Title: The Sleepless Eye
Domains: Terror in Dreams
Creators: Vorthar and Zoroth
Pantheon: The Nyx
Description
Nythera, the Weaver of Nightmares, is the presence that turns peaceful slumber into torment, the shadow that dances behind closed eyelids, and the thread that stitches fear into the fabric of dreams. Born from Vorthar, the Dark Weaver’s mastery over the unseen and Zoroth, the Hollow Prince’s understanding of the mind’s hidden depths, Nythera is known as The Sleepless Eye, a deity who rules the border between consciousness and the void of sleep.
She appears as a tall, ethereal figure wrapped in a cloak woven from midnight itself, its edges constantly unraveling and re-forming like wisps of smoke. Her face is pale as moonlight, with eyes that never blink—one silver like starlight, the other black as the deepest sleep. In her hands, she holds a spindle that never stops turning, spinning threads of shadow and fear into the dreams of mortals. Those who glimpse her in nightmares describe her fingers as being impossibly long, each ending in a needle-sharp point that weaves terror with surgical precision.
Her voice is the whisper of silk sheets in an empty room, the creak of floorboards in the darkness, and the soft sob of someone waking from a dream they cannot remember but cannot forget.
Followers
Nythera’s servants rarely gather in traditional congregations, for their work is done in the most private moments of mortal existence. Her followers include the Night Spinners—individuals who have learned to enter and manipulate the dreams of others, spreading carefully crafted terrors that leave lasting psychological scars.
Among her most devoted are inn-keepers who mix her blessing into their sleeping draughts, nursemaids who whisper dark lullabies to children, and healers who use sleep as medicine but taint it with subtle horrors. Some serve her unknowingly: the grief-stricken who speak their pain aloud in darkened rooms, the guilty whose confessions in their sleep feed her power.
The Dreamless are her most tragic servants—those who have been touched so deeply by her nightmares that they can no longer sleep naturally, becoming hollow-eyed wanderers who spread her influence simply by sharing their torment with others.
Rituals and Offerings
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The Restless Weaving: Performed in complete darkness, followers weave cloth on a loom while recounting their most vivid nightmares aloud. The resulting fabric is said to trap pieces of the terror, which Nythera claims as her due.
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The Sleeper’s Harvest: Devotees place objects beneath the pillows of sleeping victims—black feathers, small mirrors, or needles blessed in shadow—to ensure their dreams will be claimed by nightmares. The objects are retrieved before dawn and offered to Nythera.
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Offerings: Pillows soaked with tears of the terrified, fragments of broken sleep, the last peaceful dreams of the dying, and threads pulled from burial shrouds.
Sigils and Symbols
Nythera’s symbol is a closed eye pierced by a silver needle, with threads of darkness spilling from the wound like tears. Sometimes it appears as a spindle wrapped in shadows, or as a web that appears different depending on whether viewed in light or darkness. Her sigils are embroidered into pillowcases with thread that only shows in moonlight, carved into the underside of bed frames, or worked into the patterns of sleeping draughts and evening teas.
Additional Details
The Terror-Woven, those marked by Nythera’s touch, find that their very presence disturbs the sleep of others. Children cry when they pass, and even the bravest warriors experience restless nights after encountering them. These individuals often become inadvertent spreaders of insomnia and night terrors, carrying her influence wherever they travel.
Nythera teaches that the mind’s deepest truths are revealed in sleep, when conscious defenses fall away. To her, nightmares are not cruelty but honesty—showing mortals the fears and guilts they hide from themselves in waking hours. She whispers to the sleepless that rest is overrated, to the guilty that their dreams will always betray them, and to the fearful that the darkness behind their eyelids holds more truth than the light of day.
Her greatest triumph is not the scream that wakes someone from a nightmare, but the lingering unease that follows them through their waking hours, making them question what is real and what is merely another layer of her endless, dark tapestry.