Spharai

Also known as murphies or carbuncles, spharai are dream beings; creatures of usually limited intelligence, made of pure dreamstuff. Alongside their skittering, nightmarish opposites, the qlippoth, these dream creatures make up the majority of The Duskscape's "fauna" or "wildlife". What the qlippoth are to nightmares and anxiety, the spharai are to positive dreams, nostalgia and inspiration. It is common in the Near Umbra to see these ethereal creatures floating, flitting or dancing about.

Appearance & Parabiology

See also: Spharai Image Gallery (External)

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The shapes spharai take are often alien and uncanny, but in ways that are calming rather than unsettling. Unlike Waking fauna, they appear to be individually morphic, and cannot be ranked into supergroups or subgroups. One commonly chosen form are "sky mantas", with semi-flat bodies and diamond shapes similar to the sea creatures. They are a beautiful sight to watch.

Nature

Spharai seem to be tied to the Duskscape Regent of Dreams and Convalescence, Auron Surai, though what this relationship entails is a mystery: the wandering god-being has never been observed to command, recruit or otherwise interfere with its lesser cousins (and that is saying something, as Auron Surai's followers, typically called Dreamshepherds, are among the more knowledgeable Duskscape scholars).

Though able to cross The Veil into Waking Materia, spharai show little interest in doing so.

Waking Materians can bond with carbuncles as familiars (indeed, this common practice among the clergy of Auron Surai), though their minds are deeply strange things, outside the ken of most Waking Materians.

A child encounters a group of spharai in her dreaming.

Fauna
Near & Far Umbral
Frequency
Ubiquitous
Intelligence
Generally Wild-Low
Hostility
Generally Peaceful
Patron Regent
Auron Surai

Banner art credit: Peter Ferguson, Margherita Castello