Um... This might be an awkward questions, but could someone please explain the full concept of the Dreamlands to me? I know that Lovecraft used these fictional planes in many stories, but in canon, CoC, do they really exist in their own way, as physical plains of existence? Are they heavily fantasy? And what of the Nameless City- is that part of the Dreamlands segment, or is it just another CoC Mythos segment?
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In canon Call of Cthulhu, they exist in a separate plane of existence, accessible through dreaming primarily. They can also be accessed by certain spells and artifacts, some of which simply allow a dreaming person to find the entrance to the Dreamlands, others of which transport the user physically. There are also places in the "real" world where the membrane between the two planes of existence is thin, and the savvy or unwary can walk into the Dreamlands. The ghouls travel regularly between the planes.
The mapped areas of Earth's Dreamlands are a fantastic realm. Technology is pre-industrial (any items from later periods brought there physically transform to analogues).
The Nameless City is in the Middle East in the "real" world and is part of the standard Mythos. In Lovecraft's early fantasy tales, he created a number of cities and cultures. It seems they were intended to have existed in Earth's prehistory in the original stories. Later, he began to incorporate them into stories that are specifically set in dreams, The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath especially. It could be that these prehistoric and forgotten cultures still have echoes in the collective subconscious of humanity.
The Nameless City is sometimes associated with the "Lost City of Irem," which is mentioned in the Koran, but was thought to be a fable in Lovecraft's time. This region was somewhat on people's minds, with the exploits of Lawrence and Henry St. John Philby in the Arabian Peninsula--a year after Lovecraft published his first story on the Nameless City, St. John Philby would publish his first volume on exploring the Arabian Peninsula, looking for the lost city of Ubar. Lost, incidentally, because covered over in a deuce of a sandstorm. One possible site which seems to qualify was found based on satellite imagery of the desert, and excavated in the 1980's and 1990's. I saw an academic paper on it once at the International Medieval Congress at Western Michigan University. One of the most fascinating presentations I have ever seen.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/21/sc...he-desert.html
Since you are looking for action adventures for a group of new players, Falconjudge, the idea of having intrepid explorers traipsing around in the desert with or in a competition with Henry St. John Philby offers a lot of potential.
Right. When I was younger, I confused the two; I thought that the Nameless City was Irem. I now understand them to be separate cities, and if I remember right, the Nameless City predates Irem (which was built by humans rather than the prehistoric horrors that built and lived in the Nameless City).Originally Posted by wombat1
I have n’t read all of the dreamland stories, but I have read “Dream quest of unknown Kadath” and the “dreamlands” module. So, I would say Dreamlands are a separate plane of existence, but heavily connected to our world, or I would say to the people of this world. It reminds me the Astral plane (another field where I’m not proficient) in the sense that it is your dream self (spirit) that can travel there, time is different and there are many benevolent or friendly creatures, as well as many realms which you could call them Archetypical. There are places of peaceful sweet life, deserts of desolation, lost hopes and beliefs and there are the gods, or this is what many seekers-dreamers believe. So, even if the Dreamlands are real (and in my game they are), are they (at least the “known” ones) a reflection of humanity? Maybe they are the Astral plane, or maybe the Astral plane is a “Dreamland-like” place. Another keeper could use them as a (quite) high fantasy setting to change the flavor of the game. However you use them it is a setting with million possibilities, literally.
I have to say that I prefer the dream cities from Horror on the Orient Express to the "proper" Dreamlands but there could be a place for both - with a different drug recipe needed to access HPL's version, perhaps. HotOE's version just seems more menacing.
While running The Haunting for some new players I decided that Walter Corbitt opted for his current state of premature mummification as a way of spending a huge amount of time in the Dreamlands. So that now he has some investigators mucking about his house, what spells could he use from the Dreamlands to attack the investigators in their dreams while they sleep in between visits when the PC's go home for the night?
We all have urges. Mine just require more towels.
I think that’s a very interesting tweak on The Haunting, irondawn. How did this work out when you ran the scenario?
As for the Dreamlands setting in general, the CoC version is very much a separate fantasy realm that certain people (“dreamers”) can enter through their dreams (mostly, although, as already explained, there are other methods of entering dreamlands). It is separated from ordinary dreams, so you won’t normally run into sleeping relatives and the like, unless they happen to be dreamers as well. In other words, there is dreaming and then there is spending time in the Dreamlands…
Personally, I think the CoC version of Dreamlands falls a bit short of Lovecraft’s original vision(s). It is too much a fantasy setting with occasional mythos critters running about, and not enough dreamy and surreal. Granted, such an add-on setting is very hard to do, and it was conceptualized in the mid-80s when RPGs focused on other (dear I say more immature) things than they do today, and Chaosium supplement does a good job with sourcing the many locations, creatures, peoples, etc. of Lovecraft’s dreamlands stories. Still, it would be nice if a new edition came out that focused more on the setting and how to make it more interesting and moving while at the same time staying more faithful to the original stories.
From the Darkness of the inner Void,
a voice calls out:
Within Thyself Thou Shalt Know the World!
Dreamhounds of Paris will present a slightly different interpretation in which dreaming surrealists can change the waking world through their actions in the Dreamlands. It's currently under development from Robin Laws, Ken Hite and me.
The Armitage Files, now with added Ennie Award.
Part of the issue with the Dreamlands as conceived is that it borrows also from Brian Lumely's writings and expansions on the subject matter.
There is also a greater underlying issue : namely that many CoC players seeking the Lovecraftian experience tend to dislike his Dreamlands writings. That hoary haunting dread found in his Arkham/Dunwich/Innsmouth stories is noticeably absent. And so opinion ultimately moves in the direction that something is "wrong" with the Dreamlands.
I find the evaluation to absolutely strange, given HPL's own high regard for those cycle of stories. Cosmic Horror and fear are not the major thematic objectives of his Dreamlands stories. If anything, there's a much stronger emphasis on surrealism, awe, and wonder. In this respect, his Dreamland cycle has more in common with something like the 1001 Tales of the Arabian Nights or the writings of his contemporaries Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard (you can even see the shades of influences on Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar) than they do with Bierce, Mary Shelly, Machen, Blackwood, Poe, and all the other gothic horror/weird horror predecessors.
As one of those people, I think the Dreamlands stories just aren't as good.
Actually I think some of Lovecraft’s Dream-stories are good. In many of them, like “Sarnath..” there is that feeling of futility and dark awe. Through the aeons everything is swallowed sooner or later by some omnipotent force which can you deny for some time, but can not escape.
“Dream quest of unknown Kadath” is not very much in to horror truly…but it is a dark trip to some kind of adulthood, to some kind of understanding. It does remind the famous novel of Stapledon “The star maker” written 10 years later and also some poems of the era on the notion of a “quest”.
As for the game, I would use the already published adventures with caution since many of them consist a great deviation from the concept and feeling of CoC, reminding us a plane fantasy setting (like the “dreaming stone”). Some of those adventures are very good though. As I see it, one can use the dreamlands to his/her liking. Why not create more dreamplaces or even other dreamlands that would have another, maybe even darker, character. The concept of the “dream plane” which is not included in the “Dreamlands” module have already been used in a few published adventures, like HotOE, the Ravenar Saga and others.
Eh. I feel its like comparing apples and oranges.
For instance - if the horror author Stephen King produced a book of love poetry in iambic pentameter, would it be appropriate to compare the work against his vast corpus of horror stories?
Probably not... but would his fans do it anyway? Of course.
And that's where it gets a little odd - we interpret the Dreamlands from the expectations we have out of Lovecraft (Cosmic Horror, Madness, Hopelessness,etc.) - not as a set of free-standing stories.
And out of our expectations from playing Call of Cthulhu. Ive been deep in Dreamlands stuff in development of a new game system, and there is evidence of a sort of ecosystem, once you toss together Dream Quest, Silver Key and Through the Gates of the Silver Key.
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