Orac was a wizard long ago who attempted to learn the nature of dreams. He attempted to pull the spirits of dreams from his own body and interrogate them, performing horrible experiments on the topic while he did so. His actual crime was that he did not limit himself to his own dreams however, pulling out the dreams of others against their will.
Orac learned to extract dreams by experimenting on himself, pulling the memories from himself, and distilling them into what he thought were inert potions. Small vials of pure spirit essence, small spirits and wisps of memory. As the shelves began to fill, Orac attempted to pull the secrets out of the vials. First, he used his own dreams to store hopes and memories. Later, he began to use use the spirits to learn the secrets of others.
Over his century of magical practice, Orac learned several secrets. He learned that dreams live in their own world, and that the dream world is a place that can be travelled. He learned that dreams are where magic is made, the minds of mortals trying to comprehend the world is the thing that powers magic itself. The gods cause the world to exist, but the minds of mortals contain enough power to slowly reshape it, and therefore the dream world contains some, but not all, of the future. So Orac began to explore the world of dreams - trying to find the secrets in other's hearts, the future, and shape the will of magic. He got greedier and greedier, stealing spirits from his enemies, from kings and nobles, and using these to fund further research, and nurse further grudges.
But the death and dismembering of Orac is not the purpose of this tale. This is about the remnants of his feasting on the minds of others. Orac's studies were not in vain, for he managed to learn the secrets he sought, and he managed to rip spirits out of the dream world. But he never properly learned to fix what he broke, nor how to return those things to where he left them. The tower that Orac experimented within became a thin place between the world of mortals and the world of dream. Those who sleep near it begin to feel their dreams tearing asunder, and worse, they begin to encounter others in their dreams, and their dreams in the waking world. The tower contains hundreds of memories of forgotten wizards and kings, and might be the most valuable place in the world to the right explorer, but no group has ever managed to mount an expedition without being destroyed by their own dreams.
The Tower is surrounded by a crack into the dream world. Everywhere around the tower slowly seeps into the real world. Small bogels or spectral echoes tend to hang around, attempting to scavenge off the thin places, or pass through the barriers between realities. Once in sight of the tower, dreams become reality. Everyone in sight of the tower must immediately make an Ob4 Will roll to keep a hold of their dreams. If they fail, then they must pick a belief to lose, that belief is now in the world. It's active, acting as copy of them. It uses their Will in place of all its stats, and has no skills, but it will attempt to accomplish that Belief at all costs. The Free Belief has the traits: Spirit Nature, Celestial Sight, and Driven (something to accomplish the belief). These Free Beliefs are simple creatures, but driven and wild, the person they are ripped from must physically restrain and eat them in order to regain that part of their mind. A horrific process, since it looks like you are eating your own ghost.
Once inside the tower one might encounter minor spirits, typically they are older remnants of others who have wandered too close to the tower. These entities are stronger, but no more driven and irrational than the Free Beliefs.Their specific powers and skills are entirely based on the belief that they sprang from. These creatures will do anything to be fulfilled and will trade anything.
Once inside the tower, one can find the portal to the Dream World, allowing those who wish to enter into the dreams of others. Choosing which dreams to enter is an Aura Reading or Astrology Ob3 test, success means that the dream traveller has managed to find the person they wish, and enter their dreams. If the dream traveller fails, they end up in the dreams of another person. Once the traveller is in a dream - they are now trapped there until they manage to wake up the person they are in the dreams of, or the person wakes up naturally. The Dream World is not a safe place to travel, since it is a truly real space.
A Burning Wheel Monster Every Week