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The
Awakening
The
name of the first inhabitant of Cloudsbreak to
achieve Awakening has been lost to antiquity, but
imagine the thrill and the terror they must have
felt upon achieving it. Suddenly, through a dream,
they were pulled from their physical body and into
a realm where they existed only as purest spiritual
essence. This new realm was a place of psychic
chaos, where the raw emotions of all who sleep
churn endlessly. Over time, the Awakened learned to
manipulate the essence of the dreamstate. One,
Gerriel Endeth, used it to form an outer skin... a
shell to contain and protect her personal essence,
and so the first Dreamer was born. Many others soon
followed. Now, with cohesion of form, these
Dreamers could exist within the dreamstate
collectively and for long periods. The fear of
being swept away by waves of consciousness was
lessened. The dreamstate became a meeting ground
for those who had achieved the
Awakening.
The impact of
this upon Cloudsbreak was enormous. For the first
time in known history the scattered peoples of
Cloudsbreak could meet and intermingle, trading
knowledge, histories and opinions. Within
Cloudsbreak, those who had attained Awakening were
seen as holy men or shamans. Some, like the
legendary Rek Nektu, rose to great power among his
people almost overnight when he achieved Awakening.
Others, like the Trinity Brotherhood, kept their
dreaming a secret from the rulers of their lands
until they'd built a powerful network of spies in
the dream. Soon every culture and society was
transformed by the mere presence of these Dreamers.
For a people to have a Dreamer living among them
was a special thing, because this Dreamer could
bring them news from far off lands and also try to
teach the Awakening to others.
But the
dreamstate was still dangerous, an endless
dimension of pure psychic power. The Dreamers who
would one day be known as the Master Dreamwrights
had learned to create a cohesive shell for their
essence. Now they began to develop other
disciplines... higher workings of the mind, which
allowed them to create solid matter of the raw
essence of the dreamstate. Eventually they grew
strong in these disciplines and began building a
permanent refuge: Underlight.
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