The Dreamlands & The Nightmare Realm
The Dreamlands, also known as the Dimension of Dreams, is a realm which overlays the Ethereal Plane, created and maintained directly by the dreams of sleepers on the Material Plane. It consists of a finite, relatively stable core, surrounded by countless ephemeral dreamscapes.
Geography
The Dreamlands' semi-permanent core is formed from slumbering desires, and the dreams of especially powerful individuals, like the Outer Gods and Great Old Ones. It can be entered via the obscure occult ritual known as the Dreamlands Excursion, and is less accessible than the Outer Planes but easier to travel to than individual dreamscapes. A dreamer that enters the Dreamlands' core for the first time descends a spiral staircase that emerges from the side of a great tree into the Enchanted Forest.Dreamscapes
Surrounding the Dreamlands' stable core is a foam of transient dreamscapes, each the dream of an individual sleeping mortal, constantly forming and evaporating when someone goes to sleep or awakens. These can be viewed from the Ethereal Plane, but can only be entered by those who possess the appropriate kind of esoteric magic. This sort of magic is unreliable, aiding access instead of guaranteeing it. However, certain dreamers have learned how to lucidly dream, consistently gaining access to the Dreamlands in their sleep or even abandoning their waking life for it. Artifacts like the Key of Celephais, Mnemoka's Flask, and the Golden Liao Censer also assist access. When one physically enters a dreamscape, it first appears as a prosaic dreamscape of the visitor's native culture. However, those who travel deeper into the realm discover that it molds itself to dreamers' wishes, slowly becoming whatever they would imagine. A dreamscape is a realm within the Dreamlands similar to a demiplane, and is created by a sleeping mortal creature; this creature is typically the only creature who can naturally access it. A dreamer inhabits a dreamscape through a lucid body, a type of avatar. Due to the vast array of mortal life in the multiverse capable of experiencing dreams, the Dreamlands can contain an almost countless array of independent dreamscapes.Leng
The Plateau of Leng is a distant, ill-understood demiplane of nightmares that exists beyond the Dreamlands, where nightmares overlap into a strange reality spawned by the dreams of primordial gods of the Dark Tapestry. Leng is accessible from virtually anywhere via the Dreamlands. Those who travel too far into the realm of dreams can find themselves caught in a vast sea and carried by the tides to the Dreaming Shore, the southern edge of Leng. Leng is a cold, desolate, inhospitable realm hedged in by two titanic mountain ranges that run from the Dreaming Shore and converge at the Cold Waste in the north. The plateau rises ever upward as it travels away from the rocky coast, but no two travellers describe the lay of the land identically. Upon the tableland sit numerous scattered stone villages, both inhabited and ruined. The greatest of these ruins is the abandoned city of Sarkomand, the original home of the denizens of Leng. Two stairways descend from Sarkomand to the cyclopean underworld of Leng. Leng is home to creatures that defy facile categorization or even understanding. The primary inhabitants of Leng are the mysterious denizens of Leng, who ply the Dreaming Shore to prey upon those seeking to escape Leng by sea. Denizens of Leng also travel to the Dreamlands and the Material Plane in their strange ships to collect slaves. Many of these slaves are sent to the almost-humans' moon-beast masters on the Nameless Rock, to be sacrificed in their foul rituals. In some villages, like Lelag-Leng, degenerate beings resembling fiendish humans perform profane rites of worship to blasphemous deities, which are malicious enough to shatter the mind of onlookers. Nightgaunts and Leng hounds roam the skies of Leng, hunting prey for their masters. The underworld of Leng is home to the titanic bholes, and the Leng ghouls and ghasts who are far more powerful than normal ghouls and locked in a war against the four-armed gugs. In the Spider Vales nestled in the mountains, the massive Leng spiders plot their revenge against the denizens of Leng, who were responsible for driving them nearly to extinction, and eagerly prey upon any trespassers. Scarlet walkers also lurk in the mountains, feeding on living creatures. Others include the draconic monstrosities called shantaks and the infamous hounds of Tindalos. The most powerful being in Leng, perhaps its ruler, is the mysterious yellow-clad High-Priest Not To Be Described, who presides over the plateau's culture of blood sacrifice. The true horror of Leng lies at the central peak where the mountains meet. Beyond the Cold Waste, a row of malevolent statues known as the Watchers in the Waste stand guard over an impossibly-high mountain, atop of which lies unknown Kadath, which reaches a further several miles above the mountain's peak, and where the Outer God Nyarlathotep rules.Inhabitants
The Dreamlands' core is inhabited by both humans and beings of the Elder Mythos like Ib shades and the Great Old One, Bokrug. Entire nations exist within the Dreamlands. Aside from mortal dreamers and those who've abandoned mortality, the Dreamlands is also haunted by night hags, the most powerful of which stride through the land of dreams like demigods. These are countered only by the azata sorceress Fiorindria the Longing. Figments from the dreams sometimes escape the Dreamlands, usually when a particularly imaginative dreamer awakens. These animate dreams stalk the Ethereal Plane, feeding off minds and searching for new dreamscapes to torture other sleepers.
Alternative Name(s)
The Ethereal Plane
Type
Plane of Existence
Location under
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