Thursday 23 August 2012

The Rules of Dreamland Reality

1. Living mortals may enter the Dreamlands via the city of Darhoo, by imbibing the intoxicating brew of the sap of the Sardo tree. The secrets of this tree, its sap, and the brew which can be fermented from it have been known in Darhoo since ancient times. Only Darhoo, on the edge of the Styrgian desert, lies close enough to the dreamlands to enable transit between worlds, and only then on the night of the crossing moons.

2. The Sardo brew transports a mortal, along with their possessions, into the upper level of the Dreamlands, which is known as "the phantasmagoric glades".

3. Nine deeper levels of dream are known to exist, each with their own name and character. The deeper levels of dream are said to be more perilous to mortals, but also riper with wonder and bounty. Gateways from one level of dream to another may be found within the Dreamlands.

4. The effects of the transportative Sardo elixir do not last forever. In Darhoo-time, dreaming travellers return to the desert city after some few hours in the other realm. In Dreamlands-time the duration of the effects is variable. Dreamers have reported weeks of travel during a single jaunt. Others report mere minutes before returning to the waking world.

5. The duration of a jaunt into the somnambulistic sub-reality can in no manner be controlled. The whims of the Dreamlands are at play here, and dreamers may find themselves awakening at the most inopportune moments.

6. The Dreamlands may be disjointed, shifting and phantasmal, when compared to the waking world, but they are in fact every bit as real. Treasures found in the Dreamlands will return with a dreamer when his or her time is over. Equally, death in the Dreamlands is true death.

7. Dreamers report that a series of monoliths exist throughout the Dreamlands, each of a similar type, and inscribed with a name. Speaking the name of a monolith one has seen in dream, while drinking the Sardo juice, effects a return to that spot. A dreamer's companions may also be taken along in this manner.

3 comments:

  1. This is really great. You can see where all the bits service the needs of the game (like the monolith transport system), but they also seamlessly fit into the setting. I've been thinking a lot recently about systems for interacting with fairy-land, dream-land, the afterlife, etc, so this is also directly useful.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah I've been pondering for some time how to run a campaign which works in this way -- supporting self-contained sessions with a potentially varying group of players -- while meshing these requirements into the setting itself in some way that makes sense.

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