The Dreamlands

Overview

Located before, between, and beyond the Material Plane, the Dreamlands is a dimension of extremes and unpredictability. While The Nightmare straddles the metaphysical gulf between the Material Plane and the Void, the Dreamlands lies between the Material Plane and Tree of Life (the plane of positive energy). The Dreamlands is a sort of "dream-like" of reality—under a sky of whirling stars and moons that change shape and texture as they track their way through the vibrant heavens, inconsistent natural laws and wellsprings of primal magic and natural splendor create vistas unfathomable to mortal minds. Here stand ancient forests as tall as mountains, living lakes and rivers, traveling fey courts alternately benevolent or sadistic, and landscapes of all manner that constantly shift and reinvent themselves. And ruling over all in this realm are those powerful entities known as the Eldest. It is from this realm that some mythos and fey creatures come from, and far stranger beings hail.

Planar Traits

Gravity none
Erratic Time - Time progresses faster in some areas and slower in others, often according to the whim of the Eldest or other powerful individuals. For most visitors from other planes, their own timestream clings to them like a protective shell, but it’s not uncommon for a creature who spends a day in the Dreamlands to find upon their return home that a year or more has passed.
Realm immeasurable
Structural Magically Morphic - The Dreamlands can be altered by strong-willed individuals, such as the Eldest.
Essence Minor Positive Dominant: The Dreamlands grants fast healing to creatures only in certain areas where life is particularly potent and concentrated.
Alignment mildly neutral-aligned
Magic enhanced and impeded magic or wild magic (see Magic in the Dreamlands)

Magic in the Dreamlands - Magic in the Dreamlands is mutable, confusing, and self-contradictory. Throughout most of the plane, the effects of spellcasting are unstable and can result in unexpectedly powerful or weak effects, but in certain regions of the realm wild magic holds sway—treat these regions as if the plane had the wild magic trait. For the rest of the Dreamlands, when a non-native spellcaster casts a spell, she must succeed at a caster level check (DC = 20 + the spell’s level; druids, hunters, rangers, and worshipers of the Eldest gain a +5 bonus on this check) for her spell to function normally. Failure means that the spellcaster rolls on the following table to determine how the Dreamlands energies enhance or decrease the effects of the spell as it is cast. Any spellcaster can voluntarily fail this caster level check to automatically roll on the table to determine the spell’s effect. If the randomly generated enhancement or impediment cannot be applied to the spell being cast (for example, a result of increased damage when casting haste, or a result of an adjusted duration for an instantaneous or permanent spell), then the spell is cast normally.

d100	Effect
1-7	Damage increases by 50%
8–14	Damage decreases by 50%
15–21	Area of effect increases by 50%
22–28	Area of effect decreases by 50%
29–35	Duration increases by 50%
36–42	Duration decreases by 50%
43–49	Spell affects caster instead of target
50–56	Spell affects caster and target
57–63	Spell affects one additional eligible target (chosen randomly)
64–70	Spell is affected by all of the following metamagic feats that could apply, with no increase to the spell’s effective level: Enlarge Spell, Extend Spell, Maximize Spell, Widen Spell
71–77	Summon an uncontrolled creature as per a summon nature’s ally of same spell level
78–100	Spell effect resolves normally

Lucid Dreaming

The ability to bend the fabric of the Dreamlands to one’s whim is an outgrowth of the plane’s fundamental mutability and inconsistency, and thus the practice is difficult to codify into a single system of rules. Even in the Dream, shaping is an ability learned through trial and error rather than taught—an expression of personality and sheer will— and no two entities go about the process in exactly the same way. Lucid Dreaming is not a simple matter, and an attempt to alter the morphic nature of the Dreamlands requires 1 minute of concentration by a character who is not fatigued or exhausted. This action provokes attacks of opportunity. At the end of this minute, the character must succeed at a Charisma check (DC = 20 + 4 per previous shaping attempt made in the last 24 hours). On a failed check, the character’s ability to shape the Dreamlands is exhausted for 24 hours. If the character fails the check by 10 or more, she also becomes fatigued. Druids, hunters, rangers, fey, worshipers of one of the Eldest, and natives of the Dreamlands all gain a +4 bonus on Charisma checks to lucid dream. Creatures with psionic spellcasting gain a plus +6 bonus to Charisma checks to lucid dreams.

Dreamer's HD	Spell-Like Effect Generated
1–2	Prestidigitation
3–4	Soften earth and stone or Wood shape
5–6	Spike growth or Wind wall
7–8	Spike stones, Wall of fire, or Wall of ice
9–10	Fabricate, Wall of stone, or Wall of thorns
11–12	Control water, Move earth, or Wall of iron
13–14	Lesser create demiplane, or Reverse gravity
15–16	Create demiplane, or Polymorph any object
17–18	Greater create demiplane
19 or more	Wish

Denizens of the Dreamlands

The Eldest - Large swaths of the Dreamlands are carved up into fiefdoms and other such dominions by native inhabitants of great power. The demigods who call the Dream home are some of the oldest beings in creation, and many have resided on this plane since before the Material Plane was woven into existence. Known collectively as the Eldest, they are as reclusive and secretive as they are ancient. The Eldest have relatively little interaction with the gods who dwell elsewhere in the Great Beyond, but like those divinities, they maintain cults and sects on countless Material Plane worlds. The religions of the Eldest are most commonly found in regions where the boundaries between the Material Plane and the Dreamlands grow thin. Fey often worship members of the Eldest and venerate the Eldest as well. Though the Eldest have nothing against cities or civilization, their worship tends to be less popular in heavily populated areas. Barbarians, druids, hunters, and others who live in the wild often venerate a member of the Eldest or the pantheon as a whole. Others - Notable inhabitants of the Dreamlands include creatures of the animal, fey, plant, and vermin types. of the fey, the most legendary of the denizens are the members of the wild hunt, but all fey have ties back to this realm. Beyond animals, fey, and plants, the following creatures are among those most often encountered in this dimension: almirajes, animal lords, bandersnatches, blink dogs, catoblepases, cerynitis, delgeths, drakainias, drakes (all), elementals (all), elohims, ettercaps, fachens, faerie dragons, fey creatures, giant eagles, grodairs, grootslangs, jabberwocks, jubjub birds, leucrottas, linnorms, manitous, pegasi, sards, shining children, thrasfyrs, thunderbirds, unicorns, vishaps, wendigos, will-o’-wisps, worgs, winter wolves, and yeth hounds. Undead are incredibly rare in the Dreamlands, but those that do exist there tend to be powerful and unique.