General Question RE: The Nightmare Lands

[VikingLegion]

Whenever I'm unfamiliar with a domain, simply reading some location and NPC names can often give me some kind of inclination as to what it's based on/ analogous to by drawing a comparison to our own world's cultures. Without owning The Nightmare Lands boxed set, or knowing anything whatsoever about this domain, I can only assume its closest analogue is HP Lovecraft's Dream Cycle of Kadath, with the Forest of Everchange subbing in for the Enchanted Forest. Is there a Sarnath or Celephais or Plateau of Leng equivalent? A great cult with a high priest and some sort of Nyarlathotep stand-in? Or am I COMPLETELY missing the vibe of this region? The blurbs I find here in the Mistipedia are very short and don't paint much of a picture, other than some cursory information on the Nightmare Court and Dr. Illhousen. The City of Nod certainly sounds very Lovecraftian, but I'm not finding much more, as all the hyperlinks just sort of keep referencing each other, without much "meat" to digest.

[Joël of the FoS]

It's not lovecraftian in that it's not an alien plane of eldritch horror.

In your dreams, you get into the NLands, and can interact with the weird things the Nighmare Court do build on your negative emotions. Some shaman can also get there on their own will.

The NLands is a place of mental health problems (many mental health clinics are plagued by the NCourt, because people get mad of being stalked in their dreams by the NCourt), but its mainly a place of negative emotions, with a number of entities (the Nightmare Court) feeding on these negative emotions. They lurk on your dreams to find if you could be a victim. For example, the Ghost Dancer feeds on guilt, sending pain and remorses in dreams crafted especially for you by her. You get into the NLands, in a dream "bubble" where you will face guilt again and again ...

I had a lot of fun in my campaign with it, tying Tatyana and a caracter linked to Strahd's bloodline, in morbid dreams inspired by when Tatyana jumped from the balcony to her death.

A very good read, very inspiring, I hope you will be able to find a cheap copy.

Joël

[Hazgarn]

I remember reading a lot of good material on the Nightmare Lands in the netbooks. Here's a quick list of a few articles.

The Interpretation of Dreams, Book of Shadows
The Order of Twilight, Book of Shadows
On Visions Induced by Coma, Undead Sea Scrolls 2003
Six Days in the Land of Nightmares, Quoth the Raven 6
The Abber Nomads, Quoth the Raven 6
Knowledge in the Nightmare, Quoth the Raven 6

(A lot of dream/nightmare stuff in QtR 6)

Edit: Almost forgot Jester's "A Guide to Dreamwalking".

[thekristhomas]

The NLs are a lot less inhabited than Lovecrafts dream realm IIRC there's the Abber Nomads, The Nightmare Court & monsterous denizens, and dreamers in dreamscapes.

As the dreamers are in their dreamscapes and the Abber avoid Nod, the city is mostly empty with the Nightmare Court themselves seeming to keep mostly to their favoured haunts, so the vibe I get is a semi abandoned city, maybe like the twisting New England backstreets of Lovecraft, rather than the cyclopean ramparts of Leng.

From what I remember the Nightmare Lands proper, that is the Nightmare Lands outside of dreamscapes, is actually pretty inaccessible, at least in it's current form, as an Island of Terror it seems quite evasive, though I think some mistways lead there. The bulk of the info in the Nightmare Lands boxed set is about dreams & dreamscapes, which while the bubbles that dreamscapes inhabit do make up a significant part of the island are also kind of separate because your dream form can't leave them. So when you dream your dream form travels to the Nightmare Lands but from what I remember only inside a dreamscape so you can only explore and interact with the reality of the dream. To get to Nod, I think you actually have to go there, physically, which IIRC is a kinda finale to a quest deal