Dreamwalkers

The Dreamwalkers hunt Undead and Necromancers across the Old World. They are all servants of Morr, and believe that the God sends dreams to guide them to evils that must be crushed. Most bands of Dreamwalkers are formed around a Priest of Morr, and the Temples of that God support the group. In the Empire, the Amethyst Order also backs it, and more than a few Amethyst Wizards are found in its ranks.

Only people with a particular devotion to Morr are allowed to join the group, and only those willing to devote much of their time to rooting out and destroying the Undead want to. As a result, it is not a large organisation, but its members are very dedicated.

Purpose
The Dreamwalkers exist to fight the Undead, defeat Necromancers, and destroy Necromantic texts, to prevent the appearance of more Necromancers in the future. Greenskins and the Ruinous Powers are, as far as the Dreamwalkers are concerned, somebody else’s problem, as are the sins and sufferings of the living.

History
Most members of the Dreamwalkers believe that its foundation is lost in the mists of history; this is because the group has never particularly bothered with recording its own history, and because of its fragmented structure, as described below. The handful of scholars with an interest in such things, and a considerable number of old Vampires, know that the first group of Dreamwalkers consisted of a Priest of Morr called Bartolf, an experienced mercenary called Hieronymus, and a woman, variously described as an actress, whore, and thief, called Philomelia von Hagendorf. They formed their group in 1681IC, and, even among those who know this much, most assume that this was in response to the Night of the Restless Dead.

In fact, the three met two weeks before that terrible night. All three of them had been suffering from terrible nightmares, in which they were pursued by hordes of Undead monsters, risen from their graves and set free to ravage the land. They also each dreamed of an isolated roadside tavern in Hochland, and of meeting the other two there. Bartolf was convinced that the dreams were a message from his God after they continued for a week, and so was the first of the three to arrive at the tavern. Philomelia was next, and the dour and practical Hieronymus the last, when he was finally unable to resist the urgings of the dreams.

There are no records of what they did before and during the Night of the Restless Dead. The tavern where they met was destroyed, and even its precise location was lost. Members of the Dreamwalkers speculate that the three could have prevented the mass rising of the Undead, but that they failed. Unless some lost document is uncovered, however, no one can now know for certain.

What is well established is that the three split up after that dreadful night, each of them recruiting a small number of followers and travelling to a distant part of the Empire to continue their fight with the Undead. All three of them claimed to still receive guiding dreams from Morr, and, at least according to the surviving records, those dreams were surprisingly accurate.

The group sustained itself through the following centuries of chaos, and even spread into other lands of the Old World. Recruits were chosen for their dedication and competence, but every band was required to have at least one member who, in the opinion of at least two existing bands, was receiving prophetic dreams from Morr. On the whole, the Dreamwalkers were quite strict about this, although mistakes were inevitable.

The Wars of the Vampire Counts are remembered as the greatest failure in the group’s history. Dreamwalker after Dreamwalker had dreams warning of the rise of Vampires, and the bands set off to defeat the menace. Almost all of them were destroyed, and a few were even turned by the Vampire Counts. Some tried to take their warnings to the authorities, but they were laughed at as madman, or burned as heretics; even the tiny handful who were heeded found that the authorities of that time lacked the power to do much.

Two figures from this time are remembered today, and held up as examples: Elisinda the Black, and Benedicta the Radiant.

Benedicta the Radiant was a former mercenary, who fought for years as Benedicta until she was the sole survivor of her company after it was thrown against a Necromancer. She found herself plagued by prophetic dreams, and followed them to destroy many Undead. She favoured fire as a weapon, which gave rise to her name. Before the Wars of the Vampire Counts formally began, her dreams led her into what would become Sylvania, where she disappeared. Elisinda the Black was a young Priestess of Morr, serving in the Temple in Altdorf. She had spoken against the Dreamwalkers, accusing them of selfish delusions and possible heresy, but her influence was limited. In 2009, she started having dreams of seductively powerful creatures coming from the East. She believed her own propaganda, and ignored the dreams for weeks, but as they repeated every night, she finally left the Temple, determined to find out what they meant. 1a 1b

She came out of Ostermark just ahead of the Vampire armies, carrying the head of Benedicta von Carstein, who had been Benedicta the Radiant, and seeking a member of the Dreamwalkers she had seen in her dreams. For the rest of her life, she was a tireless member of the group, finally dying at the Siege of Altdorf, in 2051.

Elisinda’s influence became greater as she became older, and the present threat of the Vampire Counts lent weight to her arguments. At her urging, the Temples of Morr formally recognised the Dreamwalkers as a group chosen by Morr to fight the Undead. Her crucial argument was that the dreams, sent by Morr, set the Dreamwalkers apart from freelance Vampire hunters, and demonstrated the direct blessing of the God.

The Dreamwalkers remained on the fringes of history, taking little direct part in the Great War against Chaos. However, they did destroy a number of Necromancers who hoped to take advantage of the anarchy produced by the threat, and this valuable service did not go unnoticed; the group has been linked to the Amethyst College since Teclis founded it.

For members of the group, “history” is a set of stories of heroic battles against the Undead, featuring many different bands of Dreamwalkers and not linked into any sort of general narrative. As the few scholars of the group’s history have noted, this is quite possibly because, in the grand scheme of things, the group seems to have been largely ineffective, having failed to grasp its two opportunities to make a large difference to history. Better, then, to concentrate on the small victories, and maintain hope.

The Dreamwalkers Today
The Dreamwalkers are made up of a number of small groups, called bands, each of which operates independently most of the time. Each band forms around an individual who has prophetic dreams from Morr, and its activities are guided, in large part, by those dreams. The bands share information and resources with one another, and may pass on requests for help. Bands do not have the authority to give orders, but they are expected to monitor other bands, and raise concerns if a band does not seem to be paying enough attention to defeating the Undead.

The Dreamwalkers are an obscure organisation, not a secret one. Members rarely announce their membership, largely because hardly anyone has heard of them, and claiming membership in an obscure organisation that has a lot to do with the Undead is often bad for your health. Most Priests of Morr, and all Amethyst Magisters, are aware of them, and while personal attitudes vary widely, the Dreamwalkers are officially condoned, although not actively supported. Of course, even active support from the Temple of Morr and a College of Wizardry would be little help against Witch Hunters with the backing of the Cult of Sigmar, which provides another reason for members of the group to be discreet. 1b 1c

New members often assume that it must be vital to preserve secrecy, to stop Vampires and Necromancers hunting them down. The (slightly dispiriting) truth is that hardly any Undead or Necromancers care enough about the group to put any effort into opposing them.

Structure
As described above, the Dreamwalkers are split into a number of bands, each of which is largely independent of the others.

Every band must include at least one person who receives prophetic dreams from Morr. Bands with two or more such people are encouraged by other bands to split into bands with one dreamer each, so that the organisation can cover more ground. This pressure, and the rarity of people with such useful dreams, means that bands with more than one dreamer are very rare.

Beyond that, the structure of a band is up to its members. The dreamer is usually the leader, but not always so, particularly if there is also an Amethyst Magister in the band. A band may consist solely of the dreamer, but most have a small number of associates. The largest band on record had twelve members, although anything over six counts as “large.” Bands that do not include at least one competent warrior tend to be very short-lived, or to dedicate themselves to gathering information and looking for a warrior. Sometimes, bands ally themselves with other adventuring types to get the necessary firepower, and this can work well, as long as the allies are sympathetic. Indeed, since bands are allowed to determine their own structure, the difference between a member of the band and an ally can be difficult to determine.

From the perspective of the rest of the organisation, the important difference between a member and an ally is that only a member should be in contact with other bands of Dreamwalkers. Allies should not know the identities of members outside the band with which they are allied. On the other hand, Dreamwalkers are encouraged to be in contact with several bands, and are required to be in frequent contact with at least three. Each band sends reports on its activities, and any useful information it has uncovered, to bands it is in contact with. Occasionally, other bands check on the accuracy of these reports, often because of a dream, and this is the group’s main way of finding corruption in the ranks. Bands have been found allied with the Ruinous Powers, blinded by the need for power to take the fight to the Undead, and even allied with one Undead monster or Necromancer against others. Very occasionally, a band is found simply taking it easy and making up its reports, but that is extremely rare.

Although there is no formal rank within the Dreamwalkers as a whole, informal respect is very important. Bands guided by accurate dreams and which score victories over the Undead find their recommendations and requests taken very seriously by other bands, while those whose dreams are inaccurate may find themselves being investigated to make sure that they really do have a dreamer. Bands who fail in their battles with the Undead tend to be dead, at least briefly. Even successful bands find that other bands investigate them, to make sure that all their stories are true; most unmasked corrupt groups are discovered because their records looked very good, and suspicions were raised.

Outside the Empire
The Dreamwalkers are strongest within the Empire; that is where they were founded, and their alliance with the Amethyst College does not extend beyond its borders. However, individual bands are allowed to wander as their dreams lead them, which means that the group has a presence in all nations of the Old World. Bands are discouraged from wandering so far that they lose contact with all others, which has kept them confined to the Old World for now, but it is always possible that they might spread.

The group tends to be strong where the Cult of Morr is strong, which essentially means Tilea. Kislev and Bretonnia pay little reverence to the God of the Dead, and his Cult is not strong enough in Estalia to compensate for its distance from the Empire. No matter where they are, bands act in much the same way. Morr’s dreams might change their language to suit the area, but their message is the same.

Goals and Motives
The Dreamwalkers want to see the Undead, and Necromancers, expunged from the world. If this has to be done one zombie at a time, so be it.

Of course, the Dreamwalkers know that there are more Undead than Dreamwalkers, and that the Undead have time on their side. They try not to let this get them down, however, and instead look for ways to be more efficient in their elimination of the menace. This has led a significant number of them to study modern weapons, as gunpowder can be very effective against the corporeal Undead.

However, most Dreamwalkers recognise that, if the menace is to be finally defeated, that can only be done by eliminating the ability to create Undead. Thus, they are particularly keen to eliminate Necromancers and necromantic texts. Destroy a zombie, and you’ve destroyed one zombie. Kill a Necromancer, and you’ve pre-emptively destroyed every zombie he would ever raise. Burn a necromantic book, and you’ve destroyed every zombie that would have been raised by every student of that book.

What is more, going around the Old World burning books does not make you many enemies. It’s almost normal behaviour, and the owner of the book is hardly going to be able to publicise the fact that he is angry because you burned his necromantic tome. Books, even necromantic ones, also tend to be rather less dangerous than active Undead. For all these reasons, given a choice, most Dreamwalkers would spend their time hunting down books and burning them. 1c 1d

The dreams are the complicating factor. Almost all Dreamwalkers believe that Morr sends them dreams to tell them what to do, and these dreams often urge courses of action other than hunting books. Since Morr’s guidance is what motivates most Dreamwalkers day to day, they do not ignore these dreams. In practice, other bands assume that a band spending too much time looking for books is either ignoring the dreams, or does not have a genuine dreamer, and so investigate. Thus, almost all bands spend a lot of their time confronting Undead and Necromancers directly.

Since Dreamwalkers do want to stop the rot at its source, they almost always follow up on the appearance of Undead, determining why the Undead appeared, whether there was a Necromancer involved, and, if so, where he is. The aim, always, is to kill the Necromancer and burn his books. This can be difficult if the Necromancer is influential in his community, or a powerful Vampire in his own right, and so some bands arrange for damning evidence to come into the hands of Witch Hunters or other groups with powerful backing.

This raises another problem for the group, and one that they must bear in mind at all times. Their official standing is a little unsteady; even the Cult of Morr only tolerates them. Thus, unlike Witch Hunters, they are granted no leeway by the authorities if they kill the wrong people.

There are few towns that get angry with people who kill lurching, rotten corpses, but if the Necromancer who animated them was popular, things could get ugly. Most bands do not let this deflect them from their duty, and still kill any Necromancers they find. However, Dreamwalkers tend to be very careful in deciding whether someone is a Necromancer. They simply cannot afford to kill everyone to avoid the risk of leaving a Necromancer alive, and thus may give a suspect the benefit of the doubt.

Those bands who have rarely been proven mistaken in this tend to see themselves as morally superior to the Witch Hunters, being more careful to avoid targeting the innocent. Those bands who have seen a number of people they allowed to live continue a Necromantic career, on the other hand, tend to envy the Witch Hunters their freedom to take no risks with the security of the community in the future. There is, as a result, a trickle of people leaving the Dreamwalkers and joining the Templars of Sigmar; the fact that most Dreamwalkers are genuinely devoted to Morr keeps this trickle small.

Dreams
The dreams that come to a band’s dreamer are the most immediate motivation for that band. Bands only stay together as long as they believe that the dreamer really is receiving messages from Morr, as who would ignore a message from their God? The vast majority of dreamers also believe that they are receiving divine instructions, and certainly the dreams seem to be more informative than pure chance would suggest.

Of course, the sceptical might suggest that, if someone spends his waking hours studying the Undead and searching for clues as to where they might be, his dreams will reflect that. When those dreams are interpreted in the light of such knowledge and research, it is, perhaps, not surprising that they lead to monsters more often than not. Most bands can, however, point to at least one occasion when the dreams revealed something new, something important that they could not have learned otherwise. They hold that people who dismiss this as pure luck show insufficient faith in the Gods.

If the dreams do come from Morr, his plans are deeper than mortals can comprehend, because they often send bands off in apparently random directions. While this is only to be expected, it does mean that explaining the activities of the Dreamwalkers in terms of their professed goals is often quite difficult. They often fail to follow obviously superior strategies, and waste time dealing with minor infestations of Undead. They do this, however, because their God has told them to.

The Vampire Counts
The Vampire Counts are, to the Dreamwalkers, an abomination upon the face of the earth that should be cleansed with fire at the first opportunity. In principle… 1d 1e

In practice, they find that their dreams lead them in other directions, so that they cannot concentrate on developing the strategies that would be needed to bring down such influential Undead. Further, those Dreamwalkers who are led to take on Vampires often repeat the experience of Benedicta the Radiant, and find themselves turned, or at least killed. The fact that most bands know this, and know that they would likely face the same fate, may, just possibly, subconsciously influence their interpretation of their dreams.

* Under Construction*

Source
Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2nd ED -- Shades of Empire

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