Story
The fog grew thicker with every step. My torch sputtered, its light swallowed whole before it reached the ground. I told myself I was on the old hunters’ trail, that the trees had only shifted because I had lost my bearings. Yet the air itself seemed alive, breathing in and out, whispering words I almost understood.
Then I saw them. Masks. Dozens of them, pale against the gray, hanging from branches, staring at me with hollow eyes. I froze, blade drawn, but when I stepped closer they were only knots of wood and twisting bark. I laughed at my own fear.
Something moved behind me. I spun, and the same faces were there again, not wood this time but people. They stood still as statues, masks glistening with wet fog, spears in their hands. I blinked, and the clearing was empty once more.
My heart hammered. I pressed on, but the path curved back on itself. My footprints lay before me, though I swore I had not walked there yet. I began to run, but every turn only brought me to more staring masks, some on trees, some on people, some on nothing at all.
At last I stumbled into a circle of them, their masks shifting in the haze, one becoming another with every blink. They raised their hands as one, and I knew I was already caught inside their dream. My sword fell from my hand. I could not tell if I was still standing, or if I had fallen asleep long ago and was only now being dreamed.
The mist closed in, and I never knew whether they touched me or if I touched them first.

Description

Far from the reach of merchants and kings lies N’gazama, a jungle drowned in mist. The earth steams with countless vents and hidden springs, the air thick with sulfur and minerals. The fog coils among the trees and clings to the skin until everything feels half-submerged in dream. Outsiders who linger too long breathe it in and soon lose track of time, forgetting where the waking ends and visions begin.

The Dreaming Fog in Daily Life

To the N’gazama, the fog is not a hazard but the essence of their world. They believe every breath binds them to the dream of the Sleeper below and the spirits of the world, and to live without it would mean drifting into nothingness.

Children are raised to accept visions as normal. When a child first speaks of a dream that seems real, it is celebrated as proof the Sleeper has noticed them.

Hunters move with reverence, for the jungle itself may shift under the Sleeper’s dreaming. They read omens in the movement of the mist, seeing paths and signs where others see only fog.

Disputes are not decided by words or evidence, but by visions. When two families quarrel, a shaman leads them into the vents to breathe until the Sleeper gives a shared sign, ending the matter.

Time is not measured by calendars or stars, but by cycles of fog. A heavy week of vision-filled vapors is said to be a season of the Sleeper stirring, while clear air is a season of its rest.

The Masks of Memory

Masks are worn at all times. Each is carved from petrified root, bone, or stonewood and painted with swirling mist patterns. The mask is considered the true face, while the flesh beneath is only a shadow. At death, the mask is put into a vent or boiling pool. Family retrieve it days later, and believe it carries the soul’s dream-echo. Families pass these masks down as heirlooms, filling their homes with shelves of staring ancestors. These masks are seen as the ancestors being there, and in mist-induced dreams, they speak to the family.

The masks are not just worn by people. The forest spirits met in vision dreams also wear masks, showing their true nature. In N'gazama, masks don't hide the truth, they show it.

Rituals of the Sleeper

Rituals are central to N’gazama life, binding the people not only to their Sleeper but to each other through shared vision.

The Breath of Union

Villages gather around a vent at dusk, the air thick with smoke and drumming. Participants breathe deeply until the line between self and others dissolves. They sing the same words though none recalls learning them, and at the peak, the Sleeper is said to speak through the crowd as one voice.

The Mask Baptism

At the coming of age, a youth wears their first true mask. They must walk blindfolded into the jungle fog alone and return by instinct and vision. Those who fail are said to have been reclaimed by the dream, never meant to be real.

The Sacrificial Dream

When calamity strikes, a chosen victim is bound with ash and leaves, then lowered into a steaming vent. The rising vapors are believed to carry their soul directly into the Sleeper’s dream, where it may plead on behalf of the tribe.

The Night of Many Faces

Once a year, all masks are taken from the homes and worn together in one great dance. Men, women, and children trade masks, so that for a single night no one knows whose soul they carry. The people say the Sleeper itself walks among them then, wearing whichever mask it chooses.

Way of War

To fight the N’gazama is to fight the mist. Their warriors smear themselves with pale ash, their masks painted in distorted spirals that shift in the vapors. They stalk their foes like phantoms, strike with poisoned darts and jagged spears, and then vanish again. For them, war is not conquest but dream-purging. Enemies are figments intruding in the Sleeper’s rest, to be erased.

Major villages

• Kazhara, “Seed of the Fog,” built where the thickest vents rise, its people are known as keepers of the dream.
• Mbeyu, “The Cracked Mask,” a village that casts many of its dead into boiling pools, known for blackened heirlooms.
• Ungolo, “The Hollow Root,” carved into the roots of the trees, its walkways twist like the coils of a serpent.
• Zahru, “Breath of Ash,” near vents that spew gray smoke, its shamans are feared even by other tribes.
• Mbulani, “The Vanishing Place,” a settlement often hidden by the shifting fog, said to sometimes disappear for weeks.
• Ghazima, “The Dream’s Edge,” a border village where outsiders sometimes trade, though many vanish in the mist.
• Okhoro, “The Many Faces,” known for its annual Night of Masks ritual, where strangers are said to walk among the dancers unseen.
• Tazenga, “Whispers of the Pool,” where the mist vents out of the river bottom, putting the river in permanent mist.

What Outsiders Say of N’gazama

The Jungle Breathes

Travelers swear the fog there is not like ordinary mist. It moves with purpose, as if the jungle itself is breathing. Some say it grows thicker when you are afraid, guiding you into the jaws of something unseen.

Masks in the Trees

Hunters tell of walking for days without meeting a soul, only to realize they were being watched the entire time. Faces peer from the fog, sometimes carved masks, sometimes real people, sometimes bark and shadow. By the time you notice them, you are already surrounded.

The Vanishing Path

No road stays the same within the mists. A man may follow his own footprints only to find himself back where he began, or deeper into the swamps. The N’gazama themselves seem to know the shifting routes, but to strangers every turn is a trap.

The Poisoned Breath

Merchants claim that breathing the fog for too long makes a man lose himself. First you forget the day, then the hour, then who you are. By the end you no longer speak your own words but echo the voices of others. Some who returned from the border carried this madness with them, eyes unfocused, muttering riddles until they wasted away.

The Blackened Masks

Traders have seen N’gazama masks sold in distant markets. Some are blackened and cracked as if burned, yet feel cold to the touch. Men who wear them speak in strange voices at night, and sometimes never take them off again.

Possible Secrets

The Masks Whisper

Some masks carry more than memory. Those blackened in the vents sometimes bind fragments of the soul itself. In rare cases, they can speak, mutter, or scream in dreams. To wear one is to invite the dead to share your mind.

The Sleeper Stirs

Beneath the jungle lies not just a vented mountain but a slumbering entity, half-god or half-beast. Its shifting and turning release the fog. If it wakes fully, the jungle may collapse into chaos or vanish entirely. The people live to soothe it, though perhaps they only feed it.

The Outsiders’ Curse

A few foreigners who survived deep journeys into N’gazama found they could never escape the mist. Even on clear days in distant lands, fog clings to them, visions haunt them, and masked figures appear at the edges of their sight.

The Hidden Paths

Though the jungle seems impossible to navigate, the N’gazama carve hidden paths using runes daubed in ash and resin. These can only be seen when mist is thickest. Those who learn to read them can move safely through the fog.

Adventure Hooks

The Black Mask

A trader’s caravan brings back a cracked N’gazama mask that whispers at night. Soon murders follow in the camp, each victim staring-eyed and grinning. The adventurers must return the mask to the vents before the Sleeper’s fragment consumes its host.

Lost in the Fog

A noble’s son vanishes after entering the mist on a hunting dare. The adventurers must brave N’gazama to find him before he loses himself to the Sleeper’s dream. But is he still real, or already just a figment of the dream?

The False Village

The party stumbles into a N’gazama village where the people welcome them kindly, sharing food and shelter. Yet every night the villagers act stranger, repeating phrases, walking in circles, or flickering in and out of sight. By the time the adventurers realize they are trapped in a vision, escape may no longer be possible.

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