Sparks of golden light prickle and pop in the air as the Dreamstone shifts the world around you; the walls inflate outwards, to make room for a huge nonsensical tangle of shining brass limbs, perched upon which are dozens of images of dream-spheres, hanging like fruits on a proud and noble tree. Every piece is a world- map in miniature, intricate detail. This is the Orrery of Worlds, and you have entered the most beloved of Vorenaex's haunts--
THE OBSERVATORY
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In time, my friends, I shall explore all there is to know of the wild world between sleep and spirit known as Dream. This arcane directory contains only some of the realms I have surveyed- from the spiralling Gossamer city at Zimdazaar to that broken and desperate place that we call the Sands of Nane. My observatory can, for only a moment, transport you to these liminal realms, where the unreal becomes all the more tantalizing, as the mists give it form.
It should be well noted that there are terms I use for the things of Dream that may sound foreign to the ears of laymen. Here are the most common thereof, and their meanings:
- Denizens: These are the opposite of dreamers- they are people born and raised in the realms of Dream, so they have that peculiarity about them that Dreams bring- they are perhaps too gleeful, or too long in the limb, or have strange features like those of a bird or a beast. They are often found to play tricks on dreamers, and their realms have a tendency to shape around them at need-- some come to rule other Denizens, and become little gods in Dream.
- Dreamers: People, like you or I, born on this side of the Mist and the Veil. We have little of the dream-stuff about us, and it makes us painfully boring to the Denizens of Dream.
- Night-mares: Not to be confused with the mundane nightmares that you may experience while asleep; for those that walk the realms of Dream, a Night-mare is a foul beast which eats at the Dream-World; they congregate in hordes to break through the Mist and the Veil, which is what causes us to have bad dreams.
- The Mist: The mystical barrier suffusing the borders of Dream nations, making it impossible to navigate without the aid of a Denizen guide. It seeps into the vision, and is usually what keeps us dreamers having mundane, unpredictable dreams in our sleep.
- The Veil: The grey barrier, like a sheet of thinnest lead, that lies on the other side of Dream. It is impermeable to all but those who die in their sleep, and it is how one might speak to the ghosts of their loved ones in Dream.