Plane of Dreams

“Most creatures dream, some more intensely than others, but few realize the true reach that their dreams can achieve. There is a unique echo of the Material Plane we call the Plane of Dreams, also known as the Dreamland, where sleepers touch upon in their deepest slumbers. It is a place that can be visited by those with the means and knowledge, however, and it’s so much more than just the imaginings of the sleeping. Nightmares, beauties, wonders, and more all wait in the Dreamland, in a place where prophecy and divination can take real and terrifying form.”

What happens when people dream? Most people assume their dreams are simply the product of their imaginings, and this is partially true. But they can also tap into a much broader realm, where sense is expanded and the world is similar but not quite the same. This is the Plane of Dreams, also known as the Dreamland, and it sits like a mirror over the Material Plane – and beyond.

Most dreams exist in tiny fragments of the Plane of Dreams known as dreamscapes. These are small bubbles that form around the dreamer specifically, and from the Dreamland they appear as hazy incomplete shadows and forms for those that know where to look. Interacting with a dreamscape is a dangerous prospect, but some gods and powerful entities do it to send messages and warnings to their followers. Nightmarish creatures can sometimes do it as well, producing sweat-soaking terrors capable of sending the most hardened warrior into shrieking fits.

But the Plane of Dreams can be visited, through portals and gates similar to the Plane of Shadows and the Plane of Faerie. The Dreamland shares fewer traits with the Material Plane than the other echo planes, perhaps owing to the malleable nature of dreams themselves, but sometimes dream crossings can appear when the landscapes line up close enough. Everything is heightened in the Plane of Dreams – shadows loom larger, light shines brighter, sounds echo further, and emotions are felt stronger. Incidents and events in the Dreamland can trigger powerful emotional responses in visitors.

Powerful entities have crawled, slithered, or awoken within the Dreamland as well, so travelers should be wary of them as well as the natural elements of the plane. In places where the Plane of Dreams touch the Plane of Shadow, Nightmare Lands are created, and though no one being presides over them the sinister and enigmatic figure known as the Nightmare Man always seems to be present in them. Creatures that generate and feed on fear are known to dwell in Nightmare Lands as well.

One curious aspect of the Plane of Dreams is the moon that appears at night. It is large and singular, regardless of the number of moons on the corresponding Material Plane, and can actually be visited through magical or flying transportation. The Moonscape is a strange land where moon-beasts howl in service to their dark god, who is said to dwell in the center of the Dreamland moon.

Incursions from the Far Realm are an altogether too common occurrence in the Plane of Dreams, where the crawling unfathomable entities of that outer place have found the terrain more suited to their forms. The Dweller in Darkness is the greatest and most feared among the things that have slithered out of the Far Realm to take residence in the Dreamland, and on the Plateau of Leng horrendous spiders and goat-like folk worship the foul god-like being with abhorrent savagery and sacrifice.

Not all of the Plane of Dreams is dismay and evil, however. The port city of Dylath-Leen sits as a beacon of trade for travelers of all kind across the multiverse, though its docks are dry as the adjoining Sea of Mists hold silvery fog for as far as the eye can see. The dream cats of the city of Ulthar are known to befriend lost wanderers from time to time, assuming one doesn’t offend or attack one of their own, and a host of other strange beings – some hostile, most not – populate the forests, mountains, and valleys of the Dreamland.

The Powerful and Mighty

The Plane of Dreams is home to a number of powerful creatures and organizations, both malevolent and benign. Many have existed in the Dreamland for a long time, perhaps dating back to the plane’s creation whenever that was, making them invaluable resources for travelers seeking lost secrets of the land and beyond.

Cats of Ulthar

Ulthar is a rugged settlement of plain stone and brick buildings, well-constructed if slightly underwhelming in architectural design. It is populated by a degenerate race of albino goblins, but these creatures bow down to the true masters of Ulthar – the largest concentration of dream cats in the Plane of Dreams. These psychic cats rule Ulthar and the surrounding region, commanding the Ultharians to do their bidding when necessary, but otherwise they behave very similarly to Material Plane cats.

Who rules the cats of Ulthar? The dream cats speak in third person and refer to themselves and each other as master, making distinguishing the actual chain of command difficult if not impossible for outsiders. The cats mobilize only rarely for anything, but they always remember kind gestures. They have an ongoing feud with the zoogs of the forest that surround Ulthar, but at the moment an uneasy truce exists between the dream cats and rat-like zoogs.

Any dream cat encountered in the Plane of Dreams claims to be from Ulthar, and maybe that’s true. They use their wits and powers to cajole others to do their bidding, and though a few have turned out to be cruel and malicious monsters, most just want a specific type of food or shelter for an evening.

Dweller in Darkness

If anyone knows this entity’s true name, they do not say it, for it is whispered in rumors that simply saying the true name aloud summons the Dweller in Darkness. It is a loathsome, alien god from the Far Realm that has invaded the Dreamland, perhaps as a vanguard to a larger invasion or perhaps just on a mocking whim. The Dweller in Darkness created the moon-beasts of the Moonscape, and it is said the creature dwells on the Dark Side where no light shines. Is this because the Dweller in Darkness lurks there? None know for certain.

Idols have been found scattered around the Plane of Dreams, usually in possession of loathsome cultists who believe honoring the Dweller in Darkness with sacrifices could grant them power and pleasure in return. These idols take the form of another name for the entity, the Crawling Chaos, and some do not even link the two names together as one foul god. It goes by many names, however, and can change its shape and size to match whatever it desires. Its favorite form is that of a massive flat shadow against the wall or floor, with too many arms and heads to be natural, and a series of multicolored eyes blinking in and out of existence along its bulk.

The Dweller in Darkness seems to deride pleasure from spreading utter chaos around, and it’s chosen the Dreamland as its claimed turf. The true extent of its powers and followers is not known, as it has so far been willing to operate from the shadows and use its moon-beasts and various cults to perform its bidding. Lately, though, the Dweller in Darkness has been encountered in the night of the Plane of Dreams, invading dreamscapes like no other creature seems to be able to do, planting seeds of fear and horror across the multiverse.

Grandmother Mamu

Sometimes, travelers or dreamers in the Plane of Dreams may be visited by a matronly old woman, somewhat hunchbacked and carrying a gnarled bleached white staff. A bewildering array of bags and pouches hang from her belt and backpack, and she always seems to have the right tonic, potion, brew, or powder to get the traveler or dreamer out of a bad situation. She is kind, if a bit stern, but also wise and gentle, and usually only later does one realize that they’ve been visited by the legendary Grandmother Mamu.

Grandmother Mamu seems to be perpetually wandering the Dreamland, offering advice and trinkets to those in need, and she can be encountered nearly anywhere, including the depths of the Underworld. She seems to have true good in her heart, and offers her aid while refusing any payment, often telling such forceful individuals to simply “pay it forward” to the next person in need. Grandmother Mamu also seems to possess a natural attunement to the Plane of Dreams, and she can manipulate certain elements of the topography and climate by sheer will. Most assume she is a god of some sort, and she regularly opposes the machinations of the Dweller in Darkness and the Nightmare Man.

King of the Dreamers

When most people dream and touch the Dreamland, they create small dreamscapes that form and protect their dream-state. Some individuals, mainly wizards who study the obscure school of oneiromancy, train and study to break free of their dreamscape, and while some have they still only last as long as their dream-state is maintained. The body requires food and water, which pulls the dreamer back to the Material Plane. Only the oneiromancer Slyvras has overcome this limitation, and he has become the greatest sleeping dreamer on the plane, proclaiming himself King of the Dreamers in the process.

Slyvras dwells in a fantastical region he calls the Kingdom of Kings, and he has gone quite insane over the years. He’s been in a dream-state on the Plane of Dreams for several hundred years, and nobody knows how he’s done it – his physical body must have deteriorated long ago, assuming that his human form matches that of his physical body. Slyvras usually appears as a wild-bearded old man with a crooked golden crown on his head, and within the bounds of his kingdom he maintains absolute control. He can change the weather, create mountains, shoot geysers, even turn day into night and vice versa. The people that populate the Kingdom of Kings are all illusory creations of Slyvras.

So far Slyvras has not pushed his influence beyond his small domain, and perhaps that’s because of his absolute insanity. Still, as far as dreamers go, he is the longest known and most well-versed in the inner workings of the Plane of Dreams, at least in his most lucid states, and it is said that he converses with Grandmother Mamu on a regular basis.

The Nightmare Man and the Shadow Court

The Plane of Dreams sits over the Material Plane, but in another sense it occupies the same multiversal space as the Plane of Shadows and Plane of Faerie. Little seems to have come from the connection to the Feywild, but the Shadowfell does interact with the Dreamland in unusual ways. Where the two bleed together, dangerous regions known as Nightmare Lands are created, and the most influential figure in these realms is an enigmatic figure known as the Nightmare Man. He seems to be able to take whatever shape he wants, but his favorite form is that of an incredibly tall, lanky human, with a finely tailored suit and an enormous top hat. His skin is albino and his nose is much longer than it should be, with a jutting chin to match.

What the Nightmare Man wants and is capable of doing are complete mysteries, as his actions often contradict themselves. He seems strongest and most malign in a Nightmare Land, perhaps where his true form is allowed to spread its diabolic wings, but when encountered elsewhere he can be a charming if somewhat off putting conversationalist. He knows a great deal more than he should and seems able to tap into dreamscapes at will.

The Nightmare Man has a cabal of powerful underlings at his disposal that he calls his Shadow Court, members of which range from an achingly beautiful enchantress to a scaly lizard-like bipedal monster of pure terror. Sometimes the Shadow Court work independent of the Nightmare Man, spreading the influence of the Nightmare Lands as much as they can, though how much is truly hidden from their feared master is unknown.

Voldrethass the Sleepless

It’s not commonly known, but dragons dream, and like everything they do they dream on a scale different from humanoids. The dreamscape of a dragon is said to be a thing of wonder and beauty, but they are notoriously hard to find and even more difficult to penetrate. One dragon, a powerful and ancient green wyrm named Voldrethass, has made it her goal to find and tap into all the dreamscapes of the Dreamland, including those of her powerful kin. To date she has made little progress, but she continually works to study and understand the untapped magical power of oneiromancy, the wizardly school of sleep and dream magic.

Voldrethass’ ultimate goal is to implant visions of herself in the dreams of everyone and subjugate an entire realm of people as her servants and playthings, so she does not have good intentions at heart. In the Plane of Dreams she is normally found in the polymorphed form of an elven woman with emerald green hair, working to obtain and understand the works of the dream wizards. On numerous times Voldrethass has attempted to bargain or outright steal from the King of the Dreamers, Slyvras, but his mastery over his own kingdom has thwarted her attempts thus far.

In the Dreamland, Voldrethass has advanced her power beyond that of most of her fellow green dragons, and it could be argued that she is the most powerful of her kind. Nonetheless, she strives for greater control over the masses, and in her pursuit she has learned to give up sleep entirely. Voldrethass the Sleepless could become a real threat to the Material Plane if she ever achieved what she was seeking.

Creatures & Denizens

Numerous creatures reside in the Plane of Dreams. Some of them, like the dream cat and zoog, are natives of the plane, while others like the feyr and crawling mist serpent seem natural extensions of the properties of the plane. The leng spider, moon-beasts, nightgaunts, and others have come to the Dreamland from elsewhere and made it their home, and these monstrous beings seem bent on pursuing courses of chaos and destruction.

Crawling Mist Serpent

The vast Sea of Mists holds few natural inhabitants, but the fiercest and most feared is the crawling mist serpent. This creature appears as a 30-foot long snake, with a wide head and eerie black-pointed eyes, and it is entirely made up of swirling mists similar to the strange sea that it dwells in. It swims invisibly through the air, looking for ships to attack with its caustic breath weapon, and though it is clearly intelligent it does not have the ability to speak or communicate.

Predator of the Mists. Crawling mist serpents are thankfully solitary creatures, and they hunt the ships and crews that sail the Sea of Mists. It is theorized that they eat the ethereal souls and forms of those that die in the Plane of Dreams, especially as the creature does not subsist on anything solid. Are the crawling mist serpents natural extensions of the Sea of Mists, or are they conjured by some ancient decree? How many lurk in the foggy depths? None know for sure.

Foggy Strike. When a crawling mist serpent chooses its target, it follows close behind and waits until night descends. Many seasoned captains of the Sea of Mists post watch guards at the rear of their ships to keep a lookout for following crawling mist serpents, and the best watchers have learned to spot the subtle shifts in the swirling mists of the sea around them to detect the hunting beast. When it strikes, the crawling mist serpent lunges out from the fog at the back of the ship and sprays caustic vapor in a cone on anyone it can find, and then it weaves its way onboard to hunt down remaining crew members. Its misty body combined with its speed and agility make it an excellent hunter, and many ship crews have fallen in less than a minute into the attack.

Dream Cat

Dream cats are known to be one of the oldest inhabitants of the Plane of Dreams. They are highly intelligent, and though they can communicate telepathically with other creatures they often choose not. Physically they appear as any other normal cat, but even normal cats in the Dreamland can sport unusual fur coloration and striping patterns that include green, blue, red, yellow, orange, black, and purple. The eyes of a dream cat sparkle like gemstones, much more than any normal cat, and they have natural resistances to magic and psychic effects.

Rulers of Ulthar. Dream cats can be found anywhere in the Dreamland, but they are concentrated in the city of Ulthar. There, the dream cats have dominated an entire race of albino goblins, and use the monsters as playthings, servants, and hands and feet when necessary. The buildings of Ulthar are constructed to the dimensions of a normal humanoid, not a goblin or cat, leading some planar scholars to theorize that the original rulers of Ulthar were not the cats but some other force. The cats certainly don’t talk about it, and they grow bored when the topic comes up. The Temple of Cats in the center of Ulthar is where the dream cats gather every day to lounge and enjoy each other’s company, and it’s also where they hear the requests of visitors from outside the city.

Fickle and Carefree. Like normal cats, dream cats have fickle desires – one moment they can be amused by the antics of a small insect, and then just as suddenly they can grow bored and seek entertainment or pleasure elsewhere. They are light on their feet, quick to dart in and out of places, and are not afraid to attack creatures that displease them with their claws or mental stab.

Linked Together. Dream cats share a telepathic bond with one another, and when one of them suffers pain or dies they all know about it and instinctively know the details. This has led to an almost reverence of cats by the inhabitants of the Plane of Dreams, because you never know if the cat that scratched you is just a regular cat, or one of the dream cats. Killing a cat is against the law in Dylath-Leen for fear of reprisal from Ulthar.

Feyr

Large groups of people that experience strong emotions of terror and fear can spontaneous create a feyr (pronounced “fear”) as the barrier to the Plane of Dreams weakens for a moment under the emotional onslaught. They are also encountered frequently in the Dreamland, usually close to civilized lands, but are generally regarded as annoying pests than anything else by the residents.

Feyrs resemble small hunchbacked creatures, with mottled hide not unlike the spongy texture of a brain. Its shifting, bulbous body is supported by a pair of trunk-like tentacles that serve as legs, with numerous other appendages squirming out around its form. The feyr’s massive jaw splits its body in half with rows of crooked black teeth, above which sits one to five eyes the color of melted gold. Its body is multicolored, shifting subtlety as it moves, and shines like its covered with oil.

Emotional Predator. Feyrs prey on creatures exhibiting strong emotions. They slither and crawl in shadows, seeking out sources of emotional outbursts. Children and teenagers are favored targets by feyrs as they have not learned to master their emotions.

Down with the Dawn. Feyrs have no fear and no thought except to feed, so they are usually destroyed come morning. They are not tactically minded enough to avoid sunlight or even to stop its relentless pursuit of strong emotions, which usually keeps their numbers in check in the Plane of Dreams.

Great Feyr

When multiple feyrs gather together, usually formed as a result of a particularly traumatic or powerful event, they slide their bulks together and form a single great feyr. A great feyr resembles its lesser brethren, except its bulk has expanded out to more than 10 feet wide, and three hideous mouths sit around the blasphemous section that passes for the monster’s face. Great feyrs are intelligent, wicked, and less prone to slink away with the sun, but capable of spreading fear and madness for years if left unchecked.

Ghour

The degenerate remnants of some ancient race, ghours are humanoids with pale flesh, incredibly lanky arms and legs, and a distinct canid face and muzzle. They are hairless and possess little cunning beyond that found in a wolf or other pack hunting animal, but they can and do speak Common.

Ageless. Ghours are effectively immortal and cannot die of old age.

Flesh Eaters. Ghours eat the flesh of humanoid creatures, and are widely feared and hated for their cannibalistic rites and practices. They raid settlements and towns in the Dreamland and beyond, snatching victims away and pulling them down into the Underworld to feast upon later. Bones are treated with special care, as many ghour tribes believe that a person’s memories are contained in the bones themselves. Great heaps of deposited bones exist within the hideous Vale of Pnath, one of the ghours’ ancient sites in the Underworld.

Underworld Tunnels. Ghours are diligent creatures, and given their long life spans they can dedicate a great amount of time to certain menial tasks. One of the most visible of those tasks is the creation and expansion of the tunnels within the Underworld beneath the Dreamland. They dig tirelessly, but to what end none can say for sure. Some planar scholars who have studied the Plane of Dreams claim the ghours are digging for remnants of their ancient fallen civilization, but little evidence has been found to support this claim.

Walkers Between Worlds. Some unknown property of the Underworld creates natural keyless portals to the Material Plane from the Plane of Dreams, and the ghours are able to sense these portals and use them to their advantage, stealing away victims and pulling them into the Dreamland. These portals usually only open for ghours, perhaps a legacy of their ancient heritage, and stories of nighttime raids by hairless wolf-like pale-skinned monsters can be found across the Material Plane. By happenstance or design, many of these portals lead to regions near civilization. Or did civilization on the Material Plane naturally spring up around these unknown portals?

Gug

Masters of the hunt, gugs are the apex predators in the Underworld of the Plane of Dreams. They stand hunchbacked about 16 feet tall, and their sleek black bodies are covered in rough matted gray hair. Their limbs are unusually jointed, allowing the gug to move quicker than its bulk would imply on its two legs, and its arms split at the joint to create two clawed forearms. The gug’s head splits open vertically, with irregular jagged teeth lining its blood-red maw.

Ageless. Gugs are effectively immortal and cannot die of old age.

Feared Savages. Gugs are not overly intelligent and are prone to simplistic tactics that send them straight into combat against foes. It does not speak, and its mind is so alien as to confuse attempts to read its thoughts, but it seems intent on feeding at all times. They are generally solitary creatures, and usually flee with downed victims if they’re reduced to half their hit points or less rather than stay and fight it out until the end.

Gug Savant. Occasionally, a more intelligent gug rises above the rest and learns to command its fellow beasts. These gug savants are fearsome opponents, capable of driving their followers into conflict their instincts would normally tell them to flee from. Gug savants are the result of a dark gift from alien entities in the Far Realm, and in the Plane of Dreams the Dweller in Darkness occasionally lifts up and gifts a particular gug with such powers.

Leng Spider

The great, bloated, purple spiders that dwell in the Dreamland are thoroughly evil, ruthless, and bent on dominating all existence on the Plane of Dreams. They war with the forces of the Dweller in Darkness, targeting moon-beasts that fly down from the Moonscape in an effort to weaken the Far Realm deity’s forces on the plane. They are roughly 20 feet long, with 7 long longs extending out from their grossly oversized arachnid bodies. Some leng spiders have 9 or 11 legs, but they never have an even number.

Birthed on the Plateau of Leng. Leng spiders owe their name to the Plateau of Leng in the wilderness of the Plane of Dreams. There, the leng spiders return to lay their eggs once a century or so, birthing new leng spiderlings though they do not raise them. The relative isolation of the plateau and zealous worship of the lengfolk (chaotic evil satyrs) keep the young creatures from falling prey to outside forces, but nonetheless adult leng spiders have been known to sacrifice their offspring to appease their dark deity.

Spinners of Plots and Webs. Leng spiders, despite their bulk, keep to the shadows whenever possible, manipulating other creatures to perform their desired actions. They lurk in dark places, using their spies to report back on their plans, and always have at least three escape routes to any possible scenario.

Master Trap Builders. When a leng spider chooses its lair, it sets about crafting complex traps intended to maim or capture intruders. They use their webbing, hardening it through a special process to make it as strong as steel, to create ropes, pulleys, loops, doors, and all manner of other mechanisms, and they enhance it all with charmed slaves. A leng spider makes it a point to leave no slave left alive after construction is finished.

Moon-beast

Moon-beasts are eyeless, pinkish-white quadruped-like monsters that dwell on and in the Moonscape in the Plane of Dreams. They are not native to the Dreamland, and before their coming several cities stood proud on the plane’s moon. Now only ruins and memories remain, for the moon-beasts came in through a tear in the Far Realm and descended upon the denizens of the Moonscape in a wave. A mass of writhing octopus-like tentacles squirm where their face should be, and they are capable of walking on two legs when the need arises.

Slave Masters. Moon-beasts are slavers above all else. They use their formidable magical powers to charm and dominate creatures into accompanying them willingly, but they are not above lashing out with their powerful claws or mental-draining tentacles to get their way. On the Moonscape, the moon-beasts have great kennels of humanoid slaves taken from the Dreamland’s terrestrial regions, and they are capable of moving between the planes as well on slave-taking forays. They trade sometimes with the genies of the Inner Planes, primarily the dao of the Plane of Earth, and it is not uncommon to see the agents of the moon-beasts in the Sevenfold Mazework making large purchases.

Controlled Agents. Moon-beasts are creatures of another realm of existence, and they know this, so they work through agents and proxies across the multiverse normally. Their favored agents are humans as they find them very pliable to their needs, and their agents are marked by a sash of a specific color worn visibly on their body. The sash color and markings identify the moon-beast to whom the agent belongs to, though to outsiders such identifications appear as eldritch scratchings.

Willing Partners of the Dweller in Darkness. On the Plane of Dreams, moon-beasts work side-by-side with the Dweller in Darkness, a powerful and enigmatic entity also from the Far Realm. It is said that the Dweller lurks on the Dark Side of the Moonscape, and the two forces have divided up the moon between them. The Dweller procures sacrifices from the moon-beasts, who in turn are sometimes accompanied by nightgaunts on their planar raids. The exact details of their partnership with the Dweller in Darkness is not known, but it seems to benefit both sides for the time being.

Nightgaunt

Nightgaunts are the servants, messengers, spies, and assassins of the Dweller in Darkness, the otherworldly entity that has invaded the Plane of Dreams. They appear as faceless, incredibly gaunt, black-skinned humanoids, with incredibly long limbs and grotesquely thin bat-like wings protruding from its back. Its arms end in massive claws and its tail has a special barb at the end used for tickling grappled victims, a horrendous experience that paralyzes the target. Nightgaunts do not speak any language known but seem to communicate with one another and their powerful master.

Soul Feeders. Nightgaunts feed on the souls of living creatures, and the soul becomes sweeter to them if their intended meal dies in the throes of powerful emotions – terror, anger, and anguish are their favorite. Nightgaunts usually carry off their victims to an undisclosed location, sometimes taking them all the way to the Dark Side of the Moonscape, where they savor their meal slowly as the victim undergoes horrendous agony at their hands.

Wings in the Night. The Dweller in Darkness has established a beachhead from the Far Realm in the Plane of Dreams, but it sends out nightgaunts across the multiverse to attack, spread fear, and report back. They wait until night, work in groups of three to six, and swoop down on unsuspecting victims. Their favorites are crowds, where they can pick off individuals and carry them high into the air before they drop them to their ultimate death.

Zoog

Zoogs look like giant rats, with coats of slick brown or black fur, but their snouts end in a small mass of tentacles. Their eyes glow blood red in darkness and their voices are little more than harsh whispers. They lurk in the forests and other wilderness regions of the Plane of Dreams, forming small secret villages in places, and they’re always on the lookout for information to gather.

Ancient Enemies. On the Plane of Dreams, zoogs are the mortal enemies of the dream cats. A zoog is larger than a dream cat, but the cats natural psychic abilities have leveled the playing field and forced the zoogs to adopt hit-and-run tactics. While treaties and accords are often signed between the two races of the Dreamland, the ancient feud remains, and it’s only a matter of time before one side or the other gives in to their ancestral pride and attacks the other.

Sneaky and Secretive. Zoogs are very good at watching and waiting. They recognize superior forces when they see them, so they typically do not attack well-armed groups of travelers, but they know their lands better than any other creature. They stick to the shadows, observing, in the hopes of learning something that can be sold or bartered. Zoogs have a love of cheese, a prize they hold above all else, but they also enjoy shiny valuable objects such as gemstones. In Dylath-Leen, certain unscrupulous individuals make it a habit to visit surrounding zoog villages regularly with wheels of cheese, eager to learn as much about recent events as the rat-like creatures can offer.

Hazards & Phenomena

The Plane of Dreams holds dangers and wonders beyond the creatures that dwell in the Underworld, the Moonscape, and all the places in between. Travelers should be prepared to face powerful emotional pulls and waves of change that can alter the physical landscape around them while they move through the Dreamland, among other phenomena unique to this echo plane.

Dreamscape

Rarely encountered by the casual traveler to the Plane of Dreams, dreamscapes are the small bubbles created by a creature sleeping and dreaming on the Material Plane. They are usually invisible and intangible, covering small spheres roughly 40 feet in diameter, within which sits the psychic projection of the dreamer. Especially lucid dreamers, or oneiromancers and some others, can actively control their dreamscape, but these are typically rare.

And, on the Plane of Dreams, most creatures and denizens cannot even detect the presence of a dreamscape, let alone interact with one. The Dweller in Darkness is said to be able to pierce the veil separating a dreamscape and the Dreamland, opening a hole large enough for nightgaunts and other creatures to slip through and wreak havoc in the dreamer’s unconscious state. Dream cats are said to have this ability as well, perhaps psychically sensing the presence of a dreamscape, but normally they don’t bother to do anything about it.

Mysterious Sites & Treasures

There are plenty of exciting locations and treasures for adventurers to hunt down and seek out, from the mysterious abandoned Necropolis of Zax Kainox on the Moonscape, to the streets and alleys of the harbor city of Dylath-Leen, to the dangerous Nightmare Lands found all over the plane. These and more await those brave enough to cross the threshold into the Plane of Dreams.

Castle of Kadath

On a vast glacier called the Cold Wastes in what passes as the northern realm of the Plane of Dreams sits a sprawling castle made of black stone from other planes. Called Kadath by the ancient people of the Dreamland, it is said to be the home of a great warlock who used infernal and outer planar slaves to help construct the massive place. Is it empty now? Few people seek out Kadath, as the Cold Wastes are bone-chilling glaciers with howling wind and unholy beasts that stalk the snow and ice.

However, some intrepid travelers are still drawn to it. Some ancient tomes in musty libraries across the multiverse reference the Master of Kadath and the terrible secrets of the Far Realm that he uncovered. Is this Master the same that built the Castle of Kadath in the Cold Wastes? Are the rumors of a fantastic library filled with all manner of books somewhere in the castle’s black stone walls true? Is it haunted by the ghosts of wizards and warlocks driven to madness and death by simple knowledge? Anyone who has returned from Kadath in the Cold Wastes have not said.

Dark Side of the Moonscape

The Moonscape of the Plane of Dreams hangs huge and heavy in the night sky, and its visible surface is suffused with a natural radiance that extends to the very rocks themselves. Visitors (or prisoners) that make it to the Moonscape find that the terrain of the moon is just as well lit – until it isn’t anymore. The other side of the Moonscape, not visible to viewers on the terrestrial Dreamland, is a dark, cold landscape of death and shadows ruled over by the forces of the Dweller in Darkness.

It is on the Dark Side of the Moonscape where the Dweller in Darkness and its allies first came from the Far Realm, and the rent in the multiverse between the Plane of Dreams and that blasphemous land still sits like a pulsating black scar in the darkness. Creatures from the Far Realm still have difficulty crossing over the threshold, but the Dweller in Darkness found a way, and pulled through more than a few of its allies in the process. The moon-beasts, nightgaunts, and others spewed forth from the gaping wound in the worlds long ago, and the natural hunger of the Far Realm devoured the light of the Moonscape across the non-visible side. Cities of prosperous humanoids, relatives of humans and perhaps of the ghours driven to the Underworld, were cleansed from the moon, and their ruins now serve as the home of the Dweller itself.

Dreamstones

Crafted by a powerful oneiromancer long ago, the Dreamstones are a set of seven smoothly polished gray rocks, about the size of a human’s hand, each flat and marked with a single ever-glowing rune on both sides. Each Dreamstone harnesses the emotional energy of a part of the body, represented broadly by six characteristics and a single unifying whole. The runes on each side are the opposites of each other, and possession of a Dreamstone allows the holder and a certain number of allies to harness the effects of an emotional spike – capturing it, defusing it down to its positive qualities, and storing the negative emotional pull as a weapon to be deployed as desired.

Besides this emotional spike mitigation aspect, if the seven Dreamstones were ever to be put together, the wielder could actually alter the physical landscape of the Plane of Dreams. Similar to a wave of change, but larger scale changes could be made, and by historic accounts some of those changes become permanent fixtures of the Dreamland. It is said that the Emerald Mountains standing proud, tall, and deep green, were not always the case, and that it was the wielder of the joined Dreamstones who turned them their distinct emerald green color.

The Dreamstones were scattered long ago, and it is widely believed that none of them reside on the Plane of Dreams anymore. Likely they rest in the collections of wizards or universities as curiosities without realizing the potential for change on the echo plane such objects could have. A band of oneiromancers calling themselves the Brotherhood of Sleep, have dedicated themselves to finding and controlling all of the Dreamstones. They do not have the best interests of anyone but themselves at heart, and it is thankful that they have not yet succeeded in their task.

Dylath-Leen

The largest, most populated, and most stable settlement in the Plane of Dreams is the port city of Dylath-Leen. Located in a wide bay on the Sea of Mists, which holds not water but misty vapors, Dylath-Leen is a sprawling maze of buildings and streets, made all the more confusing because it’s actually been abandoned and rebuilt at least three times across the centuries. The earliest records found in the deepest subterranean vaults of the city indicate the original constructors were descendants of the ghours of the Underworld, but some disaster fell, likely the same that drove the ghours into the Underworld.

The second builders of the city were lengfolk from the Plateau of Leng. Lengfolk are now maniacally evil satyrs who delight in death and torture, and perhaps they were the same during their occupation of Dylath-Leen so long ago. Remnants of their presence still linger in some of the architecture, as they preferred natural ornamentation and construction over masonry and stone. Now, the city is occupied by humans mainly, but any traveler from across the multiverse that comes to the Plane of Dreams is welcome in Dylath-Leen.

Dylath-Leen is nominally ruled by a mayor and a group of noble lords. The current leader, Lady Mayor Griselda Krehl, is a paranoid shut-in who never leaves the run-down and dilapidated mayor’s manor in the city’s High Ward. The noble lords of the city keep up their own personal guards, creating islands of armed and armored mansions, and the Dylath-Leen watch patrols were abandoned a decade ago. The residents of the city seem complacent enough, and most trouble is dealt with by one of the lord’s bodyguards protecting their interests.

The largest industry in Dylath-Leen is shipping, and the harbor is always busy day and night. Ships floating on the Sea of Mists come in bearing goods and merchandise from around the Dreamland, and dockhands make a good living loading and unloading those goods. They make a good living because some of those goods are dangerous to hold, and on more than one occasion an incident has endangered the lives of the dockworkers. Ship captains pay well though and they are in turn paid well by the nobles. It’s a confusing mess of an economic scene, but for the most part things keep moving in Dylath-Leen same as it always has.

Grinning Islands

Islands in the Sea of Mists are rare, but one set has caught the imagination of the captains and bards of Dylath-Leen for many years. Called the Grinning Islands, they are a series of bone-white stone islands jutting up from the silvery mist some distance from the port city. Some of the islands are only a mile or two wide, but others are much larger, and the biggest one visited was said to be over 100 miles across. Each of the Grinning islands seems pushed up from the bottom of the Sea of Mists, whatever lurks down there, and sometimes those islands contain monstrous denizens unknown to the Dreamland before or since.

Strangely enough, some of the islands are inhabited by a degenerate race of albino halflings. They are savage and seem stuck in a primal state, but they often possess unusual gemstones and carvings that they trade to the mist captains for food and other objects. A few mist captains have made quite a profit on these trades, and the servants of the moon-beasts that trade on their behalf in Dylath-Leen seem especially keen on possessing the gems from the Grinning Islands.

Necropolis of Zax Kainox

Before the moon-beasts and the coming of the Dweller in Darkness, the Moonscape was the home to an isolated society of blue-skinned humans. They built cities and monuments across the surface of the moon, but little was known about them – they did not come to the surface of the Plane of Dreams. What little is known about them now has come from explorers and escaped slaves of the moon-beasts, who have wandered the now-empty ruins of the blue-skinned humans former occupation.

The largest and most expansive of these ruins is a place known as the Necropolis of Zax Kainox. The blue-skinned humans used pictograms as their language, but the name Zax Kainox was written on a great slab of red stone serving as an archway to the complex in more than a dozen languages. Was Zax Kainox the leader who built the necropolis? Was it the name of the place? Was it the name of the people? The necropolis is filled with buildings made of the same unusual red stone, peppered liberally with black and yellow stones, and it extends deep below the surface of the Moonscape as well.

The moon-beasts have largely avoided it as ancient traps are still active, and the blue-skinned humans had a mastery over arcane magic that seemed unparalleled to anything else in the Dreamland. They fell to the onslaught of the moon-beasts who used fell powers from their far-flung realm to strike and infect them with a horrendous wasting disease that spread like wildfire. Some slaves have escaped the clutches of the moon-beasts and sought refuge in the Necropolis of Zax Kainox, but only a handful have managed to secure safe passage off of the moon. The tales they tell talk about guardian spirits, ancient magical traps, tombs of kings and priests, and monolithic statues of animal-headed figures that came to life.

Nightmare Lands

The barrier between the Plane of Dreams and the Material Plane can be thin at times, but occasionally an even stranger confluence happens – the Plane of Shadows and the Plane of Dreams drift close together. When this happens, the influence of the Shadowfell leaks through the planar barriers and creates a region of darkness fueled by terror and despair, drawing upon the darkest instincts of the Dreamland and corrupting it with the taint from that fell plane. In such places, a Nightmare Land is born.

Nightmare Lands are variable in size and scope, and could be as large as an entire forest or as small as a room in a house. Within the bounds of the Nightmare Land, the temperature drops dramatically to the point where the breath of living creatures can be seen in small puffs. Shadows cling to anything they can find, and the sun and moon’s light is dimmed to the point where a spectral twilight cloaks the region. Each Nightmare Land is birthed from a tear in the fabric of the multiverse between the Dreamland and the Shadowfell, and that tear allows creatures such as nightwalkers, odem, and other fell denizens of that dark land to spill over into the Plane of Dreams. The tear can be sealed through extreme effort, but they tend to be protected by a powerful entity in the service of the enigmatic Nightmare Man.

These entities on the Plane of Shadow are usually lesser creatures, but they are bolstered by the energy of the Dreamland, becoming more powerful in the process. Some warlocks make pacts with members of the Nightmare Court, as they are known, exchanging information and a pledge of loyalty for access to dark and tenebrous powers that blend dreams and shadows.

Plateau of Leng

Far from the admittedly sparsely populated regions of the Plane of Dreams wait dangerous regions where the powers of the plane have been left to run rampant. The most famous of these areas is the Plateau of Leng, original home of the nefarious and plotting leng spiders. Located in a high mountain range far to the east of Dylath-Leen, the Plateau of Leng is populated by all manner of evil, conniving, intelligent spiders. A race of degenerate satyrs known as lengfolk also live on the plateau in small villages. They serve the leng spiders and have for centuries.

The Plateau of Leng is a cold, harsh, unforgiving place, filled with crevasses stuffed with an unnatural amount of spider webs. Caves deep below the plateau’s surface hold numerous chambers where the leng spiders and their ilk work out their schemes and hoard their treasure. Many leng spiders do not live on the plateau, however, instead spending their time in Dylath-Leen or elsewhere across the multiverse. Each leng spider does have a personal cave in the Plateau of Leng that they return to in order to lay eggs and spawn more of their loathsome kind.

Ruins of Sarnath

Sarnath is whispered in taverns around the Plane of Dreams in cautionary notes, a bleak lesson in knowing one’s limits and not meddling in the affairs of unknown gods. The story goes that the people of Sarnath, rich and powerful merchants, sought to expand their reach, and looked to one of their neighboring cities across the river. The city of Ib was quiet but prosperous, and in one swift motion Sarnath swept into Ib, killed its inhabitants, stole its wealth, and toppled its idols. The people took the largest idol from the city’s temple as a trophy – that of a great bipedal lizard.

A year later, Sarnath was attacked by the forces of the reptilian god on the anniversary of Ib’s destruction. Spectral lizardfolk poured up from the Underworld and in one night Sarnath was reduced to a ghost town. Not a single living soul escaped Sarnath, so the stories go. Now, the ruins stand on the banks of a distant river far from Dylath-Leen, with all the mercantile treasure of its former inhabitants still there. Along with the forces of the reptilian god that overtook it, and rumors say keep it from being resettled. Some merchant captains in Dylath-Leen would love to put their hands on the wealth of old Sarnath, and some have even sponsored expeditions to the lost city. None have returned with anything resembling the treasure of Sarnath, old stories of spectral lizardfolk, hauntings, and a great monstrous lizard that stalks the empty city streets.

Sea of Mists

Sitting like a vast silver ocean, the Sea of Mists is a massive feature that touches many parts of the Plane of Dreams. And it is not filled with any kind of water – instead, roiling currents of silvery mist fill the great basin. Enchanted ships from across the Dreamland are constructed specifically to float on the vaporous sea, which also helps capture the currents that connect the Moonscape to the terrestrial parts of the plane. Some planar scholars familiar with the workings of the Plane of Dreams claim that the sea was once water, but some powerful wave of change, perhaps linked to the original possessor of the seven Dreamstones, changed it irrevocably into an ocean of twisting mists.

Some kinds of fish swim within the mists, and the crawling mist serpents are the apex predators of the region, feared by sailors and scholars alike. Few people have tried to descend into the mists to see how far they go, or what sits on the rocky basin at the bottom. Breathing becomes incredibly difficult transitioning to impossible the further a traveler descends into the mist, which have a somewhat tangible sense to them. This tangibility slows the natural descent of anyone thrown overboard, allowing them time to try and escape back to the surface, but many sailors have lost their lives by being thrown over the side of a ship. More than a few ships have gone down as well into the silvery void.

Temple of Cats

The city of Ulthar is tended to by a race of albino goblins, all of whom are slaves to the true masters of the town – the dream cats. But in the center of Ulthar stands the enigmatic Temple of Cats, a massive stone structure clearly built by different hands than the rest of the city. The central building of the complex is a large open-air columned temple ground, and the dream cats seem to enjoy lounging around this area more than most. Statues of a cat-headed human pepper the grounds and stand before shrines and offering bowls, though the dream cats neither worship nor offer gifts to this enigmatic deity.

Tunnels of the Moonworm

A monstrous entity burrows beneath the surface of the Moonscape. Known only as the Moonworm, it creates titanic tunnels in the rock as it moves, strangely silent, without any indication of intelligence. It is theorized that the Moonworm is a construct built by the original inhabitants of the Moonscape, before the coming of the moon-beasts and the Dweller in Darkness, and that it was used to create more space beneath the surface for the growing population. Few people have seen it with their own eyes, but those that did claim it has a gaping mouth filled with churning, chewing teeth, and a ring of eyes along its mouth. Its pale yellow bulk extends more than 100 feet and it chews through stone and armor as easily as paper.

The tunnels created by the Moonworm have setup a patchwork maze below the Moonscape. Some tunnels are unstable and collapse shortly after the Moonworm passes, but others have remained for hundreds of years. The moon-beasts have attempted to master the massive beast and harness it for their own nefarious purposes, but so far the scores of slaves they’ve sent in to reason with, capture, or kill the Moonworm have met with utter failure.

Vale of Pnath

The ghours of the Underworld have descended into cannibalistic, near-immortal monsters, snatching prey from wherever their portals lead to on the Material Plane. Most tribes of ghours keep the bones of their victims, and when they’ve accumulated so many some members of the tribe make the journey through the Underworld to a place known as the Vale of Pnath. There, ancient keepers of the ghours maintain a massively expansive pit filled with the bones of the ghours’ victims, collected over hundreds of years.

It is believed by these ancient ghour keepers that the bones of every living creature hold the memories of those people, and that by keeping them in one place the ghours can eventually harness that memory energy and reclaim the lost secrets of their kind. Not all tribes believe in this, but it has become part of the ritual of their existence to make the journey to the Vale of Pnath and deposit the bones of their victims. If a ghour dies, other members of the tribe do what they can to recover the body and immediately transport it to the Vale of Pnath in order to keep the lost ghour’s memories alive in the ritual chamber.