James Maliszewski
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Dream-Quest: An Example
🕑 Added 2025-11-06 05:00:08 +0000 UTC
After thinking some more about my previous post, I concluded that it might be helpful — both for myself and patrons — if I tried to offer some concrete examples of what I was talking about. If nothing else, they'll serve as yet more fodder for discussion, but I also hope do more than that. As projects go, Dream-Quest is proving slipperier than I'd imagined, so I find myself going back and forth, changing my ideas with each new thought that enters my head. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that, like the Dreamlands themselves, my posts sometimes have an indeterminate, "airy" quality to them. Therefore, consider today's post an attempt to ground them, if only a little.
Example of Play
The characters have crossed the Silver Steppe, following rumors of a city that only appears when the stars fall like rain. The map they possess shows nothing in this region — it’s blank parchment. The referee then asks each player what his character hopes to find here and what they fear might await him instead.
Referee:
“The horizon glows faintly, as though dawn were trapped beneath the earth. Ahead, something gleams like wet stone. What do you hope to find at journey’s end?”
Athis, a failed astronomer from waking London:
“I hope to find a city where the stars are still studied and they still mean something. I lost my observatory in a fire and, after that, no one believed my discoveries. Maybe someone here still looks up.”
Referee:
“And what do you fear will be waiting?”
Athis:
“That I’ll see my old observatory again, exactly as it was before the fire — and find it empty.”
Referee:
“Noted.” (The referee rolls on the Dream Seeds table, then adds Athis's elements.)
“You crest a ridge and look down upon shining domes of brass and crystal, lit from within by the light of descending stars. The city’s towers look like telescopes pointing downward, toward the heart of the earth.”
Athis:
“Are there people?”
Referee:
“Yes. You see hooded figures who carry fragments of light in metal urns. They whisper prayers that sound almost like equations. One approaches you and you recognize your own handwriting on the scroll he carries.”
(The other characters exchange glances, as they recognize that the Dreamlands are now mirroring Athis’s lost vocation.)
Another character, Baruk, a mercenary from the waking deserts:
“I touch one of the urns. The light inside — does it hurt?”
Referee:
“Not at first. But it burns the longer you hold it, like a memory you don’t want to keep. What does it remind you of?”
Maruk:
“My brother’s sword. He left it for me when he died. It glowed the same way under the desert sun.”
Referee:
“Then you see it change. The urn’s light becomes the reflection of that sword. The whispering stops. Everyone turns to you, waiting.”
(The city, drawn from Athis’s longing for lost knowledge, also incorporates Baruk’s grief. The dreams of both characters are overlapping, reshaping the Dreamlands.)
Referee:
“The city beneath the falling stars is now fixed on your map. Its towers will always point toward whatever you’ve lost. Should you ever return, what you find will depend on what you’ve remembered.”
Athis:
“So … I created it?”
Referee:
“Partly – but it was waiting for you too. The Dreamlands always remember what dreamers have forgotten.”
Referee's Notes
The city’s features emerged through collaborative reflection, not prewritten design.
Each character’s contribution came from personal memory or desire, blending into the Dreamlands’ geography.
The act of answering “What does this remind you of?” changes the setting. It's dream logic made literal.
If the characters revisit this place later, its meaning can evolve with their emotional states or experiences.
My intention is to keep the Dreamlands fluid and intimate. This is a world that constantly responds to who the characters are, not just what they do. It's intended to mirror things we see in Lovecraft’s fiction. Like Kuranes shaping Celephaïs, each character unknowingly builds a piece of his inner world into the campaign's version of the Dreamlands.
Whether this approach is the right one, I'm not yet sure. It's definitely a great deal more explicitly improvisational than is common in old school fantasy games, but that's not necessarily an impediment. However, I do worry that it might place a much a sufficiently great burden on the referee that some people might be put off by it. Ideally, I'll eventually be able to find a way to make this approach both fun to play and easy to use.
Comments
James Maliszewski
Believe it or not, this is helpful and I do appreciate your taking the time to comment. As I said above, the big problem I'm dealing with is that this project has become a lot "slipperier" than I'd originally expected. All I wanted to do was create a fantasy game inspired by HPL's Dreamlands stories and now I find myself heading in strange directions I never anticipated. I still don't know where all this is headed and whether I'll ever reach my destination (whatever that might be), but I'm very grateful for everyone who's coming along for the ride.
Joshua
I’ve rereading your last post & this one over the past day or so attempting to put my thoughts in constructive order. I think the idea of keeping the dreamlands mutable is strong. Having the players be able help shape it is also a strong hook. & here I can see where things get more complicated in execution at the table. It would seem what might be missing is a mechanic which would engender player agency in manifesting dreams (the old Call of Cthulhu Dreamlands rules added a ‘Dreaming’ skill to simulate what Kuranes managed & what a player might; need a sword? dream one. &c). Black Sword Hack offers a Dream Die in their dreamlands expansion. But also the intimacy of questing through mood, nostalgia & emotive landscapes begs some of the aspects to be generated with the character. A backstory & the usual baggage could be trite quite quickly, but perhaps a ‘lens’ or ‘approach’ a player might choose an action through could get at the desired effect? That’s a muddy notion I’m not sure how to articulate very well at the moment. I’m thinking, ultimately, there should be a non-mechanical invitation to engage with the tone of the game; maybe similar to something like the special abilities we see in the Knights of Mythic Bastionland? This as opposed to writing ‘I miss my hometown’ written on the character sheet. I’m not sure if this is actually helpful but I remain interested to see where you take the ideas you’ve been playing with.
