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The first dragon to live was not the first to die

Now extinct, dragons were once immortal beings of great power, masters of magic and will. There were those, of course, that used their power and grandeur for their own devices, selfishly and without concern of mortals, but not all; some wished to help mortals; to observe them; or even still to be left alone, and live isolated lives.

Never once did a mortal dream of killing a dragon, and never once did a dragon dream: they were never meant to, after all. A simple truth, one that remained as such for untold time, but something happened, something lost to the chaos that ended the Forgotten Ages.

The first dragon to live was not the first to die.

It was the first dragon who dreamed, for they dreamed of Death.

The fear of mortality, the creeping sense of cold dread they had never known. The first to dream never woke up. When the others learned of its death, it spread like a disease, that fear.

You see, magic is a thing of the mind, and a dragons innate mastery of their mind granted them much: but the power of a mind thought unable to be swayed crumbles the moment it so much as shudders, even for a moment. That fear slipped in swiftly, turned their own magic against them, stripping them of their immortality, leaving them vulnerable.

Many went mad, rampaging in their fear, and mortals? They were already lost and afraid at the chaos of the Forgotten Ages end. They fought back, wishing simply to push them back, but when they finally slayed a dragon they grew bold: from cornered animals they became hunters.

The last dragon alive dreamed of Devotion as it died to the spear of the head of Clan Lövkrams, wishing its kin had not lost themselves to madness and fear.

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The Siren of Martyr's Drop

I hath had a revelation on an encounter idea just moments ago. I have these things I my game I call 'Mythical Encounters', both good and bad, that players could encounter during travels: unscaled world bosses, events you can gain much from if interacted with right, etc etc. Some can be intentionally encountered, their stories known well enough you could travel to their locations, while others are a random chance such as the one I am thinking on right now.

Technically, it's a chance while in a fairly specific area of the continent they reside on: Marty's Drop of the Balearium Plateaus. It's a fairly small region of many large plateaus and a steep island utop of which sits the town of Marty's Drop. Its well known that on foggy nights one must ensure they shut their doors and windows tight, and sleep with their ears plugged, as a mournful song will lure you to fall from the islands highest point if you don't.

Such a place being populated is perhaps strange, but those that live there have their reasons: denwarven researchers interested in the formations of the island and Plateaus stone and religious folk who wish to honor St. Olivia are common residents.

St. Olivia in particular ties into this mysterious song, so the story goes. Hundreds of years ago on a foggy night a band of brigands were set upon a new settlement upon the island, and due to St. Olivia's bravery, many were saved, hiding within the chapel atop of islands peak. Though the brigands were chased off, she sadly lost her life in the altercation, falling to her death not far from her beloved chapel into the sea below. Its said that was the first night the mournful song was heard, a creature of magic mourning a brave soul by bringing souls to comfort her within her watery grave.

That's the rough jist of the story anyways.

Now, as I said, this is something my player's have a chance to encounter if they happen to travel to Balearium, but I wasn't certain how I was going to go about it exactly before. But it hit me.

I've recently introduced an alternate mechanic to the game that hasn't been tested yet. It was an idea had by a few of my player's that I decided to go along with and try because I understand where they were coming from. Stuns, charms and sleep spells are all well and good theoretically, but having the chance to via bad luck be just stuck for several rounds unable to really do much, that can feel pretty bad.

So, the suggested solution was as such: When stunned or under an effect such as a charm that renders you unable to take actions freely during your turn instead of rolling you may instead break out of the effect by fighting a construct within your mind, actively fighting against the magic or mental block. The enemies difficulty is based on the effects level. Any class resources, spell slots, or similar spent during this encounter are not gone when you awaken, but instead add to an increasing Con DC to avoid gaining a level of exhaustion from the effort taken to shake yourself free.

I've realized I can use that for this encounter. If they roll poorly enough on a travel check while on the island I can have a description of a sudden fog creeping in during the night, and the faint sounds of a song in the distance lulling them to sleep, only for them to wake all together in a strange dreamlike place having to face an embodiment of this creatures power to wake themselves. Ending the encounter with a cool fun 'as this strange realm around you begins to fade, the siren's form dissipating, you find yourselves waking once again, stumbling bleary-eyed as you catch yourselves moments away from walking over a steep ledge into the rocky ocean below.'

Like, come on, that'd be sick af and I hope they go to Balearium and roll just horribly.

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Figments, Denizens of the Dream

Born from the minds of all connected to the Dream, both man and beast, Figments are magical beings of dichotomy; both of abstracts and logic. None two are the same, they are as diverse in their forms as the minds of those who dream. You may meet Power, who calls upon the imagery of wildfire and storms, and meet another Power who calls forth clever words and knowledge instead.

Their home, the Dream, is a fickle place; harsh and ever changing. As such, Figments are always at risk fading. In their attempts to avoid being forgotten, Figments often find themselves as actors within dreams, though they cannot interact freely with a dreamer. Bound the fundamental laws of the Dream; they cannot interact with a dreamer outside of the context of their dream. Because of this they find themselves drawn to minds that align with themselves. A Figment of Survival finds a better dream to be remembered by in a hungry wolf rather than a noble showered in comforts, as it were.

To exist in the material plane a Figment must be given a vessel, often in the form of familiars, though a powerful enough mage might create something more. it is, however, uncommon to summon anything beyond a small familiar. The energy needed for such conjury requires a mage with great constitution to avoid the birth of a Nightmare, and the Holy Order sees Figments as chaotic beings, too dangerous to trust roaming the land.

But it may not always have been as such.

Much to the confusion of Adrestia Thorn, a strange amalgamation of human and Figment, she recalls a time where one of the beings used to make her, Power, once roamed the land of mortals freely, no vessel and the only laws binding it being its own.

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Echoes of Reverie

Echoes of Reverie is the homebrew dnd game I've been running since just about the veeery end of 2024. A decent amount of work was put into it before hand, about 2 or 3 years of it, though admittedly it was fairly on and off during that period as I was under the impression I probably wouldn't be running the thing for a while longer still. It really picked up the few months before I actually started running it, some fairly major reworks on plans and lore behind the scenes to make things really, well...work I guess.

I hesitate to label it genre wise myself, I almost feel pretentious to do so, though I'm not certain why, but from one of my player's opinion it could be put in the dark/low fantasy circles.

It makes sense, given, its fairly heavily inspired by Enderal, the Dragon Age series, Dark Souls a bit, and in its early stages even a tiny bit of Madoka Magica, though that's since been reworked. As such, I have touched on some darker themes, and plan to touch on more: types of sadness, the ways some people manipulate others, how unintentional harm can affect people, monsters in the dark and those the light, etc etc. That's not to say I plan on telling a story that's all about pain and suffering.

I'm not running this game to try saying that all is horrible, that the people who are willing to do terrible things to reach their goals will always win, that there's nothing that can be done for a better world. I don't believe that, I really don't, and I want my players to finish this game with the feeling that even at their lowest, even feeling like all their power is lost, they can still do something if they do it together. That there can be a better way.

Exploring the 'indomitable human spirit' thing as it were. Its cheesy perhaps, but I really do think its something important to be done in story's like the one I'm telling with it.

All that to say, I'd like to think that the work I did n will continue to do on Echoes and the input and help I received from my friends ended up making something decently unique, even if the theoretical few that might see this blog can see the traces of my inspiration in it(some much more clearly than others) as I share bits of it. As well, I hope that by sharin my thoughts n ideas n world-building I can have a little outlet to keep my brain from burstin while I avoid handing out spoilers left n right to my players.

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I'm losin me marbles with ideas

I've been running a homebrew game for a few months now, n I keep having ideas I wanna talk to someone about, but pretty much everyone I'd want to tell directly is in my game.

Constantly spoiling my players because I want to gush is not a desire I have, but I am gnashing and gnawing to talk about it.

So, taking inspiration from a friend who just started a blog to put out bits of writing that go along with one of their in work worlds, I'm startin this one to go into a fugue state and spill whatever ideas/thoughts it is I have that would be spoilers for my players or that I just don't wanna tell em yet.

I'll probably also be just going over lore of the world in general, stat blocks(they're almost certainly unbalanced, but w/e), etc. Mostly for myself. I like talkin bout it n this blog is literally for that. Might even delve into other worlds I wanna work on eventually, but probably not for a hot minute.

I don't know what I'm doin actually using a blog beyond likin n reblogin vaguely, so ya know, we ball or whatnot.