Literature / Dreamblood Duology

In the desert city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Along its ancient stone streets, there is no crime or violence. Priests of the dream-goddess, known as Gatherers, maintain order: harvesting the dreams of the citizens, healing the injured, and guiding the dreamers into the afterlife...

The Dreamblood Duology (2012) is a series of two Fantasy novels by American author N. K. Jemisin and inspired by Ancient Egypt. It is set mainly in the city-state of Gujaareh, ruled by the law of the dream-goddess Hananja whose priests oversee both the living and dreaming lives of her subjects. Narcomancy, the magic inherent in dreams, and the corruption of power are central themes in the story.

The first novel, The Killing Moon, tells about Gatherer Ehiru and his apprentice Nijiri, and how they discover corruption at the very heart of Gujaareh's power.

The second novel, The Shadowed Sun, tells about Hanani, the first female Sharer, and her discovery of what lies outside the cloistered halls of the Hetawa.

"The Narcomancer", available online, is a short story set in the same world, centuries before the time of the books.

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The Dreamblood Duology provides examples of:

• The Ace: Ehiru is repeatedly called Hananja's favourite and considered the best currently active Gatherer. He is the strongest, most graceful, most compassionate, incorruptible and absolutely devoted to Hananja and her law. He can also easily perform two Gatherings per night, which most Gatherers struggle with. Both the other Gatherers and his apprentice Nijiri look up to him.
• Abusive Parents: Tiaanet probably has the worst parents in the series.
• Addictive Magic: Narcomancy, especially dreamblood, one of the four dreamhumours. Coming in contact with it or using it gives wonderful sensations and visions, but after a time the user becomes dependent and must have dream blood or die.
• Affably Evil: Eninket, the Prince of Gujaareh. He is cultured, charismatic, well-spoken, companionable and cherishes his family, but that doesn't stop him from trying to take over the world, having people killed who stand in his way or from using them in horrible ways.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: Ehiru becomes a Reaper.
• Anti-Magical Faction: The nation of Kisua forbids narcomancy on pain of death and exiles any Kisuati who receives magical healing in Gujaareh. Although this attitude deprives them of the miraculous life-saving Psychic Surgery that narcomancy can provide, it is implied to have its roots in Gujaareh's war of independence, since a narcomancer gone Drunk on the Dark Side can become a Soul Eating Person of Mass Destruction, which the Founder Inunru might have taken advantage of.
• The Apprentice:
  • Nijiri is Ehiru's Gatherer-Apprentice in The Killing Moon and idolises his teacher. He has striven to become Ehiru's apprentice ever since their first meeting. In an interesting twist, while everyone agrees that Nijiri will become a capable Gatherer, Nijiri himself only follows this path to be as close to Ehiru as possible because he is in love with Ehiru and would have chosen any path to achieve this goal.
  • In The Shadowed Sun, Hanani is apprenticed to Mni-inh in the goal to become the first female Sharer, creating a situation where she has to prove herself more than other Sharer-Apprentices and Mni-inh is scrutinized more closely due to having a female Apprentice.
• Ascended Extra: Mni-inh, Wanahomen, and Hendet — minor side characters in The Killing Moon — become more important in The Shadowed Sun.
• Badass in Distress: Ehiru for most of The Killing Moon. He's the best Gatherer around and a very capable fighter with remarkable self-control, but because of his unwavering devotion to Hananja's law he is easily manipulated by Eninket and finds himself completely out of his waters outside the Hetawa. While Ehiru is plagued by visions due to a lack of dreamblood it falls to Nijiri to make sure his mentor keeps a grasp on reality, as well as to free the two of them from Eninket's prison when Ehiru eventually gives in and becomes a Reaper.
• Bad Powers, Good People: In Sunandi's opinion this is what Ehiru and Nijiri are. She eventually understands that neither of them are bad people, but their ability to kill people in their dreams and make them enjoy and welcome it just goes against anything Sunandi considers right.
• Barbarian Tribe: The Shadoun, Banbarra, and basically everyone outside Gujaareh and Kisua. At least, that is what the people of Gujaareh and Kisua think. The barbarians from the north join the conflict only because it offers them an opportunity to fight and loot.
• Bathhouse Blitz: A rival clan assassin attacks Wana in the bathing pools, expecting to cause a Naked Freak-Out. However, Wana was raised in a culture with no nudity taboo, so he dishes out a brutal Full-Frontal Assault instead.
• Being Good Sucks: Ehiru spends much of the first book desperately needing dreamblood, but even when he could just secretly Gather someone in the night and get what he needs, he resists because they refuse him.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Lord Sanfi in Book 2. For all his supposed political acumen in Playing Both Sides, his machinations never amount to anything bigger than a small conspiracy, quietly swept away by the bigger players in the game. His role in releasing the Wild Dreamer, supposed to sow chaos in the Hetawa, does work, but at the price of having his wife's magical lineage traced and subsequently having his dark secrets uncovered.
• Big Brother Instinct: Ehiru is supposed to take that role towards his apprentice Nijiri for the duration of Nijiri's apprenticeship. However, the situation turns out complicated because while Ehiru does love Nijiri like a brother and has to constantly remind himself not to underestimate and coddle Nijiri, Nijiri's feelings and motives are more complicated. In the long run it's Nijiri who takes that role towards Ehiru, going to great lengths to keep trouble away from him and coddling him.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Sunset Lineage tends towards this as the Prince is required to have 256 wives, and succession is decided by who can best the others, whether by murder or clever schemes. One of Eninket's reasons to do what he does is to change that situation and allow every member of his family to live free from this.
• Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Hanani is the first woman to be allowed to join the Sharers of Hananja because of her talent for healing magic and is very aware of it. She binds her breasts and wears a male uniform at first, but realizes she's both setting a precedent and making herself miserable in an effort to placate people who still disapprove of her, gains some self-confidence, and switches back to women's clothing.
• Broken Ace: Ehiru is introduced as Hananja's favourite and the best Gatherer currently alive. However, messing up only once eats almost all of his confidence away and his lauded incorruptibility and devotion to Hananja's law make him susceptible to being manipulated, creating a downward spiral of insecurity about his abilities and worth.
• Broken Bird: Tiaanet. Her life is so horrible she just stopped feeling to deal with it.
• Cannot Dream: Gatherers lose their ability to dream when they become Gatherers. This is because their job is to shape the dreams of other people and to navigate Ina-Karekh. As a result, they become addicted to dreamblood.
• Celibate Hero: Everyone living and serving in the Hetawa is supposed to swear off sex, which includes both protagonists of The Killing Moon, Ehiru and Nijiri.
• Cessation of Existence: People who are reaped instead of gathered do not go on to Ina-Karekh, but cease existing altogether, which is against Hananja's will and denies them any happiness in the afterlife. Also, Hanani does this to Tantufi at the end of The Shadowed Sun because her soul is so damaged that it would never have found rest.
• Character Development: Nijiri, who is rash and hot-blooded at the start of The Killing Moon, eventually calms down and learns to think before acting, allowing him to become a truly great Gatherer.
• Child by Rape: Tantufi is the result of a father molesting his daughter. She's kept hidden in the basement from people outside the family.
• The Church: The priesthood of Hananja essentially rules the city-state of Gujaareh, with most of the city's power centered in the Hetawa, the area the priests live in, rather than with the palace and the Prince. Hananja's priests also serve as the gatekeepers of Hananja's magic.
• Church Police: The Sentinels, those of Hananja's chosen who are best suited to the path of the soldier, act as the Hetawa's elite guards. An enemy Kisuati has an Oh, Crap! moment when he's told that the Sentinels are the ones who train and regulate The Dreaded Gatherers.
• Corrupt Church: The Hetawa has been controlling Gujaareh by turning the elite into magical drug addicts.
• The Corrupter: Eninket does his best to make Ehiru stray from Hananja's path. Since Ehiru only escaped being killed senselessly as a child because he had already been chosen by Hananja, the prospect of stopping the internal infighting of the royal family has its appeal. However, his brother's methods go against everything Ehiru believes in.
• The Corruption: Once a Gatherer uses their powers to kill rather than to bestow peace, a long downward spiral begins. If they even suspect they are emotionally unbalanced, they may ask to die.
• Creepy Good: The Gatherers are Dream Weaver priests of Hananja charged with ushering the dying into the afterlife — which usually means sneaking into their target's house, creating a beautiful Dying Dream for them, and severing their soul's link to their body. Even Hananja's faithful tend to be creeped out by this, not least because the Gatherers are both implacable and utterly compassionate — and because Gathering doubles as a method of execution. To the rival Kisuati, they're The Dreaded.
• Crossing the Desert: Ehiru, Nijiri and Sunandi have to join a caravan to cross the desert outside Gujaareh so they can safely reach Kisua.
• Cultural Posturing: Kisuati are quick to remind the Gujaareen that Gujaareh is a daughter-state of Kisua that's become corrupted in the eyes of the Kisuati.
• Culture Clash: Common between Kisuati and Gujaareen, even when the Gujaareen are of the shunha caste and stick very close to their Kisuati roots. The main point of contention is the dominant religion of Gujaareh, namely Hananja's law. The Kisuati view the Gujaareen custom of Gatherer priests gathering — read: killing — people in their dreams when 'their time has come' as barbaric.
• The Dark Side:
  • Gatherers who become addicted to dreamblood and don't catch that in time can end up gathering someone against their will and becoming a Reaper.
  • Sharers are meant to use their power for healing, but the potential to use it for the opposite also exists.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Nijiri's mother died when he was a child, leaving him in the care of Ehiru, to be raised at the Hetawa and opening the path for him to become a Gatherer, which is one of the most prestigious positions achievable within Gujaareh.
• Domestic Abuse: Lord Sanfi basically creates a world of horror and pain for the women around him.
• Downer Ending: The Killing Moon ends with Nijiri gathering Ehiru because the latter has become a Reaper and Gujaareh being conquered by the Kisuati in the name of saving the people of Gujaareh from their own religion.
• Dream Land: Ina-Karekh, where people go when dreaming and which doubles as an afterlife.
• Dream Stealer: Sharers and Gatherers are good examples. Sharers use the dreamichor harvested from dreams to perform their healing and Gatherers gather dreamblood from those whose time it is to die and shape pleasing final dreams for the departing.
• Dream Weaver: Sharers and Gatherers both weave dreams in order to perform their duties. Sharers use dreamichor to shape the dreams of their patients use those dreams as a way to heal, while Gatherers shape pleasing final dreams for those departing into Ina-Karekh for good.
• Drunk on the Dark Side: Because dreamblood is highly addictive, once a Gatherer kills on purpose and without being welcomed, he becomes a Reaper and requieres a constant supply of dreamblood. And he will kill anyone who comes close enough to get it.
• Emotionless Girl:
  • Sonta-i is a self-acknowledged male example, having come to the Dreaming Gift so early in life that he sees no meaningful distinction between dream and reality and views the worst of both with the same cool detachment. It makes him utterly unsuited to face the vast rage and sorrow of the Wild Dreamer, so he dies mildly surprised by having experienced those emotions for the first time.
  • Tiaanet's horrific childhood scarred over her capacity for emotion, since detached reason was the only way she could survive it. At the end of the book, she starts to regain it, which mostly just leaves her heartbroken.
• Empire with a Dark Secret: Gujaareh has lots of them mostly centered around their founder Inunru who, rather than the exiled priest persecuted for his magic and beliefs that the Gujaareen revere him as, is slowly revealed to a immortal God-Emperor who likely massacred Kisua, deliberately tried to breed Human Weapons and was killed by his own priests.
• Everyone Is Bi: Downplayed, but Gujaareh doesn't stigmatize same-sex attraction whatsoever, so the citizens are happy to take their pleasure wherever they find it.
• Fantasy Pantheon: Several deities of Kisuati origin are mentioned, but Hananja has risen to be the sole deity worshipped in the city-state of Gujaareh. According to scripture, she bestowed the magic of narcomancy on its citizens and in return Hananja's Law is the highest law within its walls. Since she is the goddess of dreams and peace, the Gujaareens worship her by offering her their dreams, which are gathered by her priests and used for narcomacy, and peace is to be maintained at all cost.
• Fantastic Drug: Dreamblood. It is needed to perform narcomancy and the Gatherers, chosen priests of Hananja, set out each night to gather it from those whose time has come to pass into Ina-Karekh, but it also is highly addictive. Any Gatherer who detects an untoward need for dreamblood within himself may request to be gathered in turn, and should he fail to do so in time and forcefully gather someone to sate his need, he will become Drunk on the Dark Side, turning him into a Reaper.
• Flashback: In The Killing Moon, Nijiri's and Ehiru's first meeting, in which Nijiri requested a gathering of his mother to end her suffering from The Plague and Ehiru is sent to enact it, is described in a flashback.
• Forced Euthanasia: In the theocracy of Gujaareh, specialized priests "Gather" the dying into the Dream Land-afterlife by creating a happy Dying Dream. It's one of their most sacred rites and guarantees them peace in the afterlife. However, once the priests approve a Gathering, the client can't back out, even if that means coming for them in their sleep.
• The Fundamentalist: The whole city of Gujaareh to a degree, but certainly the Hetawa. "Hananja's City obeys Hananja's Law" right down to a pissed crowd of peasants screaming that at you when you break it.
• God of the Moon: Hananja the Dreaming Moon is the Top Goddess wedded to the Sun, a central figure in Creation Myth, the patron of the city-state Gujaareh, the source of its Dream Weaving magic, and the ruler of the Dream Land that doubles as the human afterlife.
• Going Native: Wanahomen and Hanani adapt to life among the Banbarra during their time there. Hanani even pulls a I Choose to Stay, living amongst the Banberra and helping them with her Sharer abilities.
• Go Out with a Smile: Gatherers facilitate it for their clients to go peacefully by weaving pleasant dreams for those who are about to depart to Ina-Karekh, a Dream Land. It's the only way to gain the dying person's agreement to gather their dreamblood.
• Government Drug Enforcement: The Hetawa gets everyone rich and powerful in the city addicted to drugs, then uses addiction to control them or extort them.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Whether Gujaareh or Kisua can actually be called morally superior to the other is a constant question in the books, and one that ultimately goes unanswered. Gujaareh's rulers actively deceive their citizens, but Gujaareh has known years and years of peace, while Kisuati enjoy more freedom in a notoriously unstable country and generally look down on anyone not Kisuati for not following in their footsteps.
• Groin Attack: When a man tries to assassinate Wana while bathing, Wana quite deliberately fractures his penis, then threatens to tell his clan — a death sentence, since a Banbarra man unable to father children would be rejected as a husband and as a clansman. To soften the blow, he offers to have a Sharer heal the damage if the assassin cooperates.
• Guilt-Induced Nightmare: Healing magic works through resolving some symbol of the injury through Dream Weaving. One wounded soldier has nightmares that link his injury to his Survivor Guilt, so Hanani heals him by reshaping the dreams so he can forgive himself for not dying with his comrades.
• Happily Adopted:
  • Sunandi was adopted by Kinja Seh Kalabsha when she was a child and trained to be a diplomat and spy. While her upbringing was trying, Sunandi is aware of the priviledge of having had it and her love and devotion for master Kinja is what motivates her to see their mission in Gujaareh through even after his untimely death.
  • Most of those living within the Hetawa were adopted by the priesthood, either because their parents died or because they showed talent for narcomancy. Children who grow up within the Hetawa are cared for and educated and generally happy with their lot.
• Her Heart Will Go On: Well, his. Ehiru, having become a Reaper, inevitably dies by being gathered by Nijiri, who is in love with Ehiru for the entirety of The Killing Moon. Nijiri's only option is to face that they could never have been together because Ehiru's loyalty and love lay solely with Hananja. It is also the first Gathering Nijiri performs, making him Ehiru's successor, and is a turning point for Nijiri's development towards a calm, responsible young man and Gatherer.
• The Hero Dies: Ehiru, the main protagonist and object of the story in The Killing Moon, inevitably dies after having become a Reaper by neccessity and to make space for Nijiri to become a Gatherer.
• Heroic Willpower: Ehiru, when suffering from dreamblood withdrawal, adamantly refuses to alleviate his suffering by gathering it from any of the other travellers or members of the caravan, even though the logical consequence is to become a Reaper and lose his humanity.
• Hidden Buxom: Hanani binds her breasts and wears men's clothing to downplay her status as the first female Sharer. Once she realizes that she's making herself unhappy, that it's not doing anything to mollify the people who feel threatened by her, and that she's setting precedent for future female priests, she switches to unapologetically feminine garb.
• High Priest: The Superior of the Hetawa is the head of Hananjan religion.
• Hitman with a Heart: This is essentially what being a Gatherer is. They kill those who have requested to be gathered, or those whose family has requested they be gathered, but it is done with true love and mercy and by weaving a most pleasant dream for those departing.
• Holy City: Gujaareh is the main and most important city for the worshippers of Hananja. In fact, Hananja's Law is what the Gujaareens live by and are in return bestowed with Hananja's magic, narcomancy, which is virtually unknown and unused outside of the city-state. Gujaareh also houses the Hetawa, the main temple of Hanaja.
• Honor Before Reason: Ehiru's main flaw is his by-the-book adherence to Hananja's Law and refusal to acknowledge the possibility of corruption within the priesthood, making him susceptible to being easily manipulated by those with less scruple about these things.
• Human Resources: Hananja's believers are encouraged to donate their dreams and nightmares to the Hetawa, so the priests — mainly Sharers — may harvest them and use them to in turn heal those in need. On the other hand, dreamblood harvested from dreams of the dying by Gatherers is highly addictive and can be used for less communal purposes.
• I Choose to Stay: Hanani chooses to live amongst the Banbarra, allowing her to live as a woman and a Sharer
• I Know Your True Name: Downplayed, but knowing someone's Soulname grants a greater measure of power over them in dreams, so the Gujareen are very careful about sharing them. When they face the Wild Dreamer, Wana helps Hanani recover her mind by calling her by her Soulname.
• Immortal Ruler: Invoked by Prince Eninket. By harnessing a Reaper to Mind Rape thousands of people to death through their dreams at once, harvesting their souls and Dreamblood, he intends to magnify the usual life-extending properties of Dreamblood into true immortality. The Reaper regains his senses long enough to kill Eninket before following through.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • The first Prince of Gujareeh was almost named a king, but he declared that because the goddess Hananja was the only queen, while living he would be a prince and only become a king upon death at Hananja's side.
  • Gatherers gather those whose souls they send to Ina-Karekh; they do not kill. Since Gathering is a sacred rite that dispatches someone to what might well be a genuine afterlife in a state of transcendent peace and joy, they feel quite strongly about the distinction.
• Instant Sedation: Sleep spells are one application of narcomancy, although the speed depends on how alert and uncooperative the target is. The Ace Ehiru is startled when he's able to force an enemy soldier to sleep in an instant amid a pitched battle.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: Sharers enter the minds of those they are healing and rummage around to find the cause of their ailment as well as working their healing from within the patient's mind.
• The Load: Wana sees his hostage Sharers at this for a while, since he assumes they'll spy on him for Gujaareh and need to be coddled to survive in the harsh environment of the Banbarra clans. Then he realizes they're prepared to make themselves useful.
• Male Sun, Female Moon: In the books' Creation Myth, the Sun was an Abhorrent Admirer to the sisters Waking Moon and Dreaming Moon until the latter laid down the law, took him in hand, and married him.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Only natural in the royal line where the Prince is expected to take two-hundred fifty-six wives. As a bonus, all of them are expected to duke it out among themselves to determine who will become the next Prince of Gujaareh.
• The Medic: Sharers are a special denomination among Hananja's priests who harvest the dreamichor from the dreams of her faithful and use it to heal those in need. It's even possible to regrow limbs and cure genetic diseases this way by using additional types of dreamhumor.
• Men Are Generic, Women Are Special:
  • Thoroughly explored for both its positives and its negatives. On the one hand, men in Gujareeh are genuinely invested in the happiness and pleasure of their women. On the other hand, women are denied certain roles in society that they may want to take part in just because women are considered goddesses and ordinary things like working are beneath them.
  • The Banberra also practice a version of this. The men are warriors defending the tribes and scavenging and raiding for goods. But it is the women of the tribe that trade those goods for money and hold the wealth of the family. Thus the women are much more educated than the men learning math, languages and diplomacy while the men just learn to fight.
• Mercy Kill: The basic purpose of the Gatherers is to allow a peaceful death to those who are too old or too sick to be healed and who do not want to be a burden to their family and society.
• Mind Rape: Narcomancy can be used to torment people through their dreams to the point that their souls unravel.
• More than Mind Control: In order to control Reapers, Eninket uses Hetawa terms and imagery in addition to the jungissa. In Ehiru's case he also uses some well-placed lies and their family bond.
• My God, What Have I Done?: His first Gathering during the story going horribly awry eats almost all of Ehiru's confidence away until he becomes convinced to be unable to perform his duties anymore.
• Mystical Plague: The nightmare curse traps its sufferers in horrific dreams that they can't be woken from, spreads to anyone who sleeps near a sufferer, and ultimately causes them to die and their souls to be lost between the waking and dreaming worlds.
• Narrator All Along: In The Killing Moon each Interlude is prefaced with someone narrating the history and mythology of Gujaareh. The last interlude reveals that the narrator was Una-une speaking to his attendant likely right before he is kidnapped during his Final Tithe.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Ehiru is a very talented Gatherer. Too bad he never questioned which of his assignments were actually just political hits that ultimately made all the disaster of the books possible.
• Older Than They Look: Receiving dreamblood from a narcomancer extends the lifespan and preserves youth to an extent. The Prince, a regular recipient, looks like a somewhat ageless young adult despite being nearly 60, as does his brother Ehiru.
• One-Man Army:
  • Gatherers and Sentinels undergo excessive martial training during their apprenticeship, making them a match to almost anyone else.
  • Reapers, who are Gatherers turned evil, are able to not only gather anyone at will, they can do it to hundreds and thousands of people at once. Applies literally when a Reaper is able to incapacitate two armies from miles away.
• Orphanage of Love: The Hetawa's House of Children. Everyone seems to come out of it as Happily Adopted, as it provides for and educates children who would otherwise have had to grow up in poverty and on their own.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Reapers are Gatherers turned rogue. They need dreamblood to survive and are able to gather it from anyone, willing or not, and en masse, meaning from hundreds of people at the same time, if needed.
• Parental Incest: Tiaanet is repeatedly molested by her father in The Shadowed Sun and at one point gives birth to a daughter.
• Pensieve Flashback: Gatherers can pull memories out of someone as a Third-Person Flashback by forcing them to relive the memories in a dream.
• Plagued by Nightmares:
  • In the sequel, Wana is troubled by nightmares of his dead father talking to him while his body putrefies and rots. Made worse by the knowledge that they're true visions of his father's soul eternally trapped in nightmares for his crimes in life.
  • The nightmare curse Mind Rapes people with these until they die. Specifically, it traps them in the nightmares of its source, a horrifically tormented child.
• Psychic Surgery: Sharers use narcomancy to heal people through their dreams by conjuring a dreamscape that represents their injury, magically empowering it with dream-humours, and redirecting it to represent the injury being cured.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Ehiru manages to stop a major war between Gujaareh and Kisua... by basically making it possible for Kisua to walk right in and take over. Oops.
• Rags to Riches: After being adopted by Kinja, Sunandi rose from a Street Urchin to the prestigious ambassador of Kisua to Gujaareh, and from there to the governor of Gujaareh itself.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: In the sequel, Sunandi and her husband oversee Gujaareh as a vassal state of Kisua, but are moderate and reasonable governors, having learned genuine respect for the Gujareen culture and people. It saves their lives when the Kisuati are ousted.
• Religion is Magic: Priests of Hananja can use narcomancy, the magic Hananja has bestowed upon her city to be used to maintain peace and prosperity among its population.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Eninket, the Prince of Gujaareh, is more than just a pretty figure on the throne. He cares about his people, and especially about his Royally Screwed Up by tradition family. Unfortunately, he is willing to use rather sinister means to achieve his well-meant goals.
• Sacred Hospitality: Guest right in shunha households (and one can assume sonha households) ensures that a guest be treated as an honorary member of the family for the duration of their stay.
• Sanity Slippage: Part of a Gatherer's disintegration towards becoming a Reaper. Ehiru has violent thoughts and dreams while suffering from dreamblood withdrawal.
• Self-Made Orphan: In a benign version, Nijiri met Ehiru when he asked a Gatherer to end his terminally ill mother's pain.
• Sex for Solace: Hanani propositions Wana after her mentor Mni-inh's untimely death, although he doesn't accept until considerably later, after she has time to express her grief in a more conventional manner and is in more of a state of mind to enjoy the experience.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Hanani actually looks pretty good once she stops dressing as a Sharer, i.e.: like a man. Also a Significant Wardrobe Shift for her, since she had previously tried to downplay her status as the first female Sharer, and ultimately decides not to try to hide her femininity.
• Simple, yet Opulent: The general aesthetic of the Hetawa. For example, Hanani's uniform is simple but revealed to be incredibly expensive, dyed with expensive dye normally used by royalty. This is actually a plot point as the Simple, yet Opulent aesthetic was adopted by the Hetawa to allow the priests to indulge in their wealth while hiding how much of the wealth was gained through blackmailing the rulers and nobles of Gujaareh.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Tiaanet is lusted after by pretty much every man who sets eyes on her, including her own father.
• Soul Eating: Reaping a soul involves using narcomancy to crack it open and suck out its dreamblood until there's nothing left to sustain the victim in the afterlife.
• Specifically Numbered Group: The Prince of Gujaareh has an Exotic Extended Marriage of 256 wives: the goddess Hananja is associated with the number four, so 256 (four times four times four times four) is especially holy, as is the Prince as Hananja's Avatar.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Downplayed between Hanani and Wanahomen. They can be lovers but they must live apart, can never be married and cannot sire children. This is in large part because of Hanani being a Sharer and Wanahomen also having a powerful dreaming gift, any children they have could easily be a Wild Dreamer.
• The Stoic: Gatherers are almost supernaturally calm and collected, adding to their air of otherworldliness and unapproachability. They are required to be so because negative emotions are a sign of instability and deterioration and Gatherers who develop those emotions pay the Final Tithe before they turn into Reapers.
• Street Urchin: Sunandi used to live on the streets in Kisua before being adopted by master Kinja.
• Student–Master Team:
  • Nijiri and Ehiru have to team up to uncover what's going on within the city and the Hetawa. While Ehiru is officially Nijiri's master, after his first gathering of the story goes awry and he begins to suffer dreamblood withdrawal due to refusing to gather any more, Nijiri becomes something like his caretaker, doing his best to get Ehiru away from danger. However, while Nijiri is both young and rash and awfully in love with Ehiru, the latter is too caught up in his Honor Before Reason mindset to be of any use. Eventually, they both manage to overcome their respective faults and work together to prevent the worst.
  • Sunandi and master Kinja worked as a team before Kinja's untimely and suspicious death. Kinja took Sunandi along with him on his diplomatic (and spying) mission to Gujaareh and made her his successor as the Kisuati ambassador in Gujaareh, just in case something happened to him.
• Super Breeding Program: The Sunset Lineage might be this. All Princes are required to have some Dreaming ability and are also required to have 256 wives. The Hetawa speculate that this might be to keep unbroken lines of powerful dreamers with the ultimate goal of creating human weapons like Wild Dreamers or Reapers. This also explains the expectionally powerful gifts of both Ehiru and Wanahomen.
• Superpower Disability: Gatherers gain exceptionally powerful narcomancy but lose the ability to produce their own Dreamblood. They rely on receiving Dreamblood from others, suffer debilitating Soul Pains if they run dry, and eventually undergo a torturous Metamorphosis into a Reaper if they go long enough without.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Gatherers are well trained and educated priests capable of killing people in their dreams and making them enjoy it. Reapers are Gatherers who have lost control and become addicted to the dreamblood they collect as their job. Those are capable of killing hundreds or thousands of people at the same time just to get their desired dreamblood.
• Talking in Your Dreams: It's difficult, since Ina-Karekh is an infinitely vast Eldritch Location, but skilled narcomancers can focus on a location that's profoundly significant to both of them for the same reasons and meet there in their dreams.
• Teacher/Student Romance: In The Shadowed Sun, Hanani's perspective reveals everyone thinks Ehiru and Nijiri were lovers. Considering Nijiri is truly in love with Ehiru during The Killing Moon and is doing his utmost to make the latter understand that without outright confessing, that's not too far off, but Ehiru never sees Nijiri as more than his apprentice whom he is very fond of.
• Technical Pacifist: Gatherers kill to preserve the peace prescribed by Hananja's Law, and they do it in such a way that their 'victims' fall asleep peacefully.
• Time Skip: Ten years go by between The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun.
• Tragic Monster: Both the Reaper in The Killing Moon and the Wild Dreamer in The Shadowed Sun qualify.
  • The Reaper was Una-une, once a good and moral Gatherer who wished for a dignified death after serving his city and his goddess faithfully all his life; instead he was kidnapped and Driven to Madness due to magic deprivation, making him more animal than man, only trying to fulfill his neverending hunger for dreamblood, harvested from people's Life Energy.
  • The Wild Dreamer is Tantufi, Lord Sanfi's Child by Rape with his daughter. Tantufi is a 6-year old child, hated, crippled and malnurished by his father, also driven insane by the years of abuse and because of the magic potential in her lineage she can't tell dream and reality apart. She starts to unwillingly share her horrible nightmares borne from her abuse with other people, trapping and eventually killing them in the Dream Land, which is exploited by her father to his own political gain.
• Typhoid Mary: The Wild Dreamer is the source of the nightmare curse, a horrifically deadly Mystical Plague that imperils the souls of its victims. They're also a horribly abused child who forces herself to stay awake until she collapses from exhaustion to minimize the threat she poses to others, and who is heartbroken about being used as a weapon by her father/grandfather Sanfi.
• The Unsmile:
  • Sonta-i has never experienced emotion in his life and is usually The Stoic. When he's not, well...
    "To his utter shock, Sonta-i smiled. It was a horrible expression beneath his dead gray eyes, lacking the slightest touch of amusement or pleasure, and the sight of it sent a shiver down Nijiri's every nerve."
  • Tiaanet is an utterly Broken Bird who usually plays the part of Sanfi's demure, beautiful daughter so well that she has a horde of suitors. When she goes through the motions of affecting a smile, they quickly find somewhere else to be.
• Xanatos Gambit: Eninket creates some pretty wild plans to ensure that he will become an immortal and take over the world. Ehiru refuses to give in and become a Reaper? Oh well. He can just torture Nijiri and get the same effect. Sunandi makes it to Kisua to warn them war is coming? Oh well. He had warriors ready years ago. He's also just going to kill all of them with his inevitable Reaper. The only reason he fails is because he underestimates how much Ehiru's hatred and determination will keep his head clear enough to kill him.
• Warrior Monk: Sentinels are the protectors of the Hetawa and are trained in all manner of weapons and bare handed fighting. Gatherers to a slightly lesser extent as they are trained by Sentinels.
• Weird Moon: The Dreaming Moon. Word of God says it's actually a gas giant and this world is on one of the planet's moons. The Waking Moon is also another of the planet's moons.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Eninket doesn't actually want to live forever and wage war until the world is united under his rule, he just sees it as the only way peace is actually possible. He could also just be really, really crazy, but the people who knew him best stick with this one.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Sunandi constantly asks how Ehiru and Nijiri can effectively live as hitmen. They in turn ask her how she can lie for a living.
• Whatevermancy: Narcomancy, a magic of sleep and dreams. The dreams of Hanaja's faithful can be harvested by her priests and in turn used to do all sorts of things like healing. Gatherers can use it to send people on their last journey to Ina-Karekh and to harvest dreamblood from their final dreams.
• You Can't Go Home Again: After Hanani's myriad ordeals, she simply can't go back to the Hetawa or even to Gujaareh and stays with the Banbarra.
• Your Normal Is Our Taboo: The use of magic is completely banned in Kisua, while it is part of the fabric of Gujaareen life. Becomes starkly evident when Ehiru is discussing how a crippled Kisuati child could be healed through narcomancy, only to be threatened by the local guards.

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