The Grand Rêve

The **Grand Rêve** is the expansive communal dream that the residents of RossShelf share. The people a dreamer may know in waking life, such as friends and family, rarely overlap with new acquaintances met in the dream. The Thunderhead's rules on privacy make it against the law to seek out a dream friend in real life or speak of home while in the Grand Rêve. This is rarely an inconvenience because while dreaming, the details of waking life are hard to recall. Once waking up, the specifics of the dream will fade from the dreamer's memory.

There are four different factions within the Grand Rêve that all dreamers are sorted into: designer, builder, indweller, and obliterator. **Indwellers** get to experience the dreams that the **designers** conceive and the **builders** create. Then, when no one wants that particular dream anymore, the **obliterators** tear it all down. Penchants and personality traits are the main factor in sorting people into their group, but the Thunderhead has final say.

## Indwellers

Indwellers can transform into any creature at will, although sometimes the transformation occurs regardless of whether they will it to or not. Everyone has their own skill, like Dayne's enhancement of other's senses or Alex's 'crittermorph' ability.

## Dream logic

In dreams, skills are often easier than they might be in the waking world. However, one's skill is only as good as one's confidence. The reality of dreams is often constrained by the things you know, such as a lack of air in space. Dream pain could be worse than real pain since there are no nanites to numb them, but it is unlikely that the pain would last for extended periods of time.

## Dream Scythes

RossShelf scythes have free reign to do whatever they want in the communal dream, as in waking life. Dream Scythes can glean in any form they like, and their targets are allowed to run unless the scythe presents themself in a human, robed form. Although people rarely see scythes coming in the dream, sometimes they can sense it. This feeling manifests as something seeming off about the moment, as if the rules of the dream are being broken. Consequently, there is a piece of widely accepted advice known by all dreamers of the RossShelf region: if the dream feels wrong, run.

## Features

The entry gate to the Grand Rêve leads to the main thoroughfare, which is crowded with vendors, banners, and signs. There are a variety of attractions available, from welcome acrobats to Francolberian crèpe vendors.

There are vendors and shops at the central roundabout, where paths lead to hundreds of peaks and valleys of active dreams. It is never the same because each night dreams get bumped to higher numbers as new ones are added.

The dream's edge is an invisible barrier, rubbery and slick. It is said to feel less like a wall and more like a membrane. If the edge is punctured, it shreds like a torn sail.

## Trivia

* In the short story "Perchance to Glean" Dayne and Alex's genders/pronouns aren’t revealed because they are not allowed to know each other's personal details, and dreams are based on what is known.
* “Slumber collective” is an old-fashioned way of referring to the Rêve.