The Dreamscape
In the near future, specially trained psychics called dream lords venture deep into the dreamscape. Here they explore a shifting landscape of ancient archetypes, modern terrors, and mismatched elements of the waking world. This is the shared unconsciousness of humanity, the boundless well of hopes and fears that makes us human. The reality they create in this timeless realm reverberates through the minds of dreamers everywhere. Some dream lords seek to protect it, others to dominate it, and others to destroy it.
One great way to learn more about the Dreamscape is by reading the Cathedral of Thorns fiction. This 20-part series follows one person's quest to understand and control the powers of a dream lord.
Four Aspects
Dream lords spawn creatures from their subconscious emotions, which affects the nature of the creatures. For example, creatures made of Passion tend to be ferocious in combat, while those created out of Valor are more likely to be tough and defensive. There are four aspects that they draw from: Valor, Madness, Fear and Passion.
Valor
Valor creatures are tough and hard to budge. As a group, Valor creatures excel at getting themselves and their allies to the fight. Some are able to protect other creatures. Valor is the enemy of Fear.
View all of the Valor creatures and locations in our gallery.
Fear
Fear creatures come in large numbers, overwhelming their enemies. Fear creatures often shut down, weaken, thwart, push or stymie enemy creatures. Fear is the enemy of Valor.
View all of the Fear creatures and locations in our gallery.
Madness
Like intrusive thoughts or haunting phantoms, Madness creatures are easy to disrupt but hard to eliminate. Unbound by the limits of three-dimensional thinking, some Madness creatures are able to attack enemies at a distance. Madness is the enemy of Passion.
View all of the Madness creatures and locations in our gallery.
Passion
Passion creatures are violent and destructive, but they don't have the same staying power as creatures of other aspects. Dream lords that tap into Passion find a powerful resevoir of primal energy, allowing them to harness more energy to spawn even bigger creatures. Passion is the enemy of Madness.
View all of the Passion creatures and locations in our gallery.
Lineages
A lineage is a group of dream lords, or the creatures spawned by such a group. Creatures of the same lineage often work particularly well together.
Janus
The Janus Legion is a group of scientifically trained and chemically enhanced dream lords who work primarily with Valor and Madness. They have trained with and work for the Akasha Corporation, a corporate entity of ambiguous motivation. They call themselves "oneironauts" after the Greek word "oneiros," a dream spirit. Their creatures are easy to identify as they each have two faces. The Janus Legion appears to be bent either on economic domination of the world or on liberty for the collective unconscious, or both.
Lost
A group of dream lords who have transcended or forgotten personal identity. They might exist now only in the dreamscape, or as fragmented personalities who haunt the delusions of the insane. Their motivations are unclear, but they may be bent on liberating humankind from the constraints of sanity. Their creations lack faces, and they draw mostly on the power of Madness.
Hivelings
A mysterious group of dream lords who draw on the psychic power of hive minds found among communal insects. If these dream lords are human at all, they're certainly not entirely human. Their creatures are insect-like, and they usually power their creatures with Fear.
Hellbred
A group of self-styled sorcerers who work in Fear and Passion. They hope to alter the dreamscape and usher in an age of terror and lust. Naturally, they plan to rule this new age. Their creatures are demonic, sometimes alluring but usually hideous. The Hellbred actually believe these creatures to be independent living demons that they summon in battle.
Bloodcut
A group of self-trained, vigilante dream lords who draw on Passion and Valor. Their bestial creatures wage war against any who threaten humanity's collective unconscious. Bloodcut dream lords don't pretend to understand what's really going on in the dreamscape, which might put them ahead of dream lords from other lineages. The crescent-and-lightning symbol appears on each creature that a Bloodcut dream lord spawns.
Stitched
These Madness and Fear dream lords spawn hybrid monsters, stitched together from people, creatures, machines, and weapons. These dream lords relied exclusively on Madness until they allied with Baxar the Soulstitcher, a powerful, independent dreamscape creature. He taught them to graft the power of Fear onto their own minds and created the Stitched creatures for them to spawn. In return, they protected Baxar when the Bloodcut would otherwise have overwhelmed him.
