Hey there, time to continue our exploration of the ethereal plane and the limitless potential
of demiplanes and dreamscapes, first we have some definitions to get through, which should
hopefully give you a very easy, clear picture of how things work, fair warning, you will
need to grab yourself a tasty beverage, as we are about to get deeply nerdy.
Crossing over from the normal world and entering the misty matrix of the border ethereal plane,
we would see the huge spectacle of the rainbow curtain further beyond, but what direction
is that exactly?
The truth is, it doesn't have one, and it's always beyond the 300 ft of possible vision
an ethereal traveller would have anyway, but is has a conceptual direction, moving through
it just requires thought and will, so some caution is required by travellers, they may
want to fly from one side of their world to another and think, I don't want to have to
cover that whole distance at this movement speed, what if I fly further out and come
back at another location, and hey presto, to another traveller they will appear to just
sink into a dense mist and vanish.
The prime material plane is all around you in the border ethereal, you can peer into
it, your body is effectively travelling through it in a ghostly form that some creatures can
see from the other side, you are ethereal, not quite in the world, not quite passed beyond
it, like someone who steps into a teleporter in star trek, you are in the pattern buffer,
all around you, what you see of the prime material plane is these patterns, and the
misty stuff of the border ethereal builds up on these spiderwebs of pattern like dew
collecting on gossamer spider webs in the cool morning.
Travelling out of the border is the act of teleportation, your pattern leaves the border
and passes out of this target coordinates system, this is the rainbow curtain, a vast
and undulating surface, your ethereal form in now in the deep ethereal plane and looking
back at the transition zone that touched all the other border ethereal realms in the multiverse,
you are completely beyond the prime material plane here, no longer sharing space with it
in anything but a theoretical fashion, so, nothing is really going to reach you here,
all you can see of the prime material plane is the rainbow curtain.
Within that curtain are all the dreams of the beings on those prime material locations
beyond, their dream selves project beyond the border ethereal, and pass into the rainbow
curtain, that vast pattern buffer, and within it, they create dreamscapes.
Normally these dreamscapes are difficult to locate or access, some magic allows it, sometimes
there are anomalies, called Ruptures, that allow someone on the deep ethereal side of
the curtain to look into, even enter a dreamscape, a good example is called Anaveree.
The prime material world this dreamscape originates from, mysteriously, is a pretty hostile environment
that is nothing like the dreamscape coming from it, whatever being created the dreamscape
in the first place is also a mystery, the world has no name, it is safe enough to bypass
the dream rupture and enter the border ethereal zone of the world on the other side of the
curtain, there is a barren, lifeless world with red sands and rocks.
A traveller who transitions back into reality on that world from the border will suddenly
discover it also has no breathable atmosphere and without protection, their blood will boil
in the vacuum.
Back in the deep, looking into the rupture in the rainbow curtain, you will instead see
a pleasant land of golden light, stands of pine trees and meadows surrounding crystal
clear pools of water, which can be reached by simply willing oneself to pass into the
dreamscape.
Entering a dreamscape has its own serious dangers and limitations of the traveller's
dream form, since their pattern is now comprised of dream stuff, their physical attributes
don't really apply any more, unless they are exceptionally strong, which somehow lends
to their belief they are strong and does provide a bonus to damage and such, mostly though,
their wisdom score is now their base strength, their intelligence is dexterity and so on.
Getting seriously harmed in a dreamscape will usually just result in mental shock, a traveller
will get ejected out of the place and their real body and mind will suffer a penalty of
1d4 points taken off their intelligence, slowly recovering these points, one per day, however,
they may get knocked into a coma or perhaps even be so traumatized they go into a catatonic
state and may very well suffer permanent memory and ability loss, or just roll some death
saves and hopefully not die.
Inside the ruptured dreamscape of Anavaree the traveller will feel the rules of this
environment assert themselves, they will feel gravity, heat, smells and vision will extend
out to the 600ft range before being totally obscured by a golden mist.. be careful of
travelling into that mist, its not always present on the border of a dreamscape in such
a raw state as this, what it is, is dreamstuff, similar to the ethereal mists, the dreamer
forms this substance into their dreamscape.
Any traveller who goes too far into the golden dreamstuff is in severe risk of fading out
of existence and losing their pattern, they just become more of the dreamstuff mist, gone
forever.
Perhaps they could be wished back, I don't know, there is no point venturing into the
deep mist anyway, and doing so feels very weird, its ok to warn the player that it feels
very bad, not a good idea.
Anavaree is typical of dreamscapes in that distance and size are completely deceptive,
the pools seem small, they have merfolk made of dreamstuff, living creatures created within
dreamscapes are known as Dreamborn, the pine forest stands have bright green furred monkeys
who playfully throw large pine cones, they are not dangerous, travellers who kill or
wound them will see the whole dreamscape transform in response to this aggression though, the
sky darkens, it becomes ominous and suddenly the dreamborn creatures become huge, violent
guardians who fight the interlopers.
inside the trees or beneath the surface of the water, suddenly the little stands or trees
are a dense forest with towering timber and thick, difficult undergrowth, countless brightly
colored birds and other forest dreamborn creatures, there are distant mountains, castles and all
sorts of stuff, and the pools become vast and deep beyond all indication, massive coral
reefs teem with dreamborn fish and the kingdoms of aquatic beings.
This is very typical of dreamscapes, I mean, we all dream, you know how these sort of illogical
transitions occur, and how each dream seems to have its own set of unpredictable rules.
To the dreamborn, it all makes perfect sense, but communicating with these creatures is
often pretty futile and travellers just have to keep a wary eye on what is going on and
expect the unexpected.
Leaving a dreamscape is about as easy as entering one, but be careful that the way back out
is not being closed off behind you, venture too deep and you may end up in a coma.
The heart of Anavaree is Ana's playground.
A grassy hill guarded by a slumbering purple dragon of great size, atop the hill a more
human-looking green monkey and the true origin of the dreamscape, known as the Principle,
is a nine-year-old girl named Ana.
It's easy to tell who the principle of a dreamscape is, when Ana smiles, the sun shines brighter,
when she cries, it rains and so on.
Also common to principles, Ana has no idea she is dreaming, she just doesn't think about
that, her thoughts concern playing with her friend, raising the topic with her will cause
her to pause and consider it, and she will frown... and the situation will suddenly be
a whole lot more dangerous, and terribly sad.
Ana's body rests in a technological stasis chamber in a crater filled with the wreckage
of a colonisation ship that was forced to crash land on the red, lifeless world, by
some miracle, she is the sole survivor, her mature body is badly damaged, leaving her
with the permanent mentality of a young girl, and the machines keeping her unnaturally alive,
but forever asleep are also the cause of the dream rupture.
Travellers who press Ana for answers will cause her to become upset, after all, she
has a deeply suppressed trauma of everyone she loves being dead for many years, she may
have been playing on this hilltop with her friend George for centuries, and if she starts
to relive that trauma, the dragon will wake up, his name is Grumpy and he is not pleasant
to those who would upset Ana.
Killing the girl will also kill the woman in the stasis pod, the dreamscape will instantly
collapse and any travellers will be flung back into the Ethereal plane in random locations
that could be quite distant, they might also be hurled into another person's dreamscape
or materialise inside a random existing demiplane.
Those who find a way to locate Ana's real body on the red planet can try to revive and
heal her, this also causes the dreamscape to vanish of course.
Considering the damaged mind this dreamscape originated from, and the sheer magnitude of
how complex the forests and pools really are, it just goes to show that the mind is an amazing
thing, capable of far more than one would expect.
Every dreamscape is different while following some of the same basic guidelines.
There is always a principle in there somewhere, they rarely know they are dreaming, the dreamscape
creatures can be just as complex as you or I, the dreamscape conforms to it's own quirky
rules and the whole place can shift and change dramatically, depending on the dreaming principle's
mind and emotions, so for many creatures used to the stability of the prime material plane,
it can be even more confusing and dangerous than the mercurial feywild, with it's forced
conformity to the narratives of fairy tales, myths and legends.
The absolute masters of dreamscape navigation, creation and manipulation are none other than
the Gold Dragons.
It's lucky they are noble and good aligned, because there is some power in being able
to enter the dreams of living creatures, not only do you get some idea of what is going
on in their life, at times, mostly via symbolic themes that represent their emotions, for
example, the surface of pools of water may be dangerous looking if the person creating
the dream has some emotional difficulty, anxiety may manifest as dreamborn creatures having
their teeth falling out or running around, terrified that they are late to some important
event.
The most useful dreamscapes are those of replaying memories from the dreamer, filtered through
emotional distortions.
Anyway, it can be really confusing for travellers who are easily distracted or disturbed by
these non-sensical dreamscape physics... so to speak.
The Gold dragons are capable of sending messages to the dreamer and its very common for divine
beings to do this as well.
I'm not sure how some dreamscapes become ruptured, but the chunks of dreamscape that bleed off
or drift off as so-called dreambergs soon fade away into nothing within the deep ethereal
plane, everything found in a dreamscape will fade away outside of the curtain of course,
but there is nothing stopping someone hiding a real object of some kind inside a dreamscape,
a risky venture as most dreamscapes only last as long as their creator is actually sleeping
and dreaming, its not 100% that a real object will just pop out back into the deep ethereal
when the dreamscape ends, it may become swallowed by the mists and become dreamstuff, gone forever,
though my Dungeon Master common sense tells me that this would never happen to living
creatures, bad guys or magical artifacts.
Dreamscapes do not bleed into the border ethereal plane, as far as I know, but... there are
some cases of demiplanes that seem suspiciously like some sort of dreamscape that has become
an actual demiplane.
So, lets talk about the domains of dread shall we?
I know a lot of you are very, very interested in these nightmare realms.
Unfortunately, I am not any more enlightened as to exactly who or what the Dark Powers
are that have the ability to carve off large chunks of the prime material plane and actually
physically transport them into the deep ethereal, cutting them off with enormous barriers of
mist.
In this regard, while effectively the same as many demiplanes, the origin of the domains,
including Ravenloft, are quite different from other demiplanes, they almost follow the same
method as the chaotic expansion of the Abyss, just on a much, much smaller scale.
But, really, there is no perfect comparison, the domains of dread are the creations of
the Dark Powers, they have their own rules and limitations, I actually like the fact
that the Dark Powers are unknown, I could speculate on what they could be, Pale Night,
Orcus, The Lady of Pain, The Raven Queen, the dreams of the Draeden; Actually Pale Night,
looking at past actions of this entiry, is a pretty good candidate, but, if it was, there
would be some lore on it somewhere, and there just isn't any, there is some sort of very
ancient pact made with the Draeden that I think concerns them not destabilising reality
and messing with the planes of existence for their own amusement, perhaps the domains of
dread is some little sub clause in the agreement that allows them to do what the dark powers
do, this is just my speculation, the Dark Powers are unknown, but what they do, is fairly
clear, they capture powerful individuals and create a prison environment for them that
is largely under that prisoners control, but they can't escape it, it is a gilded cage,
the dark powers are collecting these beings as one would cage a songbird or a specimen
for study.
I do recommend picking up the 5th edition sourcebook "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft"
it is more accurately a guide to many of the Domains of Dread, not just Barovia, the home
of the Vampire lord Strahd von Zarovich and the Castle Ravenloft, the title is a little
confusing for people perhaps new to the hobby who are not familiar with the quirky way roleplayers
name the different campaign settings, so, we call all of the domains of dread The Ravenloft
Setting, meaning, a horror game environment in the manner of Barovia and Castle Ravenloft.
Clear as mud, but calling the book "5th edition guide to horror domains" while accurate, is
not cool enough I suppose.
You can't please everyone.
There are a lot of Domains, I will be making videos about them fairly soon, even a brief
overview of them all is much too extensive for this video, so I will just say that these
are all prison demiplanes under the control of the Dark Powers, and within each demiplane,
the prisoners act much like the principle of a dreamscape, they have great power within
their cage but ultimately, they are powerless beyond its confines.
Inhabitants of the domains who are not the prisoner the domain was created for have a
different perspective, they generally don't know of what lies beyond the mists, they call
the domains the lands of the mists, each has its own culture, its own quirks and rules.
There are many examples provided in the book, but DM's are encouraged to create their own
once they grasp the basic idea, the exact number of domains is also a mystery, so, there
is total creative freedom to expand on the campaign setting however you please.
There is one interesting side bar text, concerning the inhabitants' belief is the origin of the
mists, and I quote..
"The denizens of several domains worship an aloof god known as Ezra.
Depicted as a vague, vaporous figure, the god is known for her dark, billowing hair
and for her ability to manipulate the Mists.
Her holy symbol is a sprig of belladonna atop a silver kite shield.
Beyond that, her disparate sects of worshipers view her differently—and contradictorily.
For some, Ezra is a goodly guardian, while others perceive her as a soul-stealing embodiment
of the Mists.
Ultimately, though, her true nature is a mystery.
Whether she’s a manifestation of the Dark Powers, an aspect of the Plane of Shadow’s
mysterious Raven Queen, or something else entirely is for you to decide.
Whatever the case, Ezra’s followers, traditions, alignment, and the domains she grants her
clerics vary widely.
Collaborate with players who want to create characters devoted to Ezra to define the god’s
role in their domain of origin."
So, they do mention the Raven Queen as a teaser there, but, its not really important, Ezra
is a belief, a religion, that doesn't require any factual lore to go with it, it may be
that clerics are empowered simply by the collective belief and there is no god, its not external
power, it is internal to the mists population.
In a nutshell, each domain is a story, and in this they remind me of the Feywild, where
instead of a darklord, it is a feylord, the story of that darklord (or feylord) determines
the thematic elements specific to that domain, in the case of the Fey, their domains can
sort of travel with them and often blend together, so, Cinderalla is assisted by seven dwarves
in pumpkin minecarts who forge a magical slipper of glass using an enchanted hammer that causes
any non-dwarf who uses it to fall into a deep slumber and be covered in enchanted thorny
vines.. the domains of dread don't blend together at all, but they are not entirely cut off
from each other, there is mention in the book about a breed of ravens who can travel through
some of the mists and carry messages from one domain to another, for example.
Some individuals can travel through the mists as well, such as the native Vistani culture,
there are magical talismans that grant travel and so on, its really in the hands of the
DM of course, as each new domain is a new adventure set in a thematic environment with
notable set encounter areas and always, that dark lord and their nefarious activities to
figure out, avoid if possible and perpetually seek a was out.
In some ways, the parallel dimension of the shadowfell is like one vast dread domain with
less restrictions on travel, but nobody is in charge, there are no consistent thematic
elements, its random roll encounters, seeping despair, draining away of life and vitality,
trying to avoid the horrific inhabitants and returning to the prime material dimension
before the shadowfell reduces a traveller to another one of the place's sad, tragic,
horrific victims.
Lots to digest in this video, so I will pause here and give a chance for any questions and
inspiration to be asked and discussed down below in the communities comment section,
as entertaining as these videos themselves in many ways, I do read and respond to as
many comments as I can, if you have questions about the topics in the video, I will usually
find an answer for you if there is one to find, I am also happy to help with inspiration
for your adventures and campaigns, just keep in mind, I do have to write video scripts
as well as read and answer questions and there are only so many hours in a day.
Unfortunately, I don't have my own ethereal demiplane where I can set the clocks how I
please like some sort of DragonballZ Universe seven accessed Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and
anyway, ten times earth gravity would murder me.
There will be another video in this series on the Ethereal plane, I will be going into
more details on the Demiplanes, the magic that creates them and the rules they operate
under, some examples of known demiplanes and, my speculations on the populations of the
demiplanes, including the Deep Imaskari, but for now, thank you for listening, I am AJ
Pickett and I will be back with more for you, very soon.