A flowery rose gold wire threaded through half a dozen perfect white pearls, a necklace such as this would fetch an incredible price from any jeweler - as long as they are unaware of its magics.
The Necklace of the Waking Dreamer is a potent weapon, often used by magic users to drive their rivals insane, by blurring the lines between the physical world and the Realm of Dreams. The necklace has several magical qualities, though not all of them are necessarily visible at first glance:
The most noticeable feature this necklace grants is that whenever the wearer is Dreaming, the necklace always appears on their persona within the Realm of Dreams - but its pearls become coloured in a rainbow of hues, instead of a plain white. A Dreamer who recognizes this fact will find it much easier to realise that they are in a dream, and thus gain control and lucidity.
The second feature of the necklace is rather straightforward: a Dreamer who looks into the pearls of within their dream is able to see in them a reflection of events occurring in front of the real necklace, in the physical realm. This allows a person to venture the Realm of Dreams and the other Outer Realms with relative safety, for they can continue to keep a watchful eye over their waking body.
The third feature of the necklace is a more subtle one. Both the necklace and its reflection in its wearer's dreams act as beacons of emotion. These emotions attract hungry spirits and nightmares both to the wearer's physical location, and to their dreams. The spirits often attempt to feed on the emotions of the wearer, draining their Essence and mental energy.
The necklace's fourth and final ability is its most insidious and dangerous. After drawing nightmare spirits to the wearer's dreams and body, the necklace will persist any dream that the wearer has, even once they wake up. These dreams continue to exist within the Realm of Dreams, a portion of the wearer's consciousness remains within each one, and they continue to attract nightmares.
Over time the wearer begins to see terrible visions and hallucinations even while awake, and past a certain point they may begin to lose contact with reality, as their consciousness flits between the physical world and the Realm of Dreams - some victims even going as far as to take their own lives, thinking themselves trapped in a bad dream and that death would wake them.
It is suspected that the madness of Empress Azurea Meridianus was incited by a Necklace of the Waking Dreamer. The empress was a known Seer, who would spend many days Dreaming, using her powers to spy on her enemies and look into their futures.
Proponents of the theory claim that the empress was given the necklace as a gift for her 100th birthday, and she took to it immediately, both for its beauty and for the power it granted her. It is said that Empress Azurea was so skilled a Seer and a Dreamer that she once fought off a troop of assassins sent to kill her, without even waking from her sleep - a feat which would be made far more likely with the necklace's powers of perception.
However, everyone in the Empire knows of Empress Azurea's tragic descent into madness, which drove her to murder her eldest daugher and her husband, and then threw herself off the towers of the imperial palace. Many sources claim that during her final days, the mad empress raved that she must "free everyone from the darkness" - which would aptly be explained the mind of a grand soul being torn asunder by their own dreams, and lack of perception of reality.
Art source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/482870391294392764/