Creatures of the Labyrinth

The Jiangshi of my dreams are similar to the Jiangshi of Chinese folklore, the “hopping vampire”, except the Jiangshi of my dreams aren’t actually undead humans, they just appear to be.

The Jiangshi are, in actuality, a species of sapient clothing. Elaborate sets of robes that possess a sinister soul within them. It is rumored that by donning one of these magic robes you will gain spectacular powers and become a powerful undead creature, but that is just a rumor created by the Jiangshi themselves. In actuality, when you wear a Jiangshi, your own soul is cast out of your body, replaced with the soul of the Jiangshi. The wearer’s original soul is cast into their old, discarded clothes, where it will survive for a time before fading away, and the Jiangshi obtains a new body.

The Jiangshi rumor is designed to lure in those seeking power, trick them into wearing a Jiangshi, and provide a new body to bodyless Jiangshi. This trickery is essentially how they reproduce. They seclude themselves in an undead-haunted bog, luring the power-hungry to themselves and quietly amassing an army.

This is my first attempt at a dream journal entry. I'd like to take an unorthodox approach to this particular dream journal. Rather than give my dreams in full, or focusing on the stories and narratives of those dreams, I plan on focusing on the various beings of these dreamscapes. The "Creatures of the Labyrinth".

To start this off, a dream creature from a newer dream: a Cursepeddler. The Cursepeddlers are a species of large, sapient bats, roughly the size of a flying fox, and black in color. They dwell in small shacks filled with magical baubles, curiosities, and sometimes even magical creatures like imps. They hang from their ceiling, selling their goods to those who visit. They even offer the first sale to a new customer free as a "gift".

The catch, however, is that a good portion of what they sell is cursed. Not everything is cursed, and the Cursepeddlers themselves will openly tell you which items are or are not cursed, but one has to be careful when making one's selection at a Cursepeddler's store.

Care must especially be taken due to one quirk of the Cursepeddler species: they speak backwards, reversing every letter in a made statement. This makes it difficult to follow what a Cursepeddler is saying, and makes it potentially easy to miss descriptions of curses within the description of any given item.

Whether the Cursepeddlers speak backwards because they are cursed themselves, or whether they are simply mischievous and trying to obfuscate the cursed status of their wares, is unknown to all save the Cursepeddlers themselves.