Soporific Silt

Soporific Silt is a dust or sand like sedimentary substance that is orange-brown in colour with a dull matte shine and has a strong, bitter taste and smell similar to Cinnamon. In large quantities, such as the desert where it originates, it can soak in heat and does not reflect light strongly.

Without proper protective equipment interaction with Soporific Silt can prove deadly. Although it is not explicitly poisonous or an obvious irritant exposure to the substance can cause a cycle of slumber that leads to a draining of nutrients and deterioration of the body.

While death isn't explicitly a possibility in the dream realm without a soul's presence to sustain the body, the substance's soporific qualities lead to an inability to dream or inhabit a dream-self and thus causing one's dreamer body to cease to exist.

Soporific silt is mainly found within the Shifting Sands of Slumber, a desert-like stretch of Soporific Silt within the central southern regions of the Confectionary Continent but there have been cases of smaller swaths of it being located elsewhere.

The Shifting Sands of Slumber are infamous for having vast swaths of Soporific Silt, thus earning it a deadly reputation. Many myths and legends of this region originate from the deadly slumbers' the quantity of Soporific Silt inflicts.

Before preventative measures were established Soporific silt posed a threat to both budding travellers of the Shifting Sands of Slumber and the wider dreaming population of the Confectionary Continent and Dreamrealms. After the Wither epidemic that removed 40-50 dreamers from the population in a particularly nasty attack on one of the dreamer's capitals, travel restrictions and trade restrictions were enforced en mass.

Due to it's Soporific qualities the trade and distribution of Soporific Silt is heavily discouraged and highly regulated, with some bad-actors using it as a means to attack or subdue others and knock them away from their dreamers' body.

Enforcement of the trade restrictions of Soporific Silt are upheld by the Stewards of the Universe and specifically their Guardians of Peace and Guardians of Trade.