For many, this is the first thing they hear when they arrive in this place. Some fall asleep in their beds and find themselves awake under a new sky. Some pass away—peacefully, painfully, abruptly or otherwise—only to snap back to life here. Some simply take a wrong turn somewhere and find themselves on a new street. And some, hearing rumors of a brave new world where anything is possible, actively seek the cracks in reality to pry one open and step through.
Reverie is a vast patchwork city nestled in a pocket dimension. Its vistas bring to mind every city you've ever seen, while also exceeding any of them. High-rises and bridges across the sky, crossings bustling with crowds, sleek monorails and old subways, bodegas full of foods and goods you've never seen before, seas of stucco rooftops cut through with cobblestone streets and alleys, impossible ports and harbors in landlocked districts, gardens and parks larger than whole forests, and more besides.
Reverie's people come from myriad worlds, some so close to ours as to be nearly identical while others defy reason. Panhumanity (comprising both humans like you and me as well as any number of cat-eared folks, cyborgs, Neanderthals, elves, etc.) makes up a sizable portion of the population, but you'll also see ceramic-skinned automatons, fairies, car-sized wyverns, sphinxes and serpents with the faces of men, giant octopi, sentient clouds, and more. Most people that arrive seem to appear among folks most akin to their 'baseline' but soon encounter stranger folks still, as if the City Itself is trying to accommodate them. Which is an apt description, because, as far as most people believe, the City of Dreams is itself alive to a degree. Not only that, even baseline humans find Reverie's oddities rubbing off on them soon enough; developing powers, learning spells, seeing ghosts, adopting new forms.
Indeed, all things seem possible here. That is, of course, part of the problem.
The City of Dreams is a powder keg.
You can only put so many vivid, vibrant and strange lives—many of whom don't know how they got here to begin with—in one place before sparks fly. Larger than life personalities clash. Cruel hearts wielding new powers look for someone to exercise them on. People struggle to adjust to a new life thrust upon them, learning their old ones are forever beyond reach or might not even exist anymore. And that's before you get to the endemic issues.
Stray worries and ill thoughts take form and stalk the streets. Inscrutable peacekeepers watch from rooftops and pursue those breaking laws they didn't know existed. The people in power, if they haven't vanished or flown the coop, are silent. Infrastructure grows, spreads, withers and dies like kudzu. Fissures in the pavement and the sides of buildings form, and there's nothing on the other side.
The City of Dreams might be dying.
But the thing about people, no matter what shape and size they take, is that they find common ground and people to stand with. They see dreams and reach for them, or help others reach a little higher. Communities are born and flourish, and even when they splinter their constituents take new ideas with them and try again.
Everyone here, whether they consciously realize it or not, is looking for something. There might even be a reason, at the end of it all, that we're all here.
The City of Dreams may yet live if its people—you, included—help it.
Welcome to Reverie: the City of Dreams. Let's get to work.