Dreamkeepers

This article contains PROMOTIONS! Don't say we didn't warn you.

"The furry community is devolving into one defined by anxiety, insecurity, and fear." -David Lillie, Author of Dreamkeepers

"Huh? Huh!? Oh, come on, you gotta admit this is cool!"

Dreamkeepers, to put it lightly, is one of the best Furry Webcomics out there. (Not that thats saying much) Unlike most Furry comics who just focus on sex, this one focuses on stunning environmental art, story and characters....and occasional softcore suggestiveness, because of course. Its author literally thought up the idea for Dreamkeepers when his friend in College said that he had "The worst Nightmare ever" and he thought "Well, what if there was someone who protected you from that?" He did consider turning it into a kids show on a network once, but come on, doing that would make you completely lose control of the project, causing it to slowly progressively become bogged down in badassery and quality until its more spayed and neutered than a Furry on a Planet with a Black Templar Invasion. No, the author chose something different, he chose to remain independent and create every page of the comic from scratch.

You can read Dreamkeepers for free online. Probably because of the Authors Libertarian beliefs. The Novel currently has 4 installments, with a 5th currently being produced, a work-in-progress Prequel Novel, a Spinoff Novel, a work-in-progress videogame, and even a Tabletop game. ;)

About the Author

"Sometimes, the Furry community really screws the pooch." -David Lillie

Typical nerd look. Looks can be decieving.

Written by a guy named "David Lillie" who has been working on the Comic for the last 20 years, and being a bit of an attention whore by making an account on every art website imaginable, David has suffered through his house burning down, getting flooded, getting hit by a truck hard enough to dent it, and contracting Multiple Scelrosis, has worked as a Security Guard in the past, and despite all of this, he still works every day to continue drawing and writing this comic. The guy might be an early Space Marine, especially since he loves to Simp for the Right-Wing all the time, much to the dismay of other Furrys. He can best be classified as one of those "No steppy on Snek!" types.

He is currently trying to make a 'Rapture-esc' comic website where nobody is constrained by gatekeeping comic distributor companies called "Vivid" Where the great will not be constrained by the small. He also has a great sense of humor, he and his friends found 'those Flashgitz' animations very funny. He once tried to make a petition against convicted sex offenders, banning their entry to any all-ages major Furry Conventions...this petition did not gain enough support, in fact, some think it was actively ignored, because of course.

The Plot

Apparently, according to David, within a parallel Universe known as the Dreamworld (totally not the Warp or anything) there exists Furrys who are all tied to a Human in the real world. Everyone has a Dreamworld counterpart, yes, even the people who hate Furries. These Dreamkeepers used to have widespread Psyker populations, who defended against Nightmares who intend to invade realspace and kill everyone on Terra, but thats not gonna happen so long as one Dreamkeeper is alive. Over time they used their powers less and less because of Fake News spreading lies about the glory of powers.

The story mainly takes place in a City called "Anduruna" a district-seperated walled City that is slowly becoming more and more authoriatarian, controlled by an evil socialist government who are secretly controlled by these guys called "Dark Dreamkeepers" who are basically Dreamkeepers who have permanently pledged their souls to the service of the Nightmares in exchange for power. Who is to stop these shitheads? Well, a group of wandering teenagers and an underground Resistance group, thats who!

These are Nightmares. Totally not Chaos Daemons or anything.

Factions

There are 4 of them, currently. Along with a group of delinquent teens who belong to no Faction.

Nightmares:

The nightmares are most highly feared among all creatures which stalk the Dreamworld, and rightly so: for they are utterly unnatural. They do not fill an ecological niche, do not procreate and spread life, do not have any ancestry or native origin: they simply do not belong. Intruding from abstruse planes of existence, they impose their aberrant corporeal forms to one end: Destruction.

Specifically, the destruction of the dreamkeepers. Thirsting from beyond time to undo the tapestry of creation, they level their nihilistic vendetta against sentience wherever it may be found - and desire exceptionally to wipe humanity from existence. As long as their dreamkeeper lives... A condition which the nightmares are only too eager to alter. Capable of unlocking human vulnerability with the premature murder of a dreamkeeper, their ultimate ends are far more ambitious in scope. Absolute eradication of every last dreamkeeper would leave all of humanity exposed, victim to the whims of the nightmares' nonexistant mercy.

Successfully seeding their presence in the Dreamworld aeons ago, they continually manifest there to fulfill this purpose. They can enter the Dreamworld at only one location - the fabled desolation of Bralgu, where they incubate within the twisted nest of evil, Malangi. Nightmares do not know childhood - they coalesce within Malangi until they attain their completed physical form. Though supernatural, their manifestations have certain limits. As individual entities, some nightmares possess more power than others, and that power can be developed in different ways as they gestate.

There are some rare reports of some Nightmares not holding any hatred for Dreamkeepers, and even some hybrids between the species existing, but nobody knows where they are.

"The Citizens are a bunch of useful idiots." -CCA Guard Capitan

CCA (Central City Authority): Totally-not-Communist SWAT-esc soldiers who are basically the 'Civil Protection Teams' of Anduruna. You guilty or innocent? Doesnt matter. If they wanna fuck you up, they will. Secretly being controlled by the Dark Dreamkeepers, heretical traitors who have pledged their souls and service to the vile Nightmares.

HIERARCHY:

CCA Platoon: 18 members

2 Squads of 8 men each.

2 Fireteams of 4 men each form each squad.

One member of each fire team is a Fire Team Leader, and one member of each squad is also the Squad leader.

1 Platoon Commander

1 Transportation officer to handle the Gnossus & troop carrier.

If multiple platoons are deployed their sergeants are commanded in the field by a Lieutenant. District lieutenants are commanded by a district Major who generally does not deploy. District Majors are under the command of the office of Guard Captain of Anduruna.

District Major offices have administrative staff, some of which may carry the rank of lieutenant even though they are not combat personnel. These include liasons with local police forces, CCA detective units (distinct from local law enforcement), internal affairs, and various necessary bureaucratic positions.

The office of the Guard captain has administrative staff, some of which carry the rank of lieutenant or even colonel- placing colonels higher in rank than the Majors who command districts. Various roles include those within the local district offices, and additional unnecessary bureaucratic positions due to constantly increasing annual budgets.

The shock troopers do not answer to local law enforcement or local civic bodies, and take their orders directly from the Central City Authority offices of the Guard Captain. This said, district shock troopers work closely with local law enforcement by necessity- most local branches are prohibited from deploying lethal force or possessing lethal weaponry, with rare exceptions licensed after much paperwork- so the shock troopers are a necessary but unaccountable component of law enforcement at the local level.

Local law enforcement tends to be comprised of 'officers,' and the term 'officer' is often used colloquially for anyone in uniform / CCA combat roles.

Formal Titles:

Shock trooper: Private

Fire Team Leader: Corporal

Squad Leader: Corporal

Platoon Commander: Sergeant (Colloquially: Commander)

Transportation officer: Officer.

Field Commander: Lieutenant

District Commander: Major

Head of the CCA troopers: Guard Captain.

Gnossus are numbered, and naming them is prohibited- although this rule is often ignored, and not strictly enforced.

"I DIDNT BREAK THE LAW, THE LAW BROKE ME!!!!" - Joker-esc Neon Knives member

Neon Knives: Hilariously over-the-top anarchists. Secretly protected by the CCA, because David Lillie thinks Anarchists are protected by the American Government or something. Not much to them. I guess you could call them the 'Suicide Squad' of Anduruna.

The Neon Knives are a band of delinquents and troubled individuals who act out against the law and take part in illegal activities. Many of its members seem to be Dark Dreamkeepers and are affiliated with Nabonidus, the closest thing the Nightmares have to a Leader. Established within a city as massive as Anduruna, with strict laws and conditions that may not always benefit everyone, naturally a gang like the Neon Knives would develop to accommodate those who hate the system and wish to do as they please. Whether it be graffiti on old abandoned buildings and outlets, vandalism in general, drug and fermentae abuse, participating in illegal Ryuu-Neko fighting, and of course the use of Powers. What makes this particular group more dangerous is their ties to Nabonidus as their leader, O'Naicul, is a Dark Dreamkeeper. As such most of their members can be considered Dark Dreamkeepers as well. While at first glance the Neon Knives are mostly just random punks who only hang with each other to share in their similar desire to cause trouble and rise up against the system. However as many of them are well past adolescence, most are likely to have awoken their Powers, making them even more dangerous than usual. Many have Powers that are easily lethal to any they use it on, such as a Power that can cut through steel and flesh, or a Power that can spawn large solid objects that can puncture people. In addition to having many Power-users, they appear to have a large stockpile of weapons, similar to what the CCA Shocktroopers use.

Terrorists or Resistance members? You choose.

"No step" -Snake-like Troika General

Troika: The semi-terrorist Resistance movement breeding (or should I say yiffing?) right under the CCA's snouts. A secret movement training its member in unlocking their psychic abilites to battle the CCA and the Nightmares.

Their structure is currently dispersed. Prior to the start of Prelude, they had a more cohesive structure- but they were compromised, and the organization suffered catastrophic damage.

The survivors have rebuilt it- but in a different manner. There are very few central characters with access to relevant information about local leaders- Scinter, Igrath. They could be designated as generals.

Directly below them are lieutenants. Characters like Vi, Bobby, Tia... Local leaders. After an initial training period, the lieutenants occasionally meet up at the remote bases for training exercises. But never all the lieutenants at the same meeting- only Scinter and Igrath could list everyone.

The lieutenants then recruit more Troika members from their respective communities, and seed independent cells of operatives, trained by the lieutenants. In addition to these cells are a number of direct operatives and sleeper agents recruited, one way or another, by Scinter, Nainso, and Igrath, riddling the CCA power structure.

The general Troika strategy is to train in secret and gather intel on Dark Dreamkeepers that have infiltrated the CCA- so, when the time arrives, they can execute simultaneous strikes to kill their antagonists, and take the Troika public to serve as a defense force against the oncoming Nightmares.

Once public, their plan is to implement a loose hierarchy of responsibilities among the lieutenants- one of the primary ones being to train citizens, en masse in the use of their powers, to create an army capable of repelling a large-scale nightmare assault.

Dark Dreamkeepers:

"Violence will come to those who deserve it." -A Dark Dreamkeeper

Traitors to Dreamkeeper kind, they made a deal with the Nightmares to gain more power, in exchange for service to them. Its the usual Chaos thing. Far worse than being aligned against one another is when a dreamkeeper chooses to do the unthinkable... And align themselves with the nightmares.

The rare, feared 'dark dreamkeeper' can make this choice for any number of twisted reasons or convoluted rationales, but the result is always the same. Nightmares are all too eager to use any tool at their disposal in their ceaseless campaign against life, and a traitor is a prized weapon. There is no way to detect which dreamkeeper may be a conspiring malefactor, no telltale signature... Until it is too late.

In contemporary Anduruna, however, conflict with the nightmares is a mere memory - and the idea of a dark dreamkeeper fiction from bygone times.

This makes it easier for the chosen few to accomplish their tasks and slowly, surely prepare the city for the nightmare's long savored return to bloodshed.

Lore Example

To get an idea of how much effort David has put into this comic, here is an excerpt from the Lore on his Website:

"Although modern Anduruna culture is far advanced compared to its ancient iterations, it has not proven impervious to instability and conflict.

One of the unfortunate hallmarks of modern Anduruna is the instatement of ideological rather than pragmatic Central City policy. Progressively more ambitious Sabbaton administrations began earnestly legislating to solve the perceived injustice of inequality.

The realm of charity slowly morphed into the realm of government mandated management. Feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, improving the housing of the only moderately appointed, equalizing educational achievement regardless of students’ respective motivation, passing laws to prevent accidental injury... Efforts to make Anduruna perfect proved to be both difficult, labor intensive, and colossally expensive.

Many would point the finger to overreaching social engineering as the source of the resulting strain. Whatever the true cause, it cannot be denied that strain and tension began to increase in Anduruna. With mass media amplifying the volatility, it was only a matter of time until blood was shed. The result was the first official military mobilization of Anduruna in generations - the results of which remain classified to this day.

1203 A.D.: The shock troopers return from the Toll Wars - historically, one of the shortest wars of Anduruna. The details surrounding its engagements are immediately classified, and the returning soldiers are forbidden from revealing details. Although casualties, kills, battle sites, and skirmish details remain cloaked, victory is publicly declared. Victory or not, however, conflict continues. Domestic powers attacks and murders continue to periodically shock and terrify the public, requiring increased shock trooper and policing activity to keep the peace.

Late 1203 A.D.: Igrath Winters, an ex-fallguard player and recent veteran of the Toll Wars, is elected Captain of the City Guard, and begins investigating power-related violence in Anduruna.

1204 A.D.: ‘Scinter's Mark’ untaxed black market fermentae is exploding in popularity. Not only is ‘Scinter's Mark’ sold illegally - and therefore half the price of Anduruna-approved fermentae - but its unregulated diony content and micro-brewed flavors far exceed the domesticated competition in quality. The ‘Marks’ become synonymous for black market and anti-government. Some elements of the population seem entertained by this rebellious, dashing connotation, and an emergency media campaign is launched condemning ‘Scinter’s Mark‘. Igrath and the City Guard are ordered to crack down, and put an end to the dangerous ‘Scinter’s Mark’ trend at all costs.

It proves difficult, as the ‘Marks’ seem to have ties to the bandits - and the bandits controlling the flo-wood seed trade are based in the northern dunes, selling their merchandise through illicit channels: further enriching black market elements. Although conflict between law enforcement and delinquents continues, the Toll Wars themselves are concluded. The city of Anduruna moves forward under its new heavily centralized socially controlling power structure, as ‘The City of Sharing’."

This is totally not David trying to mock Socialism or anything.

Technology

Springers

With no outside military threats, weapons development in Anduruna has been modest throughout most of its history. In earlier ages of warfare, dreamkeepers harnessed their powers for combat. The assault value of a specialized power-using dreamkeeper dwarfed any primitive slings and arrows, so armament focused almost entirely on rudimentary, hand-held implements like clubs, daggers, or short spears. But after the Last War of Powers, prevailing law banned destructive powers use within Anduruna.

However, a way to control renegade power-users was necessary - without resorting to a detrimental, explosive showdown. Eventually weapons development was driven not for military application, but for policing purposes. The earliest projectile weapons were variations on slings and slingshots, firing rounded ball-shaped projectiles. The ability to knock an offending dreamkeeper unconscious from a distance proved to be enormously helpful in subduing powerhouse criminals.

Eventual innovation led a crossbow-like design, where a flat horizontal piece of wood would be winched back, and then trigger released to 'slap' the projectile forward. A barrel was soon added for a modicum of accuracy. This wasn't a highly powered weapon, but eventually more advanced ways of propelling the ball through the barrel were developed, culminating in the springer cartridge.

The springer rifles of today use hyper-compressed springs stored in cartridges to propel projectiles at high velocity. When triggered, the cartridge is quickly knocked open. The spring rockets forward, propelling the round of ammunition towards its target. Side slats on the rifle barrel are designed to sling the spring out and down, clearing the weapon immediately for another cartridge. Ammunition cartridges are speed-loaded into the weapon through cylinder clips, for an impressive rate of fire.

Manufactured exclusively for use by the Anduruna City Guard, private citizens do not have access to spring weapons. Springers are capable of being extremely lethal, even after their heavy needle-shaped rounds penetrate walls or other barriers. Any contemporary citizen of Anduruna risking a powers infraction, or any major infraction against Central City Authority, will find themselves facing the full deadly power of an armed shock trooper squad.

Fermentae

Hands down the most popular adult beverage in the Dreamworld, fermentae can be carefully crafted to retain almost any flavor. Caramels and candies, fruits, vegetables, wood, blood, freshly tilled earth... Any substance containing moisture can be sapped through the unique brewing process behind the drink.

Derived from diony seeds, great care must be taken when raising the plant itself. Diony plants will ravage nearby fauna and gardens if left unchecked, and can be a nuisance to remove. They don't damage nearby greenery directly, but by sapping moisture from the ground. Voraciously consuming every bead of wetness in their environments, the liquid is absorbed and stored in their root system, comprised of one hyper-porous seed. The amount of moisture absorbed by the seed can be stupendous - one plant was recorded as containing over two hundred and thirty-six gallons.

Regardless of how much the seed absorbs, the diony plant never grows substantially larger - everything is stored, ever more pressurized, in the modestly proportioned seed. Tightly compressed, the moisture is refined into a nectar - the higher the internal pressure, the richer and more potent the nectar. When the plant dies at the end of its one year lifespan, the stem wilts and detaches from the seed - releasing all of the stored moisture in an abruptly spectacular spray. Germinated with microscopic diony seeds, the squirted nectar sows the surrounding ground with the next year’s diony plants.

The culminating spray of nectar, or fermentae, has a pleasurably intoxicating effect when ingested. The first hapless dreamkeepers to learn this died horrible deaths, as the moisture was drained from their bodies over the weeks by the tiny seeds growing within them. Raw fermentae is inevitably lethal. However, some determined soul soon discovered a method for making the nectar safe to drink.

By either boiling or freezing fermentae, the microscopic seeds are destroyed. Each technique gives the fermentae a different flavor, and is referred to by a different name.. Frozen fermentae is 'Forreyd', and boiled fermentae is 'Shayed'. After learning this, more experimentation began with the beverage.

Dreamkeepers tried growing seeds in different types of liquid - diony can grow in fruit juice, coffees, saltwater, gravy, jelly, anything that contains moisture. The nectar will derive flavor from the moisture it is grown in. The techniques for creating and purifying different flavors and strengths of fermentae has become very refined over the ages.

Data Scroll

Universal in Anduruna, the data-scroll (sometimes called an info-scroll) is a versatile device. It can be mounted and used to watch video broadcasts, download and read books or manuals, take pictures, chat live with other users, play recreational games, remotely operate digitally-compatible machinery, and more. Its flexible fluorescent screen is both display and interface, facilitating touch-sensitive navigation and data entry. Advanced models can capture live images and video - the viewer simply holds the translucent screen up to frame the image they want, and then clicks to take the picture. When not in use, the screen will be rolled up in the scroll-tubes for protection and convenience.

With new applications for information technology developing by the week, scrolls can be found nearly anywhere, in every vocation. Also the source for the rapidly developing and homogenizing mass media, the data-scroll is an integral tool for keeping up with culture.

Telepads

A recent innovation, already telepads are finding mainstream use in Anduruna. Installed midway up the Sabbaton Towers, seven telepads ferry passengers to the district towers and back again all day.

They are organically powered, acquiring their specialized mode of transportation directly from the archituethus occipitus, or jumper - commonly termed 'brain squid'. Jumpers naturally possess the mystifying ability to teleport, and use the skill when startled to evade predators. Their instantaneous transportation will bring along any living material connected to the creature, ensuring all body parts make the journey safely.

Anduruna teens would sometimes make the trip to jumper fields to try and 'catch a blink', ambushing and grasping a jumper to experience the sensation of teleporting. This is a somewhat risky pastime, as jumpers naturally hover, and there's no telling what they might teleport above... The only predictable variable is that their destination must be within sight of their current position.

With much difficulty, an innovative individual captured several jumpers to experiment with, and discovered that they could take much more than a single dreamkeeper with them on their trips - and furthermore, that their destination could be controlled with optical focal devices...

The telepads themselves are created from flo-wood, meaning that they are living organic material. Connected to the jumper's storage chamber by flo-wood struts, when the brain squid jumps it will take the entire wooden platform along for the ride - and anything living which shares contact with that platform. The jumper's storage chamber is rigged to a specialized lens, designed to focus on the receiving platform where the pad will arrive. Black and white display discs on the platforms aide technicians in getting the precisely correct focal setting, narrowing the jumper's perceived visual destination to one option. When all passengers are boarded and the focusing is complete, a mild shock sends jumper, flo-wood telepad, and contacting passengers across the city in the blink of an eye.

Upon arriving at the receiving platform, a new jumper is placed into the case. Jumpers must be rested for at least a day after every telepad jump, because of the strain inherent in moving such a sizeable burden.

Flo-Wood

It is interesting that one of the least understood materials in Anduruna is also one of the most prevalently used.

Nobody knows where flo-wood originates, or even how to create more. Flo-wood seeds must be laboriously mined from the shifting dune sea, where prevailing ocean currents deposit the floating pods. Where those seeds come from is a puzzle that eludes explanation to this day. Better understood are their convenient properties:

Flo-wood does not need dirt, water, leaves, or any type of fertilizer to flourish - only light. Several hours spent exposing all sides of the seed to daylight will trigger vigorous growth. When placed within a framework, it will flow as guided. A single seed of flo-wood can be shaped into nearly anything. Although each seed can only produce several thousand pounds of wood, multiple seeds will seamlessly meld together on a single frame. The wood excels beyond conventional wood for resilience and smoothness, making it a veritable miracle material for construction.

After flo-wood has been in a static shape for several weeks, it will retain that shape permanently. Even if the wood is cut or gouged, it will re-grow the damaged area given enough time. The life force in flo-wood never ebbs or dies, giving it unending regenerative abilities. Only specially formulated chemicals or fire can permanently damage or destroy flo-wood. Nobody knows how this ‘life essence’ functions: and nobody knows how to make flo-wood produce seeds.

Light-activated and left alone, flo-wood does not grow roots, branches, or leaves. It expands in a perfect, solid sphere that will reach 20-40 feet in diameter. Sawing the sphere open reveals no secret cache of seeds - just solid wood.

From the prehistoric Sky Road wall to the recent innovation of telepads, flo-wood is an enduring part of Anduruna - and an enduring mystery.