Fire - Dreamwalking
This is an optional crafting system for generating crystal cores through astral projection meditations.
Dreamwalking
Optional: Your storyteller may choose to use Crystal Cores, Dreamwalking, or both in your campaign
Our spirits walk the Kingdom, drinking deep of the land’s river
Dreamwalking is the art of transforming a tiny chunk of crystal into a Core for your equipment. Weapon Cores, Armor Cores, and others act as the mystical foci for your cultivated equipment, granting a wide range of beneficial powers.
To dreamwalk, you will meditate from a place of safety and send your spirit to travel along the ley lines of the Overworld. You may range far, following the ley lines to places of power where you absorb the elemental energy necessary to incarnate your vision into your crystal core.
- Each Region you travel costs 1 step
- When you arrive at a place of power, you may absorb one element at a cost of 1 step
- You need to syphon the elements listed on the Core recipe; order does not matter
- You must have a Synthesize rating high enough for the Core as usual
- You may encounter blockades and trials that require Challenges or payments in steps to overcome
- Beware fouled ley lines! These ley lines will drain your elements and cost extra steps
- If you run out of steps, the process fails and you awaken to your body
- The crystal core is not expended; however, any tolls paid or other effects remain spent
The number of steps you may take is based on your Ki Strength
- d6: 2 steps per Ki
- d8: 3 steps per Ki
- d10: 4 steps per Ki
- d12: 5 steps per Ki
Thus, you will be able to range further as you reach higher Circles; those cultivators strong in Fire even further!
You may start a dreamwalk anywhere that you are safe.
- Dreamwalking requires one Downtime
- If you are disrupted during the dreamwalk, you instantly awake
The storyteller tracks places of power as part of the Overworld. What counts as a place of power?
- Crystals
- Crystal dens
- Historical sites such as the remnants of ancient battles
- Realms of the Spirits, Shades, and Fae
You may dreamwalk to follow ley lines you have not otherwise visited. Doing so may provide you hints of crystal loci and other valuable locations. However, during a dreamwalk, you perceive the world through metaphor and fantasy; the ley lines beneath your feet might be real, but the terrain in your mind’s eye bears no relation to reality!
While dreamwalking, you may be perceived by Spirits and Shades. Indeed, as we will see below, Spirits and Shades take great interest in (extorting) dreamwalkers!
A preview of some of the obstacles you might face wil dreamwalking:
- Gates: Barriers placed across the ley lines, either physical or spiritual, that require a toll to pass
- Usually the result of Spirits or Shades that demand a cut of the action from passing dreamwalkers!
- Typical payment would be crystal cores or Essence
- If you agree to pay, the materials vanish from your possession and appear in the gatekeeper’s holdings
- Fountains: Places of respite that can restore your
- Storms: These are dangerous to your spiritual projection, enflaming the ley lines or changing the elements of places of power!
- Fouled ley lines: These drain your accrued elements and require extra steps
The art of Dreamwalking
Seln is a young world and fertile soil for the ideas that shape its future.
The alchemy of the Kingdom is equal part art and science. The physical means of crafting are the channel by which you might incarnate your vision. Yet where might you lay hands upon dreams?
Here the early alchemists of the Kingdom took their example from the elemental storms. Raw elemental power shaped the land; so to it might shape one’s blade. Thus the earliest alchemists took up the practice of walking the ley lines. By traversing the ley lines and attuning to the centers of power across the land, the alchemists harnessed fragments of creation’s power for their works.
Walking the ley lines was a dangerous business. Travel in Seln can be perilous even in good weather, and these alchemists followed the ley lines straight into the crystal dens of angry beasts! Only hardened Path warriors could accomplish this feat, and the wonders of old were the province of a select few.
Today, the discovery of Light and Dark will change alchemy forever. Though these elements are new to the Kingdom, the Grace of Fire has already laid claim to a new talent. The alchemists of old walked the ley lines with their feet. The Grace of Fire has taught the next generation of alchemists to instead speed their spirits along dream-like reflections of Seln!
Of course, no sooner did the first Graces of Fire start to dreamwalk the ley lines than they ran smack into the Realms. Dreaming cultivators found themselves drawn into these otherworldly lands, host to new artifice and danger alike.
For their part, the spirits took this in stride. When the matter was related to the Great Lynx at Kawazu, she is said to have replied, “What took you so long?”