Hey all, I have been working on this expansion on and off for over a year now. I'm an avid Lovecraft fan and have been since high school. The expansion is based on one of his longest and most inspiring (at least to me) stories: Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. I have not yet play tested it yet for a couple of reasons (not yet printed and moving across country and not having a play-group) so some of the mechanics may be incongruent, unbalanced, off-the-wall and/or otherwise iffy. Going into it I had no idea how involved it would be but once I get started on something I cannot let it go until I’ve achieved something of which I can be proud. So far, I am very proud of this expansion.
This setting is the Dreamlands as introduced mainly in Lovecraft’s Dream-Cycle stories but with many personalities, mechanics and ideas borrowed from Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu RPG (of which I am also an avid fan). The basic idea is that the investigators are dreaming to enlist the help of the Elder Gods/Gods of Earth’s Dreamlands/Other Gods (it’s an amorphous description) in battling the Ancient One. The Gods are represented by Guardians (and sometimes Heralds) that are obtained on the Dream-Quest and it is almost never guaranteed whether your quest will be successful or give you the outcome you desire. It creates a clear distinction between Arkham and the Dreamlands board with the latter being the most fantastical (while containing most of the horror of the original). The expansion revolves around Dreamer tokens which are similar to Clue tokens but let you re-roll entire skill checks (like Mandy’s power) and decrease the difficulty of many skill checks. The rules include augmentations for the Ancient Ones that incorporate their effects on the Dreamlands and vice versa. My intention is to create a full custom expansion with a board, investigators, ancient ones, monsters, items and of course heralds and guardians.
The board is fairly linear (hopefully not enough to be boring or repetitive) and incorporates every expansion to date (minus the Miskatonic Horror which I have yet to acquire). It relies heavily on the Madness/Injury from Dunwich Horror, the Underworld and Unknown Kadath from Kingsport, and the Benefits/Detriments from Curse of the Dark Pharaoh but does not need to have the other boards in play to work (and may work best with only one expansion board in play). It introduces the Nemesis card which works similarly to the Blight cards but mostly limited to investigator who draws it. The expansion also introduces an additional Movement and Encounter phase for those on the Dreamlands board to replicate the distorted time mentioned by Lovecraft. I will place links to the pictures of the components. I am still working on the encounters (573 at last count) and tweaking many of the mechanics to blend smoothly with regular gameplay. However, I wanted to get this first version out there to maybe get some feedback.
While this is the culmination of over a year of work, please don’t feel the need to be gentle (I doubt I need to say that). I welcome all criticisms, comments and conundrums. Thanks for looking! I will of course keep play tests coming when I get the opportunity.
