Nysel
From Mizahar Lore
 The Dreamer | |
| Race | God |
|---|---|
| Domain | Dreams, Nightmares, Sleep |
| Divine rank | 3 |
| Symbols | The Key and Eye, Optical Illusions |
| Cults | Dreamwalkers |
| Worshipped in | Throughout Mizahar |
The son of Akajia, Goddess of Darkness and Secrets, and Wysar, God of Integrity, Conviction, and Discipline, Nysel emanated as a personification of dreaming and, much like his mother, his truths are often clouded in symbols writ deep in the collective unconscious of the living and the dead. Though he has a place with the pantheon of gods in the Ukalas, his true home is the Chavena, that manifestation of energy moving back and forth between the immortal and mortal realms. If Leth is the Lord of Thought, then Nysel claims the constructions of thought and emotion, inspiration and chaos that life leaves behind, the energies of sentience. Even as these things disappear before the inner eyes of the dreamers, they add themselves as echoes to his realm, which he can easily recall and reconstitute as vividly as ever before.
Though often banished to his mother's realm, in truth he exists in the daydreams of children and the waking dreams of the mad. While an Akalak would be the first to say that Nysel's skin matches their own, he might as easily appear in any form the mind can conceive to better communicate or confound a person. He might confound the sages with circular questions like, "Am I a man dreaming I'm a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I'm a man?" Some would call Nysel cruel, playing a cat-and-mouse game with the minds of all, and others bless him as a balm to troubled minds and a conduit to Visions from Avalis.
In fact, he is neutral as the night, capable of good or evil, though theologians have argued that the good and evil of a god is of a different stripe from the morality of the children of Mizahar.
Symbol
Many symbols have been attributed to Nysel over time, but the Dreamwalkers' emblem has been described in ancient scripts as a stylized key with an open eye peering through the keyhole. The common elements of symbols for Nysel himself have been any figure or pattern, simple or complex, with a smaller version of itself drawn within and skewed, and again and again until they are too small to be seen with the naked eye.
The idea of the symbol is that perspectives are endless and anything one might dream could be called reality. Not for nothing do children the world over sing:
"Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream."
Gnosis
- Dreamwalking is an ability granted to those in Nysel's favor, which is the ability to walk his realm and to effect change within it. The Dreamwalkers are librarians of sorts, with keys to the Chavena or to the individual chavi of a person.