Demi Monde

Dreamscape:

Image from google image search. I do not own or claim!

The Dreamscape of London is one of the more organised and logical land of Ether, if such terms can be applied to such a place. The Dreamscape itself is inherently unstable; influenced by dreamers subconscious fears, loves, hopes and imagination.

London’s Dreamscape is a warren of endless forest to the west, half-built classrooms that lead into the river in the east. Buildings appear and disappear sporadically, sometimes they are giant dollhouses, sometimes your childhood summer home.

The river is one of the only fixed aspects, but even it is affected by opposing thoughts and misaligned dreamers’ impressions; one minute the bend will loop in the distance, the next that same loop will be in front of you. Distance is extremely hard to judge in the Dreamscape.

Point A does not always get to point B. sometimes point D is between A and B, other times you ought to have passed C if you wanted to reach A. 

It is one of three Demi Monde, unseen worlds, connected and interacting with our own. From the pure essence of magic and unfettered unconscious thoughts and wills of hundreds, comes nameless, writhing horrors from places best left unglimpsed in fathomless, bottomless oceans.

Do not fear, the officers of Her Majesty’s Agency of Oneioronautic Crimes police this boundary with their full force.

The Umbra:

Image from google image search. I do not own or claim!

 

 

Deadlier, perhaps than the wilds of the Dreamscape, where you will encounter helpful police, is the Umbra. The Shadow-between into which Tenebrologists claim unknown creatures sometimes pull the unwary. There are no features to this black abyss.

Sir Winston Bombardic, early scholar of the art of Tenebrology and compiler of various accounts wrote in his memoirs that many young Danish heirs had fallen into this place during the 8^th and 9^th centuries. No one knows where the umbra ends up, or if Tenebrologists can cross back and forth safely with the right preparations.

Several monsters known to His Majesty’s kingdom are able to move in and out of the Umbra, much as others use the Dreamscape for transport.

The only advice for those who find themselves trapped in the umbra any sane man might offer is; get out.

The Sithen:

 

Scholars have debated for centuries over the nature of the Sith or Sidhe. Darwin proposed these beings to be an offshoot of humanity, or perhaps an earlier evolution. They are certainly capable of breeding and understanding humans, although they do not lay claim to be children of the Bible.

Image from Google image search. I do not own or claim!

Driven out of most of England, thought lost forever, in 1734, a small rural town in France saw these Sith ‘emerge’ from their Demi Monde; a place that researchers call Sithen. Earthen mounds in which these creatures have stayed hidden for centuries.

Some students of history and magic as a higher art form have proposed that these Sithen are not their own world or separate parallel earth; but pockets of tamed Ether- and that the Sith have, in fact, hidden in the Dreamscape. Given the volatile nature of the Dreamscape, this seems unlikely, however, the Sith hold an unusually strong, true breeding affinity for such magic. 

While the Sith are almost always capable of Tenebrology or Oneioronatuics, Animancy-they claim- has all but been bred out of their bloodlines. 

The Sithen are hills and mounds that open into the demi monde. Inside is an entire kingdom, uncorrupted by smog. The Sidhe are strict advocates for Steam power and they have built enormous floating castles, held aloft with magic and technology.