Dreamspeaker

The "Dream Harvest" - referring to the vivid dreams experienced by many involved in refining vinum sap into liao - has drawn the dreamspeakers together in Seren, City of Dreams.

Overview

Dreamspeakers are interested in changing the world, in the pursuit of making dreams into reality. They are especially concerned with encouraging others to pursue their own dreams. They see having aspirations, and most especially striving to achieve them, as fundamental to mortal spirits. The Way argues that one cannot be Virtuous simply by saying things - only by doing things - and even the less spiritually inclined dreamspeakers agree with the clear wisdom of this approach. People need to have a clear vision of what they want to accomplish, married to the motivation and dedication to strive to do it. The best-lived life, say the dreamspeakers, is one that is spent actively trying to change the world.

The great dream of many Navarr is to see the vallorn finally defeated. Paradoxically, many dreamspeakers work against this, claiming that the oaths sworn by Navarr and Thorn were to restore civilisation, not to defeat the vallorn. Dreamspeakers argue that the Navarr must encompass much more than just a fight against the Doom of Terunael. They encourage all Navarr to chase their own dreams, to think about what they want to achieve with their lives, rather than stoically dedicating themselves to the singular cause of their forebears.

Dreamspeakers are very interested in dreams, especially daydreams and the kind of lucid dreams that liao brings. They don't believe in studying dreams for symbolic meaning - rather, they see dreams as a way to explore what the heart desires. Dreamspeakers acknowledge that one of the biggest problem many ordinary people face when told to "pursue their dreams" is that they have no great ambition, no overriding goal. Day dreams and lucid dreams are a way to let the imagination run amok, a chance to lose oneself in reflection about what could be, the better to discover what it is that one truly desires to achieve. By looking beyond what you feel you should want, it is possible to learn what it is that you really want.

History

After centuries of struggle, the Empire helped the Navarr finally defeat the vallornheart of Miaren in 27YE. The territory took years to recover - it was under the effects of Wither the Seed for three decades after the war was won. But eventually that passed, and in the years that followed the land blossomed until it became the beating heart of the Navarr, a haven for civilisation, culture and learning. To this day it remains an enduring symbol of what could be achieved by those who follow their dreams.

As the years passed and the city of Seren grew, it demanded that the people who settled there contemplate what the Navarr might accomplish beyond the fight against the vallorn. Inhabitants of Miaren remain committed to their oaths, and the territory plays a vital role in the Long War by supplying Navarr armies and giving stridings a safe, central, place to rest. But those who desired nothing more than to fight the vallorn personally could only do so by moving to another Navarr territory. The city of Seren became the natural home for many Navarr whose personal Ambitions encompassed something beyond the traditional fight.

We don't collect history so that we know what happened. The point of history is to remind us of all the things we are capable of. Of the things we can do if we only put our mind to it. Once we built great cities of architecture and beauty and splendour. Cities that lived and breathed and fed a million people.

Cordelia of Winter's Sorrow, dreamspeaker

Such sentiments were catalysed by a judgement upheld by the General Assembly in Spring 383YE that reminded the Navarr that while they may struggle against the vallorn, they are also "a people of great culture, history, and virtue". It called on people to recognise Seren as one of the great cities of the Empire, alongside Tassato, Meade, Kalpaheim and the rest. In response, the people of the city put forward three proposals for distinctly different ways Seren could embrace that potential.

The discussion took years to settle, but eventually the Navarr coalesced around the vision put forward by the dreamspeakers of Seren. More vinum grows in Miaren than anywhere else, and over the years the city developed to become the centre of liao production in the Empire. Those exposed to the intoxicating aroma from liao refinement often experience profound dreams that seem almost visionary in nature - the Dream Harvest as it is known by some of those employed to gather and prepare it. The dreamspeakers were those who studied these visions, encouraging the Navarr to embrace their dreams. Dradan of the River Falls proposed the construction of a great place of worship, the Temple of the Waking Dream, as a place where the Navarr guides can explore dreams to better understand how the Great Dance interlocks with the teachings and doctrines of the Way.

The Temple was imagined as a set of gardens including wayhouses and shrines suitable for use by both pilgrims and students of spirituality. It was intended to attract pilgrims from across the Empire, particularly those dissatisfied with their lives who were seeking to find new purpose. The Temple would inevitably boost the prominence of the dreamspeakers, those Navarr who focused on fostering and studying dreams, and encouraging people to understand their ambitions and what might be needed to accomplish them. At its core the manifesto of the dreamspeakers is to help the Navarr remember their dreams, and to remember that once they dreamed of something more than just unending war with the vallorn. Once, they say, the Navarr stood for something, not just against something. The dreamspeakers were open about the fact that they intended to use the Temple to help the Navarr put words to their dreams, to imagine a future greater than the one they hold now.

Work didn't begin until three years later in Summer 386YE, and for a while it looked like it might never be finished - that it would stand only as a testimony to the foolishness of those who dreamed that the Navarr might be something more than just a bulwark against the horrors of the Spring realm. But those who believed that Seren could reach for something more persevered, and eventually the money was found to pay for the great work. In Autumn 388YE, it was finally completed. Quietly, Seren became the City of Dreams, bringing the dreamspeakers to the fore and carrying their message to everyone who would listen.

A Future Imagined

The goal of the dreamspeakers is to encourage the Navarr to pursue their dreams. They don't dismiss the war against the vallorn - though some argue that it is misconstrued and remind their fellows that Navarr and Thorn didn't swear an oath to destroy the vallorn but rather to restore the civilisation of Terunael. Dreamspeakers want to do more than just defeat the vallorn; they want to pursue the legacy of their founders by building civilisation. They want the Navarr to stop sublimating their personal ambitions until a time comes when the vallorn is defeated and instead to give voice to their own dreams to create extraordinary things, to fill the world with culture and learning

Dreamspeakers want the Navarr to follow their dreams; they want people to choose to pursue their hopes and aspirations because they dream of what might be accomplished. A few go further and argue that the oaths the Navarr swear are a mistake. They claim that oaths force someone to act in a certain way by creating a sense of obligation. How many Navarr fight against the vallorn because they feel they must, because they have sworn to do it, rather than because they truly wish to devote their lives to a seeming endless war? If the path of Virtue lies in choosing to do something, what does it mean to give up that choice? Of course someone must choose to swear an oath, but that is a single act of Virtue. How much more Virtuous is it to choose that path every day, without the comfort of falling back on a past oath to make such choices unnecessary?

Dreams

Dreams are known to be connected to the soul. Liao can be used to foster incredibly lucid dreams, and there are a handful of Night magic rituals that can create visionary reverie. Dreamspeakers don't see a meaningful distinction between someone's aspirations, and their ambitions, and the kind of lucid dreams pursued through liao or even just by powerful daydreams. Daydreams often reveal the fulfilment of wishes or hopes - and all dreams can help a person to understand what it is they would like to achieve with their life. Some dreams even reveal to the dreamer what it is they need to do to achieve their ambitions, or can be studied to uncover what it is that holds them back.

Dreamspeakers who consider such matters believe that dreams are at the heart of the Way. Spiritual philosophers know that the pursuit of Virtue lies in what a person does with their life. The Doctrine of Enlightenment explicitly states that "Virtue lies in choice and action". Dreams have the power to motivate people to make choices and to take action. Dreamspeakers believe that a life spent in pursuit of ones dreams is, by default, a life of Virtue. Not every dreamspeaker centres the Way in their approach to their philosophy, but they still encourage everyone to walk the path that leads from a dream, through an aspiration, to a change in the world.

We put words to dreams, the better to remember them. To remember that once we dreamed of something more than just unending war with the vallorn. That we stood for something, not just against something.

Dradan of the River Falls, dreamspeaker

To dream is to contemplate the possibility of what could be. Sleepers and daydreamers experience dreams as a reflection of their soul's desires. Most dreamspeakers don't try to mine dreams for symbolism and obscure meaning; rather, they encourage people to embrace those dreams that reveal the truth of their aspirations, their hopes and desires, and their fears. The dreams experienced when someone sleeps can be a window into the soul, revealing what the heart truly desires. These are the dreams that should be embraced on waking - dreamspeakers try to help people remember these dreams and encourage and support them in the pursuit of them.

Dreams are important because they can help to motivate and encourage people to take action. It's not Virtuous to waste a life away dreaming of what could be - it still takes committed action to make those dreams come true. When a person sees themselves in dreams accomplishing great things, it can help give them the confidence to believe that such a thing could happen. Seeing ambitions realised in dreams can help to make them clearer and make them feel more real, more achievable. The true goal of a dreamspeaker is not to get people to dream of what they might accomplish; it is to find a way to put a person on the path to achieving those goals. Dreams can be crucial for giving people the confidence and the impetus to take the first steps in pursuing their heart's desire.

Of course, sometimes a dream is just a dream. Sometimes, even the most memorable dream may be nothing more than a weaving of Night magic, or the results of eating a bad piece of cheese. Dreams that are simply bizarre collections of symbols and strange events might allow a Wintermark mystic to discern some wider meaning in the waking world, but they rarely tell them anything about themselves. Such dreams are of little interest to dreamspeakers - they want to use dreams to help people understand their true self, not to divine omens about the future. Almost all dreamspeakers draw a distinction between dreams that come from within - from the spirit of the dreamer - and those that come from without - from magic or the use of potions such as Goosewhisper Infusion. Such dreams can be useful in various ways, providing entertainment or even insight into current events, but they are not true dreams, and must always be a little suspect due to their ultimate artificiality.

Some dreamspeakers speculate that particularly deep dreams can reach far beyond a sleepers' waking life and touch the fathomless well of their past lives - or in the case of orcs perhaps the spirits of their ancestors - which can provide profound wisdom and unlooked for guidance. After all, these dreamspeakers argue, liao and true liao are relatively recent discoveries in the grand history of the world, yet people believed in reincarnation long before the evidence provided by the pursuit of past life visions.

Dreamspeakers and Guides

The role of the dreamspeaker is complementary to that of the guide, and there is some overlap between them. Indeed, until the completion of the Temple of the Waking Dream, few people thought of dreamspeakers as distinct from guides. Both roles have a strong pastoral side, both minister to people's needs, and it is common for both to walk the path of the priest. There are differences however, and the completion of the City of Dreams has helped make those differences more apparent.

Guides offer counsel and guidance on matters of Virtue. In the past, they often acted as judges, and they often work with Navarr who need to make amends for past actions. By comparison, dreamspeakers are usually more worldly, less concerned with judging an aspiration, and more interested in providing practical and personal encouragement to pursue that dream.

A common way to distinguish between the two is that while both guides and dreamspeakers help people find their right place in the Great Dance, the guides "help people get to where they need to be" whereas the dreamspeakers "help people work out where they want to go". It's not true to say that guides only care about what you've done, while dreamspeakers only care about what you're going to do, but on the surface at least it's an easy way to distinguish between the two.

A person can only be guided by one archetype at a time, but there is no direct conflict between guides and dreamspeakers, so any Navarr could easily move between the roles at some point in their life.

Creating a Dreamspeaker

This archetype is intended to appeal to anyone who is interested in the pursuit of dreams - both their own and those of others. You can play a dreamspeaker who has a great goal of their own, some grand personal Ambition they are determined to achieve, but you can also play a dreamspeaker who wants nothing more than to encourage other people to pursue their own dreams. You can work to help them understand and develop those dreams and help them try to accomplish them. The archetype is equally ideal for anyone who wants to play a character who is eager to set their own character goals or for someone who wants to encourage and support others.

When you play a dreamspeaker, you are a motivator first and foremost. You can play a dreamspeaker who is familiar with the tenets of the Virtues and the Doctrines of the Faith and who has many religious skills. But you can also create a dreamspeaker who has little interest or knowledge of the Way. Even those who eschew religion are likely to have studied the ceremony of Dedication however, if only because it can be used to create powerful lucid dreams. There's no requirement to pursue any religious training, of course; a dreamspeaker who has no ability to use liao at all if you wish, and simply talks to people about their dreams and what help they might need to pursue them, is still a dreamspeaker.

Seren is a testimony to what the Navarr can achieve. The city proves there is nothing in this world we cannot overcome. Even nature itself can be tamed if we believe in our dreams.

Browen of the Silver Falls, dreamspeaker

Any other skill can be useful to a dreamspeaker. Martial skills will help you fight, which can be important for pursuing some dreams. But you could just as easily play a dreamspeaker who uses their artisan skills to make powerful magic items to enable people to pursue their dreams. If you have a grand ambition you want to rally others behind, then any skill that helps you do that is useful. If you want to find ways to help others pursue their dreams, then any skill that people are in need of will be helpful.

If you are creating your character as part of a group, then it is a really good idea to find out if the group has one or more goals that they are trying to achieve. Having your own goals that you want to pursue is often the best way to get the most out of Empire, and having a grand ambition that is shared by everyone in the group can give you a communal purpose that you are all working together to achieve. It doesn't mean that individual members of the group can't have their own personal aspirations, but a shared goal can help to unify a group of characters and give them a common purpose and identity. It's a good idea to encourage everyone in your group to think about what goals their character, and the group, could adopt.

A congregation is an obvious resource for any dreamspeaker to take if you don't have your heart set on something else. It provides liao, which you or other priests can use to create lucid dreams. It also gives you the right to vote in the Synod, which immediately gives you a degree of political power. If you want liao but have decided not to take part in the Synod, then a military unit can also take the bounty hunting venture, or a fleet might give you the option to trade with places like the Sumaah Republic, both of which can provide liao.

It can be a little trickier to use magic to directly support the role of dreamspeaker, but by no means impossible. Many enchantments create roleplaying effects that encourage people to pursue their goals or ambitions, or fill them with confidence that such things are possible. Magic related to dreams directly is most often found in the lore of Night magic, but existing rituals are arguably less useful to the archetypal dreamspeaker than those created with liao because they tend to be much more structured. This is the basis for the "dreams from within" and "dreams from without" distinction some dreamspeakers recognise.

A dreamspeaker can be a very political character; you want to empower the Navarr to pursue their dreams, whether they may be. In Empire, if you're trying to achieve anything, there are usually plenty of other player characters who are trying to stop you, so having a way to fight for your ambitions can be important.

For a priestly dreamspeaker, Ambition is a natural choice of Virtue for anyone playing a dreamspeaker - the archetype is fundamentally about people following their dreams. But every Virtue is ultimately about taking action - you need Courage to pursue your dreams in the face of opposition from others. Loyalty can be a crucial Virtue for anyone who wants to rally people to a cause, whether their own or another's. Ultimately, any Virtue can work, but whichever Virtue you choose, it's important to think about how that relates to your choice to take on the role of a dreamspeaker.

Playing a Dreamspeaker

Dreamspeakers and the Vallorn

The most important decision as a dreamspeaker is how you feel about the war against the vallorn. Dreamspeakers are deliberately iconoclastic by design - in a nation that is entirely committed to defeating the enemy, dreamspeakers argue that the Navarr should do other things instead. If other characters try to tell you that they've sworn an oath to destroy the vallorn, remind them that the actual oath the founders of the nation swore was to rebuild civilisation. You have history on your side if you claim that the true way to be Navarr is to try to build great big things rather than obsessing over fighting the vallorn.

No Navarr opposes the fight against the vallorn in theory, but in Empire, time and resources are limited by design. You can't do everything - you have to pick and choose. The dreamspeakers understand and accept that every character who chooses to pursue their own dream is choosing to dedicate themselves to that rather than dedicating themselves to defeating the vallorn. Playing a dreamspeaker is about arguing that other dreams are just as important as fighting the vallorn and fighting to support them.

If you don't have the confidence to play a Navarr who encourages the nation to do things other than fight the vallorn, the alternative is to be a dreamspeaker who is absolutely committed to that war. The only poor choice is to play a character who doesn't have strong feelings about anything one way or the other. Dreamspeakers encourage people to pursue their dreams - so you can play someone who has studied what needs to be done to win the war and is absolutely committed to making that happen. If you go down this route, the way to stand out is to play someone who is utterly determined to make this dream happen as soon as possible. Accept no excuses!

The war against the vallorn is not a "plot" - it's a political battle between the different nations over what the Empire should focus its military and economic strength on. The setting includes many NPC dreamspeakers who believe that the Empire has mistreated the Navarr in recent years, ignoring their concerns and allowing their lands to be conquered by enemies, so that resources could be spent helping other nations instead of the Navarr. You can play a dreamspeaker who wants to focus on the vallorn, by dedicating everything to overcoming the resistance of the nations and institutions that oppose it.

Playing a dreamspeaker won't give you a character goal, but it will give you the justification to pursue your goals no matter how many people tell you not to. At the heart of a dreamspeaker is the idea that it is fundamentally Virtuous, or fundamental to mortal spirits, to pursue the heart's desire. You can either find a goal of your own and pursue that, or you can work with others to help them pursue their dream. In either case, you'll need to learn as much as possible about the Empire, about the things that stand in the way of such dreams, and about what you can do to overcome them.

A dreamspeaker is intended to be a very political character - Empire is explicitly designed to make it hard to pursue your dreams without coming into conflict with other characters with rival aspirations. You'll need to engage with other players to build support for whatever goal you're pursuing, and in many cases that will give you a reason to look outside your fellow Navarr for support. Any nation will struggle to realise their goals by themselves in Empire.

You can also play a very pastoral dreamspeaker, one who works tirelessly to encourage other characters to pursue their goals. One of the biggest challenges for some players is working out what their character wants to do. Having good goals for your character is really important in Empire, and helping other characters to work out what it is they think they might want to do can be a lot of fun. You can use liao to help a character have a dream, but ultimately there is no substitute for just talking to characters about what they could do, or asking them to describe their dreams and working with them to tease out a goal or ambition. And remember, you don't just want to help people work out what their dreams are; you want to encourage them to pursue those dreams. Often the best way to motivate other characters to try to achieve the impossible is to give them all the support and help you can to try to do it.

Whatever approach you take, one of the main barriers you will encounter is people telling you some variation of "you can't do that", "you shouldn't do that", or "you mustn't do that". Sometimes their opposition will be indifference, a belief that a dream is impossible and thus not worth trying. Other times it will be active opposition, because they have their own ambitions which conflict with the dream you are extolling. In the Navarr, this is most likely to be an argument that the nation should be focusing on the vallorn instead of something else. The more dramatic and difficult the dream you are promoting, the stronger the opposition you should expect to encounter.

These naysayers are your in-character battlefield, the enemy you will need to overcome to accomplish things. Anyone who wants to change the world always has to overcome the resistance of people who prefer the status quo. You should expect in-character opposition to pursuing a dream and engage with it in good faith. Don't forget that you can always quote Virtue in defence of such actions even if its not necessarily your focus as a character! Dreamspeakers believe it is fundamentally Virtuous for a person to pursue their dreams. Don't hesitate to point out that all the Virtues are about taking action; they're about pursuing goals and achieving things. You can argue that a character who is pursuing their dream is behaving Virtuously, no matter how many characters they upset!

If you encounter out-of-character opposition to something, if players try to suggest you're not "doing it right", then it is usually best to ignore that. You can always check what you're doing with a member of the Profound Decisions plot team by emailing plot@profounddecisions.co.uk if you're genuinely concerned that it might actually be against the spirit of the game, but Empire is intended to be a sandbox game that supports the widest possible range of in-character ambitions. If someone tries to tell you that a genuinely in-character ambition is against the spirit of the game, it may be because they have misunderstood some element of the Empire game or setting.

While it is easiest to speak to the dreams of the Navarr, there is no reason that you can't help citizens in other nations to pursue their dreams. The beliefs of the dreamspeakers are universal; they believe they can help anyone to pursue Virtue or their role in the Great Dance in this way. Encouraging characters in other nations to find their own goals gives you many more people to talk to at events, and if you can help them, it gives you a chance to make allies across the Empire who might help you in turn when the time comes.

The overriding character goal for a dreamspeaker is to build civilisation. You want to encourage everyone to pursue their dreams, help people identify what their aspirations are and support them as they try to overcome any obstacles. The more Ambitious the goal, the bigger the dream, the better. You can work on many dreams at once, or try to rally everyone behind a single unifying cause. Either way, your ultimate goal is to make the impossible happen.

Further Reading

• Dream on - 388YE Autumn wind of fortune introducing the dreamspeakers