Guide to Oneiromancy

Every changeling has lived in a world where reality bends to the will of beings who understand how to shape it. That instinct doesn't leave when you escape. It settles into the way you dream — vivid, lucid, controllable. Oneiromancy is what you call it when you stop just dreaming and start doing something with the fact that you're dreaming. It's the art of walking into the landscape of someone's sleeping mind and changing it, reading it, using it — without them knowing you were ever there.

What It Is

Oneiromancy — sometimes called dreamweaving — is the practice of entering dreams in a controlled state and altering the dreamscape through deliberate, symbolic action. It works on the same principles as Hedgespinning: the dream responds to authentic engagement, not brute force. You must play a role the dream accepts. You must earn the right to change things.

A changeling who walks in dreams is called an oneiropomp. The creatures she finds inside — the symbolic actors built from the dreamer's own subconscious — are called eidolons.

Entering a Dream

There are two doors into the dream world. Changelings call them the Gate of Ivory and the Gate of Horn.

The Gate of Ivory

The easier path. While asleep, a changeling makes a Resolve + Composure roll to turn her dream lucid — to realize she's sleeping and seize the reins. Success means she enters her own Bastion in dream form: no Mask, full fae mien, her body left unconscious and alive in the waking world.

She can bring guests with her — anyone asleep and in physical contact — at 1 Glamour per guest. Fae companions can spend their own Glamour to resist; others may spend Willpower; beings with Supernatural Tolerance may engage in a Clash of Wills to avoid the cost. From her own Bastion, she may then travel the Dreaming Roads into other dreamers' Bastions.

A changeling who leaves her Bastion to wander the Roads recovers no Willpower for that night's rest.

The Gate of Horn

The harder path. This gate exists physically inside the Hedge — a Hedgeway a traveler must locate by navigating the Hedge normally. Passing through it means entering a dream while physically awake, using your normal Attributes instead of a dream form. You can interact directly with everything inside, but you cannot simply will yourself awake to leave — you must find the Bastion's exit.

A changeling with the Dreamsteps Contract can bypass all of this, passing through the Gate of Ivory directly into another person's dreams.

Dream Form

Characters traveling the dreamscape in dream form use three simplified traits instead of the standard nine Attributes:

Dream Health replaces standard Health. For changelings: current Clarity + normal Wyrd-based Attribute maximum. For others: Resistance + normal Attribute maximum. Wound penalties apply as normal.

When a dream form is "killed" in your own Bastion, you simply wake up. Killed in someone else's Bastion or the Hedge, you wake with the Lethargic Condition. Killed as the direct result of dreamweaving or fae magic inside any Bastion, you wake with the Soul Shocked Condition instead — the intrusion of Arcadian logic pulls everyone a little closer to Faerie. Excess Dream Health damage beyond your Attribute maximum in a single hit also applies to your Clarity track.

Eidolons and Props

Dreams are populated by two kinds of things: eidolons (dream actors, characters generated by the sleeping mind) and props (objects and creatures that behave like their real-world equivalents).

The line between them is blurry. What matters is whether something represents something from the dreamer's psyche. A locked door might seem crucial to getting through a building, but unless it represents the dreamer's fear of intimacy, it's just an unimportant prop. A talking dog might seem absurd, but if it embodies the dreamer's grief over a lost friend, it's a significant eidolon.

Important eidolons have a Wyrd rating equal to the Bastion's Fortification rating. Extra eidolons have Wyrd 1 and no Willpower or Glamour to spend.

The dreamer himself is not an eidolon — he's an oneiropomp in his own right, with a dream form. Non-changeling dreamers can't engage in oneiromancy even in their own dreams. Killing the dreamer ends the dream immediately and destroys the Bastion.

Playing a Role

Before you can change anything, you have to fit into what's already there. A changeling who enters mid-dream must adopt a role that makes sense in context. If the dream is a formal banquet, you arrive as a guest — not a SWAT team. If it's a courtroom, you're a lawyer, a bailiff, a defendant.

Then you work within that role to steer the scene toward the symbolic opportunity you need. If you want to extract a memory, you guide events toward a reveal. If you want to learn a secret, you maneuver the eidolons into a position where it surfaces naturally. You can use Social maneuvering, combat, exploration — whatever the scene calls for.

The dream responds naturally to actions that fit the role. Actions that break the role draw the eidolons' attention in uncomfortable ways.

Dreamweaving: How It Works

Dreamweaving uses the same mechanics as Hedgespinning, with a few key differences.

The dice penalty is the dreamer's Composure — regardless of where in the dream you are. You fight the dreamer's sleeping mind on every roll. This applies even in your own dreams; your subconscious resists being managed.

Before any mundane action inside a dream, you declare whether you want it to generate shaping successes. If you generate excess successes beyond what the action required, you may spend 1 Glamour and allocate those extras to dreamweaving effects.

Dramatic failures inside a dream do not trigger Bedlam (unlike the Hedge).

Unlike in the Hedge, subtle dreamweaving effects aren't limited to changes in the physical environment — you can alter eidolons, props, and the dream's internal logic.

Subtle Shifts

Paradigm Shifts

Paradigm shifts in dreams use the same system as in the Hedge — exceptional success on any shaping-designated roll, plus 2 Glamour, spending all rolled successes on dream effects.

Key differences from Hedgespinning:

• Every mundane action inside a dream counts as a dreamweaving action, so exceptional success is always available as the trigger
• No emotional Conditions are gained at the end of the scene
• Thread alignment does not grant a bonus success to the next shaping action
• Hedge locals cannot sense what happens inside a Bastion
• A changeling with Wyrd 6+ achieves exceptional success on three successes instead of five for paradigm shift purposes (not for other purposes of the roll)
• You can detect whether a dreamer's Bastion has been dreamwoven within the last week using kenning (with a bonus equal to Empathy dots)

Shift Conditions

Paradigm shifts draw the eidolons' attention beyond the role the oneiropomp is playing. Each one inflicts a Shift Condition that escalates with each subsequent paradigm shift enacted in the same dream.

The progression is:

1. Dream Infiltrator — the first paradigm shift of the visit
2. Dream Intruder — the second
3. Dream Assailant — the third

A changeling at Dream Assailant who tries to enact another paradigm shift risks waking the dreamer outright. Roll Clarity + Composure contested by the dreamer's Willpower + Resolve. If you win, the dream holds and you spend successes as normal. If the dreamer wins, he wakes immediately and the Bastion collapses.

You may also choose to forgo this roll entirely and deliberately destroy the Bastion.

Shift Conditions do not apply in your own dreams, as long as you're aware you're dreaming.

Bastions

A Bastion is the dreamscape of a specific sleeping mind — a contained world that takes form along the Dreaming Roads. They can appear as anything: crystal sarcophagi, grand palaces, walnut shells, silver gates. The form changes from night to night based on what the dreamer is wrestling with.

Fortification equals the dreamer's Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance. This can be increased through dreamweaving. Fortification serves as a contested dice pool against any rolls to break in that an eidolon doesn't actively contest.

Entry works as follows:

• An active pledge (invitation) allows automatic entry
• A Key — a feature reflecting the dreamer's personality and the night's dream — allows entry as though invited
• Breaking in requires a paradigm shift spending successes exceeding the Fortification rating, or overcoming Fortification in conventional rolls

A changeling inside her own Bastion may spend a Willpower for +2 Fortification for one turn, boosting all important eidolons within as well.

Reading a Bastion's Fortification: Manipulation + Empathy, instant action. Success tells you the rating. Exceptional success allows a paradigm shift. Dramatic failure alerts the eidolons; they gain 8-again on all rolls until you successfully enter or leave.

When the Dreamer Wakes

A Bastion exists only for the span of a single dream. When the dreamer wakes — whether naturally or because a paradigm shift jolted them to consciousness — the Bastion begins to collapse.

An oneiropomp still inside has a number of turns equal to (10 – dreamer's Willpower dots) to find and exit through the Bastion's exit. A dreamer with strong Willpower wakes fast; a weak-willed dreamer lingers.

As the Bastion crumbles, the dice penalty on all mundane actions becomes whichever is higher: the dreamer's Composure, or the number of turns since collapse began.

Escape options:

• Find the exit and roll Resolve + Composure (contested by Fortification if the dreamer doesn't want you to leave)
• Spend successes on a paradigm shift to find the exit instantly
• Accept the Lethargic Condition (if the dreamer woke naturally) or Soul Shocked Condition (if a paradigm shift woke them) to physically wake immediately

A changeling who traveled through the Gate of Horn has no escape clause — she must find the exit.

Anyone who doesn't escape is flung elsewhere: the Thorns, another Bastion, or across the threshold into Arcadia.

The Dreaming Roads

The Dreaming Roads are trods within the Hedge — but old ones, remnants of a time before the Gentry, running between the waking world and the dreamscapes that line them. Hedgespinning does not work on the Dreaming Roads. They follow their own rules.

All Dreaming Roads have trod ratings between 3 and 5. Navigate them as you would any other trod. Just off the path, the terrain deteriorates rapidly into stranger logics. Treat anything off the road that isn't part of a Bastion as Thorns.

Each Bastion's dream spills out into the surrounding stretch of Road — you can sense something of what you're approaching before you enter. A dreamer lost in a nightmare projects that nightmare outward. A dreamer soaring creates light and altitude. This gives experienced oneiropomps advance warning about what waits inside.

Why Bother?

Oneiromancy can achieve things that contracts and Social maneuvering often can't:

• Invisibility of approach — your target never knows you were there
• Secrets without confrontation — people hide things less carefully in their own minds
• Combat on favorable ground — fighting a Huntsman inside a dream is different than fighting one on the street; you can turn the eidolons, weaponize Bedlam, use Contracts, and shape the battlefield
• Internal politics — some Courts use dream combat (oneiromachy) to settle disputes without physical violence
• Mutual vulnerability as trust — sharing your Bastion with a motley-mate means showing them your darkest nightmares. Some bonds only form that way.

Quick Reference

• Gate of Ivory: Sleep + Resolve + Composure roll → enter own Bastion in dream form (1 Glamour per guest)
• Gate of Horn: Navigate the Hedge → physically enter a dream (normal Attributes, no wake-at-will)
• Dice penalty: dreamer's Composure on every mundane action (even in your own dreams)
• Shaping trigger: excess successes + 1 Glamour → subtle shift
• Paradigm shift: exceptional success + 2 Glamour → spend all rolled successes on dream effects
• No Bedlam on dramatic failures (unlike the Hedge)
• No Thread bonus, no emotional Condition from paradigm shifts
• Shift Conditions escalate: Dream Infiltrator → Dream Intruder → Dream Assailant
• Dream Assailant + another paradigm shift: Clarity + Composure vs. Willpower + Resolve to hold the dream
• Bastion collapse timer: 10 − dreamer's Willpower dots in turns
• Wyrd 6+: exceptional success threshold drops to 3 for paradigm shift purposes (own dreams only)