Dreams

Sweet dreams are made of these.

Dreams can be more than just our own minds seeking the make sense of the chaos of our daily lives. While many slumber peacefully (or gripped with night-terrors), some see a different light when they close their eyes. Called True Dreams by mages, these are glimpses of the Beyond, visions of glory and wonder that our our waking eyes refuse to see... Or horrors of equal measure.

Dreaming-Visions

They've promised that dreams come true - but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too.

— Oscar Wilde

The Beyond is sealed from mortal eyes, locked behind the Shadow and its impassible murk. Try as they might to peer behind the veil, no tools of science or faux psychic seer can look upon its glories. But sometimes, in dreams, its glories comes to use. Such dreams - true dreams - are more than haphazard collection of memories and inputs, but visitations. The dreaming mind becomes part of the Beyond, and it becomes part of them. Of course, not all places of the Beyond are hospitable to humans - such nightmares can leave scars as real as any razor, and bleed just as much.

Some modern interpretations of true dreams and the strange world of the Beyond have merged with popular culture, causing some to report these visitations of magic as alien abductions.

by Pixabay

Once in the Beyond through their Dreaming self, the dreamer are at the whims of the winds of whatever realm they find themselves in. Those with great will or preparation can influence their journey, and so too can the inhabitants of the Beyond. Some are predators that delight in tormenting dreamers; others are... Curious. Mortals are rare visitors to the Beyond, and sometimes elicit patronage rather than predation from fascinated hosts.
Most forget the truth of their experience upon waking, retaining only fragments and glimpses. For some, it can be a deeply unsettling or revelatory experience, casting doubt into a worldview set in stone. Occasionally, they bring something with them from the dreaming world beyond, a thread grasped in the moment of waking, or a Pact sealed.

Such remnants of the dream are always powerful reagents or even relics, coveted by all manner of magi.

Sometimes, a human mind does not return the same from its True Dream. Having witnessed gods and devils, magic and monster, with full memory of every moment there, they can never be the same they were. Some cast themselves into conspiracy theory about aliens, psychic phenomena, or government conspiracy. Other try to bury it, but always feel like there are eyes watching them within their own slumber, now. A few find their path to magic through these visions, taking their first steps to witchery on a road of dreams.

Others do not return at all - or not as humans. There are things in the Beyond that can devour a sleeping soul and wear their flesh as armor against the stifling modern world.

by Unsplash (Jaroslav Devia)

The Shadow

Both a gate and a refuge, the Shadow lies atop out world like an oily flim, seperate but inexorably bound. Here, in the dark, magic and monsters hides from daylight, from cameras and iphones. The only way to get to the Beyond is through the Shadow... Most of the time.
Dreams spear across the Shadow and into the Beyond - or perhaps the other way around. Such power makes them both dangerous and enticing.

From Beyond

The Beyond is a realm of monsters and magic, of wonder and horror, far from the mortal world. Here, spirits, gods, and demons dwell among impossible, myth-shrouded lands. Getting there is difficult, and getting out can be even worse.
Gods and devils dwell there, in castles made out of dreams and nightmares, in fear-shadowed forests of primordial glories, or among a thousand different hells.