Belerin's Codex Of The Planes 11

11

The planes, as they say, are the playground of the gods.  But, as most
scholars of them will attest, not every plane is a direct creation of a
deity out of raw essence.  In particular, there is no tale of creation of
the dream.  Could the Dream have arisen as a sort of reflection of the
mental and spiritual attributes inherent in the sentience of all living
things?  

Regardless, it is known that various deities have had influences or even
demesnes in the dream.  Of course, we know that the ch'taren have some
affinity for the Dream, as well as their goddess Rystaia.  [Though as we
will see in a later volume, the ch'taren did not come to Avendar from the
Dream] Before the War of Night, the aelin venerated a deity of art and
beauty who had demesnes in the Dream, but his worship vanished at the end of
the war.  

(Written in margin in red ink is the phrase: "The identity of this deity is
left as an exercise to the reader.") 

We also know that a demon city, know as Chaigidon, sits very near a planar
boundary between the Dream and the Void.  Like all dark things, it exerts an
influence in our nightmares, and its presence is reflected in certain areas
of the Dream.  

(Written in the margin in red ink is the word: "Zyal")

Along with various deities and demigods, some very rare mortals find that
upon entering the Dream that they have a much larger than normal measure of
control over the environs there.  First recorded by the alatharya, who
called such individuals the "Zhelead Yha ('Dream Lords').  These gifted
dreamers often find a compelling affinity with the Dream, and will often
eventually abandon life in the material world for a new existence on that
plane.  Such beings eventually grow to something like demigods on the Dream,
making their own demesnes, living extremely long lives in the altered
timestream there.