I thought I'd show you folk what I've been working on of late, which is an expansion based on the Dreamlands. It's intended to be a rather intense big board expansion, one that requires a lot of effort be expended on stopping it kiling you, probably best played without any other big boards unless you're particularly suicidal.

I'll upload some stuff now to pique your interest, hopefully I'll have time later in the week to put up some more sample cards and the rules for criticism (especially of the rules, which I want to make sure I have nailed down before I finsih the items and encounters).

So this is the board at present. Obviously the background is hideous, but I figured it was best to get the nuts and bolts of where all the locations were in relation to eachother before obsessing over the visuals. The little numbers are modifiers - essentially, you make speed checks to move between locations, so there is a chance you will be stuck somewhere along the way.

Below are some sample encounter cards, I'm putting them in table form as well as cards, as no one likes printing more than they have to. Using tables, , it should be possible to play the expansion with just the board and three small decks of small size cards.

Looks interesting. I'm keen to learn how is it going to work with the current Dreamlands? Also shouldn't the DL include Plateau of Leng and Underworld?

The Vale of Pnath, Abyssal Peaks, and Cyclopean City (a.k.a City of the Gugs) are all in the Underworld, and the Monastery of Leng and Sarkomand are in the Plateau of Leng (and their encounters will often involve wandering about the plateau). i didn't want to have a location actually called the Plateau of Leng, as it would get kind of confusing distinguishing between the location and the Other World during play.

As for the Dreamlands Other World, its gates and encounters work exactly the same as always. The idea is that entering the Dreamlands that way, through a gate is entering it entirely, body and soul with all your stuff, for a short time with the goal of closing a gate.

Exploring the Dreamlands the other way, via dreaming, its a much more long term proposition and you have much more freedom of movement, rather than just walking around the vicinity of the gate.

It's a bit abstract, I admit, but it makees play far simpler. The other option if it bugs you is just to take out the Dreamlands gates, and have the only way to get there be via Dreaming.

This looks really cool! Maybe you should have a night sky or swirling blue clouds as a background?

I like this! I didnt know anyone was doing a Dreamlands expansion.

Thanks for the feedback Hrm... I do like the idea of the cloudy background, will look nice and mysterious, thank you!

Now, as promised, here is some more material. Specifically, the first half of the rules for my expansion, which is called Arkham Nightmare. This should cover the practicalities of getting to and moving about in the Dreamlands, the second half of the rules will cover all the Mythos horros that are unleashed upon you.

The Arkham Nightmare

As the ancient one stirs, the walls between worlds break down. Gates are opening across Arkham, monsters from horrific other worlds spill through, and chaos is unleashed.

One of the worlds affected by this weakening of the veil is the fabulous Dreamlands, a glorious yet dangerous world that exists in reflection of, or perhaps because of man’s wildest fantasies. Where once the connection between the Dreamlands and Earth existed only in the souls of the rare and uniquely talented dreamers, now the worlds become closer than ever. Those who were formerly shackled to mortal dreams can now explore this amazing realm, learn secrets of the cosmos, and use their powers of their Dreaming to carry wonders between worlds.

However, all is not well in the Dream. There, as here, the influence of the Outer Gods is felt in the form of Their Soul and Messenger, Nyarlathotep, warden of the feeble Gods of the Dreamlands. The Crawling Chaos knows that the dimensions are coming closer together, and he plans to use this connection to rend Earth asunder and remake it in the image of his eldritch masters.

The Masked one lays his schemes and sends his servitors forth, and at his command the Dream is turning into a Nightmare, a corruption that seeps between worlds. It is up to the investigators to foil the plots of Nyarlathotep, to save the souls of all who dream, and to keep Arkham from oblivion.

Rules of the Dream
While they have their own board like Dunwich or Kingsport, the dreamlands are NOT Arkham. Any effects that mention Arkham, such as environment or spells do NOT apply to the Dreamlands. The only way to move between the Dreamlands and Arkham is by Sleeping and Waking , effects such as returning from LiTaS, Mi-Go brain cases or Call Friend cannot move a player in or out.

If something inside the dreamlands (most commonly a spell or monster) mentions Arkham, instead of effecting everything in Arkham it effects everything in the dreamlands – for example, a Cthonian in the dreamlands will deal stamina damage to someone in Celephais, but not the South Church.

Finally, players may still travel to the Dreamlands Other World via gates, and do so exactly as normal. These players are very different to those dreaming, as they are physically in the Dreamlands, body and soul. As far as the rules are concerned, they are two completely different places, and in these rules the “Dreamlands” always refers to the board, not the other world.

Sleeping and Awaking
To enter the dreamlands, a player must Sleep . In the upkeep step, if they are in a stable location they may spend one clue to Sleep , moving to the Dreaming space of the Dreamlands board. During the Arkham encounters step, they will draw a dreaming encounter, which will move them to part of the Dreamlands.

To leave the Dreamlands, a player can chose to Wake in the upkeep step, causing them to move back to the location in Arkham they left. They are free to move this turn as normal. If they Wake for any other reason, they also return to the location they left, but depending on when in the turn they return they may not be able to move.

Beyond the Veil of Sleep
A player can only imagine a small amount of their possessions when they dream – they may only take a total of TWO of any combination of spells, common, unique and exhibit items with them. All other cards (skills, allies, injuries, special cards etc.) are taken as normal. These items must be chosen when a player Sleeps , the only way to change them is to Wake and Sleep again. Any other cards should be put to one side – they are not in the players possession (so cannot be lost, traded, or cause any other effect), however they will all be returned to the player when they Wake .

The limit only applys when a player first Sleeps - not afterwards. As such, if a player gains spells or items during his time in the Dreamlands, he may keep them with him. However, should that player Wake and Sleep again, the items would count towards the limit.

When a player Sleeps , place a token on the location they left, to mark where they will return to. If for some reason the area they would return to is inaccessible when they wake (being closed, for example), they are moved to the street location of that area.

Items of the Dreamlands
There are two special decks of investigator cards in the Dreamlands – the Dream Items and Dream Gifts. In both cases, each card is also of another type, as shown on the front face – for example, the Blade of the Mind is a unique item and the Hand of Colubra is a spell, but both are Dream Items. Equally, Randolph Carter is an ally, the Lunar Glaive is a unique item and the Shantak Mount is a special card, but all three are Dream Gifts.

Aside from the manner of attaining them, the only difference between a Dream item/Gift and a normal item of their type is that when a player Sleeps , dream items and gifts do NOT count against the two spells/items they may take with them. All Dream Items and Gifts work perfectly well both in Arkham and the Dreamlands unless otherwise noted.

Living and Dying in the dream
Players lose and gain sanity and stamina as normal in the dream, and any losses or gains are just as valid in Arkham – the weakening of the veil causes injuries and trauma in one world to be felt in the other.

However, if a character is driven insane or knocked unconscious in the dreamlands, then there is no ambulance to save them. They are restored to full sanity(if driven insane) or stamina(if knocked unconscious), and immediately Wake and take the Dream Death special card. If a player is Lost in Time and Space while in the Dreamlands, they instead move to the Dreaming space.

Special locations
While most locations in the dreamlands can be travelled to or from by normal movement, the Moon, Unknown Kadath, and Dreaming cannot. Effects that allow you to move anywhere CANNOT move you to one of these places, only effects that explicitly mention them, such as Sleeping or Ascension.

The Turn in the Dreamlands
The dreamlands are very different to Arkham – the spaces are vaster yet time passes differently as in the waking world – causing a very different experience.

Movement phase
An investigator may move multiple spaces in a turn, but they move one space at a time. Each path connecting two locations in the dreamlands has a penalty printed on it.

Make a movement test with the penalty equal to the path you are attempting to travel. Note that as this is a movement test, not a speed test, items such as the motorcycle, Ruby of R’lyeh or Map of Arkham (somewhat surprisingly) do apply. If you succeed, you move to that location, if you fail you remain where you are and your movement ends. You may attempt to move more than once, but each time the penalty is equal to the sum of the path you are attempting, plus all the penalties of paths you have already travelled this turn. Once you have failed a test, you may not move again this turn.

Note there is one exception to this, if you fail the FIRST movement roll in a turn, you may still move to the space you were attempting to move to – but having failed the test, you may not attempt to move again. This means a player can always move at least one space a turn – assuming of course that they wish to.

For example, Joe Diamond begins his turn in Sarkomand, with a speed of 5. He first wishes to move to Inganok, and the Sarkomand-Inganok path has a penalty of -1, so he makes a movement test with four dice. He passes and moves to Inganok. He then tries to move to Celephais. The Inganok-Celephais path has a penalty of 0, so he rolls 5-1-0 = 4 dice again. He again passes, and moves to Celephais. Finally, he wishes to move to the Forbidden lands. This path has a penalty of -2, so he rolls 5-1-0-2 = 2 dice. He fails, and thus finishes his movement in Celephais, where he will have an encounter as normal.

Monsters encountered during movement behave exactly as they do in Arkham, if a player moves out of or ends his move in their square he must encounter them. if a player fights a monster, his movement ends there.

Arkham Encounters Phase
Much like Arkham itself, a player in a location must draw a card from that locations encounter deck and resolves it. There is one difference however – Like Arkham many locations have a special ability, but unlike Arkham these abilities are used *after* exploring, not instead of – in the dreamlands, you have plenty of time.

Other World Encounters Phase
Nothing happens in the Dreamlands during this phase

Mythos Phase
To be continued!

And a couple of special cards

Wouldn't it better more fighting to base movement on Will than Speed in the dreamlands. Also constant dice rolling for movement could get a bit annoying. Perhaps use a set difficulty level instead, with 1 being default. At the start of the movement phase the Investigator makes a Will +2 check and the number of success determines how far they can move.

That was more or less my original system, but I found two problems with it. If you have movement be based on something other than Speed, then Speed itself becomes pretty useless - which in turn means you can pump your Sneak up very high, and thus monster become something of a non issue.

As for the single roll thing to see how far you move, the main mechanism I'm trying to get is that getting to somewhere is a challenge by itself, and part of that is having to do stuff on the way. Key to this, in my opintion, is having movement be a bit random, so you might wind up ending your turn, and having encounters, somewhere along the way.

If you want to get to the Monastery, there's a good chance you'll only make it as far as Sarkomand and have to spend a turn having encounters there. If your movement is reliable and you know exactly how far you can get before you start moving in a given turn, that often wont happen. Also, on average you should only usually be rolling 2 or so sets of dice, which is a bit slower than the normal way, but shouldn't be too outrageous.

Or so is my theory.

www.flickr.com/photos/83344804@N00/6235691129/

found a neat pic today that may be of interest to you

Interesting... I was using this map trueraziel.deviantart.com/art/HP-Lovecraft-dreamland-map-85492041 from the Chaosium source book as a reference.

It's not as pretty as yours, but seems roughly similar in the important locations. Except that in your one, Sarnath is in the East, not West, where I put it in my board... Now I don't know who to believe!

It seems silly at first to take a motorcycle into the Dreamlands- but then I often drive a car (or ride a bike) in my own dreams so it makes perfect sense!

I'd go with CoC, they'd prolly know. I just linked to this one cause it was prettty.

Fake Ghost Pirate said:

IIRC, typically anachronistic artifacts transform into their Dreamlands equiavlent. A motorbike becomes a horse, a pistol becomes a crossbow, dynamite becomes Greek Fire, a cemara becomes a magical sketchpad, etc.

Kinda feel sorry for the living breathing horse when the time comes to turn back into a motorbike... But I digress

Next installment is, as promised, the Mythos and new new Nightmare Phase rules for the dreamlands.

The basic theme is every few turns you draw a plot card and a Nightmare card. The plot card is placed on a certain location and is something similar to a gate - a problem the players have to solve and get a trophy for doing so.

The Nightmare card is Mythos like, it causes some random events, places some clues, and also has a special triggered effect that does something bad IF a certain number of plots are in play. So, basically, the goal of the Dreamlands is to keep the number of plots down so nothing too bad happens.

Also, the frequency at which plot and Nightmare cards are drawn increases when seals are up, making it more dangerous late game, and also when monsters go into the vortex, so there is also a secondary incentive to keep monsters down in the Dreamlands.

Nightmare Track

In the middle of the dreamlands board is a Nightmare track, which has space for three counters. A counter is placed on the Nightmare track under the following circumstances.

A-At the start of every Mythos phase, a token is placed.

B-Every time a gate does not open due to a seal, a token is placed.

C-When a monster in Dyath Leen, Celephais or Inganok moves, return it to the cup and a token is placed.

The nightmare track can only hold three tokens, any excess are not placed.

Nightmare Phase

At the start of the Nightmare phase, if there are three tokens on the Nightmare track, draw one Plot card and one Nightmare card, then remove all tokens from the track. If there are two or less tokens, then skip this phase.

When you draw a Plot card, place it face up on the location named on the card. Also, place one clue and one monster on that location. If the location mentioned already has a plot, place a clue and monster on that location, but do not place the Plot itself.

Sample Plot Cards

Nightmare cards have three different sections which are resolved in order. The first effect is a headline like effect that alters the game in some way. The second effect places a certain number of clues in locations. Finally, the third effect is a triggered effect that only occurs if there are a certain number of plots in play. Note that the plot placed this turn DOES count towards this limit (as the Plot card is resolved before the Nightmare card). Finally, if a Plot was NOT placed due to a plot already being present in that location, the triggered effect automatically occurs regardless of the number of plots on the board.

Sample Nightmare Cards

Other Rules

Monsters in the Dreamlands

There is no Monster limit in Arkham, and as mentioned before monsters are evaded and encountered as normal in the Dreamlands.

Monsters move according to Mythos cards as normal with one exception. The Dreamlands does not have a sky location, so flying monsters instead move like Fast monsters. Monsters in the Cyclopean City and the Abyssal Peaks will move to the Enchanted Woods and Sarkomand, respectively.

Plots

Passing plots is the main goal of players in the Dreamlands, as it prevents Nightmare cards from having an effect on Arkham. To pass a Plot, a player must be in the location of the plot during the Arkham encounter phase ( so must have encountered or evaded any monsters in that location). Instead of drawing an encounter card, they may instead try to pass the plot. Each Plot has a condition to be passed, usually either a test or sacrificing something. If you pass the Plot, take the Plot card as a Dream trophy which may be spent in various places in the Dreamlands. If you fail, the Plot remains in play.

Attempting to pass a plot (whether successful or failed) counts as an encounter, so an investigator may use the special location ability afterward.

Set up

At the beginning on the game, place a clue on every unstable location in the Dreamlands, just like those in Arkham. Draw one Plot card and place it along with a monster and clue, as normal. Finally, place one token on the nightmare track.

Any comments on the nightmare mechanics? They're the part I'm most interested in fine tuning, it has to strike a balance where it gives you a reason to go the Dreamlands without being overpowering or obnoxious...

Anyway, onto the Dream Items. As I mentioned in the rules, these are all spells or unique items, but are still Dream Items. As you have a chance of drawing a spell via this when you don't want one, I've tried to make the spells fairly low lore/sanity cost, so even the thickest investigator might be able to use it if he draws it randomly.

The backs I can't get in a state I'm happy with. I want the icon to be the silhouette of the Silver Key, but I can't get it done in a way that doesn't look crappy.

The plan for the deck at the moment is to have 24 cards in the deck, one of each of the 21 cards listed, below, plus a duplicate of Sign of Koth, Onyx Statue and Pendant of Ulthar.

And the final set of cards is the Boon cards. These are analogous to Allies - they cost two trophies to buy, and each location has encounters that give you a chance to get them. Specifically...

All north locations - Shantak Mount
Inganok - Favor of the Elder Gods
Sarkomand - Lunar Glaive (an extremely powerful but dangerous Moonbeast weapon)
Monastery of Leng - Summon the Crawling Chaos

All east locations - Knight of Kuranes
Celephais - Dreamsculpt (from getting private lessons from Kuranes)
Oriab - Hanug-Kai (a curious priest in the spirit of Barzai)
Forbidden Lands - Void Touched (becoming changed by the strange place)

All west locations - Honor (a cat of Ulthar)
Dyath Leen - Corb Jinn (a seedy Man of Leng trader)
Enchanted Woods - Zoog Elder
Sarnath - Bloodstone of Bokrug (the idol from the Doom that came to Sarnath)

All underworld locations - Randolph Carter
Cyclopean City - Forbidden Knowledge
Vale of Pnath - Skull of an Elder God
Abyssal Peaks - A Familiar Ghoul (note, he has the same stat bonuses as Pickman...)

Some are allies, some are spells, some are items, some are special cards. Bear in mind, they are all intended to be stronger than regular spells and unique items, of similar power level to an ally.

Did you want help finding pics for some of these?

That would be extremely excellent - as you can see that aspect of the cards is entirely unfinished.

Is there any progress made? Last entry is kind of old.

I've writen up all the encounters (14 for each of the five "neighbourhoods"), done the items and boons, as posted before. I still, clearly, need to find good pictures for most of the items and boons. The encounters are currently all written up in a table form to save printing - you determine which one you get from playing cards (a truly excellent idea I shamelessly stole from the likewise excellent Lovecraft Country expansion).

I've also done all the plots (24x), so the last thing which I'm currently working on is the Nightmare cards - which are the Mythos like cards. I want about 36 or so - by my calculations you should go through about seven or so in a normal length game, and I don't want too much repetition, but I've kind of run out of good ideas for headline like events that can happen in the Dreamlands.

If anyone has any good ideas for such events that could happen in the Dream, they would be very welcome

The other things I'm unhappy with in my testing is the movement system and the only being able to dream a certain amount of items things.

The dreaming only two items thing makes sense, causes the player to make interesting decisions, and gives dream items an advantage over regular ones but... it's kind of a pain in the butt keeping track of every time, and people often forget to do it, so I'm considering ditching it for simplicities sake.

The other problem is movement... The way I have it works fine, but it *is* a lot more rolling and math than anyone really enjoys. If anyone can think of a better way that A-Still requires you to have your speed reasonably high if you're going fast and B-Gives you some kind of chance of having to draw an encounter on your way to where you're going, rather than just skipping say from Inganok to the Monastery of Leng in one risk free leap, I'd love to hear it.

I was considering having it so you declare where you're going and by what path and THEN roll a single Speed test, you move spaces equal to the # of successes, so if you roll crappily you will wind up halfway.

Here is the latest version of the board, incidentally. Note, no movement modifiers, and actually having background pictures now!

beautifull

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Very very nice board. Did you upload board and cards Adelphophage ??

The cards and encounters are still sitting on my computer, I'm thinking when I'm happy with their balance I'll upload them in pdfs as a rulebook - can anyone recommend a good and accessible way to upload a decent bunch of pdf files? Maybe boardgamegeek?

As I mentioned before, I've put the encounters both as cards and as tables, to minimize the otherwise massive amount of printing needed to play the expansion. Below is the format I'm currently using for them, for the North and West encounters. Any comments or suggestions on the format? Too small to read?

The eventual plan is to instead of 14 have 27 encounters for each location (Joker plus Black Ace, King, Queen Jack etc..., plus Red Ace, King, Queen, Jack etc...), in which case each location will have one page devoted to it - but writing the remaining encounters will wait until I'm happy with the balancing of the game.

Also, comments or suggestions for the individual encounters are also welcome