Nobrin and the Dreamweaver

Write about a tale surrounding a mythological creature in your world.

Across the central regions of Marivar many tales are told of the Dreamweaver, of which the tale of Nobrin and the Dreamweaver is perhaps the best known. It isn’t the most outlandish, or fascinating but with Nobrin’s vision a foundation point for the Marivan Empire it is a tale that is part of the empire’s popular history.

The Tale of Nobrin and the Dreamweaver

As a young man few would have called Nobrin a dreamer - a practical lad with his head screwed on the right way. One night as he slept a passing dreamweaver perched on his window sill and listened in on his thoughts. All night it sat there seeing the inspiration that sleeted through the young mans mind but, like rain upon sand, drained away leaving not a trace. The following night the dreamweaver returned and began to work on Nobrin, sitting on the window sill and singing its low song. Gradually the inspiration began to settle and when he woke at dawn he found himself knowing not merely what he had to do that day, but what he wanted to do and how to achieve those things.
The following night the dreamweaver's song continued to help the young man’s mind retain the inspiration passing through it and that night, for the first time in his life, he began to dream. Puzzled by these visions and not knowing their meaning this day he achieved little and was as unsure of what do do as he had been sure the day before.
On the third night the dream weaver returned to sing its low song once again and if his mind had been as a desert: arid and unable to retain the rain that fell on it it was now as lush and fertile as the The Vale of Arabour. This time Nobrin dreamed his vision of an empire uniting the lands of the Harren watershed that would thrive in peace rather than wasting its strength in petty squabbling. As dawn came his vision faded to be replaced by the image of a young woman in a red cloak sitting on his window sill. They spoke for a while of the dreams he had had and the work she had done those past nights to let the gods’ inspiration pool in his mind to fuel those dreams. When Nobrin asked if they had been a vision of the future or just a passing fancy, the dream faded and he woke to find a large black bird with red wings sat where the woman had been. It cawed like a crow, which to Nobrin carried a meaning of “who knows”. On this third day he knew not just what needed doing that day but how to make that day's deeds work towards his vision of the future.
When Nobrin asked of such birds, none could tell him what they were until he asked a trader from the forests of Nash-din Hills who told him a little of the lore on the dreamweaver and which inspired him to pursue that dream. And while the empire he imagined came to pass it was never his to rule, and while he continued to dream it was never again with the intensity of the night when he met the dream weaver.

What is a Dreamweaver

Dreamweavers are reputed to be the agents by which the gods bring inspiration to mortals through the medium of dreams. They are represented as large birds, similar to crows or ravens, but with red wings. Some say that the redness of the wings represents the degree of the dreamweaver and that crows and ravens are the most mundane of the sort. For this reason many of the people of Marivar hold corvids in general to have a supernatural link to the gods.
The Dreamweaver is reputed to work its magic (or whatever) through its song - like any corvid it will croak and caw but unlike them it also has a song - far lower in tone than most birds and this is reputed to work on the soul of the listener to help them retain the particles of inspiration that sleet through the worlds and inspire the mortal races to immortal deeds (or at least deeds far beyond their mortal spans).

And in this Case?

This legend is only one of many told in different parts of Marivar involving the Dreamweaver and is the only example that is clearly linked to an historical event. Other stories of this mythical bird tend to involve legendary or even mythical characters and it has been suggested by some that the link to Nobrin was a late addition to the his vision; it was not mentioned in the accounts of his activities that remain from the first days of the Empire's reckoning.

It goes without mentioning that many beings from beyond the mortal planes can bring dreams to the sentient minds of those planes. Some, like the dream weavers are linked to the divine; others are most emphatically not. Generally the tenor of a dream is a good indication, but dreams of power and domination might be considered to be suspect regardless of the flavour of the dream. Could Nobrin's dream have been inspired by one of these? Who knows - no records exist of Nobrin himself referring to the the incident of the Dreamweaver so if it is not true, then this legend is more an embroidery of those who came later than some more malevolent inspiration for the formation of the empire.
The dreamweaver's appearance in Nobrin's dream is an unusual feature of this tale - more often the dreamweaver is seen near the dreamer but plays no direct part in the visions. Some have suggested that the appearance show's Nobrin to have been chosen to bring about the gods' intent; others that the dreamweaver had a particular interest in Nobrin or her own. Either way the lore on the dreamweaver is clear that one should never ask a dreamweaver the meaning of the dreams that they bring and that this is why the dreamweaver did not return.