The Region of Dreams, usually simply called Dream, is where dreams cavort, heedless of the waking world. Dreams once dreamt fade into obscurity, but their echoes resonate forever throughout Dream. Carcasses of particu@larly vile dreams, charged with dark emotions sometimes rampage from dreamscape to dreamscape, giving rise to terrible nightmares.
Into the Region of Dreams come dreamers, whether they will it or not, every time they fall asleep. Their minds take flight to the Region of Dreams. The edges of Dream expand and contract with temporary dreamscapes as dreamers on every plane sleep and wake. Dream would exist even if there were no dreamers, though. The many dreamscapes created by dreamers last but a short time, and they rarely impinge on each other accidentally. However, there are those who knowingly walk between dreamscapes, doing as they will. Sometimes such lucid dreamers pierce the very heart of Dream, where average dreams dare not roam.
The Region of Dreams has the following traits.
The Region of Dreams is cotertninous to the Material Plane and whatever Transitive, Inner, or Outer Planes you desire. The easiest method of reaching Dream is through the Portal of Sleep, which living creatures the multiverse over access without conscious thought while they slumber.
When sleep claims a living mind, the consciousness of the sleeper comes to the Region of Dreams, and the dreamer enters into his or her own dreamscape. The body remains on the Material Plane, but the mind wanders as a discrete entity within a dreamscape. When the sleeper wakes, the mind returns to the body, and the dreamscape usually fades into undifferentiated dream-stuff Sometimes dreamscapes linger and pass into the Dreamheart, taking on a more permanent reality.
Dreamwalkers - frequent visitors to the Region of Dream - can enter Dream through the Portal of Sleep like any dreamer, or they can pass bodily into dreams by finding rare physical portals into Dream or casting the dream travel spell.
All manner of creatures are found in Dream, ranging from small animals to abominable nightmares. Dreamers run the gamut as well, though dreamscapes of similar creatures are generally clustered together like archipelagoes in a sea of wild dreamstuff.
Movement within a dreamscape is often like that on the Material Plane. But the rules can vary from dreamscape to dreamscape. In one dreamscape, every creature might fly from place to place, and in the next, swimming might be the only mode of transport.
Moving between dreamscapes is intentionally done only by dreamwalkers who have entered Dream via dream travel or who are using the Lucid Dreaming skill. A traveler can hop from dreamscape to dreamscape or aim for the Drearnheart itself. Although dreamscapes don't usually overlap, dreamwalkers can find places where the borders are thin enough that a single step transfers the traveler from one dreamscape to the next.
The passage between dreamscapes is a gradual change, not a sudden wrenching. As the traveler approaches the border of the dreamscape, the surroundings become more and more like the neighboring dreamscape, while features of the current dreamscape are less noticeable. Eventually, the dreamwalker has passed wholly into the new dreamscape. A dreamwalker, like any dreamer, can "wake up" to leave Dream entirely.
Waking Up: A dreamer or dreamwalker can attempt to wake up from a threatening dreamscape as a moveequivalent action by succeeding at a Wisdom check (DC 10). When the dreamer who created the dreamscape awakens, the dreamscape bursts. Any other visitors are sent headlong into the nearest dreamscape. When a dreamwalker wakes, the dreamscape and the original dreamer are unaffected.
In a cosmology with the Region of Dreams, your dreams can indeed hurt you. Of course, most mortals live out their lives without coming to any harm in the great untamed wildness of Dream, but some are not so lucky.
When an average dreamer enters Dream, she retains all her abilities and even gains dream-stuff equivalents of carried or worn items. Likewise, her hit points, ability scores, and all other values are exactly as they were before she fell asleep. For example, if she is a 5th-level wizard with a wand of lightning, she can use both her spells and her wand in Dream. When she wakes up, she'll find that she neither cast any prepared spells nor expended charges from her wand.
If a dreamer or dreamwalker dies in a dreamscape, she wakes immediately with a hammering heart but is otherwise unharmed. A dreamer or dreamwalker pulled slain in the Dreamheart also dies on the Material Plane. Worse, their spirits are snared forever at the heart of Dream, so raise dead and resurrection spells don't work.
Many dreamscapes are small-no more than two or three rooms in a drab b ' uilding, a small clearing in a storinwracked forest, or a mist-shrouded rural crossroads. other dreamscapes extend for miles and contain all manner of oddities, architecture, and inhabitants. However, all dreamscapes share one feature: the dreamer.
The dreamer's unconscious mind forms the dreamscape, which the dreamer then moves through, usually unconscious of the fact that he is dreaming at all. The dreamer alters large or small aspects of his personal dreamscape, though he never does so consciously unless trained in Lucid Dreaming. Dreamscapes usually burst when the dreamer awakens, although occasionally dreamscapes linger or survive permanently under unusual circumstances or magic.
In extremely rare cases, a dreamscape ruptures, sending its pieces and visitors into other dreamscapes or onto the Material Plane. objects from ruptured dreamscapes usually last id% hours on the Material Plane, but 1% of them achieve permanent reality. An example of a permanent dreamscape is described below. Anavaree: This permanent dreamscape is an idyllic landscape lit by a golden sun. Grass, trees, and small lakes are visible within the perimeter of a wooded glen. Small birds fly from tree to tree, twittering beautiful songs. In the center of theclearing is a hill holding a 'playground. A massive bronze dragon surrounds the hill, sleeping peacefully. Ana, the dreamer, plays in the playground.
When Ana smiles, the sun brightens. When she laughs, rainbows dance. on the other hand, her frowns bring clouds and her tears bring rain. Worst of all, her anger causes lightning to touch down. Ana does@t realize that she's dreaming. She hasn't really given her situation much thought-a common attitude for dreamers in their dreamscapes. The dragon, "Grumpy," remains asleep unless Ana is threatened.
In fact, Ana's physical body exists in stasis upon the face of a red, dead world where no breath is possible. She is the only survivor of a colonization attempt from another world that fell from the sky to smash and burn in the red sands. Within the depths of a massive crater, now long cooled, lies Ana's stasis chamber. By some miracle of chance or fate, it remains undamaged and functioning. But the woman inside suffered mental trauma and now possesses the mind of a young girl-a young girl in an enforced sleep who continues to dream. Ana is unaware of her real body or of the fate of her fellow colonists-, she has been playing unconcernedly in the dreamscape for years. The dragon knows the truth, however.
The dreamscapes, in all their infinite numbers, are only the edge of Dream. They border the Dreamheart, a realm where dreamers can die.
The Dreamheart is a roiling boil of dream-born landscapes that melt, burn, grow, and dissolve without any rhyme or reason. Balls of fire, pockets of air, chunks of earth, and waves of water battle against each other. Amid the chaos, half-melted dreamscapes drift-lakes, buildings, streets, strange creatures, and small islands. Some provide shelter against the tempest, but others are open to its deadly effects. These are dreamscapes that have been pulled into the Dreamheart, usually after their dr eamers have awakened.
Waking up in the Dreamheart is more difficult, requiring a Wisdom check (DC 18). In the Dreamheart, a random flare of fire, electricity, or flood can take the life of a dreamwalker at any moment. Likewise, a dream-bom creature can swoop out of the chaos and eat an inexperienced traveler. When death comes in the Dreamheart, it affects the physical body as well. Dreamheart Tempest: Unless sheltered by a solid dreamscape, exposure to the tempest deals 25 points of damage each round: 5 points each of sonic, electricity, cold, fire, and acid damage.
Like any storm, the tempest of the Dreamheart has an eye. if there is any mind, deity, or purpose in the Region of Dreams, it can be found in the Eye of the Dreamheart Tempest: But each character who visits it comes away with a completely different understanding of what lives in the eye-some meet deities, others find long-dead loved ones, and others achieve unparalleled personal power or insight. No one account can accurately encompass the Dreamheart, much as no dreamer can completely understand all dreams.
LUCID DREAMING (WIS; TRAINED ONLY)
Use this skill to realize that you are dreaming, consciously direct elements of
a dream, and move into other dreamscapes.
Check: Making a Lucid Dreaming check is a standard action that provokes an attack of opportunity.
Task DC Realize you are dreaming 5 Change one aspect of your personal dreamscape 15 Change one aspect of another's dreamscape 20 Change your personal appearance 20 Depart one dreamscape for another 15 Depart a dreamscape for the Dreamheart 25 Pull another with you into the Dreamheart * Leave the Dreamheart 20* You must first successfully grapple your opponent. Then, instead of attempting to pin him or her, make a Lucid Dreaming check (DC 25) on your next action. If you succeed, you and your foe tumble into the Dreamheart.
Change Aspect: An aspect of a dreamscape includes background features such as lighting, terrain, architecture of a given building, vegetation (or lack thereof), and other relatively innocuous characteristics of a dreamscape. You can't use Lucid Dreaming to make a bolt of lightning strike a foe or open a pit below an enemy.
Change Appearance: You can adopt the outward appearance of another creature within two size categories of your own. None of your abilities change, just your appearance.
Retry: You can rriake a Lucid Dreaming check once per round.
DREAM TRAVEL
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 8
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Targets: You plus one additional creature touched per level
Duration: 1 hour/level (D)
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes
You and any creature you touch are drawn along a crystal arc of reverie to the edge of conscious thought and into the Region of Dreams. You can take more than one creature along with you (subject to your level limit), but all must be touching each other when you cast the spell. You physically enter the plane of Dream, leaving nothing behind.
In Dream, you move through a menagerie of thoughts, desires, and phantoms created by the minds of dreamers everywhere. For every minute you move through Dream (which is only a single round on the Material Plane), you can "wake" to find yourself five miles displaced in the waking world. Thus, a character can use this spell to travel rapidly by physically entering where only dreams prowl, moving the desired distance, and stepping back into the waking world. You know where you will come out in the waking world.
Dream travel can also be used to travel to other planes that contain creatures who dream, but this requires crossing into the Dreamheart, where you are subject to the vagaries of violent dream realities. Transferring to another plane of existence requires ld4 hours on Dream (which corresponds to 1 d4x6 minutes as time is measured on most other planes).
Any creatures touched by you when dream travel is cast also makes the transition to the borders of unconscious thought. They may opt to follow you, wander into other dreamscapes, or stumble back into the waking world '50% chance for either of the latter results if they are lost or abandoned by you). Creatures unwilling to accompany you into the Region of Dreams receive a Will saving throw, negating the effect if successful.
Note: Unlike the normal rules for dreaming, items you use, spells you cast, and other consumables are still gone when you return to the waking world after being under the effect of this spell. Likewise, items you gain and experience you accumulate while under the effect of this spell stay with you.