Val'Syra

Val’Syra is the Realm of Dreams, a plane adrift beyond the reach of waking thought. It is not bound to the Great Wheel nor shaped by the laws of the known cosmos. Often described as a mutable world formed of memory, emotion, and imagination, Val’Syra is a liminal place where thought becomes landscape and belief shapes truth.

Here, time does not flow in lines but in ripples. The self is a suggestion, not a certainty. A dreamer might find themselves wandering a silver garden beneath a sky of painted glass, only to turn and step into a city built from forgotten lullabies. Entire vistas flicker like candlelight, born from a child's fantasy or an elder’s sorrow. Even one's form may change, reflected in how they see themselves or how others dream them to be.

While most mortals brush only the gentler edges of Val’Syra during sleep, rarely remembering more than glimpses, some are drawn deeper. These dreamers may awaken changed, carrying echoes of strange vistas, unspoken truths, or visions too vivid to ignore. A few never awaken at all, their minds lost in dreamscapes that were never theirs.

Wandering this shifting world are beings native to the Dreaming. The Valreni, luminous and silent, act as shepherds and guides, appearing in times of confusion or peril. Dreamborn, meanwhile, are transient creatures conjured by powerful memories or desires. Some flicker away in moments; others linger to build entire ephemeral domains. And far beneath the veil of safety, there are darker things.

The Threxil are nightmares given form—shadows that feed on fear, loss, and the unraveling of self. Drawn to moments of doubt and vulnerability, they whisper to dreamers, hoping to pull them deeper into the shifting folds where identity is lost. Those who succumb may never return, or return as something else.

There are tales of mortals touched by the Dreaming who never fully return to waking life. Called Dream-Touched, these individuals see what others cannot, drift between memory and reality, and hear whispers in stillness. Some become visionaries or prophets. Others lose themselves entirely.

Val’Syra cannot be mapped or measured. It has no sun or moon, yet light finds its way into every fold. Its skies are ever-changing, brilliant with constellations that never were, or blackened with sorrow and storm. Its geography rewrites with every breath, shaped by the minds that enter it and the emotions they carry.

And though it feels, at times, more real than waking life… it is not without danger. For in Val’Syra, even dreams can dream.