: Could it be that all dreams have this sort of affect,
: increasing the power of a spell rather than giving a
: new spell to a mage? For example, the dispirsial dream
: that all the archmages seem to love to use may be a
: weak spell which was enhanced by the magic of the
: runestone. Thus, instead of sucking, it would be a
: fairly decent spell.
: Also, the confinement dream used by the Deceiver may have
: been weak in it's early stages, strong enough to trap
: ordinary men, but the dream enabled him to trap the
: Watcher, the 2nd or 3rd most powerful sorcerer.
: This could explain a lot about the different dreams..
I have the feeling you're correct. This would certainly explain why Alric's Dispersal looks different from the Shade's Dispersal--they're genuinely different attacks, basically two different explosive spells, but they both use the Dispersal Dream to jump from target to target, which increases their power enormously.
In this case, the Dreams would be what GURPS calls "meta-spells": spells that enhance the workings of other spells. Each Dream works on a different class or combination of classes of spells--necromantic, explosive, mind-control, etc.--and works in a different way or ways--increasing the power, increasing the range, allowing it to jump from target to target, etc.
--SiliconDream
