Dream City of I'Cath
Hidden beneath the fabric of waking reality, like a lacquered screen concealing an impossible vision, lies Tsien Chiang’s Dream—a resplendent, illusory city of flawless order, radiant beauty, and unquestioning devotion. This dream-world overlays the real I’Cath like a mask of gold leaf over rotting wood. It is not merely a fantasy but a psychic prison, a scripted utopia written by a tyrant’s need for perfection.
When the Nightingale Bell tolls, all who dwell in I’Cath drift into sleep—and awaken here.
Few ever escape Tsien Chiang’s dream on their own. Some heroes brought through the Mists resist its pull, hiding during the Nightingale Bell’s toll or venturing into the dream while lucid. But even they risk being unmade or rewritten.
The dream holds one constant truth: Tsien Chiang’s will is law. Her city may be beautiful, but its foundations are poured from memory, grief, and the bones of a thousand forgotten citizens.
Demographics
In this realm, the people of I’Cath live unwilling second lives, compelled by the dream’s logic. They perform assigned roles—servants, artisans, scribes, singers—without memory of their waking selves. In dreams, they smile because they must, bow because it is written, and thank Tsien Chiang even as they are worked to death crafting structures or rehearsing ceremonial performances.
To refuse, resist, or even question one’s place is to draw the notice of the Golden Enforcers—faceless figures of lacquered armor and silk, who emerge silently from the golden walls to erase dissent with a mere gesture.
Infrastructure
Tsien Chiang’s Dream is a city of symmetry and brilliance, its avenues wide and silent, its pagodas glimmering with gilded roofs and mirrored windows. All buildings are pristine and mathematically aligned. Blossoms never fall out of season. Wind chimes ring in harmonic intervals. Even clouds move in perfect formations above.
The city is shaped like an eight-petaled lotus when seen from above, with the Golden Palace—an immaculate, impossible version of the Palace of Bones—at its center. Streets are laid with jade cobblestones, and luminous script runs along the walls, flowing like calligraphic water that praises obedience, harmony, and the beneficence of the Eternal Matron.
Every element is designed—aesthetics are law. Even birdsong follows prescribed melodies. Deviations are not tolerated.
Points of interest
At the city’s heart is Tsien Chiang’s dream-throne: a shining, ever-growing complex of bridges, gardens, and towers. From this palace, she watches the city unfold in elegant clockwork. Her daughters—obedient in dreams, bitter in the waking world—flank her in silent choreography.
Each day in the dream ends with a Great Recitation, where citizens gather to chant praise for the Dreaming Matron, watched by massive statues with her face.
Architecture
While the city appears flawless, there are subtle hints of decay beneath the surface:
- Occasionally, a flower wilts, and a building nearby collapses like paper.
- Some dreamers wake up screaming, only to vanish the next night.
- A rare few—Lucid Dreamers—remember who they are, and try to flee the scripted roles, pursued mercilessly.
These flaws grow with Tsien Chiang’s frustration. Each attempt to fix the dream introduces new anomalies—cities of looping corridors, actors with porcelain faces that crack, moments that repeat endlessly.
Time and space within the dream are fluid. A door might lead to an entire neighborhood or back to where one stood. Roads rearrange overnight. Days last only until Tsien Chiang tires of them. Her thoughts reshape the city in real time, remolding entire districts to suit her whims.
Buildings hum with psionic energy, and the sky never fully darkens—it glows with a sunless, golden hue, as if the heavens were lit by thought alone.
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