Cloudy dreams
On earth there are deities that control different niches of this reality. Some govern over different lands, animals, plants, and so on. The reach and amplification of their power depends on the following they have. Lesser deities have control over smaller portions of land and have weak abilities. Higher deities and gods have more influence, so they get bigger portions of land to rule over and greater abilities. The way deities gain this power is through their followers giving offerings or tributes that boosts the power of the deity. With enough followers a deity can even ascend to be a god. The other reason they need these offerings is because deities sacrifice a good amount of their power to provide ‘miracles’ to the beings they help. The offerings replenish their power, but sometimes deities gain enough power that offerings become meaningless after a time.
One of the old gods that is said to have this sort of power goes by “Lamby” to the mortals. He was born from human dreams and eats their nightmares to protect them. Hes essentially the god that works in the shadows to keep people sane while he exorcizes the nightmares himself. People have caught glimpses of him in their dreams taking their nightmares and hardening them into orange stars. He’ll leave after that and replace your nightmares with good dreams. The ‘stars’ are then stored in his cloud-like wool where he cleanses the dreams before releasing them back into the ether. The detoxifying process is harmful since the vile nature of the dreams can stain his wool and seep into his skin. He slowly poisons himself for the betterment of his people, but even gods get tired of helping others.
After helping the humans for years he thought they would remain grateful to him, so he can continue visiting their dreams and loving them. However, people eventually started to forget the religion that worships him, stopped giving offerings, and new gods were taking all the limelight. Some new gods even tried to copy him for selfish reasons or deface his legacy to steal followers from him. He thought maybe things will be alright and he could ignore what's going on in the human realm. He even broke the laws between the realms to go visit his people to see if they still accepted him.
However, that wasn’t the case when he came into contact with someone that recognized him. The humans tried to take advantage of him, hurt him, and even the lesser deities trying to replace him betrayed him to steal his power. He escaped with his life, but he felt immensely betrayed by the people he had been protecting for centuries. With the inner turmoil he felt and the darkness of the ‘stars’ seeping in. his personality eventually split and a new version of Lamby formed.
He is a flawed god that is still followed by many, but not out of love and respect for him. He is feared amongst many for the atrocities he can cause in people’s sleep. He is even rumored to have held court amongst the rest of the holy court and had those lesser deities ‘dealt with’. If he tried committing the atrocities he conducted in people’s dreams. The court of old gods would be forced to exterminate him or lock him away so he doesn’t evolve into a greater threat like the ‘corrupted ones’.
Some say he still plots the day where he can overrule the holy court or corrupt them like he has. That way he can continue his mischievous activities without needing to worry about the other gods trying to stop him. In the meantime while he's terrorizing and helping humans (he can’t just quit his job as a god because he got wronged) he likes to make appearances. There are a few beings he likes to visit on occasion in the human realm and the deity realm just to play pranks on them or hangout.
