice twisted up plotlines.


And Steven Brust's Drageara series.


Unfortunately, EM's mindset doesn't seem to work well with keeping the players on track in a game with much more than a blatantly straight forward storyline.  He's not stupid, just unable to wrap his mind around what he calls "crackpot logic".
 
Look, I was reading Jorden when he was writing Conan titles, but he's gone too far with his current series.  I hope that the twelfth one is the last one as rumor is saying, so that he can finish the damn series before he dies of old age.  He should have wrapped everything up by the ninth book.
 
See, I was reading Conan when Robert E. Howard was writing them...


Well, OK, not when he was writing them, but he's the only author that I recognize being legitimate...
 
This is the series that never ends,


It just goes on and on my friends,


Some people started reading it not knowing what it was


And they’ll continue reading  it forever just because,


This is the series that never ends....


(repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...)
 
I remember a line from Gaiman.


"Take my hand."


That line and accompanying pictures set my mind ablaze in imagination of a dream realm.
 
I have found that the Wheel of Time is the best Book Series of all time.... at least in my world.
 
Unfortunately, Jordan is seriously ill. Chemotherapy ill. He was diagnosed with primary amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy. A breakdown of his heart. He's been given 4 years to live.


Unfortunately, I got sucked into the series without knowing how long it was going to go on. I bought the first book and, seeing how it was over 800 pages, thought it wouldn't go on. I soon realized it would. I went to the bookstore; the second book was out in paperback and the third just came out in hardback. I did enjoy the books so I bought them, thinking great, it's a trilogy, it'll be over. How wrong I was. I normally won't read a series until it's finished. Jordan suckered me, as Jakk so eloquently pointed out. And now he may die before finishing the fucking thing. God is, indeed, an iron.


I also hear he's something of an asshat. My friend's wife went to a booksigning he was having to get a book signed for my friend, who was working. When she said to make it out to Nam, Jordan asked why he didn't come himself. Lost a good deal of respect for him with that little tale. And the series has gone on too long. He also had the temerity to put out a fucking lprequel before finishing the fucking series. Get over yourself. Finish the fucking books.


Sorry. That's been building for a long time. Rant over.
 
Van77Man said:
Unfortunately, Jordan is seriously ill. Chemotherapy ill. He was diagnosed with primary amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy. A breakdown of his heart. He's been given 4 years to live.
Click to expand...
He'll drag it out to at least a decade.
 
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