Dadauar

Dadauar (pronounced /ˈdædəwɑːr/) is a world where tyrannical dictators tap into dreams for puissant magic they use to rule over the very people whose dreams they get their power from. These dream rulers, called onirarchs, generally keep themselves apart from the people, existing on another level that rarely interacts with the lower classes.

Geography

Dadauar is a disk-shaped world floating in the plane known as Charos. About three-fifths of the world is covered with water; the dry land is mostly found in five continents scattered along the disk's surface. As in many other similar worlds, Dadauar is rimmed with ocean that plummets off the edge in an enormous waterfall, to eventually hit other worlds far below. One feature that Dadauar has that most similar worlds don't have is a smaller satellite disk floating some distance away. Called Chethe, this disk is seldom visited by the inhabitants of Dadauar proper.

The climate of Dadauar's surface is governed by the dreammists above, which tend to be coldest in a line running roughly south-by-southwest down the center of the worlddisk. Conversely, the west-by-southwest and east-by-northeast edges of the disk have the hottest temperatures. The temperatures do vary over time, but in such a way that as the temperature of the center gets colder, the temperature of the edges gets warmer, and vice versa; there are two isothermal lines where the temperature remains roughly the same year-round.

Social Structure

The dominant nations on Dadauar are those ruled by the onirarchs, mighty mages who draw their power from the dreams of their populace. The nations ruled by onirarchs are called onirarchies. Not all nations on Dadauar are onirarchies; there are some that retain other government forms. The onirarchies, however, are the most visible nations, and certainly the strongest, magically, economically, and politically. With such vast magical powers at their disposal, the onirarchs can create all sorts of magical devices and undertake ambitious building projects, covering their lands in huge tracts of tall and densely populated cities, filled with magical marvels and various methods of rapid transportation.

Creatures of Dadauar

The most common race on Dadauar is the human, but far from the only one. Dadauar is also home to various types of half-human creatures called gnulus, which, though rarer than humans overall, still have a significant presence in some places.

There are some artificial creatures on Dadauar, as well, created through the onirarchs' power. The onirarchs create whole entities out of a magical material called dreamstuff, fashioning servants called batirines to do their bidding. They also infuse humans and other creatures with dreamstuff, warping their forms or giving them strange new abilities and creating hybrid creatures called dreambuilt.

One inhabitant of Dadauar that must be mentioned—if it counts as a single creature—is the Bathybius, or Deepmind, a massive collection of ellogous slime that lies at the bottom of the world's oceans. The Deepmind is known to absorb other creatures into itself, increasing both its mass and its mental power, as well as occasionally sending off bits of its own substance called deeplings to work its purposes on land—though exactly what the Deepmind's purposes are is not entirely clear.