Every time the Dreamland Discord or the Dreamland Facebook group reaches another 25 members, I write another Dreamland RPG blogpost like this one. This particular post was written in celebration of reaching 675 members on the Facebook group. If you’re interested in more long-form Dreamland info, please join the groups, and you’ll also be able to vote on what I post here next!
Though I envision Dreamland as containing much more than the locations described by HP Lovecraft, I also am fond of Lovecraft’s places. I did draw many of them for my Dream-Quest graphic novel, after all! For the Dreamland RPG initial setting book (which will be a separate book available alongside the rulebook) I have had the fun opportunity to revisit many of those places, including reimagining places I drew in that graphic novel. In a few cases I’ve even directly updated, redrawn and recolored artwork I did 25 years ago, like in some of these pictures of that smoky, mercantile city, that wicked unholy coastal city, Dylath-Leen.
For the Dreamland setting book, I also paired up with another wonderful author, (NAME TBA), who provided their own vision of the traditional places. In that sense, the setting book is a collaboration, with my art combined with (NAME TBA)’s text. The name of the author will be revealed in time. Here’s a sample, showing the map and some info about the pearl of the Southern Sea, Dylath-Leen!
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Dylath-Leen of the Towers (city)
Reputation: The great port of the Southern Seas, but very dangerous.
Attitude: unfriendly or indifferent
Architecture: Dylath-Leen is built almost entirely from natural hexagonal columns of black basalt, shaped into thin, angular towers of great height, with broad plazas between them. Only by the basalt piers are buildings shorter: warehouses, inns, sea taverns, etc.
Inhabitants: Dylath-Leen’s human citizens are cosmopolitan and suspicious, and many have lacing (see Customs). There are number of Lengite merchants about, abhumans who conceal their humps and horns under rich brocades. There may be other types of abhumans as well. In the subcity dwell human ratfolk that call themselves the Tretch (unfriendly, FGT 1+1D6 (individual), SPD 1+1D6, PER 1D6, STB 4+1D6).
Food: The citizens of Dylath-Leen never know what they are being fed, and it is considered the height of discourtesy to ask.
Customs: In ancient days the city was ruled by five Dukes, but after the Curse of Dylath-Leen, they were killed, and since then it is governed by the Black Bag, a velvet sack that rests on a carnelian table in the Hall of Governance. If civic or legal decisions have to be made, a human called the Right Hand opens the bag and finds an oval sheet of vellum inside with the Bag’s orders. This seems not to be trickery. A number of Merchant Princes, Industrialists and Founders, perpetually feuding among themselves, appoint the Right Hand and use the Bag’s orders to their own advantage. (See sidebar for a few such individuals.) If anyone but the Right Hand touches the bag, they begin to melt, though there may be time for a Wish to save them.
The residents of Dylath-Leen are inveterate gossips. Locals often know things that have happened too far away for news to have come in any conventional way, about distant wars and disasters, and even the fates of individuals. If a dreamer asks long enough about anything, they will hear news (perhaps exaggerated or untrue)—if they do not attract negative attention first.
Dylath-Leen has developed a unique artform: using enchantment and prayer, artists change the skin of humans and abhumans to a sort of flesh-lace that flutters in layers over a base epidermis. It may be embedded with cabochon rubies to emulate blood. The lace is healthy living flesh; it can be cut or sunburnt but it heals from minor damage, though not from major tears. It can only be created (or mended) in Dylath-Leen, or with a Wish, but Wish-made lacing is never as ornate. Lacing is very expensive, but even poor people save up and have small patches of lacing on their faces or throat.
Exports: the products of the Skai valley, textiles, slaves from Parg and elsewhere.
The Approach to Dylath-Leen
Description: Dylath-Leen sits on the inside curve of a jetty-protected harbor at the mouth of the River Skai. As with so many dreamworld cities, it is a place of towers, but here each stands alone, surrounded by spacious basalt pavements or beautiful “gardens,” actually maze-like arrangements of plants and blooms made of stained glass in black leaded frames, with wide walkways. Regular gates, reminiscent of Métro entrances in Paris, lead into the undercity, where poorer people and small industries collect. The undercity’s chimneys and vents reach open air through tall kiosk-like pillars.
Many residents live in apartments within the towers, but poorer people squat in the uninhabited top stories of the towers, or in crowded, always damp caverns beneath Dylath-Leen.
Landmarks
The Lightning Temple: Electricity is found in a single tower of Dylath-Leen. The Lightning Temple worships The Shadow Behind the Sun, and its sanctuary must be so brilliantly lit that there are no shadows. The Temple’s lightning is bought from Kled, so every two months, a silver-oared galley arrives carrying lightning bottles for the Temple. The bottles also power a beam pointing into the sky; this light can be seen as far away as the Boojum Lands and Parg.
The Undercity is black basalt caverns with some large, high-ceilinged spaces, and many natural chambers and tunnels converted to homes, workshops, shops, and taverns. There are openings to the sea, so it always feels damp. Smuggling is common, though port authorities try to control it. It is quite common for surface dwellers to visit the undercity, where the best seafood and music are found.
The Black Galleys are Dylath-Leen’s shame. These three-banked Lengite galleys trade rubies for slaves, often from Parg, the jungled land across the river. Along with Skai wool and Parg gold, the slaves are loaded into the galleys, never to be seen again. Residents of Dylath-Leen claim not to know what happens to the slaves, but others report that some are fed to the unseen galley oarsmen, and many are taken through the Basalt Pillars of the West and fed to the moon-beasts that dwell on the Moon. Black galleys dock at Sish Pier where there is also a slave market.
The Sea Road travels many many miles along the shores of the Golden Sea, from the Boojum Lands to Parg to other faraway places. In the center of Dylath-Leen is a onyx henge at what might be considered Mile 0, stained with the blood of birds that have been sacrificed to a speedy journey, and of badgers, for safety.
Dylath-Leen at Street Level. Life is very different in the high towers and entry-restricted coffeeshops of the Founders.
If you like this and want more, please check out the Dreamland Facebook Group and Dreamland Discord, and download the free Dreamland Quickstart from Exalted Funeral!