From owner-wod-l@netcom.com Tue Feb 27 17:09:31 1996 Received: from mail5.netcom.com (root@mail5.netcom.com [192.100.81.141]) by mail.nada.kth.se (8.6.10/8.6.10) with ESMTP id RAA01621 for ; Tue, 27 Feb 1996 17:09:27 +0100 Received: by mail5.netcom.com (8.6.12/Netcom) id JAA03557; Mon, 26 Feb 1996 09:53:06 -0800 Received: from mail.pi.se by mail5 (8.6.12/Netcom) id JAA03486; Mon, 26 Feb 1996 09:52:55 -0800 Received: from d112.gbg.pi.se (d112.gbg.pi.se [194.52.22.112]) by mail.pi.se (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id SAA19800 for ; Mon, 26 Feb 1996 18:53:58 +0100 Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 18:53:58 +0100 Message-Id: <199602261753.SAA19800@mail.pi.se> X-Sender: f107904@mail.pi.se (Unverified) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: wod-l@netcom.com From: cd@alfakonsult.se (David Skogsberg) Subject: The Dreamlands X-Mailer: Sender: owner-wod-l@netcom.com Precedence: list Reply-To: wod-l@netcom.com Status: RO X-Status: Welcome to the Dreamlands! The Dreamlands are two joined Realms in the High Umbra, the Dreamlands proper and the Underworld, that are partially created by the dreams of gifted Sleepers. To enter the Dreamlands the visitor wanders down the seventy steps of Light Slumber, to the Cavern of Flame, wherein stands guard the priests Nasht and Kaman-Thah, and then down the seven hundred steps to the Gate of Deeper Slumber. The 'geography' of the Dreamlands is not really fixed, but is always changing and expanding as dreamers create new nations, cities, and peoples. However, there are a few more-or-less fixed points, most predominant the Enchanted Wood, that is said to impinge on the waking world in some places, Ulthar, the village of cats, on the river Skai, Serannian in the sky, and Celephais, dreamed brick-by-brick by its king and god Kuranes. But feel free to alter descriptions in some ways for every visit. Living things abound in the Dreamlands, and vary from the beautiful to the grotesque. Be imaginative, and instill a sense of wonder in your players. Cats live almost everywhere, and it is said that they are the cats of the mundane world, who travel back and forth at night. It is possible to learn their language (in the Dreamlands, at least), they are organized, and they might object to an Euthanathos who Good-Deaths one of them. It is possible to travel into (an approximation) of space in the Dreamlands; this can be accomplished with as little as a sailing ship. Let the spacefarers-to-be beware, however! There are horrors in space, including the toad-beasts of the moon, the larvae of the Outer Gods which traves mindlessly, and the ultimate centre of the Universe, the blind idiot Daemon Sultan Azathoth. Space-travelling dreamers are known to be driven mad by their journeys. The Dreamlands have gods (actually Incarna) who dwell in their onyx castle on the peak of unseen Kadath in the Cold Waste. The gods of the Dreamlands are protected by pacts with the Outer Gods, making it an unwise proposition to attempt anything uncouth or offensive, such as seeking to percieve their apperance. The Dreamlands also consists of the Underworld, not to be confused with the Shadowlands. The Underworld is dark, lit only by strange fungi and death-fires. The most famous features of the Underworld are the gray and sinister Peaks of Throk, and the Vale of Pnoth, where the weird Dholes burrow unseen amid the refuse of the ghouls. There are some openings into the Underworld, but the most fabled one is in fallen Sarkomand, that stood in ruins a million years before the rise of mankind, where the opening to the stairway is guarded by two winged diorite lions. Life exists in the Underworld; the aforementioned Dholes, who burrow in the Vale of Pnoth, the ghouls (not the Vampire thralls, but a race of corpse-eating, canine, rubbery beings), ghasts, who haunts the Vaults of Zin, beneath even the Underworld, gugs, who worshipped the Outer Gods before their banishment to the Underworld and who are not adverse to snacking on a foolish dreamer. Axioms: The Dreamlands proper Correspondence: 2. Travel is easy in the Dreamlands, and journeys do not last long. Using Correspondence to spy on the gods, or travel to their abode is ***very*** dangerous, however. Entropy: -1. Decay is uncommon, but it does occur, as Kuranes saw in his search for fabled Celephais. Forces: 0. Energies preform mostly as they do in the mundane world. Life: 2. Life and living things are a basis for the Dreamlands, and the ways of affecting it are easier here. However, if using Life to cause damage, all target numbers get +1. Matter: 2. Creating things are easier, as skilled dreamers can create almost anything here. 'Modern' items have a tendency to get altered to their closest medievel-renaissance equivalents (flashlight->lantern, car->horse cart), though. Mind: 0. Mind works as usual. Prime: 1. The Dreamlands proper seems to have a somewhat stronger connection to the "ocean" of prime that exists beneath all reality. Spirit: 3. Spirit magick is *very* easy here, but it is quite difficult to travel to the Dreamlands without going through the Chamber of Flames and the Gate of Deeper Slumber. Many of the inhabitants are capable of Spirit-magick like effects, at least in sumoning spirits. Time: 4. Time seems to go at varying rates in different places, as in Celephais, wherein the inhabitants do no se any passage of time, but live in an enless present. Also, dreamers can spend several months in the Dreamlands - all in a night of dreams. The Underworld Correspondence: -1. Distances seems to shift at the most innoportune moment, as when a mage is trying to outrun a hungry Dhole in the Vale of Pnoth. Entropy: 3. Everything decays here. It is not, however, corrupted by the Wyrm. Forces: -2. Lightless, cold, and silent, the Underworld is the anathema of magi who master forces. Life: -1. There are all manner of living things here, but they are strange and difficult to fathom. Matter: -1. There is no real creation of matter in the Underworld, merely stuff that is brought by various entities. Mind: -1. The dark, chilliness of the Underworld is depressing, and visiting mages have been known to go off into Quiet. Prime: -1. The Underworld is more loosely connected to Prime than the Dream- lands themselves. Spirit: 1. Spirits are still quite easy to summon, but they are often malevolent or just strange. Time: 0. Time does not shift detectably in the Underworld. Recommended reading: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, H.P. Lovecraft (Del Rey) This 250-page book contains a goldmine of information on the Dreamlands. H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands, a Call of Cthulhu Supplement (Chaosium) This one has maps (if you can make maps of the Dreamlands), and more info on inhabitant beings, the lands and cities of the Dreamlands. Creatures of the Dreamlands (Chaosium) A slim "picture-book" with (IIRC) two dozen or so beasts of the Dreamlands, with one page with a description, and some interesting facts, as well as one full-page *beautiful* painting of the beast in question. Probably out of print, which is a damn shame. This article is probably shock-full of stuff which is copyrighted by Chaosium, Arkham House, or other people; but I don't expect to recieve a profit for this, so I hope it's alright. I'll expand more on this later thsi week, and add some concrete numbers for beings, descriptions of places, what the different factions of the Ascension War and the WoD think of it, do here, etc. cd -- "They were not any birds or bats known elsewhere on earth or in Dreamland, for they were larger than elephants and had heads like a horse's. Carter knew then that they must be the Shantak-birds of ill rumour[...]to whose wings still clung the rime and nitre of the nether pits." -H.P. Lovecraft, _The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath_