By Evan Gibson (ecscetg@luxor.latrobe.edu.au) (6 August 1995)
Once upon a time, as all good stories start, a Gangrel embraced a young lad from a very small village and left him out in the wilderness to find himself. This was not, in itself, a very unusual occurrence, but the boy had been brought up under a very curious misprehension. Being a clumsy lad, constantly dropping things about the house, his mother used to tell him a tale to scare this tendency out of him...
"Back when the stepping stones were first strung across the void, the Greater Yawning Darkness, Lord of Oblivion and Dreams, inspired by Dawn, Our Lady of Passion, Heat and Harvest, begun the great dreaming and brought the world into being. He ruled his dreamworld kindly, granting each of his dreamings the respect and freedom he also gave those outside his dreams, and thus allowing them to develop lives of their own. He asked one thing only, that, when they knew their time was over, they return to him and offer themselves to feed his hunger, as creation is an energetic process and, as inspired as he was by his love of Dawn, there was no room left for further dreams without the sacrifice of those that remained.
Most were quite happy with this arrangement, they were given the time they chose and then they rejoined their maker only to be dreamt anew. From the Dark we come and to the Dark we all return. The Greater's younger brother, the Lesser Yawning Dark, Lord of Death and Sleep, was concerned. He was fearful lest his brother's ravenous, terrible hunger become no more satisfied with the stuff of dreams and required something more... Substantial to sustain his creation. So he hatched a plan.
While his brother and Dawn were sleeping, and thus in his domain, he bound them both, securing the Greater with terrible chains and an iron muzzle and binding him below the earth, while he threw Dawn upwards and tied her to the sky. Dawn, by her very nature, could not be held in sleep for long and awoke to find herself apart from her love and unable to free herself from the sky. Still, to this day, she alternatively strains at her bonds with all her strength till she fairly glows with the effort, and then, when she can strain no more, goes still and stares down at the earth her love is trapped beneath. Sometimes she cries, sometimes she can only gaze with half-closed eyes, or needs to looks away, it hurts so much.
Some wolves and a few other animals, hearing her anguish and feeling her pain, cried with her and she heard their voices. Having lacked company for so long she found strength in their support and asked for their help. Her tears fell on them and and enveloped them and enabled them to use both some of their own passion and some of hers. She asked them to set her beloved free and they began to search. They looked for so long they have forgotten who they seek and why.
The Greater Darkness, He Who Sleeps, never woke from that slumber. His brother holds him trapped within it still, and the world fell into his grasp. The Lesser Darkness styled himself lord of his brother's domain and reached out to take hold. Rather than allow the Made Of Dreams to choose their own time he began to set them out, tearing the stepping stones out from under their feet and stopping them from completing that which they still had to do. They remained, suspended in the void, unable to offer themselves to the Sleeper and attain the completeness they required. The Tyrant was amused by this, but when she can Dawn blows them a gentle breeze and tries to help them across to the next stepping stone, so they can reach the time they choose and carry her thoughts on to her lover.
In a rage at Dawn's attempts to subvert what he saw as "his" power the Lesser reached a bargain with some of the many remaining dreams. He would not allot them a time if they would come and work for him. Some agreed. To sustain them beyond the time their dreamed purpose was complete they needed to steal time from others, and this borrowed time and the extra creativity gained from having others dreaming to call upon besides their own enabled them to manipulate the dreaming to some degree, but inside they know they are avoiding the time they chose for themselves, and trying to avoid it often leads them to clawing at the edge of the stone they are on trying desperately not to fall into the Oblivion below, for they know who waits their for them and he will not be friendly to most.
Death sent these minions out to lead the dreaming and keep it from learning where it's master had gone, and to prevent it from ever awakening him. Dawn was furious when she saw these destructive abominations that had been created. She told her animal friends to destroy any they saw, as They That Live The Lives Of Others would only try to impede them in their search. Sometimes, when she is straining, trying to break her bonds, she can reach far enough to grab them herself.
The strangest part of this whole affair was that some few of these creatures gained enough insight from the dreams they collected from others that they could touch the dreams of The Sleeper himself. Some are born with this gift or gain it in another way. Some call them mad, but the Dream Touched are truly blessed.
From this it may seem that The Sleeper has been quiet in his slumber all these years, but this is not true. He continues to dream and he continues to devour. It is difficult these days, as few complete their time and offer themselves, but some dreams are strong enough to do so, and this enables him to focus his dreaming through them and give them some measure of that which he once had, but not enough. His brother has managed to corrupt some of these pure dreamers and turn them to his ways. Convincing them to control the dreaming rather than free it and destroy the parts that are beyond control.
But, I hear you say, "I've heard this story since I was a child, where do the Bale Wolves fit in?". Well, I will tell you... The Sleeper had two pets that used to sit either side of his throne, two giant, beautiful hounds that were his love and his delight. Whether they were first of his dreams, or from outside the dreaming is not known, but he loved them and they loved him. They embodied both aspects of his nature, creation and destruction, hunger and inspiration, and when he was taken in his sleep, they were not allowed in his bed chamber, they were devastated. They ran and hid, scrambling into a nearby dreamling, and hiding beneath his skin. They went looking for a way to find and free their Master, never giving up their hiding place, but moving from one dreamling to another when it could not hold them any longer.
It is prophecied that one day the Sleeper will awaken, tear his love from the sky back to earth and consume his brother, dreaming him anew and returning the All to The Way It Was.
She told him that the Bale Wolves lived inside their host, usually a male, and during his youth caused him to break things as they argued inside about how best to use him in their search. Upon growth one of the two would gain ascendance in the argument and the now-adult male would leave his clumsy ways behind becoming either a great warrior, destroying all enemies in his path, or a great thinker, leading the tribe to victory. To aid the search for the Greater in one of these ways. At the end of his life his body would be torn apart as the wolves escaped to search for a new host.
Of course, this story just made him more nervous and more prone to break things...
When he awoke in the woods after a wolf had descended upon him, finding himself with new abilities, what was he to think? After all, he'd entered into no covenant with the Dark One, so he obviously was not of the Unliving, though it did seem strange that Dawn did not like him anymore...
Of course, he was mistaken... But perhaps the true Bale Wolves are still out there...
[Ummm... I haven't seen changling yet, could someone tell me how they'd fit in with this worldview? I actually made this pantheon up apart from the WoD and before I read Sandman either, for those who want to know, and just decided to throw it together on a whim. It scares me how much it fits. I might even use it. Hell, it might even be true! Sometimes I hate being of the dreamtouched!]
Nicknames: Lemmings or Jinxes
Disciplines: Protean, Fortitude, Defenestration
Flaw: Choose either
Lemming : Insatiable curiosity coupled with an invulnerability complex. Will ignore certain death just to see what's on the other side...
or
Jinx: Whenever they botch it will affect something or someone around them instead of themselves, is usually worse than any affect on them would have been. Once per session something around them stuffs up just because of their presence.
View the Defenestration discipline.