Rêve: the Dream Ouroboros

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Rêve: the Dream Ouroboros
Cover of the English edition of Rêve.
Designer	Denis Gerfaud
Publisher	Nouvelles Éditions Fantastiques Malcontent Games
Publication date	1985 (1st edition) (french only) 1993 (2nd edition)
Genre(s)	Fantasy
System	Custom

Rêve: the Dream Ouroboros is a French dreamlike fantasy role-playing game created by Denis Gerfaud and edited in English by Malcontent Games. It is the translation of Rêve de Dragon (French: Dream of the Dragon), one of the best-selling games in France.^[1] The first French edition was published by NEF (Nouvelles Éditions Fantastiques) in 1985, the second by Multisim in 1993, reprinted by UbIK, the French editor for Fading Suns, in 2004.

There was also a simplified version for beginners called Oniros (1994).

1 The world of Rêve
- 1.1 The external history
- 1.2 The "inner" history
2 Differences between the editions
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] The world of Rêve

Note: The main author of this section is French and has therefore never read the English version of the game; there may thus be discrepancies with the terms used in the official translation

[edit] The external history

The world of Rêve is a dragons' dream. The dragons, fabulous creatures, are asleep and every dragon dreams a creature; but at the same time, all the dragons dream the world. When a creature dies, his dragon awakes, but as the creature is also dreamt by the other dragons, its body remains.

This is a metaphor of the role-playing game itself: when players gather to play, they imagine — dream — together an adventure, and each player imagines his own character.

As well as different stories often interfere (e.g. a player plays different games in the same week), the different dreams (worlds, universe) can interfere; there are rips between the dreams, and the character can go to a different world sometimes without noticing it! Strange creatures can also come to the present dream.

As well as a sleeper does only partially control his dreams — who would have nightmares otherwise? — the dragons do not completely control their creatures and worlds. The dreamed creatures have the possibility to modify the dream (the world) itself; this is the source of magic.

The life of a character is fuzzy between the game sessions; the player only has little ideas of what happens to him/her. In the same way, characters of Rêve de Dragon sometimes experience a gris-rêve (grey-dream): they suddenly realise that they are somewhere with companions, but only have limited memories of what happened the days before. But what happened can be the key of the current situation...

When a character dies, his dragon wakes up and then falls asleep again. This means that the character is recreated with the same abilities, but a different past, a different job, different skills, a different name. The player thus play the same character again — well, not exactly the same — the character is not new born, he is already adult, just coming from another dream.

The "sum" of all these incarnations are the archetype of the character. When the character is himself sleeping, he can remember his past incarnations, and thus learn skills he never practiced nor studied. These memories of a past life can also be the key of the adventure...

[edit] The "inner" history

The present era is the Third Age. During the First Age, dragons liked to represent themselves in the dreams, served by creatures such as gnomes, humans etc.

But the gnomes discovered the gems and the magic they carry. The dragons realised they did not control this world and woke up massively. This created a cataclysm in the world, which ended the First Age.

The Second Age is the age of magic. The magicians (called haut-rêvants, high-dreamers) are powerful, but they manipulate amounts of dream energy far beyond their skills. This excess of energy creates rips (called "rifts") between the dreams and the dragons once again wake up massively; new cataclysm, end of the Second Age.

The Third Age is the age of the travel. The magicians left a very bad memory, so they are hated and most of them hide their skills. Due to the multiple cataclysms, the position of the places were mixed, so it is not unusual to find a harbour at the top of a mountain. Everybody knows that he can go to another dream just by wandering, without any chance to come back, so the travel has become a way of living for most humans. Everybody makes one day a journey; this can be just going to the next village and back, or leaving everyday on the road. The player characters are such journeyers.

The world has three levels:

the basses terres du rêve (low dreamland) is the land the characters live in;
the terres médianes du rêve (middle dreamland) is a land that only high-dreamers (magicians) can reach in mind, in a state of demi-rêve (half-dream); this is were they can call the dream energy to cast spells;
the hautes terres du rêve (high dreamland) is were the spirit of a character goes when he is asleep; this is were he can have the memories of his past life.