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Duncan is a hero from the Giant War. In the mainland, that's all he's known for, as he was on the south side of the

quarry when it became poisoned.

His primary feature is his right hand, coming from his involvement with the dreamer's cult. It is formless, and

appears in the shape of an abstract, clawed hand. It looks like the starry night sky viewed through a sheet

of water. Since the hand is formless, it can change shape and size, but it's normally unnecessary and takes

concentration.

Duncan was actually the creator of the Dream Forge, in a way. The dreamers could only sleep for so long, and this was

impacting their ability to forge. So they made a deal with one of their mercenary guards (Duncan). The

dreamers inverted the forging process by force (while dreaming of course) while Duncan held his hand in the

manifestor. It was painless, at least. The result is that the inversion stuck to his hand; now, anything he

touched with that hand would be demanifested from reality to dream. To all bystanders, this looks like he's

got a wicked antimatter paw that deletes everything. No one knows this anymore, and Duncan was the only one

that knew the ups and downs of it.

Right, so anyway, this was exactly what the dreamers were hoping for. They spent a couple days running tests

to confirm it. Then they had Duncan kill them all. Sort of. If he makes his hand big enough to engulf a

skull, he can make them a permanent dreamer. It's funny, he's basically their savior, and no one knows it but

them and they don't talk much in dreams. They could have easily made a whole squadron of annihilators, but

they were eager to dream forever, churning out weapons for a war long ended. Duncan realized this was a great

power that could help in the war front, so he moved down south. The research team didn't have enough time to

tell him if it was a problem to turn monsters into dreamers (and the topic was a bit taboo), so he decided on

his own that he should avoid doing it.

Duncan was probably paid in concubines. I imagine he had a few tagging along with him down south. He's basically

one-handed anyway, so he needs help with some things. He could have had a gauntlet commissioned to constrain

his hand, but he was too caught up in other things to go back north for it. Since his hand destroys without

his consent or awareness, he has to be careful not to hit allies or himself. Luckily this dude enjoyed glory,

so he ended up being a solo fighter (with his hos on standby for support). He had to have a sort of splint

for his right arm to sleep safely, but luckily the dreamer research team made one for him before he left.

He lost a couple of concubines during the war, of course. He's great at offense, but he can't really defend others.

Since they were from the dreamer temple, he agreed to render them to dream before they died. He settled down

after this, not pursuing the giants further south with the front lines. Him and some other tired fighters

made a little village. Duncan's power proved pretty handy for terraforming and shaping material for tools.

Years went by, and a new monster came. This one didn't have a form, and it brought sickness and nightmares. The

reality was that it was feeding off of Duncan, who hasn't been doing well mentally. Duncan decides that a

dream monster requires dream soldiers, and convinces the others to sacrifice cubs because they're strong at

dreaming. Sacrifice to Duncan's hand, of course. And this seems to work temporarily. A few years go by, and

the sacrifices have slowly increased to where there are several. Duncan dies of a stroke. Perhaps he

realized the truth before he died, but if he did, it was not known. But everyone else noticed that the monster

went away after his death, and so they decided that the monster was Duncan all along. They cursed his memory

and cast his remains to the sea. His hand crystallized into a powerful relic, but no one dares tread the sea.

born a child of victims

duncan, the annihilator

grown aside from war

but eager in man's duty

hired by the dreamers

in safeguard of their beds

a forge was made within their dreams

but their coils left them bound

so they bargained with duncan

for one hand, a wish

flesh turned to haze

blood to emptiness

bone to starlight

what once was real now was dream

and with a stroke the world would wake

duncan was the savior for a day

now the dreamers would dream eternal

a string of luck brought them here

turning a joke into a factory of war

the giants would fall

the mainland would claim its peace

duncan relished this new might

he marched south and no foe could withstand his claw

the power was terrible and left him short of allies

save for dreamer's concubine

but duncan was glad for the glory

glad to fight, glad to erase wrong

strength was naught before his hand

giants were brought low

he's remembered as a hero in the north

as the great trench forbade passage home

the war never truly ended

it merely moved further south

supply lines lost

new homes were needed

duncan, though, his lover was struck down

his hand led her to dream

the man was changed

he stayed when the line pushed on

a new home was made

tired men struggling to rest

they did not rest

they tore security out of the land

there was more to glory than killing the enemy

destruction can be used to build

wood turned to mist

water to whispers

stone to stain

what once held fast would hold no more

and with a stroke the world would forget

a new monster was borne out of the years

one without form

sacrifices were made

children became dreamers

a temporary defense

more and more were needed

but when duncan died

the monster was gone

who will snuff the cubs?

duncan will

the hand of duncan lies in the sea

a cursed and broken dream

power turned to glass

dreamers to victims

glory to regret

what once was truth has turned to lie

and with a stroke he left the world

The Dreamer's Forge was the breakthrough for winning the Giant War. It churns out reality-denying weapons. This is

done in combination of two things: the cult of dreamers and the dream manifestor.

The cult of dreamers was an odd cult, not based on the teachings of a saint. They just really loved dreaming. They

got very little accomplished because of this, but on their own, they managed to get respect for scrying. Now,

the necrobuilders had a bit of humor in them, and they built a big stone temple for these guys. They didn't

build temples other than that one, so people looking back on it probably think the dreamers were hot shit to be

able to get preferential treatment for their cult. Right, so, the dreamers moved in there, and a bunch of

others went with them and they all had a weird little society there where the dreamers just slept a lot and

everyone else took care of them. If not for the war, it probably would have turned into a curious kingdom.

The actual followers of the cult were the dreamers. But they counted on others to help them elevate their

"craft" because they couldn't be bothered. So in the hierarchy of this society, the second place guys were

the researchers that figured out methods to satisfy the dreamers. Drugs to put you to sleep, loose studies of

metaphysics (actually super dangerous in this setting, but it didn't go far), methods to maximize dream

quality, etc. The third place guys were the guards, which were generally hired mercenaries. The necrobuilders

weren't trying to make a serious place to live, so the fortifications sucked and demanded a standing guard.

The dream manifestor is a soul steel device that forces a space to be both reality and dream, with the intention of

items from dreams being pulled into reality. This was another stroke of luck, really. A curious wizard came

to investigate this cult of dreamers because of rumors he had heard, and after talking with the research team,

(the dreamers were mostly asleep) they came to negotiate the idea of dream forging. Giving a point to all the

dreaming, how novel. The dreamers were about as interested as they could be when they were told about it, but

did agree to go for it. So the wizard crafted the manifestor. It's sort of a large panel on the floor, which

generates a column of distorted space. It feels weird being inside it, but it's not really dangerous. While

the landscape of dreams isn't exactly coherent, the research team had already worked out methods of communal

dreaming, so what ended up being made in the dream side was a communal workshop featuring a copy of the temple.

Anytime they made a new weapon, they just needed to haul it to the dream version of the manifestor. Then it

would manifest once they operated a control mechanism (there are ontological problems with persistent

manifestation). The weapon has to be retrieved and the panel left clear in order to send something over.

The results were really cool, but it wasn't until Duncan's upgrade that it became a factory of war. The wizard had left

sometime before, satisfied with his success and ready to make gaudy castles somewhere. Once the output was

going steady, it attracted military forces because these weapons were crazy strong. It was important to keep

them all put to use in the war, so the temple became an important military location (and I say military

loosely, as there was very little formal structuring) with a dedicated place in the lines of supply. Gradually,

the social order shifted to rely on the military occupation. The cult was basically gone, anyway, because

Duncan killed all the faithful. The research team got co-opted into researching the weapons. There was no

longer a reliable way to communicate with the dreamers (at best, you can dream and watch them, but talking is

incoherent), so no one knew what each new weapon did. Some of these weapons were crazy strong and too

dangerous to be used normally, some would kill, blind, or maim the researchers just trying to retrieve them

from the manifestor. They had to make a dedicated retrieval squad because of this.

Once the war ended, vaults were constructed to organize and store the weapons. Once the Knights formed, this became an

important location to construct an armory around. There's quite an arsenal here now, and not just from the

dream forge.

Now, the dreamers only output weapons of war to the manifestor. There's about 10 dreamers total working on this. The

output is kinda random. Some of them are bad at it. Sometimes they all work together on one. Combined with

the matter of time distortion, the production rate is random. So there has to be a retrieval unit on duty 24/7

to keep the manifestor clear. Even though the dreamers didn't live much, they did know about the giant

monsters. They each had seen at least one directly, and the rest they heard stories about. Part of their

dream-side forging process is constructing giants and using these weapons to kill them (the dreamers are

basically immortal now). Part of the problem is that they occasionally make a weapon to kill something specific

that doesn't exist, so the weapon seems useless. Another problem, mentioned earlier, is that they forget

what normal limits of flesh are, so the weapons might be too volatile to use safely.