Dream History
The Nightmare Wars
Not all the Master DreamWrights were pleased with the
coming of DreamStrike, and in fact many were angered by
it. A group of them, the Entropy Coalition, secluded
themselves and began exploring ways to counter this new
and terrible power. They turned to the deep chaos
outside the city walls for their answer. They believed
they could find a way to pull the raw energy of the
chaos into Underlight and turn it against the
DreamStrike Masters. But their attempts to bring that
energy inside the city would have disastrous results.
The chaotic forces outside had intensified since the
city's creation... the pressure of the raw essence
swirling against the city walls had only increased. As
the Entropy Coalition furthered their efforts to breach
into the deep chaos, they unknowingly weakened the walls
of the city, the barrier holding back the chaos. Small
rips and breaks began forming in the walls, just big
enough to permit creatures of chaos to enter the city:
Nightmares.
Many debates have been waged over the exact nature of
the Mares, and many more are no doubt still to come.
These debates do nothing to reflect the horror and
carnage that drove across the City on the day the Mares
first found entry... the Day of the Savaging. The Mares
came in great numbers, masses of them, streaming from
the outer lands straight for Threshold. Any Dreamer
encountered was set upon and collapsed to soulsphere by
the chaotic horde. Many were caught unprepared in their
keeps and houses, for such a threat had never been
encountered before. The Mares cast a thick vicious
shadow over the entire City and forced the Dreamers to
organize and cooperate... for a time.
Klin Benfar, a Master DreamWright Elder whose powers far
surpassed any of the DreamWrights or DreamSmiths, took
the first step toward protecting the Dreamstate from the
Mares when he developed the first Sanctuary. The ambient
essence of the Sanctuary area prevented aggressive
actions and caused searing pain to any Mare who entered
it. Klin Benfar and his apprentices constructed
Sanctuaries throughout the Dreamstate. Using the
Sanctuaries, the Dreamers finally had a foothold with
which to stand against the destructive tide of marauding
Mares.
But still the Mares swarmed the city, and the lands were
in total turmoil. The various factions of Dreamers in
the land had banded together to deal with the Mare
threat. Their fortresses became fortified as never
before, equipped with sanctuaries and armories. Guards
stood strong in strategic locations to keep the Mares
from overrunning their Houses. Regular patrols were
formed to seek out roving Mares and collapse them. And,
as House organization grew stronger, their philosophers
attempted to uncover the truth behind the Mares. What
were these vile creatures exactly?
In an effort pioneered by Relminus the Blind,
philosophers throughout Underlight began to study the
essence left behind by a Mare that's been collapsed. But
to ask the question "what is a Mare?" proved as hard as
asking, "what is a man"? The FreeSoul and Illuminate
schools of thought began to divide into more defined
ideologies as they explored the question. As these
ideologies developed, they did so around the great
Houses, which had been erected by Dreamers over the
centuries. For centuries more the Houses developed
around the study of Mares, and the problem of how to rid
the Dream of their teeming masses. There was little
warfare between Dreamers because most were simply taking
refuge in the Houses and the Sanctuaries or combating
the Mare threat. The last phase of this period when the
Houses were aligned against the Mares was marked by the
creation of portals.
In order to stem the never-ending tide of mares flooding
the city, a group of Master DreamWrights led by Syriand
the Graceful and Lagumbar Staggern developed a means of
fencing off sections of the Dream from one another. To
do this they constructed "portals" at strategic
locations. These portals operated under the same
principle as Sanctuary and were impassable by the Mares.
Later it was discovered by the Seekers of Knowledge that
being contained by portals made the ambient essence
within an area easier to harness. This would eventually
spawn new varieties of Arts meant to take advantage of
these areas of effect. It would also lead to the
development of one of the most significant Arts ever
created: Join Party.
Syriand, Lagumbar, assisted by an alliance of
DreamWrights and DreamSmiths, moved through the lands,
segmenting them with portals. They started at the Houses
and at Threshold and worked their way inward. Gradually
the never-ending flow of Mares was stopped. The Mares
were still able to squeeze into the Dream through small
ruptures but the portals prevented them from moving
freely about it. The Nightmare Wars were over... but
their most powerful legacy was just being created.
Even as Syriand and Lagumbar finished construction of
the portals, a new artifact was being created in House
Calenture. The reclusive Master Zordon and his team of
DreamSmiths known as the Forgers Circle were putting the
finishing touches on a new kind of talisman that would
forever change the Dreamstate: The Orb of Calenture. The
Orb was an artifact unlike any ever seen before, for it
could take the essence of a Mare and banish it from the
Dream easily. The creation of this artifact sparked
anger among those Dreamers who believed Mare essence was
too valuable to banish and should be imprisoned. It also
stirred envy among the other factions who believed in
banishment. Soon other prime artifacts were created,
talismans held sacred to the Houses. These prime
artifacts could either banish or imprison Mare essence
according to the beliefs of the House DreamSmiths who
created it.
Friction between the Houses grew as each practiced it's
own beliefs and dealt with the Mare essence in it's own
way. With the Nightmare Wars at an end, Sanctuaries
constructed, and portals placed, the Houses found
themselves strong and ready to defend their interests.
Underlight was on the verge of another Dreamer War when
the Battle of Rock Falls broke out. Two of the most
powerful Houses in the Dream, Dreamers of Light and
House Calenture, fell into all-out confrontation over
the fate of the essences stored within their prime
artifacts. When the battle was over, two Rulers of Light
were dead by DreamStrike. Skirmishes between Houses
erupted, and each House began to take advantage of the
portals to seal off their claimed lands. As each
conflict arose, it seemed more and more certain the
Dreamstate was heading toward another period of all-out
warfare. The reality of what was about to happen was
far, far worse.