Go to Dream Pacts (Part 1)

SPIRIT LORDS

Spirit Lords are powerful lords of the Dreaming. They hold dominion over common families of rivera (minor spirits). For example, Pegana, the Lady of the River, rules over the spirits of stream and brook. It is overly simplistic, however, to consider them as individuals. The Pegana one meets in the deltas of Duvei is not the same Lady of the Rivers one might meet in the spring thaws of the Great Glacier or the mountain streams of Hyrtan. She might not even be the same Pegana you’d meet in the next river valley to the west. She might not even be the same Pegana you met last night in the very same place. Or, on the other hand, she might be.

GRANTED POWERS

• All powers gained from Spirit Lord pacts are supernatural.
• Unless otherwise noted, using a granted power is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
• Unless otherwise noted, a granted power’s benefits are constant once activated. Effects that are not constant can only be used once every 5 rounds.
• Unless otherwise noted, all effects created by a Spirit Lord’s granted powers end when the pact ends, the conduit is broken, or the Servant of the Dreaming Lord dies.
• Unless otherwise noted, a granted power cannot be activated again if the previous use of the power is still in effect.
• If a granted power mimics a spell, the caster level for that ability is equal to your effective Servant of the Dreaming Lord class level.
• The difficulty class for a saving throw against a granted power is 10 + ½ effective binding level + Charisma modifier.

SPIRIT LORD DESCRIPTIONS

Spirit Circle: The higher that Spirit Lord’s spirit circle, the more powerful or complicated their domain. The Spirit’s Lord’s spirit circle determines the difficulty of contacting them, and may limit less experienced Servants of the Dreaming Lord from contacting them at all.

Pact Check DC: The difficulty class of the pact check required to form a conduit with the Spirit Lord.

Physical Sign: As long as a Spirit Lord is manifesting itself through a character, they dsplay a specific physical sign of its presence. This sign is real, not an illusory or shapechanging effect.

Influence: The typical influence the Spirit Lord will wield over a character who forms a poor pact with it. (The exact demands of the Spirit Lord’s influence is ultimately a roleplaying decision left in the DM’s hands.)

Granted Powers: The powers granted to a character who forms a pact with the Spirit Lord.

Special: If any special rules or conditions apply to binding the Spirit Lord, they appear here.

Go to Dream Pacts – Part 3: Spirit Lords of the 1st and 2nd Circle

Go to the Dreaming Arts

The Lords of the Dreaming are powerful and fey. Those skilled enough in the Dreaming Arts can turn their own souls into conduits through which the Spirit Lords can be made manifest in the natural world. But following such a path requires supreme self-control, for the Lords of the Dreaming are capable of re-shaping your very soul.

SERVANT OF THE DREAMING LORDS

Hit Die: d8
Starting Gold: 5d4 x 10 (125 gp)
Starting Age: Per cleric.

Class Skills (4 + Int modifier per level, x4 at 1^st level): Bluff, Concentration, Craft, Decipher Script, Diplomacy, Dreaming Arts, Gather Information, Intimidate, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (history), Knowledge (religion), Profession, Sense Motive

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A Servant of the Dreaming Lords gains proficiency with all simple weapons and light armor, but not with shields.

Dream Pacts (Su): Your affinity for the Dreaming allows you to contact a Spirit Lord and form a mystical pact with them, shaping yourself into a conduit through which the Spirit Lord can become manifest within the natural world. At 1^st level you can make a pact with one Spirit Lord at a time. At higher levels, you can form and maintain pacts with multiple Spirit Lords simultaneously (as shown on the class abilities table), although you must complete the pact ritual for each Spirit Lord separately.

To contact a Spirit Lord you must enter a dreaming trance by making a successful Dreaming Arts check (DC 10 + the lord’s spirit circle). You remain within the trance for at least 1 minute, during which time you are effectively unconscious. You can exit a trance at any time as a free action, but if you do so the contact automatically fails.

During the dreaming trance, if you succeed on your Dreaming Arts check, you travel through the Dreaming until you reach the Spirit Lord you are contacting. (This journey may either by physical, metaphorical, or even psychological – such is the nature of the Dreaming.)

Now that you are in contact with the Spirit Lord, you may make a pact check (1d20 + your class level + your Charisma modifier). This process normally takes 1 minute of time in the natural world, although you can choose to attempt a rushed pact check as a full-round action at a -10 penalty. The DC for this check is listed in the description of each Spirit Lord (see below).

If you choose not to attempt the pact check, the conduit between the Dreaming and the natural world is not formed and you automatically awaken from your dreaming trance. If you attempt the pact check, however, you gain the powers granted by the Spirit Lord for 24 hours, whether you succeed on the check or not. You have no ability to cancel the conduit which you have formed. (However, the conduit can be suppressed in the presence of an antimagic field or similar effect.)

If you succeed on the pact check, you have formed a good pact: The Spirit Lord has no influence over your actions or personality.

If you fail the pact check, you are deemed to have made a poor pact: The Spirit Lord’s presence influences your personality and it can even force you to perform or refrain form certain actions. If you are conscious and free-willed, and you encounter a situation in which you cannot or will not refrain from a prohibited action or perform a required one, you suffer a cumulative -1 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, and checks until the Spirit Lord leaves you.

As long as a Spirit Lord is manifesting itself through you, you display a specific physical sign of its presence (as described in its entry). This sign is real, not an illusory or shapechanging effect. You can hide a sign through mundane means, magical means, or through the use of the suppress sign ability (see below).

The Difficulty Class for any saving throw made against a supernatural power granted by a Spirit Lord is 10 + ½ your class level + your Charisma modifier.

Lesser Pacts (Su): There are also many lesser spirits which are born of the Dreaming. These spirits, known as rivera, flit between the Dreaming and the natural world. Some believe that these spirits – inhabiting the rocks and trees and houses and cobblestones – are, at a fundamental level, what binds the Dreaming and the natural world together.

Whatever the truth may be, your connection to the Spirit Lords grants you some dominion over the rivera. Beginning at 2^nd level, as long as you have formed a pact with at least one Spirit Lord, you can choose one ability from the following list as a manifestation of your control over the spirit world:

• +5 hit points
• energy resistance 5 (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic)
• +1 insight bonus on saving throws
• damage reduction 1/–
• +1 insight bonus to Armor Class
• +1 insight bonus on attack rolls
• +1 insight bonus on damage rolls
• +2 insight bonus on initiative checks
• +2 insight bonus to skill checks (choose one skill)

As you gain higher levels, you can form multiple lesser pacts. You can choose each ability more than once. The effects stack.

Pact Ability: At 4^th, 6^th, 9^th, 11^th, 13^th, 18^th, and 19^th level you can select a pact ability from the list below. You can also select the Delay Supernatural Ability, Empower Supernatural Ability, Enlarge Supernatural Ability, Extend Supernatural Ability, Maximize Supernatural Ability, and Widen Supernatural Ability feats as pact abilities.

Break Conduit: Once per day you can attempt to break the conduit of a single Spirit Lord to which you are bound. To do so, you must once again enter a dreaming trance and repeat the entire ritual of contact. If you succeed on the new pact check, the conduit has been broken and the Spirit Lord is forced to leave you before it normally would. Regardless of the success or failure of the attempt, you take a -10 penalty on your next pact check with any Spirit Lord and also apply the same penalty on the next pact check you make with the Spirit Lord you broke faith with. This pact ability can be selected more than once, allowing you to make the attempt one additional time each day each time you select it.

Empowered Conduit: Your effective class level is 2 higher than normal for the purpose of determining the maximum circle of Spirit Lords you can contact and form pacts with. (This does not increase your effective class level for any other reason.)

Favored Lord: You have formed a deep and intimate connection with one of the Spirit Lords you have made a pact with. Your effective class level increases by 1 when you use the powers granted by your favored lord. (You can select this pact ability more than once. Each time you select it, it applies to a different Spirit Lord.)

Favored Lord, Greater: The DC of each supernatural ability granted by your favored lord increases by 1. (You can select this pact ability once for each favored lord you possess.)

Favored Lord, Power of the: You can activate the abilities granted by your favored lord once every 4 rounds instead of once every 5 rounds. (You can select this pact ability once for each favored lord you possess.)

Rapid Contact: Your greater affinity for the Dreaming allows you to contact Spirit Lords very quickly. Once per day, you can contact a Spirit Lord as a full-round action (instead of the normal 1 minute).

Skilled Pact Making: You gain +4 bonus on pact checks.

Suppress Sign (Ex): At 2^nd level and higher, you can choose to reveal or suppress the physical sign of a Spirit Lord bound to you by a good pact as a swift action. This ability cannot be used to suppress the physical sign of a Spirit Lord with whom you have formed a poor pact.

DREAM PACT FEATS

These feats allow characters to form limited pacts with Lords of the Dreaming without fully committing to the Servant of the Dreaming Lords class.

DREAMING PACT

You are able to contact Spirit Lords and form pacts with them.

Prerequisites: Dreaming Arts 1 rank

Benefits: You can form pacts with Spirit Lords as if you were a 1^st-level Servant of the Dreaming Lords. Thus, only Spirit Lords of the 1^st Circle are available to you, and you can only bind one Spirit Lord at a time. Furthermore, unlike a true Servant of the Dreaming Lords, you gain only one of the powers granted by the Spirit Lord (determine randomly).

Special: You can select pact abilities as feats.

DREAMING PACT, IMPROVED

You are able to contact and form pacts with more powerful Spirit Lords.

Prerequisites: Dreaming Arts 5 ranks, Dreaming Pact

Benefits: When you form a pact with a Spirit Lord using the Dreaming Pact feat, you do so as if you were a 5^th-level Servant of the Dreaming Lords. Thus, you have access to Spirit Lords of the 3^rd Circle or lower. However, you can still only bind one Spirit Lord at a time and gain only one power from it.

DREAMING PACT, SKILLED

When you contact and form a pact with a Spirit Lord, you are able to form a more perfect conduit for their manifestation.

Prerequisites: Dreaming Arts 2 ranks, Dreaming Pact

Benefit: When you form a pact with a Spirit Lord using the Dreaming Pact, you gain two of the powers granted by the Spirit Lord instead of one. (The powers are still determined randomly.)

NEW FEATS

These are non-core feats which some of the Spirit Lords grant to those who form pacts with them.

SUPERNATURAL ENHANCEMENT FEATS: Delay Supernatural Ability, Empower Supernatural Ability, Enlarge Supernatural Ability, Extend Supernatural Ability, Maximize Supernatural Ability, and Widen Supernatural Ability feats.

• These feats operate like the metamagic feats of the same name, but affect the user’s supernatural abilities instead of spells.
• Each feat can be used once per day to modify any supernatural ability possessed by the user.
• Each feat can be taken multiple times, with each additional instance of the feat allowing an additional use per day.

DANCE OF DEATH

Prerequisites: Dex 13, Int 13, Combat Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack, base attack bonus +8

Benefit: As a full attack action you move up to your speed and make a single melee attack against each creature you pass by (in other words, any creature you can reach with a melee attack at any point during your movement). This movement provokes attacks of opportunity normally. During the dance of death you cannot take any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats or abilities, and you cannot attack a single creature more than once.

Special: A fighter may select Dance of Death as one of his fighter bonus feats.

SUPERIOR LOW-LIGHT VISION

Your eyes are even more sensitive than normal, granting your improved vision.

Prerequisites: Low-light vision

Benefit: Your eyes have become so sensitive to light that you can see four times as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of low illumination. This replaces your normal low-light vision.

Special: You can take this feat more than once. The effects stack, increasing your low-light vision by the same margin each time. (Thus, if you took this feat twice, you would be able to see six times further than a normal human.)

TWIN SHOT

Prerequisites: Precise Shot, Rapid Reload

Benefit: As a standard action, you can make a single ranged attack against two adjacent targets. Make a single attack roll and apply the result against both targets.

Special: A fighter may select Twin Shot as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Go to Dream Pacts – Part 2: Spirit Lords

Go to Dreamsight (Part 1)

DREAMING TOUCH

DREAM SPYING: With a successful Dreaming Arts check, a dreamer can peer into the dreams of another. The DC of the check is determined by the type of information the dreamer wishes to glean. If the check is successful, the target can make a Will save with a DC equal to 10 + the dreamer’s ranks in the Dreaming Arts skill.

The target must be either sleeping or physically present in the Dreaming at some point during the dreaming night, otherwise the attempt automatically fails.

Altering the Dream: For every two ranks the dreamer has in the Dreaming Arts, they can make one attempt to introduce new elements into the dream or subtly alter it (which may allow them to glean additional information). However, each attempt allows the subject to attempt a new Will save. If they succeed, the dream spying immediately ends.

Target’s Awareness: When the dream spying begins, the target makes an immediate Dreaming Arts check opposed by the dreamer’s Dreaming Arts check. (They can make this check even if they are untrained in the skill.) If the check succeeds, the target is aware that someone is spying on their dreams. Even if the initial check fails, an additional check can be made with a cumulative +2 bonus each time the dreamer alters the dream.

Dream Trace: Targets who are trained in the Dreaming Arts who become aware that someone is observing their dreams can make an opposed Dreaming Arts check as a standard action to identify the person spying on their dreams.

Dream Peek: The dreamer literally observes whatever the target happens to be dreaming about. This may be useful or it may be complete nonsense, at the DM’s discretion.

Surface Thoughts: After making contact, the dreamer can use their connection to the Dreaming to read the target’s surface thoughts, as if with the use of a detect thoughts spell.

Associations: The dreamer can pick upon emotional and informational associations with the target’s surface thoughts. For example, if the target is dreaming about someone or something, the dreamer knows how they feel about it and what their relationship is to it.

Short-Term Memory: The dreamer manipulates the target’s dream in order to reveal a specific piece of information or short-term memory from the past week or so (such as a password or what they were doing at a specific time last Tuesday, for example). This information is revealed through the structure of the dream and may be slightly distorted or incomplete as a result of being part of a dream (at the DM’s discretion).

Long-Term Memory: The dreamer can access any of the subject’s conscious memories, although the information is only as accurate as the subject recalls.

Subconscious: The dreamer can access the subject’s subconscious, giving them access to memories and information that the subject may not consciously recall (due to trauma or simple forgetfulness). It can also grant the dreamer insight into the subject’s psyche, such as their deep subconscious desires, fears, traumas, and so forth (one piece of information for each alteration of the dream).

NIGHTMARE: With a successful Dreaming Arts check (DC 20), you twist a victim’s dreams into a hideous and supernatural nightmare. The check is modified and prompts a Will save as per a Dream Spying check. If the check is successful, the nightmare prevents restful sleep and also causes 1d10 points of damage to the victim. The nightmare leaves the victim fatigued and unable to regain arcane spells for the next 24 hours.

The target must be either sleeping or physically present in the Dreaming at some point during the dreaming night, otherwise the attempt automatically fails.

DREAMING VOYANCE

SIGHT OF THE DREAMING EYE: With a successful Dreaming Arts check, you can see and hear the events surrounding a particular character or at a particular location. The time period observed can be at any time during the dreaming night or at any point in the past, but the total time period observed cannot be longer than 1 minute per rank in the dreamer’s Dreaming Arts skill, and the difficulty of the Dreaming Arts check increases based on the distance in both time and space between the dreamer and the events being observed.

The dreamer is not truly observing the world, but rather the echoes that the world creates within the Dreaming.

VISION OF THE DREAMING SHADOWS: With a successful Dreaming Arts check (DC 25), the dreamer can attune themselves to the Dreaming resonances of the location in which they slumber, allowing them to effectively see and hear the events of the past during their dreaming night.

The dreamer can choose to focus on either a short or long span of time, with the types of details they observe depending on how large of a span they attempt to observe.

Days: The dreamer observes the events of the most recent days, covering a span equal to 1 day per rank in the Dreaming Arts. The dreamer gains detailed visions of the people who have been in the location as well as the actions, conversations, and other events that have happened there.

Weeks: The dreamer observes the events of the most recent weeks, covering a span equal to 1 week per 2 ranks in the Dreaming Arts. Precise details and exact wording cannot be discerned, but the dreamer will still know the people who have been here, the general topics of conversation, and the gist of events.

Years: The dreamer observes the events of the past few years, covering a span equal to 1 year per 3 ranks in the Dreaming Arts. Only the most noteworthy events are recaptured — battles, deaths, emotional revelations, and so forth.

Centuries: The dreamer observes events stretching back over centuries, covering a span equal to 1 century per 4 ranks in the Dreaming Arts. Only events of historic importance – deaths of important people, major battles, coronations, and the like – are learned.

VOICE OF THE DREAM: With a successful Dreaming Arts check (DC 15), a dreamer can briefly make contact with the dreams of another character, delivering a brief message of 25 words of less and receiving a response of equal length.

The recipient of the message must be sleeping at some point during the dreaming night or the attempt automatically fails. However, with a more difficult Dreaming Arts check (DC 25), the dreamer can leave a message “hanging” in the Dreaming. The next time the recipient of the message falls asleep, the message will be delivered (although no response is possible).

This material is covered by the Open Gaming License.

Go to the Dreaming Arts

Because all of reality is born from the Dreaming it is possible to explore the threads of your own future. Because the shape of the Dream That Will Be is complex and its paths dangerous to explore, however, even those skilled in the Dreaming Arts will not attempt to approach them directly. Instead, they will reach for the “shape” of the Dream That Will Be.

BASIC DREAMSIGHT

Dreamsight is performed while sleeping (or in a similar state, such as an elven trance). With a successful Dreaming Arts check (DC +1 per hour after waking, minimum DC 12), you can tell whether a particular action will bring good or bad results for you in the time period you’re attempting to foresee. If the check succeeds, you get one of four results:

• Weal (if the action will probably bring good results)
• Woe (for bad results)
• Weal and woe (for both)
• Nothing (for actions that don’t have especially good or bad results)

This basic use of the dreamsight does not take into account anything beyond the time period you attempt to foresee, so the long-term consequences of the contemplated action will not be revealed.

All attempts by the same person to foresee the same topic use the same dice result as the first dreamsight attempt.

You can use dreamsight a number of times per night equal to twice the number of dreamsight feats you possess (minimum once per night if you do not have any dreamsight feats).

DREAMSIGHT FEATS

DREAMING LORE

Prerequisite: Dreaming Arts 1 rank

Benefit: You can perform Dreaming Lore actions using your dreamsight each night, including Query of a Dreaming Lord and Seeking the Hidden Truths.

DREAMING PRESCIENCE

Prerequisite: Dreaming Arts 1 rank

Benefit: Your dreamsight includes powerful Dreaming Prescience, including Dream Echoes and Dreaming Visions.

DREAMING TOUCH

Prerequisite: Dreaming Arts 1 rank

Benefit: When using dreamsight, you can use the Dreaming Touch to perform Dream Spying and Nightmare.

DREAMING VOYANCE

Prerequisite: Dreaming Arts 1 rank

Benefit: You can use Dreaming Voyance actions using your dreamsight each night, including Sight of the Dreaming Eye, Vision of the Dreaming Shadows, and Voice of the Dream.

DREAMING LORE

QUERY OF A DREAMING LORD: During a dreaming night you can seek out a Lord of the Dreaming and ask them a single question by making a successful Dreaming Arts check (DC 25). For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds DC 25, you can ask one additional question. (For example, a Dreaming Arts check result of 35 would allow you to ask 3 questions.)

The questions are usually answered by a simple yes or no, although in cases where a one-word answer would be misleading or contrary to the Lord’s interests, a short phrase (five words or less) or even a brief vision may be given as answer instead. The answers are correct within the limits of the Lord’s knowledge. “Unclear” is a legitimate answer because the Lords are not omniscient.

At best, a Lord of the Dreaming provides information to aid a character’s decisions. The Lord will structure their answers to further their own purposes.

SEEKING THE HIDDEN TRUTHS: Hidden within the layers of the Dreaming are the countless legends of the world – some of them true, many of them not. By exploring the Dreaming, you can learn the legends surrounding an important person, place or thing.

Seeking the hidden truth, however, takes time. If the person or thing is at hand, or if you are in the place in question, it takes only a single night of dreaming. If you only have detailed information on the person, place, or thing, it requires 2d6 dreaming nights (consuming a Dreaming Arts check each night), and the resulting lore is less complete and specific. If you only know rumors about the person, place, or thing, it requires 2d6 weeks of dreaming nights, and the resulting lore is vague and incomplete (although it often directs you to more detailed information, allowing you to seek again with the possibility of better results).

When the required number of dreaming nights have elapsed, make a Dreaming Arts check. The DC is set by the DM. Typical DCs are:

DC 20             Person, object, or place is at hand.

DC 25             Only detailed information is available.

DC 30             Only rumors are known.

But the specific DC may be higher or lower, depending on the rarity of the information being sought. If the person, place, or thing is not of legendary importance, the DC of the check will usually be radically higher.

If the check is successful, you have discovered legends (if any exist) about the person, place, or thing. These may be legends that are still current, legends that have been forgotten, or even information that has never been generally known.

DREAMING PRESCIENCE

DREAM ECHOES: The creation of a dreaming echo is like a deliberately induced sense of déjà vu. With a successful Dreaming Arts check, you can create a dream echo that can be activated at a time of your choosing within 24 hours. Activating a dream echo is a free action that can be taken at any time.

Moment of Recognition (DC 15): You can immediately reroll any die roll that you just made. You must abide by the second roll.

Moment of Awareness (DC 25): For 10 rounds + 1 round for every 5 points by which your check result exceeded DC 25, you gain a moment of awareness which warns you of impending danger or harm. While under the effects of a moment of awareness, you are never surprised or flat-footed. In addition, you gain a +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves (although this bonus is lost whenever you would lose your Dexterity bonus to AC).

Moment of Prescience (DC 30): You gain a bonus on your next die roll equal to your ranks in the Dreaming Arts skill.

Moment of Fate (DC 35): For 5 rounds + 1 round for every 5 points by which your check result exceeded DC 35, you can gain a moment of fate during which the consequences of your choices are laid out before you like a network of silvery light. While under the effects of a moment of fate, any time you make a die roll you may roll twice and then select which die roll you wish to use.

DREAMING VISIONS: Similar to basic dreamsight, with a successful Dreaming Arts check (DC 15 + 5 per day after waking), you gain a useful piece of insight concerning a specific goal, event, or activity that is to occur within the time period you’re attempting to foresee. The advice takes the form of a short and cryptic vision within the Dreaming. If you don’t act on the information, the conditions may change so that the information is no longer useful.

Go to Dreamsight (Part 2)

The Dreaming is a realm which lies “beneath” or “alongside” the world as the mortal races know it. It is a wild and dangerous place, an ever-shifting forest whose shadows and glades hold the greatest of wonders. Mortals sometimes reach it, unwittingly, in their hours of deepest dreaming, and it is said to be the place where all dreams are born. In the Dreaming, one may leave a city forged with towering spires of the finest crystal and lose sight of it within three paces, never to see it again. Or one may be tempted by strange, dancing lights, and never wake from their dreams.

This is what the Dreaming is in words. But what it is in truth is not so easily expressed. To understand the Dreaming, one must learn to feel the Dreaming. To trust the Dreamsong.

THE NATURE OF TIME IN THE DREAMING

The elven scholar Falnafeshnae described three orders within the Dreaming: The Dream That Was, the Dreaming Moment, and the Undreamt (or the Dream That Will Be).

THE DREAMING MOMENT: The Dreaming Moment is now. It is the moment of existence. It is the present tense. It is fleeting. It is ever-changing – it is always present, but it is always passing and it is always going.

In life we rarely live within the moment. Our thoughts dwell in the past or wish upon the future. But in the Dreaming, such wandering ways are dangerous. In the Dreaming it is the Moment that is the touchstone of your experience. It is the bedrock upon which you stand.

It requires absolute mental precision to maintain it. But without it you will be lost.

THE DREAM THAT WAS: Within the Dreaming all things that ever were exist… but also many things that never were or merely might have been. It is uncertain to us whether all of thought originates within the Dreaming and passes through our hands to become reality, or if thought comes from us and then passes through the Dreaming and thus into the waking world. But that is how it is.

THE DREAM THAT WILL BE: Just as all that was lies within the Dreaming, so too is there everything that might be. But such realms are dangerous and uncertain. We will return to them later.

But the secret of the Dreaming is that there is no true distinction between past, present, and future. All are as one in the Dreaming, even if we are not capable of understanding it in totality. That is why we must be careful. That is why we must stand upon our bedrock in the Dreaming Moment that is.

Meditate upon these things. Seek the truth of them within yourself.

THE LORDS AND LADIES

MINOR SPIRITS, LORDS, AND LADIES: House spirits are the most common of the “minor spirits” which you can see manifestly in the world, but they are far from the only ones. These minor spirits, also known as rivera, can be found almost anywhere. The world around you is filled with a spiritual life. Those who smile upon the spirits are blessed by good fortune, while those who do not will find their lives cursed by them.

Above the minor spirits of the world there are the Spirit Lords, who each possess dominion over a common family of minor spirits. For example, Pegana, the Lady of the River, rules over the spirits of stream and brook. They were first worshipped by the trading clans. Their ancient representations can also be found on the charm tokens of the northern barbarians.

LORDS OF THE DREAMING: What the common man does not understand is that the Spirit Lords are, in truth, powerful lords of the Dreaming. It is through the Dreaming that these Lords have power, for they are of the Dreaming.

It is overly simplistic, however, to consider them as individuals. They are not gods. They are more fundamental than that – they arise of the Dreaming, and the Dreaming arises from them. The Pegana one meets in the deltas of Duvei is not the same Lady of the Rivers one might meet in the spring thaws of the Great Glacier or the mountain streams of Hyrtan. She might not even be the same Pegana you’d meet in the next river valley to the west. She might not even be the same Pegana you met last night in the very same place. Or, on the other hand, she might be.

SHAPING THE SPIRITS: Few take these beliefs literally any more, but they remain a part of their philosophical outlook. For example, many believe that a person’s outlook on life “shapes the spirits” around them and has an effect on the fate that life brings them.

In this there is truth.

GUIDES: The Spirit Lords serve as guides and signs. We have learned to trust them, although not completely. Some are more trustworthy than others.

When a Spirit Lord seeks out a Dreamwalker, however, it is always a matter of great import – an event which will change the Dreaming and thus the world in ways unforeseen and unknowable.

And for a Spirit Lord to seek out one who is not yet trained in the Dreaming Arts, as the Lady Pegana did with you, is something rarely if ever seen.

DREAMING ARTS

Dreaming Arts is a new Wisdom-based, trained-only skill. Dreaming Arts checks are made in conjunction with the three different paths of the Dreaming Arts.

DREAMSIGHT: The Dreaming is the wellspring from which all of reality is born and the grave to which all of living memory returns. As such, those who can see the Dreaming with unclouded eyes can perceive deep truths of the world around them.

Game Mechanics: Without any training, you’ll be able to use Dreaming Arts checks to duplicate the effects of an augury spell. With a feat you’ll be able to unlock more powerful divination abilities (that you’ll use with your Dreaming Arts check).

DREAM PACTS: The Lords of the Dreaming are powerful and fey. Those skilled enough in the dreaming arts can turn their own souls into conduits through which the Spirit Lords can be made manifest in the world around us. But following such a path requires supreme self-control, for the Lords of the Dreaming will reshape your soul.

Game Mechanics: There is a class dedicated to forming dream pacts. In order to form dream pacts, you would need to multiclass. By channeling different Dreaming Lords, you will gain a variety of powers.

DREAMSPEAKING: Those practiced in the dreaming arts can reshape the Dreaming around them. Those who are masters of the Dreaming, however, can reshape the world around them by reshaping the dreams from which the world is born. These arts have been perfected into the dreaming tongue – a primal language which not only describes the most fundamental aspects of reality, but can be used to transform it.

Game Mechanics: These are a suite of feats you can take, giving you mastery over various parts of dreamspeak. Dreamspeaking essentially allows you to reshape reality or yourself – essentially minor spellcasting.

Dreamsight – Dream Pacts