Nature[]
Physical appearance[]
The natural form of a dream crawler is black with some streaks of very dark blue. They are generally about 12 feet in length, 10 feet wide, and 10 feet tall at the highest point excluding its tentacles with the lower secondary portion of their bodies being about 5 feet tall. A dream crawler also has 8 to 10 tentacles on this lower secondary portion that are generally about 12 feet in length and 6 inches in diameter at their base. In normal earth gravity a dream crawler generally weighs about 3 tons. While in its natural form outside of the realm of the dream crawlers, a dream crawler appears in some indescribable way as though it has been cut and pasted into reality to those that can perceive its physical form in some way.
Ecology[]
Dream crawlers come from a dreamscape related to the far realms. If the far realms were a city in a particular country, the realm of the dream crawlers would be another city in that same country. This means that they are related some ways, but different in many others. The majority of dream crawlers never leave their native realm. Dream crawlers function in some ways like repelling magnets to each other in regards to interaction and thus rarely interact with each other. The few dream crawlers that have unusual abilities are slightly more likely to explore other realms for unknown reasons. Because of the unlimited life span that a dream crawler has they generally move over time in their native realm although they are capable of inhabiting the same space as other dream crawlers in their native realm.
Abilities[]
Sleep[]
Dream crawlers do not need sustenance to survive and gain no energy from any means except sleeping. A dream crawler has a sleep cycle that would be normal for the creature it is an imprint of. Regardless of the length of this sleep cycle a dream crawler cannot be awoken before it is completed. Once a sleep cycle is completed the dream crawler is fully rejuvenated of its energy and its maximum energy capacity permanently increases by 10% (their durability increases to handle twice as much as their maximum energy capacity before they begin to take injury from any given source in any form they assume). It is also purged of everything affecting it. When a dream crawler goes to sleep it is physically transported to the realm of the dream crawlers until it awakes. A dream crawler that is already in the realm of the dream crawlers when it goes to sleep does not change position. When the dream crawler wakes up it may choose to return to its previous position relative to some object or in terms of space. It may also choose to appear in a different location or even time as long as it has not existed in a time in the future in a particular dimension. In cases where a dream crawler dies and some other cases it instead immediately goes to sleep and when it wakes up it is restored. When a dream crawler eventually runs out of energy it immediately goes to sleep and wakes up restored later. A dream crawler may choose to voluntarily go to sleep at any time in which it is awake. Most creatures that observe the natural physical form of a dream crawler, with the notable exceptions of other dream crawlers and denizens of the far realms, gradually become increasingly tired. If such a creature goes to sleep, voluntarily or involuntarily, they are physically transported to the realm of the dream crawlers until they wake up. The duration of their sleep matches the sleep cycle of the dream crawler that most directly induced the sleep and they cannot be awoken before this time has elapsed. While asleep, such creatures view the dreams of a random other creature currently dreaming instead of their own and switch to another dream as the other creatures dreams end. For this reason viewing a dream crawler is potentially hazardous or lethal to creatures that cannot withstand the physical demands of sleeping for long periods of time in the cases of dream crawlers that have been imprinted with very long sleep cycles. If such a creature would die in this sleep their body disintegrates in a matter of seconds and leaves nothing behind at all. If they awake they are as rejuvenated as such an amount of sleep would provide but gain no additional benefit. If the area in which they awake is occupied, they appear in the closest unoccupied area. Dream crawlers may, and almost always do, move through such creatures rather than interacting with them.
Imprint[]
Dream crawlers are an imprint created when a creature dreams for the first time. They can choose to take on the form of such creatures, but their abilities and physical attributes do not change. For example, they would not gain the ability of their progenitor to use magic or any other such abilities and their physical strength does not improve or deteriorate. The appearance they assume is also usually not identical to their progenitor. Instead they appear as a semi idealized version of how the creature views themselves in dreams. Exorbitant idealizations do not apply, but clothes, lack of injuries, and some other idealizations are common. A dream crawler inherits a small fraction of the memories of its progenitor upon its creation and over time. When a dream crawler sleeps, it cycles through dreams its progenitor has had until it wakes. A dream crawler can usually know if its progenitor has died by the lack of new memories and eventually repeated dream cycles. In extremely rare cases, a dream crawler gains some other additional ability. This has very little to do with the progenitor of the dream crawler besides when they first dream and its exact cause is unclear besides having something to do with bizarre geometry. The current odds of this occurring based on the rough number of dream crawlers in existence is one in fifteen septillion. It is also unclear whether this proportion will increase, stay constant, or decrease as more dream crawlers are spawned.
Strength
Each of a dream crawler's tentacles can lift up to 10 tons and a dream crawler's body can support up to 50 times its own weight. In some cases, a dream crawlers imprint form is too heavy to even be accommodated by this impressive strength. A dream crawler is spawned with an energy capacity of between 1 and 2 billion calories worth of pseudonatural energy.
Tentacles
A dream crawler has 8 - 10 tentacles of 12 feet in length. It may manifest up to 4 of these tentacles in its imprint form up to 1 inch from any part of the body of the imprint form or any other form it takes.
Untethered Movement
A dream crawler may move in any direction in any form it is in at the same rate its natural form is capable of moving regardless of gravity or other environmental conditions. Dream crawlers are generally capable of moving at a speed of 1 to 2 miles per hour in this fashion.
Bizarre Consciousness
A dream crawler perceives time, space, memory, and many other things in a manner that some creatures would consider abnormal. However, they are capable of also simultaneously perceiving such things in the same way as their progenitor race would as far as the progenitor race would be capable of doing so. A dream crawler has the ability to understand nouns in any language, even regarding to names. A dream crawler gains all information that all other dream crawlers know regarding a noun when it perceives one (such as by hearing or seeing it)
Etymology[]
Dream crawlers are named as such because of their origins and their generally slow rate of movement.