And they wept upon the shores of dream and memory.

The Dance of Edges and Blades. Art By: Me

 

Author's Note: Here is a legend of the Manukari, a group I have based upon: the Romani, Indian Culture, and Noh & Kabuki theater. I plan on expanding on them further, but I wanted to present this part to see what others think. This culture is an expansion on my Dreamland setting (LINK). I would really dig hearing your opinion as well as suggestions for possible sources of inspiration.

Manukari

Left behind to dance the dance of dreams and sing the songs of sleep, performing along waking shores of Rem. Once nobility in the court of a dreaming king, grand lords and ladies, their right to rule founded in a talent for expression. Each bent knee and will to the wounded poet king Eoin Leutz, a lord lamed by a mundane world made hard by casual cruelty.

King Eoin with his wise court in tow crossed the world, collecting creators whom mundane society had little use for. They became an avalanche of dances, stories, and music as they moved over countrysides made almost monochrome in earthen hues. Towns, bored as any place mired in the mundane, celebrated their coming and became melancholy at their departure.

I think I may start making collages again. Collage By: Me

In time the king and his court became too wondrous for a quotidian world, soon finding themselves on the shores of the Rem Sea. Upon its prismatic waters, the pier-city of Traumstadt was founded, the stone of its construction mined from the petrified bodies of stillborn gods. Having never emerged completely from the waters of birth, the dead deities stood like small mountains out of dream waters.

Wounded in both spirit and flesh, the king soon grew tired of his city, wanting for better lands on which to gain respite. Taking half his court with him, he set off across the dreaming waters to find a true Dreamland, one that did more than merely act as a border to sleep. Leaving incredible wealth to those who remained, a wealth he refused to tell of its acquisition, he left for places that may have only been fantasy.

King Eoin's final commandment: dance, sing, and speak of fine things, call to the dreams of all until the king calls. There, upon the shores of Rem, those that remained sat a wept when they remembered their king. Soon their tears would run bitter, as they were made paupers from nobility.

Eoin had left Bahram, his bastard son born of a dalliance between the king and a living poem, to reign over those remaining who had taken to calling themselves the Manukari. Soon, Bahram's heart was made dark through the whispers of Marchen, turning him from the Manukari. Tales twist into arenas both true and false when called to make testament of the nature of Marchen: some say man and others woman, some speak of one and others many, some say old while others speak of youth.

Bahram cast out the Manukari from Traumstadt, calling them thieves and lairs in tones that the people would believe. Now, made to survive by hand and wit alone, they wait for their king upon the shores of Rem, at times weeping for his memory.