Ariké

Ariké, the Empire of Regret, is a Heart's Realm in the Dreaming.

Overview

Whatever you have lost is here. The friends and lovers you will not see again, the roads you will never walk, the moments you would pay much to live again... all are here. This is Ariké, where dreams of what was and what could have been are born.

One of the most heartbreakingly beautiful of all the Deep Countries, Ariké has lapsed into a damp and sullen malaise. It rains constantly here... a cold, incessant drizzle that drowns the evergreen forests and swells the rivers to overflowing. The fields have long since been washed away in the rain, but there are few chimera remaining to care. All who still dwell here are primarily creatures of sorrow and memory or outland interlopers come to loot the ageless treasures of the realm. All others have fallen into a troubled and dreamless sleep, a dream of forgotten dreams.

Above the drowning land, locked in a spiral tower without windows, the twin heirs to the realm wander as prisoners. According to old legends and new gossip, they were once true fae who were captured and jailed in Ariké for their own protection, to keep them safe from the agonies of time and Banality. Now, the Dreaming might crumble and die, but the twins will live on, safe and sad forever.

It is said by Kithain who should know better that Ariké is the hidden secret of all that has gone wrong with the faerie World fo Wonders to turn it into World of Darkness. At some point now lost, the Dreaming and the Earth went astray, and the heart of Ariké was broken. The beautiful world weeps and locks itself away form the painful future. The rightful rulers are bewitched by their guardians and kept in isolation from their realm. The land is laid waste and all suffer.

References

1. CTD. Dreams and Nightmares, pp. 83-84.