The Dreaming Dark
Дремлющая Тьма, секретный орден псиоников-шпионов и убийц, служащий глазами и руками существ Куори из Дал Куора, Края Сновидений. Хотя, в общем, они кажутся со¬юзниками Вдохновленных Лордов Риедры, цели и задачи Дремлющей Тьмы загадочны и коварны - и всегда связа¬ны со смертью. Этот законно-злой орден управляется из штаб-квартиры в городе Дар Джин в Риедре. Секретным символом является глаз, частично скрытый под крылом. Он нарисован на значке подтверждения принадлежности к ордену, причём стиль исполнения рисунка зависит от позиции предъявляющего в иерархии.
На протяжении тысячелетий Риедра была изолирован¬ной землёй, полной загадок. Вдохновленные держат по¬
лог таинственности над ней, а чужакам ход внутрь страны закрыт. На протяжении большей части истории Риедры, контакт между Вдохновленными и остальным населени¬ем Эберрона отсутствовал, но в последние десятилетия стена стала немного ниже. Чужеземцев так и не пускают на землю Риедры, но посланников Вдохновленных этой земли можно увидеть при многих королевских дворах Кхорвайра.
Несмотря на позднее появление, Вдохновленные имеют широко разветвленную сеть шпионов по всему Эберрону. На протяжении столетий Дремлющая Тьма просто на¬блюдала за миром из тени, пока Вдохновлённые укре¬плялись в мире и организовывали своё царство в Риедре. Сейчас же Куори готовы действовать, и их рукой служит Дремлющая Тьма.
Если посол Риедры когда-нибудь столкнётся с послед¬ствиями акции агентов Дремлющей Тьмы, он будет от¬рицать всякую связь между его нацией и этой организа¬цией. Это утверждение даже можно назвать истинным. Дремлющая Тьма является отдельной организацией, чьи руководители находятся в самом Дал Куоре. Мрак Сновидений информирует Риедранский Двор, но прави¬тели этой страны не являются авторитетом для агентов Тьмы. Даже наоборот, агенты в большинстве своём зани¬мают в иерархии Дал Куора место повыше, чем правитель Риедры.
Агенты Дремлющей Тьмы - Вдохновлённые. Человеческие тела, которые удерживают дух Куори в себе. Некоторые агенты используют маскировку, что бы сливаться с местным населением, остальные имитиру¬ют под калаштаров. Владея разнообразными коварными дисциплинами псионики, они могут наблюдать и соби¬рать информацию, и на протяжении многих лет строить пятую колонну внутри некоторых народов. В результате, Дремлющая Тьма распространила своё влияние над кри¬миналом, торговыми гильдиями, и даже учёными инсти-тутами. Организация имеет агентов внутри отмеченных драконом домов и королевских дворах по всему миру.
Управляет действиями агентов Круг Ночи, собран¬ный из наиболее могущественных псиоников среди Вдохновлённых. Глава Круга, известный под прозвищем Пожиратель Снов или Сновидец, является транслятором огромной силы, являясь посредником для душ Куори, на¬ходящихся в самом сердце Дал Куор. Пожиратель Снов может общаться с духами Дал Куора без опаски быть по¬глощённым или уничтоженным.
Физически агенты Дремлющей Тьмы рассеяны по всему Эберрону. Однако, когда Вдохновленный спит, его душа возвращается в своё другое тело, в Дал Куоре. Дремлющая Тьма - это секретная организация, которая не торгуется с другими организациями. Её заклятые враги - калаштары Адара и священники Пути Света.
In the spaces between sleeping and waking, nightmares wait with grasping claws. The quori spirits that rule Dal Quor spent a thousand years seizing control of the continent of Sarlona. Now they have turned their many eyes toward Khorvaire. The ultimate goal of the Dreaming Dark is to control all the nations of the world. The plane of Dal Quor goes through cycles of light and darkness, and the current age is coming to an end. The nightmare spirits that rule the plane believe that by seizing control of mortal civilization—by forcing all the people of Eberron to dream the dreams they devise—they can maintain this current age of darkness indefinitely. So the fiends of the Dreaming Dark aren't merely hungry for power; they are fighting for survival.
The quori can't manifest physically in Eberron, but they have other options. They can possess willing humanoids, creating agents known as the Inspired (see chapter 6). They can also manipulate the dreams of mortals. The Dreaming Dark can trick a priest by sending dreams that appear to be divine visions, or inspire a soldier to rebel against their lord.
The greatest weapon of the Dreaming Dark is its ability to infiltrate other organizations. Anyone could become an Inspired vessel, or be prompted into taking foolish action by a dream. Its agents are scattered across the world and have no obvious connection to one another, until they reveal their true nature and purpose.
The Dreaming Dark in the War The chaos that reigned during the Last War enabled the agents of the Dreaming Dark to move and act with absolute freedom throughout Khorvaire. Any direct conflict among Eberron's humanoid populations is a boon to this group, which wants to destabilize all of them. Many of the intense battles near the end of the war might have been avoided, if not for Dreaming Dark agents fanning the flames of fear and hate—often by invading the dreams of soldiers and rulers alike.
The feelings of mistrust and festering animosity between the nations that linger after the Treaty of Thronehold provide the Dreaming Dark with countless points of possible infection. Refugees, expatriates, and other displaced people provide the perfect vehicle for the Dreaming Dark to spread its influence across Khorvaire, carrying its corruption into new populations.
The Role of Dreams If you plan to use the Dreaming Dark as a major villain in your campaign, it can be helpful to establish the role of dreams early on. If dreams feel like a regular part of the story, it will be less obvious when the Dreaming Dark starts manipulating the characters' dreams. For example, you might establish a pattern of picking one adventurer and discussing their dreams each time the group takes a long rest. Consider these ideas for the basic seed of a dream: Revisit recent events. This can be a useful opportunity to call attention to a detail the characters overlooked. Clearly, this character's subconscious registered the detail as important!
Involve a current villain. This can help build the players' hatred for an elusive recurring villain!
Foreshadow the future. This could simply reflect a character's fears, but it might also convey a warning from a celestial or other supernatural creature.
Explore the character's past. Give the player an opportunity to add depth to one element of the character's story.
Reflect anxiety. An anxious character might dream about showing up in a dungeon with no armor or at school with no clothes. Narratively, these dreams can provide a moment of comic relief or heighten the players own concern about what's happening in the game.
The Role of Dreams All dreams occur in the plane of Dal Quor. When mortals sleep, their minds touch the plane and shape a shard of it. Normally, a dream is shaped by the memories and emotions of the dreamer. But the dream spell and similar effects (such as a night hag's Nightmare Haunting) can influence a dream from the outside, to a specific and often sinister purpose. The quori are masters of using the dream spell as a weapon to terrorize their foes.
It's possible for an entire adventure to take place in a dream. The trick with a dream adventure is ensuring that it feels meaningful, even consequential, and not just a waste of time. One of four basic approaches can help you do that:
A real monster inhabits a character's dreams and poses a real threat to that character's mind or body. The goal of the adventure is to defeat that monster. A dreaming character is incapable of waking communication—they might be comatose or possessed. The goal of the adventure is to communicate with the dreamer and free them from whatever is preventing them from communicating. A villain has implanted some kind of psychic lock in a character's mind, which prevents them from accessing some knowledge or capability. The goal of the adventure is to remove the psychic lock, which might take the form of a complex trap or maze in the dream. The actual objective of the adventure lies in Dal Quor. The first goal is to find a way to break out of the mundane dreamscape and enter the wider plane. The second challenge in crafting a dream adventure is how to bring all the characters in a party together in the same dream, which might or might not belong to one of them. Consider these possibilities:
One of the characters is dreaming, and the others appear in the dream as memories and impressions in the dreamer's mind. Some exotic magic—a kalashtar ritual or an eldritch machine, perhaps—allows the characters to share a dream or to enter someone else's dream. This magic could also allow a character who ordinarily can't dream (such as an elf, a warforged, or a kalashtar) to enter the dreamscape as well. Agents of the Dreaming Dark use their magic to bring the dreams of the characters together so they can influence or target the whole party at once. The Dream Adventures table puts these principles together and suggests hooks into this kind of adventure.
Dream Adventures d4 Adventure Goal 1 Break a psychic lock that is preventing a House Thuranni spy from remembering what they learned about a sinister Dreaming Dark plot. 2 Escape into Dal Quor to find an artifact that can be brought back to the Material Plane when the characters awaken. 3 Rescue a character who is suffering from debilitating recurring nightmares by defeating the quori inhabiting the character's mind. 4 Stop the construction of an eldritch machine in Dal Quor that will give the quori physical access to the Material Plane again. Dying in Dreams Death in dreams is less severe than in reality, but it's not without consequence. Of course, characters who are mere figments of a dreamer's imagination are simply removed from the dream. But a character dies while actually dreaming, the character receives no benefit from the rest and takes 3d6 psychic damage.
If you want to establish more severe consequences, you can. A dreamer killed by a quori could be trapped in Dal Quor while the quori possesses their body, forcing their allies to try to rescue them from their nightmares.
Dreaming Dark NPCs Agents of the Dreaming Dark are insidious villains that can appear anywhere, in almost any context. They receive orders from a cabal of powerful quori. The leader of the organization, known as the Devourer of Dreams, communes with the nightmare spirit of Dal Quor itself. The Dark's chief agent in Eberron is a kalaraq quori (see chapter 6) named Tirashana, who has planted mind seeds—mental copies of herself—across Khorvaire.
The Dreaming Dark has Inspired agents and kalaraq quori mind seeds (see chapter 6) scattered across Khorvaire, hidden within the membership of dragonmarked houses, noble families, and other driving forces. Because Dreaming Dark agents can communicate and coordinate with one another in dreams, they never have to risk losing their cover to receive assignments or transmit information.
Dreaming Dark NPCs d4 NPC 1 A servant in a manor house overhears everything the visiting nobles whisper about in their private rooms. 2 The captain of a successful mercenary company suddenly changes the kinds of contracts they'll accept. 3 A local druid searches out monsters in the wilderness and drives them into murderous rampages. 4 A charismatic Cyran stirs up anger and discontent among the frightened refugees. Dreaming Dark Campaign Themes Long ago, the Dreaming Dark caused a long period of strife on the continent of Sarlona, fostering suspicion, rebellion, fear, prejudice, and greed among and within the various nations that held power at the time. While chaos reigned, the quori also carefully nurtured the human bloodlines that would become the Inspired, perfectly suited to serve as hosts for quori spirits. Then, when the destruction of the old kingdoms was complete, a group of bold champions—Inspired vessels of the Dreaming Dark—formed a new nation from the ashes of the old. Having conquered Sarlona by means of such manipulation, the Dreaming Dark has turned its sights to Khorvaire—which is already a continent in turmoil.
With the conquest of the entire continent in mind, the Dreaming Dark has three objectives in Khorvaire. The first is to cause chaos and strife whenever possible, turning allies against one another and spreading fear. The second is to promote their chosen champions. A champion could be a nation, a mercenary company, a dragonmarked house, or a religion—whatever it is, it will have been thoroughly subverted by the Dreaming Dark. Finally, the Dreaming Dark relentlessly pursues the kalashtar and takes every opportunity to bring down these enemies. The kalashtar are descended from rebel quori that defied the Dreaming Dark and want to push Dal Quor into an age of light.
Given those objectives, the Dreaming Dark can drive events on a small scale, by setting bandits in motion or triggering local feuds, or the adventurers might uncover evidence of plans that could reignite the Last War or bring an entire nation or religion under the sway of the Dreaming Dark.
Dreaming Dark Adventure Hooks The Dreaming Dark Adventure Hooks table offers some ideas for strange occurrences and nightmarish events that can touch off stories involving the Dreaming Dark.
Dreaming Dark Adventure Hooks d4 Adventure Hook 1 The high priest of a temple falls into a deep sleep from which nothing can awaken them. 2 The characters notice a pattern after defeating several foes: each enemy exhibited a particular quirk of speech or gesture. They now recognize that quirk in an ally or mentor. 3 A mad wizard encoded the remedy to a destructive spell in their own dreams. The characters must enter the dreamscape and recover the remedy. 4 A war criminal imprisoned during the Last War reaches out, claiming to have evidence of their innocence and warning that a destructive force is influencing the government.
In the spaces between sleeping and waking, nightmares wait with grasping claws. The quori spirits that rule Dal Quor spent a thousand years seizing control of the continent of Sarlona. Now they have turned their many eyes toward Khorvaire. The ultimate goal of the Dreaming Dark is to control all the nations of the world. The plane of Dal Quor goes through cycles of light and darkness, and the current age is coming to an end. The nightmare spirits that rule the plane believe that by seizing control of mortal civilization—by forcing all the people of Eberron to dream the dreams they devise—they can maintain this current age of darkness indefinitely. So the fiends of the Dreaming Dark aren't merely hungry for power; they are fighting for survival.
The quori can't manifest physically in Eberron, but they have other options. They can possess willing humanoids, creating agents known as the Inspired (see chapter 6). They can also manipulate the dreams of mortals. The Dreaming Dark can trick a priest by sending dreams that appear to be divine visions, or inspire a soldier to rebel against their lord.
The greatest weapon of the Dreaming Dark is its ability to infiltrate other organizations. Anyone could become an Inspired vessel, or be prompted into taking foolish action by a dream. Its agents are scattered across the world and have no obvious connection to one another, until they reveal their true nature and purpose.
The Dreaming Dark in the War The chaos that reigned during the Last War enabled the agents of the Dreaming Dark to move and act with absolute freedom throughout Khorvaire. Any direct conflict among Eberron's humanoid populations is a boon to this group, which wants to destabilize all of them. Many of the intense battles near the end of the war might have been avoided, if not for Dreaming Dark agents fanning the flames of fear and hate—often by invading the dreams of soldiers and rulers alike.
The feelings of mistrust and festering animosity between the nations that linger after the Treaty of Thronehold provide the Dreaming Dark with countless points of possible infection. Refugees, expatriates, and other displaced people provide the perfect vehicle for the Dreaming Dark to spread its influence across Khorvaire, carrying its corruption into new populations.
The Role of Dreams If you plan to use the Dreaming Dark as a major villain in your campaign, it can be helpful to establish the role of dreams early on. If dreams feel like a regular part of the story, it will be less obvious when the Dreaming Dark starts manipulating the characters' dreams. For example, you might establish a pattern of picking one adventurer and discussing their dreams each time the group takes a long rest. Consider these ideas for the basic seed of a dream: Revisit recent events. This can be a useful opportunity to call attention to a detail the characters overlooked. Clearly, this character's subconscious registered the detail as important!
Involve a current villain. This can help build the players' hatred for an elusive recurring villain!
Foreshadow the future. This could simply reflect a character's fears, but it might also convey a warning from a celestial or other supernatural creature.
Explore the character's past. Give the player an opportunity to add depth to one element of the character's story.
Reflect anxiety. An anxious character might dream about showing up in a dungeon with no armor or at school with no clothes. Narratively, these dreams can provide a moment of comic relief or heighten the players own concern about what's happening in the game.
The Role of Dreams All dreams occur in the plane of Dal Quor. When mortals sleep, their minds touch the plane and shape a shard of it. Normally, a dream is shaped by the memories and emotions of the dreamer. But the dream spell and similar effects (such as a night hag's Nightmare Haunting) can influence a dream from the outside, to a specific and often sinister purpose. The quori are masters of using the dream spell as a weapon to terrorize their foes.
It's possible for an entire adventure to take place in a dream. The trick with a dream adventure is ensuring that it feels meaningful, even consequential, and not just a waste of time. One of four basic approaches can help you do that:
A real monster inhabits a character's dreams and poses a real threat to that character's mind or body. The goal of the adventure is to defeat that monster. A dreaming character is incapable of waking communication—they might be comatose or possessed. The goal of the adventure is to communicate with the dreamer and free them from whatever is preventing them from communicating. A villain has implanted some kind of psychic lock in a character's mind, which prevents them from accessing some knowledge or capability. The goal of the adventure is to remove the psychic lock, which might take the form of a complex trap or maze in the dream. The actual objective of the adventure lies in Dal Quor. The first goal is to find a way to break out of the mundane dreamscape and enter the wider plane. The second challenge in crafting a dream adventure is how to bring all the characters in a party together in the same dream, which might or might not belong to one of them. Consider these possibilities:
One of the characters is dreaming, and the others appear in the dream as memories and impressions in the dreamer's mind. Some exotic magic—a kalashtar ritual or an eldritch machine, perhaps—allows the characters to share a dream or to enter someone else's dream. This magic could also allow a character who ordinarily can't dream (such as an elf, a warforged, or a kalashtar) to enter the dreamscape as well. Agents of the Dreaming Dark use their magic to bring the dreams of the characters together so they can influence or target the whole party at once. The Dream Adventures table puts these principles together and suggests hooks into this kind of adventure.
Dream Adventures d4 Adventure Goal 1 Break a psychic lock that is preventing a House Thuranni spy from remembering what they learned about a sinister Dreaming Dark plot. 2 Escape into Dal Quor to find an artifact that can be brought back to the Material Plane when the characters awaken. 3 Rescue a character who is suffering from debilitating recurring nightmares by defeating the quori inhabiting the character's mind. 4 Stop the construction of an eldritch machine in Dal Quor that will give the quori physical access to the Material Plane again. Dying in Dreams Death in dreams is less severe than in reality, but it's not without consequence. Of course, characters who are mere figments of a dreamer's imagination are simply removed from the dream. But a character dies while actually dreaming, the character receives no benefit from the rest and takes 3d6 psychic damage.
If you want to establish more severe consequences, you can. A dreamer killed by a quori could be trapped in Dal Quor while the quori possesses their body, forcing their allies to try to rescue them from their nightmares.
Dreaming Dark NPCs Agents of the Dreaming Dark are insidious villains that can appear anywhere, in almost any context. They receive orders from a cabal of powerful quori. The leader of the organization, known as the Devourer of Dreams, communes with the nightmare spirit of Dal Quor itself. The Dark's chief agent in Eberron is a kalaraq quori (see chapter 6) named Tirashana, who has planted mind seeds—mental copies of herself—across Khorvaire.
The Dreaming Dark has Inspired agents and kalaraq quori mind seeds (see chapter 6) scattered across Khorvaire, hidden within the membership of dragonmarked houses, noble families, and other driving forces. Because Dreaming Dark agents can communicate and coordinate with one another in dreams, they never have to risk losing their cover to receive assignments or transmit information.
Dreaming Dark NPCs d4 NPC 1 A servant in a manor house overhears everything the visiting nobles whisper about in their private rooms. 2 The captain of a successful mercenary company suddenly changes the kinds of contracts they'll accept. 3 A local druid searches out monsters in the wilderness and drives them into murderous rampages. 4 A charismatic Cyran stirs up anger and discontent among the frightened refugees. Dreaming Dark Campaign Themes Long ago, the Dreaming Dark caused a long period of strife on the continent of Sarlona, fostering suspicion, rebellion, fear, prejudice, and greed among and within the various nations that held power at the time. While chaos reigned, the quori also carefully nurtured the human bloodlines that would become the Inspired, perfectly suited to serve as hosts for quori spirits. Then, when the destruction of the old kingdoms was complete, a group of bold champions—Inspired vessels of the Dreaming Dark—formed a new nation from the ashes of the old. Having conquered Sarlona by means of such manipulation, the Dreaming Dark has turned its sights to Khorvaire—which is already a continent in turmoil.
With the conquest of the entire continent in mind, the Dreaming Dark has three objectives in Khorvaire. The first is to cause chaos and strife whenever possible, turning allies against one another and spreading fear. The second is to promote their chosen champions. A champion could be a nation, a mercenary company, a dragonmarked house, or a religion—whatever it is, it will have been thoroughly subverted by the Dreaming Dark. Finally, the Dreaming Dark relentlessly pursues the kalashtar and takes every opportunity to bring down these enemies. The kalashtar are descended from rebel quori that defied the Dreaming Dark and want to push Dal Quor into an age of light.
Given those objectives, the Dreaming Dark can drive events on a small scale, by setting bandits in motion or triggering local feuds, or the adventurers might uncover evidence of plans that could reignite the Last War or bring an entire nation or religion under the sway of the Dreaming Dark.
Dreaming Dark Adventure Hooks The Dreaming Dark Adventure Hooks table offers some ideas for strange occurrences and nightmarish events that can touch off stories involving the Dreaming Dark.
Dreaming Dark Adventure Hooks d4 Adventure Hook 1 The high priest of a temple falls into a deep sleep from which nothing can awaken them. 2 The characters notice a pattern after defeating several foes: each enemy exhibited a particular quirk of speech or gesture. They now recognize that quirk in an ally or mentor. 3 A mad wizard encoded the remedy to a destructive spell in their own dreams. The characters must enter the dreamscape and recover the remedy. 4 A war criminal imprisoned during the Last War reaches out, claiming to have evidence of their innocence and warning that a destructive force is influencing the government.
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