The Dream War: When the Cosmos Devoured
Visions of the world in flames, the eyes of every dragon enraptured by their own impending demise. Could any of these events ever truly come to pass, past or future? Your hands drop the writhing book on instinct as the laughter begins again. What drew you to this old house of worship in the grave-lands of the Silver Steppes, you cannot remember. The shadow of its every gable slithers across the floors as the last light of day vanishes. Voices call to you in tongues unlearned and you begin to run. Darkness claws at your arm, a cold sensation like stinging teeth! You scream and the dream fades. Upright in bed, you look around. The old cemetery is gone and the light of golden morning spills in. Spying across the room, your heart catches in your throat. The book remains on your desk, open to the last page your dreamself read. The death of the world. Pain radiates through your body! You look to your arm, where the mark of a bite glows with pale dread!
Before the races that would become humans, elves, and halflings, there were only dragons and their shadows. Such is the truth of both agnostic and sanctified historical texts in libraries across Mytyrra. There are a few tomes, however, that are kept under careful lock and key. Books with faceless things sketched crudely in the margins. Volumes with leather bindings worn thin from the restless rustlings of disturbed researchers. Codices with stains that have no trace of elements bearing any resemblance to things found on this planet. Within these pages, a truth is hinted at in only the most veiled of words; the truth that perhaps dragons were not the only ones on this planet in days of old…
Though not a single dragon survives to tell the tale, it is believed by sequestered scholars that an invasion took place in the early days of life on this planet. This annexation originated from the night sky, and from the minds of those dragons that dreamed beneath it. A species of nightmares as numerous as the stars wreaking havoc upon the world. In the common tongue, the title of “the Dream War” appears time and again. The armies of the dark were led by three godlike avatars. “Barons,” in the odd vocabulary of Lord Erstvile Limeberry’s A History of Sleep. Under the floorboards of a remote manor house in the fungal forests of Rhyoll, one might piece together certain burnt scraps of parchment. Were those to be compared to the cipher inexplicably written on the bones of Magmun Groen entombed under Hybania’s darkest peak, the following might become clear…
Three beings descended upon the atmosphere of Mytyrra. Kan’Gaeru, an eyeless mass of wings and gnashing maws is said to have waged himself against Northwestern Mytyrra with an army of “dream eaters.” Abunax, a war tyrant made of flesh-blades and membranous living armor, is depicted over Southwestern Mytyrra with his tide of “god stranglers” close at hand. Lastly, Kurai-Yoruno, who is described as “like ink suspended in crystalline tears,” writhed over the jungle of the northeast alongside a swarm of “night bringers.”
Depictions of these beings are scarce, and many have been destroyed in ways that prevent any reconstruction, magical or otherwise. The other horrors hinted at in these piecemeal histories can be traced as influences of many world mythologies. While blasphemous to suggest, the “dream eaters” bear striking resemblance to the god-spirit referred to by the Fomorians of Brae as Balachbrun, “the living night.” The “night bringers” referred to in relation to the invasion of northeast Mytyrra remind one of the Waomatuan folklore regarding the “demon that turns warriors into waste” in the jungle’s dark. The war is over, but the soldiers march ever on.
The first generation of dragons fought with tireless desperation against the star-tide. Primordial Mytyrra was saved, and the great barons were slain. At least, that is what most deep scholars would tell you. Death is a relative state, one that is perhaps not experienced by all beings in this universe. It could be that to some roaming the dark between the stars, forms of life and death are entirely optional. A shivering shaman in the castle ruins of An Kler might tell you this as he casts a set of bones on a snowy stone floor. It is unlikely that the great barons were defeated easily, and even more unlikely that they were defeated in any permanent way.
Mytyrra survived annihilation, but any who delve too deep into these forbidden histories will tell you that the Dream War was only the beginning. If the barons do slumber in a comatose state beneath the land on which they were “killed,” then their wandering dreams are that which calls out to those seeking truth. It is believed that each of the dead lords has an avatar in the humanoid races, or perhaps even several. Individuals with tainted souls, tending to masterpieces unpainted by hands unfeeling. Those that meet these living embodiments of conscious terror never survive.
The aberrations that have been called out of the black sea above had to have been summoned by something or someone. An optimist might place the blame on blubbering human sorcerers reading the words of mysterious ancients… but the nihilist knows that no hungry animal can leave the call of its parent unheeded.
Every year, new and different sightings crop up of creatures not from this planet. Those that have inspired belief and even foul worship grow in power. The time has nearly come for Kan’Gaeru, Abunax, and Kurai-Yoruno to live again. A thought dawns on me as I scrawl these accounts, one that has haunted many insomniac wanderers. What if the barons always wanted to die, to go to sleep within the ground? What if their ultimate goal was always to rot the planet and call their broods down from the beyond? And what if the next war has already been lost?
These questions and more to be answered at a later date! Stay updated here for more details on these creatures and others that stalk my Dungeons & Dragons games and storytelling endeavors!
