The Vale

The Dreamworld

The Twisted Mirror

The Vale is the plane all beings are most familiar with, outside of their home plane. The Vale is the the reason for the existence of dreams, without it they simply wouldn't occur. When a creature sleeps their consciousness travels through the Abyss to the Vale, where they dream, laving their imprint on the Vale for eternity. Due to the dreamers the Vale is constantly in flux as the dreams of creatures affect the Vale physically, as it physically changes to accommodate their dreams. The buildings and values and creatures dreamed up physically manifest in the Vale in the most real way possible. Leading to a lot of confusion if one finds themselves in the Vale while awake.
While dreams physically change the Vale, the spaces in between are surreal to say the least. These areas of the Vale are for the most part inaccessible to dreamers. When a waking mortal steps into the Vale they see it for what it truly is, a twisted reflection of the waking world. Walking the Vale while awake is a strange experience, areas where dreams are actively occurring are surreal, for when you walk to them you literally walk into the dream of whoever is dreaming. While you cannot control their dreams anything you do within they experience as a part of their dream. In fact its more dangerous for the dream walker than for the dreamer as hazards within the dream are capable of hurting the former and not the latter.
Areas outside of dreamscapes are colorless and cold. The lands, while stable, maintain an imprint of past dreams. Villages, monsters and even entire cities can exist in these dreamless locations, remnants of past dreamers. Although they closely resemble real places in the waking world these locations are always skewed to some degree. While they are no longer figments of someone's dreams the people and places still behave as if they are. Because of the dream imprints, it's even possible to encounter a version of yourself that someone else dreamed, this mimicry will never be perfect, as they are constructs of someone's interpretation of you, and not true copies.

Shrouded Purpose

While the main purpose of the Vale is clear, to facilitate dreams, the true purpose behind it is unclear. most scholars believe Kazan to have a reason for maintaining the plane, as dreaming would be a strange priority for her to have. Most think that the Vale is her way of acquiring knowledge from mortals, the dreams providing windows into their means and motives. Other's believe she wishes dreams to encourage those in the waking world to act on what they dream of, providing the change she requires for her schemes. Still others believe dreams to not be a construct of mortal minds, but subliminal messages from Kazan herself. Regardless of the Vales true purpose, it is clear that mortal minds will never understand it.
The lack of understanding mortals have of the Vale is the main reason why most don't trust it or Kazan. And throughout history many attempts have been made to sever the connection between mortal minds and the Vale. The most obvious case of this is Elves, since the beginning Elves do not sleep, simply going into a meditative trance to rest. This is notably not natural to them, because even with this ability an Elf can sleep if they so choose, it's a conscious decision of Elves to not sleep, and therefore to not dream. This came to be when an Elven Wizard manages to supercharge herself with Raw Arcana, permanently changing the physiology of Elves forever. While the Wizard's name and motives have been lost to time, the effects of their spell can be seen everywhere.
Many others take the Vale's effects and use them for their own benefit. When someone dreams they are susceptible to influence from waking creatures who step foot into their dreams. This is a highly dangerous endeavor since a waking creature can be killed easily in a dream, either by the dreamer themselves or some other aspect of their dream. However some attempts have been successful in the past, stories of dubious credibility exist of people intruding the dreams of others and implanting thoughts or memories into their targets, affecting them in the waking world because of it.

The Black Mountain

The Black Mountain is a location seemingly inaccessible to anyone in either the waking or dream world. An omnipresent sign in the Vale that exists in the far reaches of one's mind at all times. When asleep it is always visible, even in dreams you cannot reach it, when you do you simply awaken. While awake you can attempt to travel to it, but no matter how far you travel, you can never actually get closer to it. The mountain maintains its distance from you at all times, always seemingly miles away.
The mountain is said to be the home of Kazan herself, for what purpose she has it always out of reach is unknown. What is clear is that she wishes to maintain the palace and what occurs there a mystery. Mortal research in this field is fairly vast. As over the years people have dedicated their lives to finding the true purpose of not only the mountain, but the Vale itself. What has been observed is that the Mountain, while omnipresent, is always slightly different when one views it. And on occasion, figures can be seen at the Black Mountain, large looming hands or heads that peek over the Mountaintop from elsewhere. As well as other anomalies such as a vortex of birds circling the peak, freak storms or strange cloud formations. Research into the Black Mountain has yielded very little in terms of substance, at this point it resembles more of a log of observed anomalies rather than any kind of thorough investigation.

Type

Dimensional plane