CONTENT WARNINGS: violence, murder, references to the Troubles in Northern Ireland

IN CHARACTER

The life of Niall Lynch is an enigma concealed by secrets and lies. He is already dead when the story begins. He's glimpsed in dreams, presented in legal paperwork, and recounted in rumors. His middle son, Ronan, only begins to unravel the mystery of him after returning home from exile, long after Niall's in the ground.

What's known for certain is this: Niall Lynch was born on August 9, 1970, in Cumbria, England, during the Kirkby Stephen earthquake. It was a 4.1 on the Richter scale, a proper earthquake by his measure. As he tells it, God broke the mold when creating him. Anything under 4.0 would have merely cracked it.

Though they were in England at the time, the Lynches were an Irish Catholic family, and they soon returned to Belfast after Niall's birth. He was raised in the city during the worst years of the Troubles, and as part of the Catholic minority, he would suffer discrimination from majority-Protestant unionists and Ulster loyalists, and would later become prey for British security forces. His abilities as a dreamer would also have manifested during this time, both giving him an advantage and putting a target on his back, because he was capable of taking anything from his dreams and making it real. Niall's own father was likely a dreamer himself (as the condition is hereditary) and died under suspicious circumstances.

As an adult, Niall left Northern Ireland to travel the world, establishing himself as a purveyor of magical artifacts - mostly of his own creation - on the black market. He amassed a great fortune through his business, which he'd eventually use to purchase a farm in Singer's Falls outside Henrietta, Virginia. The Barns, he named it. Since Henrietta was located on a powerful ley line, Niall found the place ideal for dreaming, because he was supplied with abundant energy by this mystical source.

After her constant persuasion, Niall brought his psychopomp Aurora out of his dreams and took her for his wife. He was away on business when his first son was born. When he returned, he found Declan to be a disappointing scion and tried again. A year later, Ronan was born. The event was heralded by natural phenomena, as Niall's had been with the earthquake. The rivers dried up, the trees all grew flowers, the cows of Rockingham County wept blood while the Henrietta ravens laughed. This was the son Niall had intended to succeed him.

Ronan began to dream as an infant, unaware of what he was doing, and because Niall was away for weeks at a time, he charged powerless and mundane Declan with Ronan's care. When Ronan was only three, he dreamt a younger brother for himself, wishing for a playmate who would be more fun than Declan. Niall and Aurora adopted Matthew as their third son, keeping his true origin secret for as long as they lived.

When he was home, Niall was primarily focused on dreaming up new items to sell. This meant that he remained a mysterious figure in his children's lives. He taught them to box, he told them marvelous stories, and he emphasized their musical education, but that was the extent of his parenting. Ronan and Matthew adored him nevertheless. Declan resented him.

Though Matthew would not learn of Niall's dreaming until after his death, Ronan and Declan discovered it when they were young. Ronan caught Niall in the act, understanding then where the family's wealth came from, and Niall swore him to secrecy. Declan, being older and having witnessed both his father's and his brother's miracles, understood the truth much earlier. Believing his father to be irresponsible, he took it upon himself to clean up after Niall, to such an extent that by the time he was in high school, Declan was an integral part of the business. He would communicate with his father's customers and arrange exchanges of payment, and more than once bore witness to deals gone wrong.

Declan's assessment of Niall was more or less correct. Though he had some friends - like Seondeok, a psychic shaman from South Korea, to whom Niall had gifted a magic mechanical bee that would protect and obey her son - he had even more enemies. He repeatedly made trouble for Colin Greenmantle, a well-connected and temperamental collector from Boston. He also bragged to anyone who would listen about the Greywaren, which enabled him to take anything from his dreams.

It was this rumor that eventually got him killed. Believing the Greywaren to be an artifact in Niall's possession, Greenmantle sent a hitman to kill Niall and leave the body where Declan would find it, assuming that Declan would give up the Greywaren in order to protect his remaining family. Niall was murdered in his own driveway, skull caved in with a tire iron. Tragically, it would be Ronan, not Declan, who discovered the body that morning.

Having anticipated at least some of the danger that would be left in his wake, Niall's will ordered that his sons were to be immediately exiled from the Barns. As Aurora fell into eternal sleep upon the death of her maker, it would not be safe for their children to return until Ronan had mastered his own ability to dream and defend himself.

Niall Lynch is a scoundrel. It can't be said that he was ever a good man, or even a kind one. No one fondly remembers Niall as gentlehearted and only Ronan seems to mourn his passing. In fact, Niall has been more trouble than he's worth to anyone who's ever known him. He was born into violence and grew up necessarily valuing his own well-being above others', concerned primarily with his own interests and putting his own needs first.

He loves a good fight, mano a mano, and all the adventures of combat. It was important to him that all his sons were prepared to do battle with nothing but their own fists. However, in Niall's opinion, violence is best left as the last resort. To some - like Colin Greenmantle, who made a pastime of torture and murder - this makes Niall a loser. It means that Niall is more often on the receiving end of a punch. It's the reason Greenmantle even had the opportunity to have him killed.

Niall is simply, in more ways than one, a dreamer. He's an idealist. He believes in crafting the best story of his life, and he's never wanted to be one to shoot first and ask questions later. Though he would acknowledge and even relish his status as a rogue, he wants to be liked more than he wants to be feared. He's a believer in fairy tales. There's horror to be found in those stories, sure, but the meaning of it all is ultimately most important.

Symbolism and meaning are critical to Niall's mindset. Some of this is a matter of faith, as he remains a devout Catholic. But pagan tradition and Celtic folklore influence his outlook just as much. He's an avid reader and a student of history, having been (perhaps not coincidentally) born near the Arthurian site of Pendragon Castle. He's also a poet, particularly fond of Yeats, as well as a musician. His Irish heritage is not only dear to him personally but significant to his narrative. He's not just creative. He's a character of myth.

It takes as much arrogance as delusion to perceive himself and his status on such an epic level. His hubris has always been stoked by his survival. He led a dangerous life and managed to not only endure but to thrive, and because of that, he'd believed he could not die. He thought he would have to answer to no one but himself. He came face-to-face with the Devil itself, unflinching, and would certainly never bow to the whims of a mere mortal, no matter how much of a criminal mastermind that man turned out to be.

This impetuous nature leads his enemies to describe him, without a hint of affection, as an asshole. They're not wrong. Even in dealing with his family, Niall can be selfish and careless. He makes no secret of his disdain for his eldest son and shamelessly spoils his favorite, created in his image. His adventures are far more important to him than protecting his own children. His incessant bragging would continue to put his sons in danger long after his own death, because his need for admiration surpasses any necessity for secrets.

In the end, Niall both is and isn't the man he wished he could be. He's a creator of beautiful and impossible things, as magical as any fairy tale he sought to emulate. But he's also deeply flawed, ultimately murdered like any other man who got on Greenmantle's bad side, all because of his reckless ego.

Niall is the Greywaren. This means he's capable of bringing anything out of his dreams and into the real world. The dream objects he creates are not held to the laws of physics. If an object is capable of doing something in his dream, then it is capable of doing the same thing in the real world, regardless of whether it makes any physical sense. This ability can even be used to create conscious beings, although following Niall's death, his creations fall into an eternal sleep.

Use of this power requires a nearby energy source, and the amount of energy needed depends on the size of the object being created or the frequency with which Niall is creating objects. In his own world, Niall utilized a nearby ley line to feed his power. Without access to the ley line, his power must instead feed on other nearby energy sources, like electricity or magic. The drain on resources is barely noticeable if he's creating insignificant items, like clothing or trinkets, but increases considerably if he's attempting to make something complicated or supernatural. Dreaming also has a draining effect on his own body, causing temporary paralysis upon waking that can last from minutes to hours.

Dreamers display other abilities which ultimately assist them in their magic. They have some degree of eidetic memory, giving them the ability to recall and recreate something down to every last detail. Dreamers also possess latent claircognizance, giving them access to information in the collective consciousness that allows them to, for instance, create objects that can translate a language the dreamer can't personally speak. These are not skills that Niall can intentionally utilize. They operate in the background, subconsciously, in service to his dreaming. And though he can appear in another's dream, he cannot read thoughts or intuit specific details about a person, though what he finds in the dream may lend him some understanding about their psyche.

Dreaming can be dangerous. When Niall is experiencing emotional turmoil, his nightmares can manifest as monsters and cause injury to him or others. Even if Niall accidentally brings back one of his nightmare creatures, he is still subjected to the increased draining effect now associated with his magical creations, leaving him in danger as his paralysis will make him unable to defend himself. His nature also makes him vulnerable to spiritual attacks and corruption. A strong supernatural entity could potentially invade his dreams and destroy him from the inside.

Despite the dangers of dreaming, Niall also risks his life by not dreaming. Because he is a creature meant for creation, if he ceases to create, then he ceases to exist. If Niall goes longer than a month without dreaming, his body begins to break down and unmake itself. Unless he dreams something again, this deterioration will continue until there's nothing left of him.

As Deerington exists inside a dream, Niall's abilities will behave the way they usually do inside a dream. That is, he will essentially be capable of warping reality on a minor level. If he wants something, he will be able to conjure it out of thin air. His first attempt in a day will usually go smoothly.

Unfortunately for him, dreams do not tend to like it when someone's stealing from them, and if he persists, they take measures to defend themselves. As a result, Niall will suffer consequences if he steals too frequently or too extravagantly. He may temporarily lose the function of his limbs or find himself completely paralyzed, as he would if he were waking. The world itself may also begin to show its hatred for him, grass turning to glass shards when he touches it or cold water suddenly boiling hot when he's washing his hands. His food might go rotten in his mouth. Whenever a monster is present, he will be the one it wants to hunt first. He may find himself repeatedly the victim of freak accidents. If something bad can happen, it's more likely to happen to him.

If Niall limits his dream thieving, the world will relent and stabilize around him once more. Still, it recognizes him as a thief and will likely continue to target him in subtle ways. The locals hate him and think of him as a highly suspicious person they would rather avoid than help. He is perpetually every monster's favorite victim. Out of a crowd, he will always be the one who's attacked.

OUT OF CHARACTER

pana

The very personal sort of horror that turns someone into their own worst enemy, in which paranoia is just as bad or worse than being right about something, and when someone can no longer trust their own mind and senses. Essentially, I'm attracted to Lynchian atmosphere with Jungian themes, where horror represents the breakdown of the psyche.

Niall was brutally murdered and it's likely to come up in graphic detail at times. He also grew up Catholic with IRA association in Belfast during the Troubles, which I realize can be a sensitive subject for anyone with a personal connection to Ireland. I'll do my best to be respectful with regard to Niall's background, as I've done a good deal of research and don't intend to be gratuitous.