Species


The a'Lin
(Dreamers, Nightmares, myths)

But if you build your life on dreams its prudent to recall; a man with moonlight in his hands has nothing there at all.
- Don Quixote

Dreamers are perhaps one of the strangest entities to be found in the sentient worlds. Very little is known about them and they seem to be found in a bewildering array of shapes and species. Only the dreamy, abstract stare in their eyes and the persistent feeling that they are simply "not all there" in a mental (and perhaps physical) sense separates them from others. They tend to resemble the poor and weaker members of a society, wan and pale creatures found hovering at the edges of crowds and somehow knowing they can get no closer.

Birth

Dreamers are not born. They simply appear, often at night in secluded areas and near other dreamers. They are born knowing what they are and with an instinctive burning need or passion to do some thing that becomes the core of their being. Dreamers are educated by other dreamers and learn fast, not so much learning what they are as recalling something they've forgotten. The education process takes approximately one week, at which point the dreamer goes off into the world.

Life

Dreamers are dreams made real. They know this at some intuitive level and it is what drives them on, the need to accomplish whatever they were dreamed to do. These needs are seldom simple and in some cases cannot be accomplished at all. All dreamers know is that they create each other, or at least their presence somehow provide the impetus for the wishes of another species to become a dreamer. Education tends to involve teaching dreamers how to suppress and control their need and has evolved strangely over the long time dreamers have existed.

The Changing

In their effort to not accomplish their Need, dreamers have learned a strange art. (Some dreamers believe accomplishing their need will "kill" them; the vast majority of - often older - dreamers simply wish to be free of that compulsion and be themselves). This art, that of the Changing, allows dreamers to remould themselves. Dreamers first do it after their education ends and they realise just how ephemeral their lives are. Changing their appearance is easy for dreamers but great changes, such as to animals or a very different species, increase the feeling of "wrongness" others get about them. Dreamers are unable to become a species that is incapable of dreaming, as well. Most dreamers can dream things to their hands, such as small objects or rope, or destroy the like by touching them but few use this aspect of dreaming to affect the waking work, fearing they might be on the path to becoming Nightmares. (See the end of this file for information on them.)

Later on, they learn how to change their minds as well, to mould their thoughts into new patterns and alter their very personalities almost at will. While the chief use of this is to bury the need that made them as deeply as possible, it also has its dangers. The greatest one is that it can create a form of multiple personalities within the dreamer, and getting rid of the other "you" formed is perhaps part of what creates other dreamers - their own temporary salvation is the creation of another like them.

Death

Dreamers don't die in any conventional sense since they were never truly born. At least, that is what dreamers believe. Many of them hold to the idea that something of them survives their eventual dissolution (all dreams end, after all) and becomes part of another dreamer, perhaps the source of the dreamer education being more a recollection that true learning. However, dreamers still end. Many do after accomplishing their need since they lack the strength to hold themselves together after, or perhaps have no wish to. Others die as other races do, from wounds while in another form. Many of these can make themselves new bodies after so death is a transitory state often. Not always, but often enough. Dreamers who die too often become more ghost-like, sometimes looking most ghost that real and unable to form solid bodies any longer. Most of these unfortunates end up seeking a true death, if their need is even possible to do any longer or if they haven't buried it so deeply they can't find it.

Life Style

Dreamers tend to remain at the edges of things. They see things differently from others and know - as few others would wish to - just how much of life is made up of beliefs and dreams and just how fleeting it really is. As well, they aren't really alive. They were made, yes, but not born. They build their own personalities like actors, but the needs of the body they take aren't really theirs. Sleep, food, sex ... dreamers have to work to feel anything for these states, since their feelings are tied up in their need, or in denying it. Bodies are clothing to them, not real in many senses. This means that love is something they fake, as is desire or most other accepted emotions. It's acting, and as they die more or their need comes out and shows real emotion, others begin to realise that the dreamer is lying to them or deceiving them in some fundamental way.

Need

Besides doing whatever they were made to do, dreamers rely on psychic energy to survive. They absorb it as other races would sunlight but rarely ever learn to do it consciously as a weapon or anything along those lines. (Dreamers who do that are detailed at the end of this.) This absorption replaces sleep - since dreamers cannot dream - and is done steadily throughout the entire day. Most dreamers learn to fake sleeping early on and do eat, even though for the most part food does nothing for them. Most dreamers, since they are drawn to psychics by their need for strong mental energy, tend to learn some psychic tricks during their lives. While they can become quite good at is since they have no truly preconceived notions of looking at the world, they have no real drive to learn such skills (unless they canh help suppress their Need) and few of them become masters of any psychic ability but more very gifted dabblers.

Society

Besides teaching things learned about their nature to other dreamers (new shapes, odd mental exercises etc.) and the duty to educate new dreamers, dreamers tend to avoid each other to better blend into the society they're acting as a member of. Dreamers seldom ever gather together because they believe that a concentration of dreamers creates more of them, and that is one thing they try and avoid at all costs. Part of this avoidance is trying to not be near highly emotive people or situations or groups, for fear their presence will create another one of their kind.

Nightmares

Sometimes, dreamers go bad. These strange creatures thrive on their need, often trying to fulfil it in a way never intended by the dreamers and burn out in a reckless need of their own. As dreamers avoid nightmares for fear of being corrupted, even dreamers know little about them. Most nightmares can suppress others psychic energy or absorb it from them via a touch and the most powerful ones can alter people's dreams or even the physical world, so strong is their power to do the Changing that it alters the physical world at extreme levels. The upside is that if a nightmare is killed, they never return at all, all their energies having been burned up making them into what they are.

Game Stats

Body, Speed, Mind, Soul all 30-70, with the latter two generally highest.
Changing is a soul skill as is Dreaming things.