Note: This is a new article that contains both new material that will be included in the Greek Campaign Sourcebook as well as information about the power of dreams in the 1800s campaign setting.
Morpheus, the God of Dreams. He is easily the equal to the other Olympians, and has a power that possibly rivals the most powerful of them, yet he remains elusive and mysterious. The power of dreams is just that, power. Dreams can bring peace or anguish, and none may escape them. In this article, we'll present the deity, his home and his mortal offspring as well as discuss the use of dreams in an Otherworld setting.
Morpheus
Lord of Dreams
Greater Deity
Symbol: Poppy flower
Home Plane: Dream
Alignment: Neutral
Portfolio: Dreams, nightmares, prophesy
Worshippers: Any seeking assistance with sleeping or against troubling nightmares.
Cleric Alignments: CN, LN, N, NE, NG
Domains: Balance, Dream, Illusion
Favored Weapon: Unarmed Strike
Morpheus, the god of sleep and lord of the Demiplane of Dream is a mysterious and often misunderstood deity. Easily equal in power to Poseidon, Hades and Zeus, who each rule their own domains, Morpheus remains almost exclusively in Dream, providing special insight to a chosen sleeping few, and giving nightmares to others, using a system so complex that is impossible for mortals to comprehend.
Besides being a god of sleep, Morpheus is also a god of prophesy and is the patron of a small number of oracles. These seers often spend hours in drug-induced hazes, searching for meanings and knowledge in their darkest dreams.
Dogma
The power of sleep is vast, and those who harness it can become masters in their own right. There is great mystery and knowledge to be had in endless dreams and unbridled terror as well.
Clergy and Temples
Followers of Morpheus often seclude themselves in remote areas, like mountainsides, where they can meditate on the meanings of their dreams in peace. Others can also be found among the people. These worshippers, who are often evil or chaotic, use magic and drugs to control others, or cause nightmares.
Olympian of Morpheus
Olympians are the children of gods and humans. Many of the Olympian deities are promiscuous and have created several olympian children, a handful of which have become gods in their own right. Olympians don't see themselves as anything more than humans of great skill and ability, and are so set to this notion that they will continue to believe so, even if their heritage is revealed to them.
Personality: Olympians are very friendly and outgoing, but tend to be somewhat foolish and headstrong. They would rather act quickly on instinct than sit and formulate a plan. Many of the follies and tragedies of past olympians can be traced to their seeming inability to think a problem through before acting.
Physical Description: An olympian stands about six feet tall and is muscular and somewhat resembles their progenitor deity. Morpheus's olympians tend to be serene, almost sleepy looking, and tend towards light-colored hair and fair skin. Otherwise, the olympian resembles nothing more than a spectacularly endowed human.
Relations: Olympians get along well with most every person they meet, and often too well for their own good. Their social skills make them welcome in most human lands and their abilities make them popular among satyrs, fauns, fey-touched, sprites and menta-cyclopeans. They despise medusas, harpies and minotaurs as "monsters" and instinctively wish to destroy them, though some tend to curb these feelings. Centaurs and olympians have a special relationship with one another as many olympian heroes have been trained in the past by centaurs.
Alignment: Olympians usually have an alignment similar to their progenitor gods, however this is not always the rule. Typically, they have no more sway towards an alignment than humans do, and will usually share the alignment of their home city. Olympians of Morpheus tend towards neutrality.
Olympian Lands: Olympians don't exist in large enough numbers to claim any lands. As most consider themselves extraordinarily endowed humans, they live in human lands and are treated as just that.
Religion: Each god calls strongly to an olympian. As such, they are extremely likely to worship their progenitor deity, even if they don't themselves quite understand why. An olympian cleric or favored one who tries to draw power from another deity will be extremely disappointed as the gods of Mount Olympus have sworn a pact to only lend power to their own olympians and not the children of their fellows.
Olympian of Morpheus Racial Traits
- +2 Charisma. Olympians are naturally outgoing and people respond well to them. Unlike most olympians, those who were sired by Morpheus are more introspective.
- Outsider (Native): Olympians are outsiders native to the Material Plane, and thus have the outsider (native) type. They gain the extraplanar subtype when not on the Material Plane. They are not subject to spells or effects that affect only humanoids, such as charm person and dominate person.
- Medium: As Medium creatures, olympians have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
- Olympian base land speed is 30 feet.
- Low-Light Vision: An olympian can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight and similar conditions of poor illumination. She retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
- +2 racial bonus to Diplomacy checks. Olympians have a knack for making allies and getting others to assist them.
- +2 racial bonus to Sense Motive checks. Olympians are naturally inclined to deciphering the actions of those around them.
- +1 luck bonus to all saving throws. Olympians are lucky and tend to be able to avoid danger.
- Progenitor God: Each olympian has a progenitor god; the deity that helped spawn them. An olympian cleric or favored one must worship her progenitor god. No other deity will accept worship from her. Olympians of Morpheus all have Morpheus as their progenitor god.
- Sleep (Sp): Once per day the olympian of Morpheus can cast sleep. The caster level is equal to the olympian's class level, minimum of one. The save DC is equal to 10 + 1/2 the olympian's hit dice + the olympian's Charisma modifier.
- Automatic Languages: Origin. Bonus Languages: Any.
- Favored Class: Wizard.
- Level Adjustment: +1
The Region of Dreams
Morpheus resides in the Region of Dreams, or simply Dream, a vast plane that contains the dreams of all living mortals. It is from here that he rules.
In the Greek Campaign, Dream exists exactly like it does in the Manual of the Planes, with a couple of exceptions. Mortal travellers are discouraged from travelling through Dream, even through the use of magic. Any non-deity who enters Dream, finds themselves in front of a large gate that's protected by two nightmare guardians (psudeonatural titans). Any attempt to enter the gate draws the ire of the guardians, who immediately attack. Deities may pass through the gates unmolested or use magic to enter Dream in a different location.
Dreams and the Waking World
Although dreams have always been seen as a form of communication, with the exception of diviners, most of the world disregards harnessing the power of dream magic. Sages see dreams as unreliable, especially compared to more solid magic. Starting in the 1800s though, a new form of psychology: dream analysis becomes popular. Its through this new way of looking at dreams that results in the creation of a new school of magic: oneiromancy.
Oneiromancy isn't a true school of magic, like conjuration or necromancy, but it's rather a combination of spells from several schools that all deal with sleep, dreams and illusion. Oneiromancers harness the power of dream to cast spells that other wizards can't even comprehend, but lose the ability to use more material magic, specifically evocation and necromancy. These specialist wizards are also well versed in using trances and lucid dreaming to assist them without the aid of magic and in planar travel.
Besides wizards, powerful psionicists have been known to tap the power of dreams. In 1835 at the Dorchester Asylum for the Incurably Insane in Massachusetts, a catatonic psion who was a patient there suddenly awoke and managed to breach a planar rift to his dreamscape in the Realm of Dreams. Schizophrenic nightmares of his own unconscious creation invaded the hospital killing a score of doctors, staff and other patients and seriously injuring several dozen more. It took a group of troubleshooters, experienced in such matters, several days to breach the hospital's unworldly defenses, seal the rift and subdue the psion before he could do any more damage.
