Introduction[]
Dream-Hunters are the children of the Greek gods of sleep. They are born gods or half-gods. Some of them are born of human mothers, but most are born of the Greek goddess Mist. They can be either male or female, and for the most part, they leave the human realm alone and are found only in your wildest dreams as lovers or demons.
History[]
Long ago, a prophecy stated that a female Dream-Hunter born of a mortal man and a goddess would destroy the Greek god Zeus. To avoid his fate, Zeus claimed that one of the Dream-Hunters played a trick on him, infiltrating his dreams and making him lust after a goat. He used this excuse to slaughter all the human mates and half-human children of the Dream-Hunters. To prevent them from ever falling in love again, Zeus also cursed all of their kind to have no emotion whatsoever. Thus the only time they could feel anything was when they were in a human's dreams.
Because this was seductive, Dream-Hunters could only visit dreams; they were not allowed to participate nor revisit the same human.
There were also a few Dream-Hunters who preferred to stay out of dreams, except to police their own brethren. Zeus devised prefixes to be attached to their names so that everyone would know their role:
- M' were the enforcers. They worked like a police force and were the leaders.
- V' were the ones who helped humans who were having trouble sleeping or who had nightmares.
- D' were the ones who helped the gods and immortals. One of these is almost always sent in to aid newly created Dark-Hunters. Since the Dark-Hunters usually come from horrible pasts, they tend to be plagued with nightmares. Their designated Dream-Hunter will usually watch over them throughout their entire DH existence.
In Dream Warrior, Jericho traded his services to Zeus in exchange for the return of the Dream-Hunters' emotions.
Oneroi[]
The Oneroi are Dream-Hunters responsible for watching over human dreams and protecting them from Skoti. They live on the Vanishing Isle, where they have portals used to monitor human sleep and join the sleepers. While the Oneroi can technically do their job without these portals, they make it easier and more effective. The Vanishing Isle also holds the Onethalamos, which is the room where the three leaders of the dream gods make policy. It's a fairly large conference room.
Oneroi are often assigned to newly created Dark-Hunters to heal them mentally. Since the Greek pantheon derives its power from human worshipers, many Greek gods lost power as their popularity waned. However, the Oneroi maintained the strength of their powers through the sheer number of Dark-Hunters needing their help.
Skoti[]
The temptation to experience emotions in the dream state caused some Dream-Hunters to become Skoti. They were usually the children of Phobetor, but could be any Dream-Hunter who went bad. Nightmare demons who infiltrated the dreams of humans to suck emotions and creativity from them, they were also incubi and succubi who derived sexual pleasure from their dream-hosts. A Skotos could kill its human host if he/she fed off of the human for an extended period of time.