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Cartographies
Vortex is a chaotic mix of images and feelings. It is a maelstrom where all our dreams, nightmares, and thoughts flow together and dissolve in nothing. To journey near Vortex is a sure way to lose one's sanity. No consciousness can handle the disorganized torrent of emotions and impressions which is mixed there. Only the mentally very strong can go near Vortex.
But Vortex is also a source of power. The mightiest dreams are created there. Those who are able to approach it can create great worlds of dreams. Ichthyrians and psyphagi dwell there and enter even those chaotic places where no man or woman can go.
When your dream becomes twisted and nonsensical, you are approaching Vortex. What was originally an image of your waking world, or of memories from your past, is distorted so that colors, angles, and perspectives look like nothing from conscious reality. The creatures that dwell close to Vortex. What was originally an image of your waking world, or of memories from your past, is distorted so that colors, angles, and perspectives look like nothing from conscious reality. The creatures that dwell close to Vortex are rarely three-dimensional, more commonly two or five. In dreams we can see multi-dimensional things, even though we are unable to visualize what they looked like when we wake up.
Near Vortex, different dreams merge. No dream lasts for more than a moment. New scenes constantly appear. Creatures change shape, disappear or appear. Time goes haywire. If you get so close to Vortex as a human can get without going mad, you are surrounded by a cacophony of impressions which all seem to relate to something you cannot quite remember. You desperately want to put them together into something that makes sense, but all cohesion is dissolved as quickly as it is formed. If you get too close, you lose yourself. Your identity comes apart, you die or become insane.