The Fate of my Tribe:

I was a hunter.

In the long season and in the short, I hunted food for my family and for my tribe. We lived free on the land, taxed only by the wind and sometimes the bitter cold. My wife was a skinner who often accompanied our hunting party, and my brothers had taken over our father’s farm since his death. It was the winter of death, but we didn’t know it yet.

When the Barbarians came we were asleep in our beds. How could any force of men creep up on our village in such bitter cold? They stormed through on foot, killing the sentries and trapping the rest of us in their archer’s sites before we could arm ourselves or defend our families. Neither I nor my brothers were given the opportunity to fight for our freedom, and one of us died begging for that right.

It has been two years. We are fortunate that we are permitted to remain as families in our homes, but that is all that’s left of our former lives. And even this companionship is subject to the Barbarians’ whim, if we so displease them. They command us through brute savagery and utter diligence, never easing their watch over our activities or giving us any edge with wich to claim our freedom. The duties we perform for them are menial, and it has been 28 moons since I have hunted since.

My Experiences:

Though the Barbarians keep us on a strict work regimen, we are given no room to run and no freedom to hunt. My skills and fortitude have waned over time, under the gruelling lack of sleep and life of tedious toil. I do not know how the Barbarians have changed the outlands beyond our village’s walls, except I know they have all the firewood they need and they complain the hunting in this area has gone poor.

The Barbarians are not led by one of their own, but by an outsider who has led them to victory time and again. He is a man of underhanded means and keen intellect who I believe comes from another time. Of course, what I know matters little as I have never seen him in the waking world. Such is his power that my village became his with the power of a simple nod to his horde. I have never before had the need to hunt another person, but I would hunt this man, if I could.

My Dreams:

Perhaps because my body longed for the physical rush of the hunt, perhaps over my despair from being unable to help my people, I awoke. Not from a dream, mind you, but into one.

I was skeptical as well! But as I became used to the unlikely appearance of this bizarre realm, I slowly accepted what had happened to me. I know it sounds like longshore babble, but I had developed the... sentience to awaken within my dreams, and that was the least of it. Across the span of all that is, beings from many different places and even worlds are awakening... into the same dream! I tell you true: there is a place that’s made up of the stuff dreams are made of! It is the City of Dreams, and the Dreamwrights have constructed it as a safe haven for the Awakened, such as myself, to take refuge in.

Refuge. Oh yes, there are things to take refuge from. They are the stuff of Nightmares, though the Awakened call them simply “Mares”. They are viscious creatures which inflict great pain through their foul attacks. But they are far more than that. They must be, though others say they are not.

Some say the Mares are nothing but vile pockets of Chaos taken shape within the dreamstuff to form a monster. When the Mare is slain, it’s essence is to be captured and destroyed, released back into the dreamstuff as nothingness. Others say the Mare is a sentience taken shape within the Dreamstate much the way Dreamers are, and that it lords control over some innocent Dreamer who is entrapped by it’s presence. Destroying the Mare, say the followers of this latter belief, also destroys the Dreamer the Mare was possessing. Therefor, it is unethical to dispose of the Mares, and instead these beasts must be defeated and their essence stored. Those who believe this refer to themselves as “the Illuminated”, and have labeled those who believe in the former theory as “the Freesoul”.

My Beliefs:

This is where my own beliefs diverge to form something between the worlds of the Illuminated and the FreeSoul. You see, early in my visits to the Dreamstate, I slew a Boggram, which is nothing in particular for a seasoned Dreamer to brag about, but I was sorely pressed to find the victory. Upon returning to the Waking World, and the reality of my enslavement there, I found that one of our taskmasters had died in his sleep while having a fitful dream! I came to believe that I had coincidentally pitted myself against his evil essence in the Dreamstate and had killed him in the effort.

It is from this experience that I’ve gained new hope. I intend to search out the Dreamstate for the Nightmare essence of the Barbarians’ supreme commander and destroy it. I shall take revenge for what they have done to my people and I shall destroy every Mare between myself and him in the process if I have to do it!

Manido hunts again.

Here are my powers and abilities within the Dreamstate as I understand them:

I am a SoulMaster. My weapon is a SoulReaper, which I can summon at will. I can drain off the essences of Mares I slay and use it to heal my injuries. These abilities of mine are piddling when compared to the Arts mastered by more seasoned Dreamers. I have passed my ninth Orbit in the Dreamstate, and now am at the peak of my abilities for my Sphere. If I may be granted Ascension by the Guardians, I shall pass to the Second Sphere and begin learning it’s expanded number of Arts.

I am of House Calenture, called a “FreeSoul” house. We are a gathering of Dreamers devoted to each other’s protection and also stopping the destruction the Mares are causing in the Dreamstate. The Illuminates have a House as well, called Dreamers of Light. The Houses work together for the good of the City of Dreams, but rarely agree on how to do it. When a Mare is banished and the question of how to dispose of it’s essence arises, true colors are often shown. Each of the Houses occupy a sprawling physical space within the City of Dreams, and each is glorious to behold. There are ceremonies and celebrations, which I greatly enjoy, for they are denied in me in my waking life.