[Beast: The Primordial] The Primordial Dream

Out of Character (OOC):
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition/Beast: The Primordial
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

The Primordial Dream:
The Edge of Temenic Space from the eyes of the Begotten
The following is lore known by the Begotten and to a very select few Awakened. The Horrors that devour the souls of Beasts live in a liminal place within Astral Space between the Temenos and the Anima Mundi. This is the place where mankind's first fears manifest, a holdover of man's mortal terrors from the Time of Nightmares. Before the Fall. Before the Sundering.

Sources:
- Beast: The Primordial corebook
- Beast Players Guide sourcebook

Humanity is a young species. Looking at anatomy, the species dates back roughly 200,000 years, but the behaviors that identify us as human are much more recent. We moved from family groups to communities to villages to cities, and now, in the modern era, our numbers exceed seven billion. Scientists and sociologists discuss the implications this ever-increasing number has for the health of the planet and the continued survival of the species, but few of them understand the effect the population has on the Primordial Dream.

The Primordial Dream is, at its most basic level, the collective fears of humanity. As human beings emerged as a species and developed the ability to see patterns, to recognize one thing as reminiscent of another, it in turn developed the ability to fear ideas. A shadow might look like a predator, and elicit a response of terror — what caused the terror, then? Not the shadow; shadows are harmless. Not the predator; that never existed. What caused the terror was the idea of the predator, as expressed through the shadow and interpreted by the person’s mind. That predator, then, a hundred times more terrifying and deadly than any naturally occurring monster, takes its place in the Primordial Dream.

Fear is basic. Fear is survival. Fear teaches simple, understandable lessons. Even now, parents use fear to keep their children in line: fear of punishment, fear of pain, fear of disapproval. Fear
appeals to the simplest, animal instincts that humanity possesses: Do this and thrive. Don’t do this and perish. The Primordial Dream hearkens back to a time before humanity could convey complex ideas through language. In simple, bloody terms, people taught one another what they needed to fear, and those lessons were encoded in the Primordial Dream as monsters.

NOISE

Over time, the population increased and people came together in ever-larger communities. The human mind is equipped to recognize a finite number of other people — approximately 150-200. Anything past that number isn’t a “person.” This works well in a small group, but as the number of humans grew, people’s minds became overwhelmed by the number of unrecognizable beings around them. This led to a number of effects; xenophobia, paranoia, and increased tribalism among them. It also meant that the simple, uncomplicated language of the Primordial Dream was drowned out by the noise of billions of voices, all experiencing the fear of being surrounded by strangers.

Some people, though, still dream deep. Some people, for whatever reason, touch the Primordial Dream. When they do, they have nightmares, often (but not always) including terrible monsters. Sometimes the nightmares have recurring themes or characters, while some dreamers experience an endless cavalcade of frightening variety. Every nightmare, though, carries with it some wisdom.

The lesson of the nightmare isn’t always something a dreamer wants to hear, but the dreamer can always interpret it. She wakes knowing that her partner isn’t just going through a difficult time — she’s abusive. The relationship is toxic. The dreamer must leave. Perhaps the dreamer awakens knowing that his drug habit has gone out of control, and he must get help or die. The dreamer might even come to a realization that something in her life is dangerous, whether predatory or supernatural. Her connection with the Primordial Dream is protecting her the way it has always protected humanity: through fear.

HORRORS

The Primordial Dream is vast and dark, but it isn’t empty. It contains endless vistas, each corresponding to a place on Earth in which a human being was shaken to her very core. When
the population was small, these “Chambers” were few and far between. As humans spread, however, their terrors spread with them. Now the Primordial Dream holds myriad Chambers, most of them floating unconnected with those around it. Each of these Chambers reflects some hapless person losing a bit of herself.

In the metaphysical geography of the Primordial Dream, Chambers are closest to the waking world. As more Chambers are created, the older Chambers are pushed further out into the formless deeps. Such Chambers become disconnected from their origins, their features taking on a combination of accurate memory and imagined narrative. Eventually, something from the outer darkness crawls in — a Horror.

A Horror is a nightmare monster, a creature from the dreams of a terrified human being. Modern Beasts theorize that every time a person dreams of monsters, that monster either already exists somewhere in the Primordial Dream (and the dream calls on ancestral memory) or is created at that moment as a Horror (if the dreamer is one of the special few whose dreams go so deep). In any case, the Horror drifts through the Dream, eventually reaching one of the outer Chambers. If it finds one it considers habitable, it enters it, settles down, and bonds with it. The Chamber becomes a Lair.

Horrors, on their own, rarely touch the minds of human beings deeply enough to have a greater effect than a particularly intense nightmare; it might be a cause for discussion, even analysis, but doesn’t do any lasting harm to a person. Only when Lairs are close to the waking world do the nightmares have the power to cause real harm. The primary way this happens, of course, is when a human being becomes a Beast.

THE WIDER DREAM

The Begotten roam through many strange worlds in search of their Legends, following kin and slipping through portals, but all Beasts share one in particular, the one their Horrors inhabit. It’s called “Primordial” despite being ever-changing and of the moment, new Chambers spawning from fresh trauma and old ones fading away. It’s called a “Dream” despite being formed largely from the terrors of waking humanity, and its far removal from the fantasies of sleep. Every Beast is irrevocably tied to it through their Lair, but many never venture beyond their own Chambers into the rest of the Hive, or out into the wider Dream. Fewer still master all its hidden rules and secrets, but those that do have the penultimate home ground advantage, second only to the Unfettered.

SOULS AND CHAMBERS

The Primordial Dream is no dream at all. It’s much deeper in the human psyche than that. Imagine a plant with branching roots, turned upside down and buried again. To a casual observer, it looks like dozens of tiny, individual tubules, but below the surface they join, and join again, until they meet at the main body of the plant.

Human souls are like the root endings. They appear individual to a being in the material world capable of perceiving them, but in truth there’s really only one human soul: a spiritual level of connection all people share, which branches into their isolated lives. Although human beings are the only creatures to bear souls as supernatural powers detect them, at some level that communal spiritual layer joins with everything else. Deep within the collective human spirit, there’s a barrier, a gap, a gulf separating humanity from the “souls” of other animals, of the world itself, and of the universe. What Beasts call the Primordial Dream surrounds that demarcation, the deepest part of shared human spirituality. “Above” it lies the Bright Dream, the myriad realms of stories, emotions, and concepts. Above those are the individual soul-realms of living people, and on the very surface the waking thoughts and sleeping dreams of humanity play out where the soul meets the living mind.

Most dreams don’t affect the soul at all. Beasts who explore to the very limits of the Bright Dream can witness dreams and thoughts come and go from within the souls of those experiencing them, like sunlight seen from under water. Beasts can even influence those dreams and thoughts from within, but it’s like touching something through a membrane. On rare occasions, a person experiences something profound enough that their dreams or thoughts do warp the Bright Dream, pushing “in” and leaving an impression. Only the very rarest “dream deep” enough to affect the Primordial Dream itself, their nightmares ripping through the collective human soul like the ripples of an earthquake.

Most change to the Primordial regions comes through trauma. Two things offer a potential Chamber. First, an exceptionally powerful Nightmare manifested by a Beast, flooding an area of the material world with the stuff of the Primordial Dream and reshaping the Dream with the nature of that area in return. Beasts within the Dream when this happens experience the Dream gradually reshaping into the potential Chamber like a flower blooming, the changes growing outward from the place in the Dream corresponding to the Nightmare’s victim. Or secondly, a human (or supernatural being with a human-like psychology) is shaken to their very core by a traumatic experience. Beasts within that person’s individual soul or looking on in the Primordial Dream experience the new Chamber ripping itself into the Dream in a violent, sudden fashion.

A Chamber forming isn’t necessarily dangerous to onlookers in the dream, though once it fully forms it has a Lair Trait even when unclaimed, so cautious Beasts retreat from a blooming Chamber until they know what its nature is. Unless a Beast adds the fresh Chamber to her Lair, and therefore to the Hive of local Chambers, the potential Chamber slowly fades from the communal landscape of the Primordial Dream like a wound gradually healing. The Chamber isn’t destroyed by falling away from the dreamscape like this — it falls into the Mists, the furthest part of the Primordial Dream, where it might attract a nascent Horror and eventually become a Beast’s Heart. As it fades, a Chamber leaves signs of its passing on the dreamscape; a former Chamber has no associated Lair trait, but still looks like the material-world location that prompted its creation.

The rate at which a potential Chamber fades into the Mists greatly varies depending on how strong the trauma that made it was (Nightmare-induced Chambers tend to fade faster) and  whether the person who made them is still affected by their experience or even still alive. A new Chamber-creating event in the same place will “overwrite” any unclaimed Chambers and push them into the Mists, though if a Beast has already included the scene in her Lair any further Chambers overlaid onto it result in the two Lairs being merged. When a Beast dies, her Chambers begin fading into the Mists as they lose the binding force of the Lair.

Outside the sudden appearances of potential Chambers, the Primordial Dream is still part of the collective human soul, and the thoughts and dreams of humanity do shape it on a subtler but longer-lasting basis. Anywhere anyone has ever thought or dreamt about in the context of fear is reflected in the Dream, carving it into a rough facsimile of material reality by the pressure of millions of tiny changes, like water shaping rock. Over 100 billion modern humans have lived on Earth since the species first evolved, and some Beasts tell stories about preying on earlier hominids. Only those few wildernesses no one has ever been to — the ocean depths, much of Antarctica — don’t reflect the material world with their Dreaming equivalents.

The dreamscape outside a Chamber, though, is empty. No people or animals disturb its silence, although the buildings, possessions, and garbage of human habitation are all present. vehicles sit, driverless, on packed but motionless freeways. The clouds move in the sky, and water flows, but the sky is always dark, as though the sun has just set. The surroundings seem fragile, giving the impression a concerted effort could blow them away like smoke.  Despite the apparent tranquility, travelers have a definite sense of being watched, observed, even stalked. (something any Eshmaki point to as evidence that their family is a more Primordial one than the others). The only “wildlife” exists within Chambers, where they formed as part of a Lair’s theme or have been imported via Primordial Pathway by the Beast. And at the Heart of every Lair, the true native beings of the Primordial Dream lurk: the Horrors.

Chamber Systems:  
An unclaimed potential Chamber has a single Lair Trait based on its nature, any local Hive Trait caused by the presence of an Apex, no Burrows connecting it to other parts of the Hive, and fades gradually over time. If a Chamber was created by a Nightmare, it fades after any effects caused by the Nightmare (including any Conditions) are resolved. If a Chamber was caused by Integrity or related Trait loss, it fades after the victim dies or regains the lost Trait dot. These rates are only guidelines, however, and particularly potent events might cause potential Chambers that last for months or years, waiting for a Beast to track them down.

The creation of a Chamber via exceptional success takes a scene to complete within the Dream — slow enough to be safe for any onlookers in the dreamscape caught up in its creation, as long as they aren’t affected by its Lair or Hive Trait. Chambers ripped into the dreamscape by Integrity Trait loss are more dangerous. They form in the Trait’s new level in turns, and if the roll to avoid Trait loss (for example, a breaking point roll for Integrity, or an Act of Hubris roll for Wisdom) resulted in a dramatic failure, the Chamber’s formation completes in a single turn. Anyone within the area of the dreamscape caught up in the transformation is subject to the Dreamquake Tilt. The dreamscape outside the Chamber is easy to disrupt. While objects within a Chamber follow all the usual rules for Durability and Structure, players of travelers in the wider Primordial Dream add any Supernatural Tolerance Trait (Lair for Beasts) as successes to any attempt to damage the surroundings, as long as they roll a single success. In the Bright Dream, this extends to attempts to injure Actors, but does not apply to full Dreamborn, Horrors, travelers who are physically present or the Dream Forms of beings hailing from outside the astral.


DREAMQUAKE 
(Environmental Tilt)
Description: The dreamscape of the Primordial Dream is forming a new chamber so suddenly it poses a risk to characters caught up in it. The faster the chamber forms, the greater the risk to those caught up in its creation.
 Effect: A Dreamquake has a strength rating equal to 10 – the Dreamquake’s duration. While the quake is in effect, characters within suffer penalties to Finesse rolls equal to half the Dreamquake’s strength, rounded up. At the start of the quake, every character within suffers its strength in bashing damage. If this amount is greater than a character’s Size, that character also suffers the Knocked Down Tilt.  
Causing the Tilt: A new Chamber was formed by Integrity loss. Sometimes, destroying a Chamber also causes a Dreamquake, and certain Unfettered have the power to cause the Tilt deliberately.

THE CALL OF HOME

One thing remains constant for beasts who leave their Lairs. No matter where they are in the myriad realms of the soul, from the loudest cultural story in the Bright Dream to the deepest reaches of the Mother’s Land, they can always find their way back to their Lair. (Whenever presented by any choice of routes, a successful Wits + Lair roll by the Beast’s player reveals which way will lead back to the Primordial Dream, and once in the dreamscape which way leads to the nearest Chamber of her Lair.)
This uncanny homing sense also serves as a warning when a Beast really wanders off the beaten track — it only functions within the Astral Realms, so a Beast who follows a Primordial Pathway out into an unknown part of the universe is instantly aware that she isn’t in the Dream or its neighbors any more. That the homing sense doesn’t work in the Hedge tells Beasts exploring Kinship with changelings that while they may both explore dreams and nightmares, wherever the fae escaped from isn’t in the Dream.

LEAVING THE LAIR

When a Beast leaves her Lair without using a Primordial Pathway, she separates from her Horror and leaves it behind in her Chambers while she wanders the wider dreamscape as a Dream Form. Once out, she may travel in the Dream as though she were in the material world. For example, a Beast whose Chamber is a church next to a shopping mall may leave her Lair to explore the Primordial Dream’s fragile version of the mall. A Beast always knows when she has entered a Chamber, and whether or not it’s already part of another Beast’s Lair. She only merges with her Horror again if a Chamber she enters is linked to her own Lair, either directly or as part of a Brood Lair. The merger is not always instantaneous, but is usually swift, as the Horror instantly realizes she is back in the Lair and merges with her upon entering the same Chamber. Some cunning opponents (other Beasts, Heroes, kin who know too much) invading a Lair attempt to seal Burrows ahead of the Beast’s arrival, denying the Begotten the advantage of taking on her Horror’s form.

Unlike Chambers, Burrows do not appear in the wider dreamscape. If a Beast has two Chambers across the region from one another and uses a Burrow to travel between them, he does not appear in the dreamscape in transit, and a second Beast waiting in the emptiness between will not be able to ambush him. The terrain of a Burrow does not have to conform to what’s “really” between the places that served as inspiration for the connected Chambers, either. In fact, they usually don’t. Dream-logic transitions, such as opening a door and walking down a corridor to reach the bottom of the ocean, are much more common.

Beasts who explore Kinship with other supernatural beings quickly learn that the Begotten experience of the Primordial Dream is not universal. Mages (perhaps the most likely kin found exploring the dreamscape) navigate almost as though using a Burrow no matter where they go, appearing and disappearing as they hop from scene to scene along thematic or symbolic lines. Once kin enter a Lair, though, they’re forced to use the Burrows like everyone else or leave. Mixed groups travel according to whoever’s leading the way.

HIVES AND HEARTS

Beasts call the sum total of all claimed and unclaimed Chambers in a region, plus the network of Burrows linking the claimed ones into Lairs, the region’s Hive. Many Begotten describe the relationship between dreamscape and Hive as being like the surface world and underground tunnels, hence the names “Chamber” and “Burrow.” When asked by guests why Chambers seem so much more “real” than the Primordial Dream at large, traditional Beasts like to say that the Hive is deeper in the soul than the dreamscape, closer to the Dark Mother. To these Beasts, the Hive Trait is the result of proximity to the very bedrock of spiritual reality, like deep caves being warmed by geothermal vents. The Apex is merely the face those Primordial energies take, which is why the position can be usurped so easily; the Hive naturally takes on an aspect of the biggest, scariest monster in the regions making up its Chambers. Although it is wide-reaching, the Hive is not all encompassing. Every Beast has at least one Chamber that has no earthly reflection; their Heart, the original Chamber of their Horror.

The Apex has no sway within the Hearts of the Hive’s Lairs, unless the position is held by one of the Beasts themselves. Begotten are also quite capable of forming Chambers from far-flung locations well away from their local Hive’s reach. If these Chambers fall within another Hive, they take on the local Hive Trait. In the case of clashes, such as when a Beast has multiple Chambers not based on material reality and linked to more than one Hive, or when two or more Apexes of the Hives affecting a Lair are Beasts themselves so can all affect the Heart, the Beast chooses one Hive Trait from the available options for each Chamber affected, but may change her mind at any time as a reflexive action. Last, Begotten who explore their kinship with other supernatural beings often find themselves in strange realms of existence far removed from material reality. These pose no impediment to forming Chambers given a suitable trigger Beasts can add locations in the Shadow, Underworld, Hedge, or stranger places to their Lairs. These Chambers lack a Hive Trait, as they aren’t within a Hive.

Newly devoured Beasts exploring the Dream might wonder about where the Hearts of Horrors waiting to devour new Beasts are, or where Chambers formed from esoteric realms relate to the dreamscape they explore between the Chambers of a Hive. Beasts may leave the Lair via a Chamber that doesn’t correspond to a material world location (including the Heart,) and when doing so always find themselves in the Mists, described later in this chapter. Some Beasts take this to mean that otherworldly Chambers are closer to the Mother than the Hives, or even that such Chambers are how new Horrors arise, and make a practice of shunning material inspirations for their Lairs.

FILLING IN THE MAP

Beast assumes that a Begotten character putting in a modicum of effort can identify unclaimed Chambers in their locality, as a means of linking the Beast to local horror stories and exploring their legends. Famous Chambers might last years before fading into the Mists, allowing Beasts to investigate and claim the Chamber as a reward. To make life easier on the Storyteller in defining a setting’s Chambers, consider going around the table at the start of the chronicle, and having each player invent one or two Chambers their characters will later get the chance to encounter.