The Mysteries: Revised Edition Chapter Twelve: The Mysteries of Dreams

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The Mysteries of Dreams

This Mystery School deals with dreams and their substance, giving the magus the power to control or even enter dreams, and to become part of the stuff of dreams. While the nature of dreams remains mysterious, even to Hermetic magi, this mystery is surprisingly powerful and the nightmares of those who cross its adherents are memorable indeed.

In the 13th century, a fierce academic debate rages within the Church about the true nature of dreams, building upon centuries of learned inquiry. While dream interpretation is still popular, attempts to enter and control dreams are far less common. In medieval Novgorod, however, there was a peasant tradition of visiting others in dreams, and of attempting to control one’s dreaming.

Dreams have long been seen as omens, and the interpretation and understanding of them, and the role of dreams in prognostication and divination, are dealt with in Chapter 7: Divination and Augury. Hermetic understanding now states that dreams result from the effect of the humors on the mind and body. Experimentation has shown that dreams are intimately linked to the Form of Mentem, which is to the Imaginem of the dream substance as the brain is to the mind, or the heart to the emotions. That is, the capacity to dream is a function of Mentem and Mentem magics allow entrance to or control of dreams, yet their substance is of Imaginem — not physical species of sensation, but instead essence or nous; an idealized form of a species.

Dreams are therefore linked to all supernatural realms as they are not, like mundane existence, limited by time or physical boundaries; like the realms they are transcendent — beyond time, space, and the logic of creation. (This has led some heretical thinkers to claim that all creation is a dream in the mind of God) The close association between the realms and dreams is clearly apparent in many miraculous visions: dreams of the dead, in which ghosts manifest through dreams, dreams sent by God, the chaotic dream realms associated with fairies and deceptive dreams sent by demons to mislead the unwary.

Dreams are probably the closest most ordinary folk in Mythic Europe get to experiencing magic and The Gift.

The process of controlling or directing one’s dreams, called lucid dreaming, has roots in antiquity. A number of systems for dream incubation certainly existed in ancient Rome and were mentioned by St. John Chrysostom as late as the fourth century, who himself heeded dreams of divine origin, but denounced those who attempted to work magic through dreams.

The Eastern Church holds that people are not responsible for their dreams, but should feel appropriate shame for sinful or unworthy dreams. This is quite different from Jewish rabbinical interpretations, where sinful acts in dreams may actually be portents and are of no moral consequence. The Western Church is also familiar with these dream magics; a Gnostic papyrus containing a spell entitled Agathocles’ Recipe for Sending a Dream shows that the heretical opponents of the early Church experimented with these ideas, but with, it would seem, very limited success.

Dream Magic — Minor Hermetic Mystery Virtue

The Hermetic mystery of dream magic originates from a Baltic folk tradition that was brilliantly synthesized into Hermetic theory by Raisa of Novgorod in the early tenth century.

Spiritual Dream Travel

Mystery spells can change a dream to include an aware spirit, as though one’s spirit travels into the dream leaving the body and possessions behind. Within the dream, all seems real, but all is in fact illusion: dream logic and dream time apply. A magus can use spiritual travel to enter his own dreams.

While traveling in a dream, the traveler’s bodies lie in a trance, as if sleeping dreamlessly (and recovers as if sleeping). Physical disturbances to a traveler’s body, such as being shaken or yelled at, require Concentration rolls (as to maintain a spell; see ArM5, page 82), and if failed, the traveler wakes from the trance, pulled out of the dream. Otherwise, the dream ends when the dreamer wakes, and any traveler in that dream is forced out. (It is possible to leave dream through portals, to places such as the imagination.)

While traveling in dream, a magus has an Arcane Connection to his body — he may leave the dream by “waking” and therefore returning to his body. The Arcane Connection also lets him use real-world vis in spells, consuming the vis permanently just as if a spell were cast in the waking world. A dream traveler can also find and use dream vis, but this lacks substance beyond dream.

It is also possible to enter bodily into a dream, but that is a Mystery of the greater dream grimoire.

Those intending to travel into dream also make use of standard Mentem spells affecting dreams or dreams.

The Spiritual Traveler

The traveling spirit has the full spellcasting abilities and magic resistance of the traveler’s mind — in the case of a spiritual magus, his five Techniques, Imaginem Form (other Forms are ignored for a spiritual traveler, as detailed in the insert), and his Parma Magica.

His Virtues and Flaws apply as normal (subject to interpretation if necessary). Some otherwise irremediable Flaws, such as missing limbs, are easily remedied with a quick Imaginem illusion.

Magical equipment other than a talisman is not available to the spirit traveler, but a dream copy of his talisman accompanies a traveler. The real talisman remains with the body.

The body left behind is without spellcasting abilities or conscious resistance. This means that the body is protected by its Form scores, but the Parma Magica protection “travels” with the spirit. A magus preparing for dream travel may choose to extend his Parma Magica to cover his body and spirit as separate entities (using the rules in ArM5, page 66), reducing his effective Parma score by 3.

Dream Magic Spells

This Mystery deals with the substance of dream, giving the magus the power to enter into dreams, becoming part of the stuff of dreams. Once in a dream, the traveler may move and interact with the dream world around her. If the dream comes to an end, any spiritual traveler in the dream is evicted and wakes up in the real world.

Dream Magic allows the following new duration and target to be employed in spells.

New Duration: Dream

The spell functions for the length of an actual dream of a sleeping individual. The spell ends if the dream ends, or the sleeper wakens. The dream can be natural or sustained magically.

It is possible to bypass the waking end of a dream in various ways, such as passing through a portal into the imagination.

Dream Duration is equivalent to Concentration.

New Target: Dream

This new Target, Dream, allows travel into the dream of a sleeping individual. The sleep may be magically induced, as long as dreaming is possible. Dream only applies to Mentem spells. Dream Target is equivalent to Individual. Size does not matter (as is normal for Mentem spells), but also Dream is fixed as an actual dream of one sleeper — it is not possible to work dream magic on several dreams or dreamers together. (Dream spells exist to merge several travelers into one dream.)

The Stuff of Dreams Dreams are qualitatively different from other mental states; while desire, sadness, or madness are clearly related to the humors as direct expressions of Mentem, the content of dreams is always the stuff of sensation, and therefore Imaginem. Hence to create, enter, or change a dream from outside one uses Mentem, but to enact changes within the dream one uses Imaginem. Magic in Dreams Spirit travelers find magic in dreams both strange and powerful, and governed by the Hermetic Form of Imaginem. Form: A spirit traveler in a dream casts a spell of any Form as an Imaginem spell. Spontaneous Imaginem magic can produce any effect: Use the guidelines for the Form that would apply in the real world, but use the magus’s score in Imaginem ignoring other Forms. If a spirit-form magus knows a Formulaic spell of another Form, he casts it using his Imaginem score while within dreams. For example, Creo Ignem 10 “creates a fire doing +15 damage,” so Creo Imaginem 10 can create dream fire causing +15 dream damage; Rego Corpus 25 “transports the target instantly up to one league,” so Rego Imaginem 25 can transport a dream inhabitant or a dream traveler up to one league. A Muto Corpus (Animal) spell becomes Muto Imaginem — the Animal requisite also becomes Imaginem and is ignored. Duration: The Duration of spells cast in dreams is based on dream time, not the passage of time in the waking world. Magic Resistance: Form-based Magic Resistance uses the Imaginem Form exclusively (and the magus’s Parma Magica). Dream Rituals: Ritual Magic affecting the dream world can be cast spontaneously, without the magus knowing a formal Ritual spell, using the rules for Ceremonial Magic. Momentary Ritual effects within dreams create objects that are real within the dream, but lost when the dreamer wakes, or (if affecting the dream traveler) on returning to the waking world. Dream Rituals require dream vis. Dream vis can be found and collected in the dream world, and used freely — it all appears to have the Form of Imaginem. Real-World Vis: Real-world vis can only be used for known (nonSpontaneous) Rituals, and in this case the duration is determined by real-world time, not dream time. Real-world duration can make dream effects persist across and between dreams, lapsing while the dreamer wakes, then resuming when she starts to dream again. Momentary Rituals cast using real-world vis become real, and last indefinitely across dreams (subject to change, like any other thing). Rituals using real-world vis can use the real-world spell’s Technique and Form vis, or substitute Imaginem vis. Aura: The aura for magic worked inside a dream is all illusory, and is whatever the current setting demands, so a dream cathedral has a Divine aura, a dream world hell-pit is Infernal, and a dream world covenant is Magical. The aura around the traveler’s body is not relevant once inside dream. New Spell Guidelines Muto Mentem (Dream, Mystery) The Range of these spells is the greater of the range to the dreamer or the bodies of those whose spirits are to enter dream. Level 15: Change the dream of the caster to include the caster’s own spirit (Intellego requisite). Level 20: Change the dream of another to include the caster’s spirit (Intellego requisite). Level 25: Change a person’s dream to include another’s spirit (Intellego requisite). Level 30: Change a person’s dream to include a group (up to ten) of spirits (Intellego requisite). The number of spirits included is multiplied by 10 for each magnitude added to the guideline.

The Lucid Dreamer

Mu(In)Me 20

R: Per, D: Dream, T: Dream, Mystery

The magus lies down to sleep and casts this spell, slipping easily into dreaming sleep — except that his conscious spirit appears in the dream and may move and interact freely. He may wake any time he wishes (and may settle again for normal sleep, if he so desires).

The spiritual traveler appears in the dream with his clothes, a dream copy of his talisman (if any), and dream vis equivalent to any vis left on his body. Using this dream vis has no effect on the real-world vis left behind; however, the traveler may use that real-world vis via the Arcane Connection to his body.

(Base: 15, +1 Dream duration)

The Path To Lemnos

Mu(In)Me 30

R: Touch, D: Dream, T: Dream, Mystery

The magus touches a dreaming sleeper, and the target dream changes to include the caster’s spirit; the caster slips into a trance while in the dream.

The spiritual traveler appears in the dream with his clothes, a dream copy of his talisman (if any), and dream vis equivalent to any vis left on his body. The magus has an Arcane Connection to his own body, and may use this to leave dream before the spell ends.

(Base: 20, +1 Touch, +1 Dream duration)

The Road To Lemnos

Mu(In)Me 40

R: Touch, D: Dream, T: Dream, Mystery

The magus touches a dreaming sleeper (or the magus, as in The Lucid Dreamer), and the target dream changes to include the spirits of a touched group of travelers (possibly including the caster). The travelers’ bodies lie in a trance while in the dream.

The spiritual travelers appear in the dream with their clothes, a dream copy of their talisman (if any) and dream vis equivalent to any vis left on their bodies. The travelers have Arcane Connections to their own bodies, and may use these to leave the dream before the spell ends.

(Base: 30, +1 Touch, +1 Dream duration)

Example: Metrodorus, an elderly dream magus, seeks answers to recent puzzles. He wishes to search within his dreams, and to bring his raven familiar with him, so casts The Road To Lemnos, so that both may enter the dream. He appears at the beginning of his dream, with his staff and raven, on an empty plain.

Dream Vis Dreams of all things can be found, including dreams of raw vis (even if the dreamer has no idea what the substance is). A traveler in a dream can use dream vis like normal vis, except that it can have no effect whatsoever outside dreams. It is quite easy for magi to find dream vis in dreams. Dream vis is nearly always Imaginem vis (the general Form of all within dream). To have any effect beyond a dream, including persistence between dreams and moving dream objects into the real world, real-world vis is needed. To use real-world vis within a dream, it must either be on the body of a traveler (linked by Arcane Connection), or brought in by a physical traveler (see The Greater Dream Grimoire).

Time and Travel

Navigation in a dream is associative rather than geographical. Dreamers find places by entering similar places: an entire peasant village, for example, can be found by walking through a single hut. A similar process can lead to objects: a key may lead to a door, through which in turn the dreamer may enter a completely different region (and the door may disappear behind him as it closes). Magically created items (even illusions) are quite real within dream, and can be used to aid navigation by association.

Example: Metrodorus seeks to brew a better longevity potion. Deciding that his youth before apprenticeship, over a century before, holds the key to his new design, he decides to seek his long-forgotten childhood innocence in a dream. Unfortunately, the dream devolves into a twisted series of visions of past Tribunals and past sodales. Suddenly he remembers the sound of a stream outside his parents’ hut where he used to fish, and he resolves to cast a spell to create a stream, then follow it back until he arrives at the hut in the dream.

Time, too, is no longer linear and fixed — a dreamer may skip time, rolling up long periods to pass in an instant, or make a brief moment seem like days (or longer). Travelers who part and reunite in a dream may find that each group has taken a different time to reach the juncture. Almost any change is possible in dreams, and most physical laws can be broken. Also, time in dreams bears little relation to time in the waking world — years may seem to pass in a dream, while only a few moments pass in the real world.

Spiritual travelers in dreams do not actually sleep, either: if they lie down as if to sleep, time passes around them in an instant, and they wake at some new time. If they forget to sleep, they suffer no ill effects. This is akin to the ‘…and some years pass…’ effects of dream time. They cannot have a dream within a dream.

Permanent change may appear possible within the dream (indeed it is within the bounds of dream logic, which permits any change, including undoing permanence), but all is lost when the travelers leave the dream and return to the waking world (or when the dreamer wakes).

If the storyguide portrays the chaotic shuffling they have experienced in their own dreams, and allows players to invoke the same for their own deliberate movements, then dream adventures can be greatly enhanced. Travel by dream logic is also similar to travel in Arcadia, and ideas may be taken from tales of Faerie.

Encounters in Dream

Almost anything can be found in dreams; and the ability to create things with Imaginem magics and make them solid (see below for Magic in Dream) makes finding things especially easy.

It is possible to encounter dreams of animals, fantastical beasts, or even of real people. Dream-people are people as perceived by the dreamer (not the traveler). They know only what the dreamer dreams them as knowing, which may differ from what the dreamer would think about them if he was awake. (In either case, it is in truth limited above all to what the dreamer knows.)

Dream-people created by spells cast by travelers know what the spellcaster intends them to know (again limited by what the caster knows).

Dream logic also means that a magus may check in his pockets and may “find something there.” A “found something” may be almost any common object. The magus can look for other things and find them in pouches, packs, or even just lying around. The storyguide rules on this, but modest quantities of common things may be found, although frequent checking is likely to turn up something dreadful instead. Things found like this are particularly impermanent, and disappear if the magus ceases to pay attention to them. After all, it is all a dream.

Conveniently for magi, most magi consider vis to be a common object such as might be in a magus’s pouches. A magus may hope to find a modest amount of dream vis if he checks for it. Large quantities of dream vis or uncommon objects require actual quests to find them.

The Dreamer in Control (Lucid Dreaming)

When someone dreams, she may dream of herself, or of others. The dreamer may feel she is participating in the dream, or witnessing it from a distance — even watching herself “from the outside.”

Dream travelers choose their own path and may move through the dream to places the dreamer is scarcely aware of, and may avoid the areas the dreamer is creating. (Whether the dream travelers create or explore these far corners is moot.)

As perceived and explored by dream travelers, the dreamer may be present as an inhabitant of the dream (or not), and this dreamer-figure has a variable link to the dreamer in life. In some dreams, the dreamer-figure may be flat and unresponsive, as the dreamer watches from outside; in others the dreamer may believe she is “there” and the figure is alert and lifelike.

In game terms, if the dreamer is focused on herself, treat her as an alert traveler; if she is watching herself remotely, treat her as a dream inhabitant — part of the landscape of figures.

The dreamer may be able to switch her attention and participate fully, even if she had been viewing remotely. If the dreamer realizes what is happening, she may be able to take control and reshape the dream — this is difficult to control and largely random, but may have major effects on the dream.

To notice dream travelers as figures in a dream, and be aware of oddities in their actions, the dreamer must succeed on a roll of Perception + Awareness against an Ease Factor of 9.

To try to reshape the dream, the dreamer must succeed on a roll of Intelligence against an Ease Factor of 9. The dreamer gains bonuses to this roll if she can work magic relating to dreams:

• +3 if the dreamer is a magus (or of similar power)
• +3 if the dreamer has Dream Magic
• +3 if the dreamer has Hermetic Dream Interpreter (see Chapter 7: Divination and Augury)
• +1 per other supernatural ability relating to illusions or dreams in general (maximum +3)

If she succeeds, she may arbitrarily reshape the dream.

If it is necessary to judge the actual extent of the change, treat the rolled total as the magnitude of a dream spell as if cast by a spiritual dream traveler, although much of the magnitude is used to make the change affect an area of the dream landscape. (This can produce enormous changes to the dream landscape, but this is normal in dreams.) Travelers with Magic Resistance typically resist, but find the landscape around them to have changed.

A dreamer with Dream Magic may use real dream spells if she is aware of the situation.

To Become Aware of Travelers

Stress Die + Perception + Awareness Vs. an Ease Factor of 9

To Reshape a Dream: Stress Die + Intelligence + Bonuses Vs. an Ease Factor of 9

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Dream Shaping Magnitude

Rolled Total

If the dreamer does not become intelligently aware of travelers, but the travelers remain in the vicinity of the dreamer-figure, the storyguide may feel it appropriate for the dreamer to change the dream unconsciously. The storyguide may make an arbitrary change, or roll to reshape the dream as above.

Time and Experience in Dream

Travelers may learn information in dream travel, by interpreting what they see, by prying into hidden corners of the dream where shadows of the mind appear, or by encountering other beings in the dream.

However, the passage of time is illusory and they do not gain real experience (that is, they do not gain game points for Arts and Abilities). Laboratory work is also impossible in the shifting conditions of dreams, so magi may not invent spells (from texts or from a teacher), nor perform enchantments. Spells are a matter of illusion in this dreaming world, and are governed by Imaginem.

Spell Botches in Dream

Travelers may cast spells in dream, and if stressed may botch their spells. Spell botches typically produce effects in that area of dream similar to a nightmare, which may make the area quite unpleasant for both travelers and inhabitants, and for the dreamer whose dream is affected.

A sufficiently bad nightmare may shock the dreamer into wakefulness.

A magus botching a spell accumulates real Warping points and must check for Twilight as normal. If he is thrown into Twilight, his spirit is thrown into real Twilight, and the duration is measured in real-world time, not dream time.

While in Twilight, the magus is effectively not in the dream (his realworld body remains entranced). When the Twilight ends, he returns to the dream if possible. If the dream has ended, he returns to his body and wakes.

Fatigue and Wounds

Spirits in dreams do not experience Fatigue, and ignore all Fatigue loss (and penalties). They may eat and drink dream food, but they do not need to, and suffer no ill-effects if they do not. Likewise, they believe they need to breathe, but if they find themselves immersed in dream water, they find that it is all an illusion again.

Wounds may be taken, but are not real, although the shock and pain is real. If a traveler is wounded, he must succeed in a roll of

Stress Die + Stamina + Modifiers Vs. an Ease Factor of Total Wound Penalty

If he fails the roll, he wakes from the shock, and is thrown out of the dream into the normal physical world. An Incapacitating wound has an Ease Factor of 9, and leaves the traveler Incapacitated even if he is not thrown out of dream. If he overcomes the shock, the Wound and its Wound Penalty accumulate during the combat, making subsequent Wound shocks harder to overcome. Apply penalties from previous wounds to the Stamina roll, as well as the benefits and penalties of Virtues and Flaws relating to pain and wounds, and also strong and weak will. If the traveler survives the encounter, it is easy to recover from the wounds once sufficient dream time has passed. If the traveler wakes, it was only a dream.

Example: The dream maga Morphea is exploring the dreams of a local worthy, seeking out a demon. On entering dream she uses Phantasm of the Human Form to create some shield grogs and sets off. She soon finds the demon, which appears and attacks her. Her phantom grogs (quite solid in the dream) take the brunt of the attack, while she casts spells past them. However, the demon hurls several of its spines past the grogs to strike Morphea. She suffers two Medium wounds, and must make two Stamina rolls against an Ease Factor of 3 for the first wound, and 6 for the second. Fortunately she has Stamina +2 and Strong Will (+3 to Will rolls), and adds this as a bonus to her rolls to stay in dream. She rolls 7+5 = 12 for the first wound, and 5+5 = 10 for the second, so she remains in the dream.

Her attacks are quite effective and the demon is slain. Morphea takes stock of her situation, and decides not to continue immediately, but to recuperate. “Some time later” she has fully recovered from her wounds, and sets off again. (Nothing significant happens in this time — it is just an exercise in dream time and logic. The dreamer whose dream she is in may vaguely recall this period, but lack any details. No time passes in the real world.)

As a spirit in a dream, the spiritual traveler is also vulnerable to magics that attack spirits from the Mentem and Vim guidelines. (Spiritual travelers perceive these as Imaginem spells). If the attacker uses Might reduction spells, similar to Demon’s Eternal Oblivion, the spiritual traveler should use his Imaginem score instead of Might. His Imaginem score is not actually lost beyond the duration of the spells, but if his Imaginem “Might” is reduced to zero, he is forced into the waking world.

If he is beyond connection to the waking world, he may be destroyed like any other spirit.

Example: Morphea has now realized that she faces a diabolist dream traveler, and has tracked him down in the dreamer’s memory palace. She chases him from room to room, until they come face to face. Morphea has Stamina +2, Perdo +20, Imaginem +20, Parma Magica 3, Penetration 3; she knows a level 10 Demon’s Eternal Oblivion that she hopes will work in this situation. The diabolist magus has the same abilities and a similar level 10 Dreamer’s Eternal Oblivion spell. The dreamer has a memory palace with a level 2 Magical aura.

The diabolist wins the initiative contest, and casts his spell: roll 9 + (Stamina 2 + Perdo 20 + Imaginem 20) + aura 2 = 53, and Penetration is 53 –10 + Penetration 3 = 46. This easily beats Morphea’s Magic Resistance (Imaginem 20 + (5 x Parma 3) + aura 2) = 37. Morphea cries out as the spell drains her Imaginem score by 10.

Morphea now casts her spell, matching her reduced Imaginem score of 10 to cast the Perdo Vim spell. Since this is dream, the storyguide agrees with Morphea’s player that the Demon’s Eternal Oblivion spell working through Imaginem can affect a diabolist magus. She casts her spell, and her player rolls 7 + (2+20+10) +2 = 41, Penetration = 41 –10 +3 = 34, which does not quite match the diabolist’s Magic Resistance. Cackling with glee he casts another Oblivion spell, for which the roll is 1+1+10, casting total 40+42+2=84. Now cackling manically, he watches as Morphea is struck down.

Losing another 10 Imaginem points reduces her to 0, and she is forced out of the dream. She wakes with a start, covered in a cold sweat, crying out loud. (Her real-world Imaginem score is unaffected, as a quick Spontaneous spell verifies.)

Aging in Dream

A spiritual traveler in dream ages, or not, depending on the time she perceives as passing, and whether she chooses to obey that time. Spiritual dream travelers may remain unaging if they wish. They may use spells to make themselves younger or older — it is all a matter of appearance in dream.

While the spirit is in a dream, the body is subject to all normal effects, including aging. It is possible for the body to be wounded, age, or even die while in the spirit is in a dream, and for the spirit to remain in the dream. If a spiritual traveler returns from a dream and find his body has died, then his spirit passes into death when he leaves the dream.

It is possible for a traveler to achieve a form of evanescent immortality in a dream, if she never returns to the waking world. (Normally she would wake when her dreamer wakes, but if she has left an individual dream through some portal, she may remain.)

The Greater Dream Grimoire — Minor Mystery Virtue

This Virtue requires the Dream Magic Virtue. It teaches how to enter physically into another’s dream, and how to extract real items from dream into the waking world, giving them substance. Few are ever taught this dangerous magic.

Traveling physically into dreams is like crossing into a Regio, unlike spiritual travel. A portal is created in the dream that permits the traveler to cross out again.

With physical travel, the traveler is subject to real and permanent effects and threats that will affect him even after returning to the waking world. On the other hand, he finds it easy to retrieve objects hidden in the dream, and has a solidity greater than dream constructs.

If travelers encounter each other in a dream, each perceives the encounter in his own way: in particular if a physical traveler encounters a spiritual traveler, then the physical traveler sees the other as “real” and endowed with normal Forms — any magic cast by the other is perceived in the categories of its “proper” Forms. A spiritual traveler encountering a physical traveler perceives her as the stuff of dreams, and all she does is a matter of illusion (and Imaginem).

Example: Metrodorus, a greater dream mage, enters the dream of Somnius, where he encounters Morphea, a spiritual traveler. Both started in the same room in the magi’s tower, and agreed to meet at a recognizable landmark. Metrodorus has tramped for several hours to get here, and is somewhat footsore and bothered.

Morphea arrives walking through the air, on dream steps, having taken no time at all. Metrodorus takes undue exception to Morphea’s unreasonably cheerful entrance, in the light of his own peevish state, and he casts a Rego Corpus spell to bring Morphea to the ground (he casts this as normal). Morphea attempts to resist the spell, but uses her Imaginem Form to do so, as all is illusion to her. She succeeds, and decides that Metrodorus is not entering into the spirit of things, so casts a Muto Imaginem “grow ass’s ears” spell at Metrodorus. Metrodorus resists her spell with his Corpus Form score, as to him this is a MuCo(An) spell.

Time, Travel, and Objects

Physical travelers are subject to normal time and movement in their immediate environment, as they are, in fact, awake throughout the whole experience. The dream world is solid and substantial to them in all ways.

Dream time does not leap forward around them, and they must walk, ride, or travel magically through the dream world. They have no ability to “find” objects on their person.

Dream navigation does apply, and travelers may attempt to follow connections to move between places.

They can apply dream logic to the landscape and dream inhabitants around them, but dream logic does not apply to the actual physical travelers, or to physical objects brought into dream. They can resist the arbitrary changes of the dream world. If the dreamer notices a physical traveler, she can affect the landscape around the traveler, but not the traveler himself.

When they return to the real world, usually the time as elapsed for the travelers corresponds to real elapsed time. Sometimes, as with travel to faerie places, the time may be longer or shorter than the real world.

If the dreamer wakes, her dream ceases to exist. Physical travelers in that dream are expelled from the dream, reappearing where they left the real world; real-world objects vanish and reappear when the sleeper begins to dream again.

It is possible to hide real objects in dream. Physical travelers who find such objects may easily retrieve them, just by carrying them; spiritual travelers need spells and real-world vis to do so.

Life and Limb

Physical travelers are subject to all the normal effects on their bodies: They suffer Fatigue and Wounds, and require normal nourishment and sustenance. They also need sleep, odd though this may seem. Consuming dream-food is like consuming food created by magic but without vis — it appears to be nourishing but lacks any real long-term nourishment.

Given the passage of time around them, physical travelers may recover Fatigue and heal Wounds, at the same rates as the normal world. They also age normally.

Spellcasting

Physical travelers cast spells as normal, responding to the Forms of dream as if they had normal Hermetic Forms. (Storyguide consultation may be required to agree upon Forms for some dream elements.)

Physical travelers can cast spells described as “cast in the real world to affect dreams” even while in dream, as they are still real-world people. This can make them much more powerful than spiritual travelers.

The aura of dream locations is determined as for spiritual travelers, according to the dream-world environment.

Vis and Physical Travelers

All travelers to dream may use any vis as if it were real. However true reality is confined to real-world vis brought in by physical travelers. If real-world vis is used, it is gone forever, just as if used in the real world.

Any spell effects brought on by or sustained by dream vis disappear on the return to the waking world. If the traveler moves from one dreamer’s dream to another’s, then dream spells are unaffected by that move.

Note that Momentary Creo ritual spells have real effects in the dream, and also the spell magic stops immediately, so real healing (over time) is possible, even if wounds have been healed by dream vis.

Example: Morphea uses a Moon Duration spell to physically enter a dream. While there she suffers a Light Wound. She patches herself up with a Creo Imaginem healing spell, using some dream vis she found lying around. This makes her appear healed within the dream — but since the magic has gone away, her body continues to heal underneath the glamour. After a week within the dream, she makes a recovery roll, and the Light Wound is truly gone.

Spells of the Greater Dream Grimoire

The greater dream grimoire permits physical travel into dream targets, and transporting real objects into or out of dream. Range of these spells is the greater of the range to the dream target, or to the people or objects affected.

Creo (Form)

Level 15, Mystery ritual: Give an object encountered in dream substance so that it can exist in the real world. This must be cast in a dream by a physical traveler as a Momentary Ritual, using real-world vis. Size is as normal for the Form. Form is the Form of the object in the real world, but only physical travelers see the dream world as having Form other than Imaginem). If the object given substance is enchanted, add the sum of all levels of enchantment to the required level, and add requisites of Vim, and any Arts used in the enchantments. If this is not done, the object will be mundane when extracted. (Requisites Muto, Mentem)

Note that no-one has ever successfully given living substance to a dreamperson, as Hermetic magic cannot create a soul, although beasts have been made real.

Substance Over Form

Cr(Mu)Te(Me) 20

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Ind, Mystery Ritual

This spell can only be cast in a dream by a physical traveler and the caster must use real-world vis for the ritual. The target object may appear unchanged for now, but it has a reality that extends beyond dream, so that if a physical traveler leaves a dream bearing the object, it travels with him and appears in the real world. If the spell is cast without real-world vis, the object vanishes as it is brought into the real world.

(Base 15, +1 Touch)

Rego Corpus

Level 35, Mystery: Send the caster into a dream. The caster passes through a portal that remains in the dream until she returns. (Requisites Mentem, Muto) The traveler is ejected back into the real world when a dream she is in ceases.

Level 40, Mystery: Send the body of another into a person’s dream. (Requisites Mentem, Muto) Similar spells exist for Animal and Herbam (for living plants and animals).

Level 45, Mystery: Send the bodies of a group of people into a person’s dream. (Requisites Mentem, Muto) Similar spells exist for Animal and Herbam (for living plants and animals).

The Morphean Gate

Re(Mu)Co(Me) 40

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Dream, Mystery

The caster is transported bodily through a portal from the real world into a dream. He is transported with all his belongings and equipment, just as if transported by a Rego Corpus spell. He remains there until the dream he is in ends, he leaves by the portal he entered through, or he finds some means to escape by using a spell.

At the place in dream where he entered, a dream portal is created by the act of his entrance. The portal can only be affected by spells exceeding the level of the Morphean Gate ritual. (Paranoid magi have been known to devise more powerful versions of the spell to protect their exit portal.)

Any physical traveler in this dream may leave through the portal, stepping out to emerge by the body of the dreamer. The portal remains as long as the dream persists. It is possible to encounter the portals of other travelers, and to leave through their portals.

(Base 35, +1 Touch)

Creo Imaginem

Level 15, Mystery ritual: Give a dream object, of Size –7 or smaller, substance so that it can exist in the real world.

Level 20, Mystery ritual: Give a dream object, of Size –5 or smaller, substance so that it can exist in the real world.

Level 25, Mystery ritual: Give a dream object, of Size –3 or smaller, substance so that it can exist in the real world.

Level 30, Mystery ritual: Give a dream object, of Size –1 or smaller, substance so that it can exist in the real world.

Level 35, Mystery ritual: Give a dream object, of Size +1 or smaller, substance so that it can exist in the real world.

Creo Imaginem spells to give substance to an object must be cast in a dream by a spiritual traveler as a Momentary Ritual, using real-world vis (either on the traveler’s real-world body, or brought in by a physical traveler). The magus can use Creo, Imaginem, or vis of the Form of the real-world object. Dream vis does not suffice, as it cannot sustain objects outside of dream. Target size modifiers apply to all the “give substance” guidelines, along with a Muto requisite. No Form requisites are required for spiritual dream travelers.

If the object given substance is enchanted, add the sum of all levels of enchantment to the required level, and add requisites of Vim and any Arts used in the enchantments. If this is not done, the object is mundane when extracted.

Note that no-one has ever successfully given living substance to a dreamperson, as Hermetic magic cannot create a soul. Beasts have been made real.

The Oneiropomp’s Treasure

CrIm 30

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Ind, Mystery Ritual

A small object (up to Size –3 — the size of a baby or a cat), is given real substance, and appears in the real world. The spell can only be used by a spiritual traveler; since he is in dream, the spell can in fact be a spontaneous ritual — but it must use real-world vis, either on the caster’s body, accessible through the Arcane Connection from dreamer to body, or brought in by a physical traveler.

The real-world vis must be either Creo or Imaginem vis, or the Form of the real-world object created. The caster’s score in the real-world Form determines the number of pawns of Form vis his body can use, limited in this ritual by his score in Imaginem as if a requisite on the realworld Form.

A copy of the object given substance appears by the side of the entranced body of the magus casting this ritual.

(Base 25, +1 Touch)

Rego Terram

Level 15, Mystery: Send an inanimate object, including any enchantments, through a portal into dream. The spell must have enough range for the caster to encompass both the dreamer and the object. The object ceases to exist in the dream if the dreamer wakes, but reappears in the dream when the dreamer returns to sleep. (Requisite: Mentem, Muto; requisites for the Form(s) of object transferred, Vim requisite if the object is magical. The spell level must at least equal the level of the strongest enchantment in the object.)

The spell level needs to be increased if the real-world object is greater than normal size for its Form. For example, a boat is a Group of Herbam items: roughly ten cubic paces of wood and linen. This adds 2 magnitudes to a spell needed to send a boat into a dream.

Gift of the Oneiropomp

Re(Mu)Te(Me) 15

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Dream, Mystery

Sends a non-magical stone or metal object through a portal into a dream. The caster must be touching both object and dreamer. The caster can designate where in the dream the object appears, if such a place has been prepared magically — otherwise the object must be searched for in dream.

The caster may use cast this spell while awake to send objects into his own dream, provided he lies down to sleep directly after casting the spell.

The Dream Landscape

There are natural portals from dreams to the imagination and memory of the dreamer. These portals are rare and hidden, but some magi claim to know spells to help find them. Memory and imagination both have portals to each other, and back to dream, and the return portals are usually much easier to find than the dream portals.

Physical travelers entering dreams also leave portals that lead back to the places they entered from.

Any travelers in dreams — spiritual traveler, physical traveler, demon, or faerie — may pass through dream portals if they can find them.

The Mind’s Imagination

In the imagination, one finds past dreams and strange combinations of memories and dreams. Imagination is a land very similar to dream, and the rules given for dream (time, travel, etc.) may be applied here too. However, the imagination persists beyond sleep, into waking time, so a traveler who finds a portal into imagination may remain inside the mind of a waking person, rather than being expelled when the dreamer wakes.

Possessing spirits, such as ghosts, demons, and even faeries, may take up residence in the imagination, from where they may affect the dreams and memories, and even the waking behavior of the possessed person. A traveler in a dream entering the imagination may encounter these spirits (Imaginem beings for spiritual travelers, Corpus, Animal or other forms for physical travelers) — they may be bargained with, or defeated here, and if defeated, the possession ends. A possessing spirit may have taken advantage of dream logic to construct fortifications for itself, which may make it very difficult for real-world exorcists to exorcise the spirit.

The Mind’s Memory

In the memory, a traveler can find all of a person’s memories. A normal person has a memory that is disorganized and without structure: The memories appear as objects or persons, but in isolation from each other. Travel between memories may be sequential, following the path that laid them down, or random is if shuffling through the papers piled on a table.

A person who has the Art of Memory Virtue, and has constructed a memory palace, has a physical palace that a traveler from dream may enter. He may move through this palace, and discover the memory loci and the objects within the loci, and read the memories within. He is akin to a burglar in a regular palace.

It is possible for a traveler to move memories around while he is invading a dreamer’s memory. This may make it hard for the dreamer to recall things, or the traveler may retrieve lost memories and place them where they are easy to find.

It is also possible to use dream magic to strengthen memories or even make memories solid. A solid memory can be removed (stolen) into the real world. A memory made solid and then removed is lost from the dreamer’s mind.

The Dreamscape

It is rumored that there are portals to other places than imagination and memory, and even to a dreamscape or dreamland that extends beyond and between dreams.

Spells of the greater dream grimoire might be able to create portals to the dreamscape, and even create portals from the dreamscape into the dreams of others encountered there.

It is said that the shared dreamscape may include the dream-persons of real people dreaming, who may travel to the dreamscape unawares; some dream magi claim that they can open portals to the dreams of those dreamers.

Physical travelers and real-world objects (and vis) are unable to cross portals into this dreamscape, but spiritual travelers may leave the current dream and enter the wider realm of the dreamscape. Here dream travelers may gather and meet, and perhaps share dream creations.

Since this is a dream landscape, all the normal rules about things in dream apply, except that there is no direct path back to the waking world, so wounds and real-world disturbances do not force travelers out of the dreamscape. The entranced body cannot be woken while its spirit is in the dreamscape, and the traveler’s mind is unaware of any changes to his body — indeed his body may be killed or die naturally and he would not know until he left the dreamscape and then left the dream for the waking world.

Wounds, even incapacitating wounds, can be healed given dream-time out of combat, and if a traveler’s dream body is killed by dream-wounds his body vanishes and he temporarily lose consciousness, but he can form another dream-body with dream magic (Imaginem).

However, a traveler’s spirit can be destroyed by dream Mentem and Might attack spells — and lacking an escape to the real world, would actually die. (The body would remain locked in a mindless trance, indistinguishable from that left by the spirit traveling normally.) This is one of the few ways to kill a magus in dreams.

Dreamscape — Dream Or Reality?

Some would say of the dreamscape that it is all an extended dream. No physical form has ever crossed from a dream into the dreamscape, and no-one has ever taken real-world vis through; likewise the normal Arcane Connection to the entranced body of the spirit traveler is lost while in the dreamscape. Thus, no permanent change can be made real in the dreamscape, although dream forms and dream vis suffice for almost all purposes.

If one opens a portal from the dreamscape to dream, the traveler can take no real-world vis, and so cannot make any real changes to the remote dream. Does that remote dream actually exist — or is it in fact a dream of a dream? Dream magi claim it is real, but it may not be so. Some even claim to have arranged rendezvoused with other dream travelers equipped with real-world vis on the body of the remote dreamer.

The Volshebnii Mechtateli

'In dreams begin responsibilities. Be they decadent dreamers or utopian idealists, the dream witches have sinister reputation, as befits a cult that truly possesses the power of nightmares.

The History of the Volshebnii Mechtateli

Dreams hold a particular fascination for those who live in northern climes; the long nights and the great vault of the heavens above the forests of one region of the Novgorod Tribunal gave birth to one of the most peculiar dream theorists of all time, Raisa of Ex Miscellanea. She was an imaginative child, given to flights of fancy. As an apprentice, she traveled many times with her parens to a small village in the Baltic area, where the locals practiced dream magics unknown to the Order. Her mistress was so driven to distraction by her inability to concentrate she almost gave up teaching her many times, but The Gift was so strong in her that she relented, and continued to teach the exasperating girl.

Raisa’s natural aptitude with Imaginem was immense, and her Gauntlet is still whispered of among those who study the Art. It was held before the entire Tribunal, and she was able to pass easily — and then reveal she had not done so, but merely convinced everyone she had completed the task set. From that time onward people did not mock her as much — a new maga able to cast such magics in the powerful Aegis of the Tribunal was clearly deserving of respect.

The pain of the taunting she had endured in her childhood stayed with Raisa though. Withdrawing often into her lab, yet never producing any enchantments and rarely writing books, her covenant mates dismissed her as a waste of magical resources. Apart from casting enchantments to hide the covenant from mortal eyes, and her very occasional and sadly incomprehensible writings on Mentem and Imaginem, she seemed to have little to offer. She became withdrawn, rarely bothering with meetings, and almost uninterested in the news that the others avidly sought from Redcap visits. Apart from three visits to the Baltic village that had fascinated her as a child, she seemed introverted to the point of insanity.

Yet one day when the covenant was attacked by a potent faerie drake that had long slumbered in the forest nearby, it was she who came to the rescue. The creature could only be defeated, it was said, by the tears of a rhinoceros — which are hard to find indeed in the forests of Novgorod. Yet emerging from her lab, Raisa had just such an item — and said, when asked, that she had found it within dreams. Recalling odd visions, and peculiar sensations in their dreams, her covenant mates suddenly realized that somehow Raisa had found a way to make the stuff of dreams real. From that day, Raisa’s tradition, the Volshebnii Mechtateli, has been accorded much respect. The name is derived from the Russian for “Magical Dreamers,” Raisa’s grasp of Latin was mediocre at best, and her incomprehensible ramblings led to the term being misunderstood as the name of the cult, rather than as a description of the magic it taught.

The Volshebnii Mechtateli are an example of the application of Hermetic theory by a single genius to an idea inspired by a hedge magic tradition.

The Volshebnii Mechtateli Today

While the majority of the Order chooses to live in covenants, there are always those who participate little in the communal life of the magi, or who choose to live entirely on their own, being known as eremites. While this is the stereotype of insular and solitary dream magi, many others are outgoing, filled with life and highly sociable — yet have secret inner lives that are beyond the imagination of their sodales. In fact, the Volshebnii Mechtateli are highly sociable, but many of their meetings, their discussions, and the strangest of their rites are conducted far from the waking world, in the lands of dream.

Living geographically across the Tribunals of the Order, in dreams they meet, feast, and attempt to outdo each other in creating new and fantastic forms and places and beings of pure fancy. The Vermilion Temple of Wistful Sighs, their sacred place, has no mirror on Earth; made of emeralds, it floats above lemon clouds hanging over an azure sea never rippled by wave or tide. Within its countless halls, many secrets are spoken, and many strange desires made real, yet travelers there rarely speak of what they learned — for who can be sure what was real, and what was not? Sensual delights and exotic passions abound there, and terrible fears and nightmare beings stalk the hallways, ready to rend apart the spirit of those unwary folk who stumble upon its mysteries and defile it by their presence.

While an Initiate may invite guests into the Outer Chambers of the Courtyard (known as the Slumbering) to proceed further without Initiation is to defile the Mystery, and the penalty is a thousand deaths, enacted nightly in dream; the first time as the dreamer is torn apart by his own personal nightmare, and every night thereafter for one thousand nights, by which time the victim has long since been lost to madness.

The cult deals in both whimsy and terror, in aesthetics and in corruption. As mirrors of mortal desires, dreams are places terrible beyond despair, yet beautiful beyond words. The power to shape dreams is a form of mental invasion that no sane person would wish to allow, and in the early 11th century a number of leading members of the Volshebnii Mechtateli were Marched when it became clear that they were attempting to shape the dreams, and hence the aspirations, of several magi in the Order. The dream witches, as they are commonly known by non-members, are feared and hated perhaps more than any other Hermetic group, and while Durenmar has many texts related to dream magics, they are forbidden to almost all, deliberately lost in that covenant’s archives. Learning the magics is not illegal; only a magus practicing them on his sodales in the Order, or using them to interfere with mundanes. But the practice is definitely discouraged.

The Vermilion Temple persists beyond all dreams, and some say it is a dream in the mind of an Eternal Sleeper, whose identity is known only to the lords and ladies of the cult. Perhaps within the Temple’s inner sanctum lie clues that would establish the dreamer’s existence and identity, or even allow him to be awakened and return once more to the world. Many have speculated as to the Eternal Dreamer’s identity, and rumor suggests a dreaming old one, the sleeping king under the hill, or even Tytalus the Founder forever ensorcelled in an enchanted sleep. The truth is no doubt as strange and startling as our wildest dreams and fancies.

Structure of the Volshebnii Mechtateli

The Volshebnii Mechtateli did not start out as a Mystery Cult, but rather as a series of magical breakthroughs. Soon dreamers began to aspire to change the world, and as is the way of dreamers, their utopian vision began to change to the stuff of nightmare. A small group of Volshebnii Mechtateli enthusiasts began to play with the dreams of the great and the mighty, both within the Order and within the world. They knew no boundary but imagination and no morality beyond desire, and who in a dream can truly be hurt?

When the reaction came it was rapid and brutal. There were probably less than ten dream Initiates in the Order at that time, and six perished in a series of Marches that saw incurable madness and death by sleep deprivation befall three of the magi who dared oppose them. If terror can strike a powerful magus in his dreams, where is there to run to? When the Sharp Awakening (as the cult call this period) ended, all the known dream magi were dead. Yet a few lived on, now hiding their interests, and unwilling to ever show their powers in public. Time passed, the Order fell back into slumber, and today dream witches are a bogeyman used to scare apprentices.

Yet the Volshebnii Mechtateli lived on in dreams, and one young maga from Loch Leglean, Agnes of Tremere, saw the terrible misery dreams had inflicted. She decided to refound the group, not as an informal association who would teach their Hermetic specialty to anyone, but as a Mystery open only to those whose dreams were beautiful, and whose hopes were pure. Taking as the motto of the reformed cult “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” she envisioned the Volshebnii Mechtateli as serving the Order, and following an agenda that would allow the flowering of a new age of beauty and peace.

Dreams change swiftly, and while the motto remains, idealists rarely live bounded by rules.

The cult has almost no hierarchy or structure. It acknowledges only two degrees — the Lords (and Ladies) of The Passions, who know the Minor Virtue Dream Magic, and the Monarchs of the Veiled Court, who maintain the sacred dream of the Vermilion Temple, and may enter its innermost chambers, The Sanctuary of Lost Dreams. Initiation is offered in dream only to those who have proven an aptitude in Imaginem and Mentem as a specialty that far exceeds the norm, and usually to relatively newly Gauntleted magi, for the weight of years crushes the dreams of those who live too long in this vale of tears. Individual magi are Initiated by a single individual, and never know the real identities of the others they meet while in the realms of dreams. Although not part of a formal degree, an Initiate may persuade his elder to teach him the Virtues Minor Potent Magic (dream) or Magical Focus (dream), or an Aptitude or Affinity in Imaginem or Mentem. Many are brought into this secret in the final years of their apprenticeship, and those who react with horror are often brutally killed before they can divulge the secret, and while they have no legal rights within the Order.

The Death of A Thousand Nightmares This is a truly horrible fate. The unwary or unwise intruder who stumbles upon the Vermilion Temple is attacked by a creature that in some way embodies his own worst and most terrible nightmare. Because it is his personal nemesis, there is no escape for those who are not Initiates of the school of dream magic, although Imaginem magics can be used by Initiates who choose to intervene on behalf of the afflicted magi.

Editor's Note: This text includes errata.

Attribution

Attribution Based on the material for Ars Magica, ©1993-2024, licensed by Trident, Inc. d/b/a Atlas Games®, under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license 4.0 ("CC-BY-SA 4.0"). Ars Magica Open License Logo ©2024 Trident, Inc. The Ars Magica Open License Logo, Ars Magica, and Mythic Europe are trademarks of Trident, Inc., and are used with permission. Order of Hermes, Tremere, Doissetep, and Grimgroth are trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB and are used with permission.