Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Ibbins 09-16-05, 08:12 PM	Recall in Harry Potter Book 5 that Voldemort's dreams were projecting into Harry's mind, at first unintentionally. Similarly, from the Wheel of Time Book 3, the dreams of one of the Forsaken were projected, once again unintentionally, into the minds of an entire population of a city. Yet another example is in Morrowind, in which Dagoth Ur's dreams are projected to the hero(and possibly others, I can't remember it perfectly) This seems like a really cool idea, and like all cool ideas, ought to be fit into an Eberron game. It's perfect to use as an adventure hook. When one thinks about dreams or power of the mind in Eberron, the first thought is either the Kalashtar or the Inspired. Sadly, neither of these groups can dream. So now I ask, how does one incorporate this nifty idea in Eberron?
Gurv 09-16-05, 10:09 PM	When one thinks about dreams or power of the mind in Eberron, the first thought is either the Kalashtar or the Inspired. Sadly, neither of these groups can dream. Kalashtar do not dream. Inspired are different, as I mention below. In Eberron, dreams do not take place in your head. Instead, your mind/soul/whatever is projected to Dal Quor, the Region of Dreams. What happens in your dreams is really happening. It just isn't happening in our dimension, the events are composed mostly of illusion-like settings, and your projected mind is rarely susceptible to any lasting results of those events. Keeping this in mind, it is possible that the personal dreamscapes that form when all this happens might not always work the same. There might be variations. Two people's dreams might merge, resulting in them both having the same dream and even interacting with one another. Two people with a bond of some kind might experience this frequently, perhaps both sharing the lead role in the dream, perhaps simply both observing the same events, or any combination of things. Kalashtar do not dream, as they never project themselves to Dal Quor, and thus they will never be encountered in a dream. Inspired, however, do project themselves to Dal Quor and might very well be encountered in a dream scenerio. Mostly, however, they have a much greater degree of control over the situation, not unlike a completely lucid dream. They belong there, and have total conscious control over their actions. But that doesn't mean that when wires get crossed, they can't get crossed with a quori spirit. I can easily see how someone who had been possessed by a quori might somehow form a bond that causes his dreams to gravitate to whatever the creature is doing in Dal Quor. Or imagine if the quori, in their home plane, use psionics to transform personal dreamscapes into prisons for wayward members of their kind who commit lesser crimes. Constant contact with the spirit would cause the dreamscape to take on aspects linked to the particular's quori's persona. The dreamer who originally created it would be doomed to visit this reoccurring nightmare every night; the term of the spirit's imprisonment might be until the mortal passes on (which would lead a clever spirit to try and hasten that event by manipulating the dreams). Of course, in the meantime, the person in question has this link to the mind of an ancient dream-spirit. So, there are plenty of ways to make things like this work. I think Eberron increases the likelihood of it happening, compared to other D&D settings.
MysticTheurge 09-17-05, 09:51 AM	It's important to remember that while Kalashtar don't "dream," they do sleep and go through a number of sleeping memories that would seem, to us, to be very similar to dreams. But instead of what we commonly think of dreams as being (our subconscious minds trying to deal with our daily lives and unwind) or what dreams are considered to be in Eberron (spiritual pseudo-travel to another dimension), the kalashtar merely "remember" the lives of their Quori ancestors, and probably past lives of their kalashtar ancestors. Essentially, they go through the memories of their "other half." To this end, you could certainly have the "dreams" of a powerful kalashtar telepath somehow projecting outward to other people.
Hair Wax 09-17-05, 12:04 PM	If Dal Quor is going to play a large part in your campaign you might want to check out the Dreamwalking Feats from the Wheel of Time game. I'd remove the pre-requisite feat of Latent Dreamwalker as the tree is already long enough and give Quori the feat tree for free. I'm going to have them in my campaign along with the Old Blood feat for Valenar and the Sniffer feat for Tharask family members, with Least Dragonmark: Finding replacing the Latent Sniffer feat.