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Post by Red Baron on Dec 29, 2013 23:23:44 GMT -6
Has anyone tried running a game in Lovecraft's dream world?
The whole thing feels like a 1920s Vance, with green ladies on high garden terraces. Its a realm where people ride around on zebras through enchanted blue forests regiments of giant cats.
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Post by oakesspalding on Dec 30, 2013 0:40:48 GMT -6
That's a top notch idea. Three years ago I ran pseudo-16th century D&D characters through "The King of Shreds and Patches" in the Call of Cthulhu compilation Strange Aeons, and it was quite fun. I think I might have problems now with the railroading aspect, however. Can that sort of thing be avoided in Dreamlands?
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Post by Finarvyn on Dec 30, 2013 6:47:22 GMT -6
I like the concept, but my brain doesn't seem to think like that. For whatever reason I have trouble sticking together random stuff. I guess somehow I'm searching for logic where it can't exist.
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Post by Porphyre on Dec 30, 2013 10:31:10 GMT -6
Indeed, random tables seem mandatory in a dreamworld
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2013 11:26:07 GMT -6
In my old 3e game, my players had to learn a Dreamwalk spell for a quest which let them all join together in a dream. Since I'm not a fan of Lovecraft, it was more Dreamscape than Dreamlands (I guess nowadays it would be more Inception). Since I had the players wake up after they lost their hit points, rather than die, I could do more over-the-top stuff as there wasn't a fear of dying. They'd still lose out on the game session if they "died" so the players still tried to avoid dying as much as ever. I had Dreamwalking skills, similar to this in the SpiritWalk supplement, but that was 3e so it was discrete points. You could roll your skill to change the dream just like in the movie.
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Post by kesher on Jan 2, 2014 9:07:59 GMT -6
I think it'd work really well; we've talked about doing it a couple of time in my group, though it's not yet gotten off the ground. The key, I think, would be first to decide the PCs relationship to the Dreamlands--are they native, or are they Dreamers, like Randolph Carter? I'd tend towards the latter. Also, I think the Dreamlands could work as a perfect Sandbox setting. I mean, in DQoUK, Carter's adventures are very much shaped by what he wants to accomplish in interaction with the world. I mean, if you can ignore for a moment that it's a well-crafted story and not an adventure. I've always felt that HPL himself felt more free, perhaps even did himself, to wander the highways and byways of the Dreamlands...
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Post by kesher on Jan 2, 2014 9:17:06 GMT -6
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Post by Red Baron on Jan 2, 2014 10:33:38 GMT -6
Wow that's an incredible map.
I was thinking there are
Cool dungeons - ghouls, ghasts, and gugs, and nightgaunts are are intelligent and hungry, but can be persuaded to help, perhaps with offerings of food, assistance in battle, or spying. Its easy to throw in lots of ancient subterrainian ziggurats and crypts, even get some snakeman stuff going.
A big focus on overland (or interspace? Interdimmensional?) travel. That map will be handy. There are dozens of beautiful ancient monstrously labrithine cities, with odd customs, like no man may harm a cat. You could use the carcosan geimmoire's rules on weird customs, arcetecture, and clothing. Wasn't there an adventure of cugel's where all the buildigs are colored orbs stacked on each other and all the men must work a machine all day or else the sun will go out? Thats the type of place you find.
Magic is tricky. If you go vancian, you need to go really really vancian. One spell per level, all spells are incredibly potent, and most importantly all spells are really odd (I'm thinking Eldritch Weirdness + the spells Mazirian uses)
Men are rainbow colored like carcosa. Cephais is a white city with fleets and japaneeae mountain floating flower petal serenity, with greek marble archetecture and Brandoch Daha's massive statues out front.
Mushroom men, purple worms, and many eyed alien monstrosities roam the dreamrealm.
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Post by kesher on Jan 3, 2014 16:52:11 GMT -6
You've got good stuff going there!
Also, I'd add the importance of relationships forged with some of the Dreamlands more outre folks: Carter had done favors for ghouls and nightgaunts, thus their willingness to help. Maybe magic items that give a dreamer the right to call on certain creatures for favors...
Why would men be rainbow-colored? Is that your own fevered imagination or something I'm not remembering from the stories?
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Post by Red Baron on Jan 3, 2014 17:35:43 GMT -6
It's from vance's green lady in Kaiin, but I liked them. They feel very "feverish dreams" yes.
I just got out Dunsay's A dreamers tales from the library. Haven't started it yet. Too much tarzan to read first.
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Post by Red Baron on Jan 20, 2014 17:36:00 GMT -6
From Tom Moldvay's B4 The Lost City
"One [lady] dressed in bright green robes and a bird mask approaches the party.... She will walk slowly up to one party member, hand him or her a small pouch, smile, and walk on. She will not notice any attempt the party makes to talk to her. The pouch contains a strange powder that smells like cloves. The powder has no special properties at all."
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
OD&D, AD&D, AS&SH
Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jan 21, 2014 6:38:20 GMT -6
Yes, I used the Dreamlands as just that - a parallel dimension the PCs could venture through via gates, spells, artefacts etc, and go from point A in the real world to point B through it, basically. I was using the Outdoors Survival map to simulate the terrain of the Dreamlands. It's an idea that actually made its way into The Hobby Shop Dungeon, albeit significantly modified.
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Post by scottenkainen on Jan 21, 2014 12:05:22 GMT -6
I was able to run Chaosium's 1997 Call of Cthulu scenario, The Dreaming Stone, in my South Province campaign after converting the Dreamlands monsters to AD&D. I also connected it to the Dream Garden from Mark Oakley's Thieves & Kings.
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bat
Level 4 Theurgist
Mostly Chaotic
Posts: 144
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Post by bat on Jan 23, 2014 23:13:19 GMT -6
For additional influence and feel I would use Lovecraft's inspiration for many of his writings-the works of Lord Dunsany. I use them myself in my games and they fit flawlessly into any generic fantasy setting.
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