Dal Quor

**Dal Quor** was the name of the plane that dreaming minds connected to, and where all ordinary dreams played out. It was the home of the Quori, a race of psionic outsiders with strong connections to the dreams of others, divided into two factions. It was separated from the Material Plane by a veil that could be breached with powerful magic or certain items. At its heart lied the god of dreams themselves, YEOZ.

Secretly, the center of this place was the crucible for all of creation. It was the first plane to come into existence, and it is from here that YEOZ conducts their world-crafting.

## Description

The fringes of the plane were littered with dreamscapes that take on the form of bubbles. These fleeting demiplanes were highly morphic, responding to a dreamer's thoughts and/or subconscious mind, with more of the former if they were lucid and more of the latter if they were particularly blind to their dreams. Within these dreamscapes, all manners of terrain, creatures and situations could be shaped by the dreamer's sleeping mind out of the essence of the plane. Dreamers were usually confined to their own dreamscapes, but powerful dreamers could sometimes break free from the bubbles, or on occasion the bubbles would rub up against each other and provide temporary contact with whatever was inside. Quori occasionally manipulated dreamers as they slept via their psychic tricks, but they could not do any true harm to the dreamers, and in most cases they did not bother to interact with mundane people. Within the realm of dreams, telepathic psionic abilities, as well as enchantment and illusion magic, were enhanced, but all supernatural powers had a chance of surging and going awry, warped by the chaos of the psychic static of millions of dreamers.

The plane was divided into an outer ring and an inner core. The outer ring was divided into two, belonging to the quori factions of Prospit and Derse, of which their main planets, and their chained moons, circled around the inner core always opposite each other. The forces of Prospit were defined by their willingness to accept the cycle of Dal Quor; Derse, on the other hand, was defined by its resistance and constant scheming to break the loop and prevent the quori from being wiped out, as they thought. Prospit lived within the outer reaches of the light, and their architecture was defined by shining yellow colors. Derse on the other hand lived closer to the inner core, which was filled with a thick haze, and so they chose purple as their identifying color. Dreamers were aligned with one of the two factions in a roughly 50/50 split, although it was based partially on their personalities; this alignment determined roughly where their dreamscapes would form, appearing either on Prospit's side or Derse's.

Within the inner core was nothing but smoke and haze. Additionally, within the haze it was protected by a region of spacetime that would disintegrate spirits on contact, scattering quori into essence. For this reason, quori could not venture into the inner core, and neither could stray dreamers, who would be cast back to their physical bodies. This barrier could be circumvented, but only by those with special access; the nobility of Prospit and Derse, who formed their own faction within the inner core, could come and go freely, and YEOZ could also call creatures through it, but regular teleportation effects failed to pass through the barrier.

At the center of the inner core was an unchained third moon that did not correspond to either Prospit or Derse, and had very few dreamers. The few dreamers it did have did not have dreamscapes like ordinary dreamers but rather dreamed directly on the moon itself. These dreamers were called there by YEOZ or one of their minions.

### Nightmare Realm

Within the arbitrary depths of the Dream Realm lies a separate world linked to the Shadow World. This region is known as the Nightmare Realm, and it is bound by the primal emotion of fear. Its essence manifests as a scarlet flame. After eating this realm's center of power, the *Nightmare Heart,* Ellie Mark became the ruler of this demiplane, drawing upon the heart's power as her own. Quori and outsiders from the Shadow World or the lower planes sometimes align themselves with the Nightmare Realm and gain fiery abilities. Because it was severed from the cycle many iterations ago, this locale has no dreamscapes, with the exception of Ellie's *black space*, which is halfway through the depths and formed from her undead subconscious mind. Ordinary nightmares occur in the dreamscapes of Dal Quor, and hold no inherent power, although their connection to fear would be able to link them to this realm more easily than regular dreams, and perhaps powerful dreamers having nightmares can fall into despair and end up in the Nightmare Realm. In this place, shadow magic was easier to use, and after Ellie Mark's experiment, it was in fact the only form of magic that could be used, as she ended up being able to repress the Weave within this environment and make only the Shadow Weave accessible, along with preventing psionics that were not based on the subconcious mind.

### The Abyss

The depths of the Dream World, and the resting place of Ellie's *black space*, connected to the Nightmare Realm. This is where discarded ideas lie in wait to be plucked by YEOZ and reanimated with the power of this place's black essence, formed from the raw potential of all of the discarded ideas. This place is full of static and dead spirits, and quori loathe to go here. The power of the abyss serves as a power source for those who have lost their original power sources during the transformation, such as with Charry and idiot when she passes through into Dal Quor. Most of the quori nobles, being reanimated spirits from this locale, are composed of the power of the abyss.

The Abyss was formed from all of the broken and scrapped things from generations past, taking a different form in a different time.