Places

The Dream Zone is one of the greatest domains, a realm unto itself formed by the collective dreams of humans and shapeshifters. It is a place wherein archetypes rise as real as solid earth in the waking world, where symbolism is more real than any literal meanings. On the periphery of Near Umbra and Deep Umbra, the Dream Zone lies outside the reach of Moon Bridges and even the Pattern Web. If any Spirit Gates reach the Zone they were long ago lost to the Garou Nation.

The simplest way for a shapeshifter to reach the Dream Zone is to fall asleep within the Penumbra. Her slumbering mind reaches through the mist of thought and into Dream itself. The realm reflects the dreamer’s own dreams, of course, but so much more than that. She can press on, journeying deeper into the dreams of others and their mysteries. One of the most intimate bonds between packmates is to venture within each other’s dreams.

Deeper still are the most primal archetypes of Dream and all it contains: love, death, flying free, falling and drown­ ing, blood and fire — anything that recurs in the minds of dreaming creatures. The facets embodied through Dream have no limits, and even defy the laws of the rest of the spirit world. Anything dreamed by living things since the very first creature to draw breath appears within the Dream Zone.

Shapeshifters can pursue these secrets and answers by undertaking dream quests — a journey into the depths of Dream, experiencing different facets that form a collective dream-story. These often lead from one aspect into another, such as the facet of imprisonment in cold stone and silver chains. As she moves through the dream, she might finally yank free her chains from the wall and tear it down to reveal an earthen tunnel that reeks of the grave. She runs through the tunnel as it collapses around her, burying her in the earth. As she claws her way to the surface she finds that she stands atop a precipice, with enemies and allies filling a valley below her. They turn their gaze upward to look upon her, the wind itself hushed as though the world holds its breath. Clearly she is feeling overwhelmed with something, perhaps a position of responsibility within the pack, tribe or sept. Further interpretations require introspection or perhaps even another venture into Dream.

All things, even those a dreamer has lost or forgotten, exist within the Dream Zone. These are not like the Dark Umbral reflections of things dead and destroyed. Dreams gave them life but they exist only in Dream. Someone visiting a lost loved one in Dream is not truly conversing with the shade or spirit of that person, but rather the facet of him that lingers within the mind of the dreamer. She could not pluck that fragment from Dream and bring it to the mortal world as a form of resurrection. Or so the sages say, but who knows? Within the

Dream Zone, anything is possible, if a visitor can dream it. The tales of great heroes who would challenge the impossible for love, glory and honor are as powerful an archetypal facet as anything that ever entered into Dream.

Mokolé have a special relationship with Dream. Through Mnesis they remember ages of the world lost even to the leg­ ends of younger races. During their First Change, they dream into being their Archid form; these powerful forms embody primeval facets of predators and prey from during the Age of Kings. Mokolé may enter the Dream Zone through Mnesis quests even if their bodies lie in the material realm. They wander through depths of Dream that other shapeshifters cannot reach; few can, save for the wisest of magi.