The dreamwalkers get their powers from the giant trees in which they live. The trees, called Dreamochs, carry within their trunks the ancestors of those living on, in, and around the tree. Each tribe or family has its one tree (when I say gigantic, I mean fuckin’ huge, like a trunk the size of a skyscraper). Like the way humans are used in the movies The Matrix, except all cool and fantasy-like, the undead (undead in a good way) bodies of the dreamwalkers ancestors within the tree are like a collective magical/dreamworld battery, from which magical energy is drawn.
Magic has to have limitations and rules in fantasy writing, or there’s nothing to contain and shape the characters and plot of your story. As Orson Scott Card says in his wonderful book, How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, magic has to have a price. By making the dreamwalkers’ magic like a “power grid,” the limitation is built-in: it cannot be used continuously or excessively, because it has to recharge. If it doesn’t recharge, then two consequences can result: the dreamwalker who is draining the system will weaken in the magic she is attempting to do, and/or the tree itself will begin to weaken and fail, thus endangering the past, present, and future of her entire tribe. If the tree dies, the tribe dies (not literally, but the loss is so catastrophic they may as well all be actually dead). If a dreamoch dies, it may not be able to stand. Such a towering tree falling would create considerable damage to those on it, in it, and around it.
Other thoughts/ideas:
- The dream world is an alternate reality, like shamanic cultures’ concepts of the astral plane or spirit world. Dreamwalkers see this world and move in it and the waking world simultaneously. The dream world is more malleable and frightening than the “real” world.
- There are creatures/things that exist in the dream world that don’t have a waking world counterpart. Beings who can see into the dreamworld can still see these. This is why cats jump up at “nothing.”
- A non-dreamwalker who is awake does not have a dream body visible in the dreamworld, or the dream body is asleep while the physical body is awake.
- Dream bodies can look dramatically different than waking world bodies, and even shapeshift. Shapeshifting is often how magic and combat are performed in the dream world. Under extreme situations (or if a dreamwalker is extremely powerful) this shapeshifting ability carries over the threshold to the waking body.
- Protecting the silver cord is the most important thing. If it is broken, the spirit is separated from the body forever.
- Possibly, each tribe/tree (they’re known by trees, and each tree has a name) has a totem animal such as crow, bear, wolf, stag, etc.
There’s a lot more to think about with this, but these are some of the basic ideas I’m toying with now.
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