Put this coin under your uncle's pillow and nothing will wake him 'til morning.
Dreamweave items are mentioned in the Changeling: The Lost, but no rules are given for their creation, their limits, or the effects they can have. All those supporting details can be found here.
It isn't hard to make a dreamweave, but it is time-consuming. Before starting work on the dreamweave, the changeling has to create the outline of the dream they wish to store. Dreams with especially dramatic or powerful content may require rolls as if performing normal dream crafting. If it's a special kind of dream (Healing, Stress Relief, Teaching, or Contract), the changeling must choose who they intend to receive its benefits, as well as succeed on whatever tests are required to create a dream of that type.
Once the changeling has an appropriate item and knows what sort of dream they want to create, they can begin to weave the two together:
Finished dreamweave items do not degrade over time, though they are ruined if the item storing the dream becomes damaged. When carrying dreamweaves, treat them as trifles to determine how many a changeling can hold at once.
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy + Wyrd
Action: Extended
Interval: 3 hours
Target: Dream potency
Dramatic Failure: The weave is undone and the changeling must start over.
Failure: No progress is made.
Success: The changeling makes progress toward creating the dreamweave. Once they have accrued successes equal to the desired potency for their dream, the dreamweave is finished.
Exceptional Success: The changeling makes great progress.
| Modifier | Situation |
|---|---|
| +1/clause | The creator knows one or more clauses of Contracts of Dream |
| +3 | The creator is intimately familiar with the intended target. Anyone else who sleeps with the dreamweave gains a +3 bonus to resist its onset. |
By artfully spinning the lattice of a dream, a weave can be created which can bind the power of one or more contracts. These dreams are always powerful, since they need to withstand both the mind of the dreamer and the potency of the contracts they hold.
When creating such a dream, the changeling activates the desired contracts immediately before they begin crafting the dreamweave. The catch never applies in this circumstance. The total successes scored on activating every contract determine the minimum potency of the stored dream. Changelings who hope to spring the contracts as a trap often make their dream's potency higher than this minimum, to prevent the dreamer from easily overcoming the contracts. Since the contracts are part of the dream's narrative, the changeling can set which rough part of the dream will coincide with the activation of each one.
To be affected by a dreamweave, the target must sleep with the item in some way. After an hour of sleep, the dream tries to take hold. The dreamer rolls Resolve + Composure + Wyrd to determine the intensity of their natural dream. Every point of their dream's intensity reduces the power of the stored dream by 1. If the stored dream's power is reduced to 0, it fails to affect them and dissipates harmlessly. If any power remains in the stored dream, it takes over the dreamscape with an intensity equal to the remaining power. Any changelings who guard the sleepers' dreams can aid them in repelling a dreamweave's influence. The resistance roll becomes a teamwork test led by the dreamer, with each defending changeling rolling Resolve + Wyrd to contribute. Lucid dreamers who know about the dreamweave can always choose to leave their dreamscape blank and invite the stored dream inside. A lucid dreamer who doesn't know of the item's nature can make a Wits + Occult test to notice the stored dream before it takes effect.
Any contracts which were incorporated into the dream during its creation affect the target as the dream progresses. They use the activation successes rolled when creating the dreamweave, unless the target reduced the dream's intensity below the minimum power. Each point of difference between the dream's intensity and minimum power subtracts one from the activation successes of a contract bound to the dream. Which contract is affected depends on the dream and the dreamer: sometimes a particular theme is resisted first, other times it seems purely random.
Regardless of whether the stored dream takes effect, a dreamer can only be affected by one dreamweave object at a time. If they sleep with more than one at a time, the one which takes effect is picked randomly.
Although Healing, Stress Relief, Teaching, and Contract dreams must be designed for a particular person, they can still be used by someone else. If anyone other than the intended recipient uses a special dream, they gain a +1 bonus on their roll to resist its onset. If they do not meet the normal requirements for that dream (like having the wrong Virtue and Vice for a Stress Relief dream), then it fails to affect them at all and is wasted.
Noticing that an item contains a woven dream is easy: a moment's glance reveals it to any changeling. Identifying the nature of the dream takes a short while and some concentration:
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Investigation
Action: Extended
Interval: 10 minutes
Target: Dream potency
**Dramatic Failure:_ The changeling's overeager investigation destroys the dream held inside the item.
Failure: No progress is made.
Success: The changeling makes progress toward identifying the stored dream.
Once enough successes are gained, the changeling learns the themes and narrative elements of the dream. They also know which, if any, contracts were added to the dream, though not how many successes were gained to activate them. This knowledge is limited, though, and the dream cannot be known in full by anyone except the dreamer. After all, their mind is what will give the dream its form.
Exceptional Success: The changeling makes great progress, but risks destroying the woven dream. Any roll which gains five or more successes tears at the delicate weave and the dream will be lost unless the changeling spends 1 point of Willpower to stabilize the item.
| Modifier | Situation |
|---|---|
| +1/clause | The creator knows one or more clauses of Contracts of Dream |