Spawning Fields
Spawning Fields are places where the dreams of mortals pour directly into the Dreaming.
Overview
Spawning Fields are dangerous under the best of circumstances. They are chaotic oceans of pure Glamour and direct, one-way connections between the Dreaming and the Autumn World. Chimera are born constantly within these fountains of power and often die quickly. Spawning Fields appear seemingly at random with the Near Dreaming and vanish just as capriciously.
Some changelings speculate that Spawning Fields may be direct conduits to Arcadia. A few have tried entering these places in the hopes of finding a way to return to that faerie homeland, but most who follow this route never return, and the ones who do are drastically changed. Exactly what the energies of the Fields do to changelings remains a mystery; though it is known that these forces somehow "burn away" changelings' mortal seemings, which leaves them little more than sentient chimera, unable to leave the Dreaming.
The Far Dreaming
While there are Spawning Fields in the Near Dreaming, they are faint imitations of the fountains of power that exist in the Far Realms. In the Far Dreaming, the Fields no longer generate chimera of all sorts. They seldom seem to create anything at all, though from time to time a True Creature of Myth is seen crawling from the centers of these Glamour-rich areas. Spawning Fields in the Far Dreaming are simply areas where Dreamstuff is generated. Skilled Dream-Crafters are capable of creating almost anything from the flows of pure, untainted Glamour. Some have even managed to create sentient chimera, though whether the minds of these entities are created by the Dream-Crafter of the Spawning Fields is impossible to say. Surely, most of the animate chimera created from the Dreamstuff of Spawning Fields seem to have minds of their own, and few care what their "creators" want from them.
References
- CTD. Dreams and Nightmares, pp. 11-12, 18, 46.