Call of Cthulhu - Dreamlands - The Sense of The Sleight-Of-Hand Man

The Sense
of the
Sleight-of-Hand
Man
A Call of Cthulhu Campaign

of Wonder and Terror
in H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands
Written and Illustrated by Dennis Detwiller

Copyright
The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man is written and illustrated by Dennis Detwiller, © 2013. Maps on pages
33, 48, 75, and 144 are by Tim Paul Piotrowski; © Dennis Detwiller, 2013. Edited by Shane Ivey with
Adam Crossingham. Page design by Shane Ivey. Cover art by Dennis Detwiller, © 2013. Cover designed by
Shane Ivey with Daniel Solis. Cover poppies design courtesy of golli at SRF123.com. All rights reserved.
Publisher
Published in the United States by Arc Dream Publishing, 12215 Highway 11, Chelsea, Ala., 35043.
Published for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game under license from Chaosium Inc. Call of Cthulhu is a
registered trademark of Chaosium Inc. and is used by permission.
If you bought this book in print at an online or bricks-and-mortar retailer, you can get the PDF version
free through the Bits & Mortar program. Contact us for details.
For more information contact Arc Dream Publishing at www.arcdream.com.
Edition
First edition, first printing, July 2013
Arc Dream Publishing product number 8001
ISBN 978-1-940410-00-5
Printed in the United States of America
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the players in the author’s many playtests of this campaign over the years. Your dreams of ter-
ror, death and magic were never in vain.
Thanks to our amazingly diligent volunteer proofreaders: J. Michael Bestul, Robert Biddle, JF Boivin,
Anthony “Runeslinger” Boyd, Chris Butler, Ken Chang, Rodrigo Citon, Gregory Clark, Greg Cooksey,
Matt Cowger, Bill “The Keeper” Drover, Ben Ferguson, Jason Fritz, H. Alexander Velásquez García, Judy
Haber, Jonathan Hsu, David Lee Ingersoll, Brian Lavelle, Kris Leeke, Christian Lehmann, Robert Lint,
Jen McCleary, Robin McCollum, Calum McDonald, Joshua D. Meadows, Steve Mumford, Lisa (“Doctor
Cthulhupunk”) Padol, Kristian Bach Petersen, Shane Phillips, Jon Potter, KJ Potter, Michael Ross, Jakob
Schilling, Ralph Shelton, Jori Virtanen, and Sean Whittaker—benighted ghouls, all!
Thanks to our Kickstarter backers, listed in the foreword. This book would not exist without them.
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Contents
Foreword...................................................................... 5 Food and Shelter......................................................... 59
Special Thanks............................................................... 6 Threats and Travelers................................................. 59
Chapter One: CHARACTER CREATION...................... 8 The Bandits of the Red Earth....................................60
An Overview................................................................ 10 Servant of the Dark Man........................................... 62
Chapter Two: Mr. Lao............................................... 13 The Goblins and the Changeling................................ 63
The Peach Blossom Restaurant..................................14 The Bronze Wheel Circus........................................... 65
Chapter Three: Life In a Dream............................21 Par of Sonya-Nil.......................................................... 67
Injury, Sickness and Death......................................... 25 Lord Ivar of Imel (and Company)..............................68
Sanity........................................................................... 26 Locating Civilization................................................... 70
Luck.............................................................................. 26 Chapter Seven: The Underworld...................... 72
Addiction..................................................................... 26 At the Base of the Ten Thousand Steps.................... 72
Languages.................................................................... 27 Into Darkness...............................................................73
New World, New Bodies............................................ 28 The Ghoul Trader.........................................................73
The Transition............................................................. 29 Map of the Underworld..............................................75
Chapter Four: Sarkomand.................................... 30 Journey Into the Black............................................... 79
Awakening................................................................... 32 The Underground Sea..................................................81
Map of Sarkomand......................................................33 Replacing Lost Dreamers...........................................88
The Collector............................................................... 34 The Vaults of Zin.........................................................88
The Wamp Lair........................................................... 39 The Giant Stair............................................................94
The Docks....................................................................40 The Forest of Monoliths............................................94
The Plaza of the Lions................................................ 43 The Sea of Bones......................................................... 95
Sarkomand at Night................................................... 45 The Gug City................................................................99
Chapter Five: Travel by Sea .................................. 47 The Nightgaunts....................................................... 102
Method and Direction................................................ 47 The Peaks of Thok..................................................... 102
Map of the Land of Dreams.......................................48 The Exit...................................................................... 102
Campaign Paths..........................................................49 Renewing the Bargain...............................................103
Travel Time.................................................................. 50 Those Left Behind..................................................... 104
Finding Port................................................................. 50 The Surface................................................................ 104
Hazards of Sea Travel................................................. 50 Chapter Eight: Inquanok.....................................105
The Cloudbeast.............................................................51 The Road to the Onyx City........................................105
The Merhadeen Pirates.............................................. 52 The Lengian Hunt..................................................... 109
Chapter Six: Wandering......................................... 58 The Spiders..................................................................111
Movement In the Wild............................................... 58 Inquanok and the Golden Sun...................................113
3
The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man
The City of Onyx........................................................ 115 The Magistrate and the Court................................. 203
The Sages of the Round Street................................. 118 Randolph Carter, The King of Dusk......................... 205
The Mission................................................................122 The Palace of Dusk................................................... 210
Avat of Hombur and Dem........................................124 The Tower of Nyarlathotep.....................................220
The Western Plateau................................................. 125 Confrontation........................................................... 222
The Path to the Gate of Crystal................................ 132 Escape to Ilek-Vad.................................................... 225
The Western Machine............................................... 135 . . . But If They Fail?................................................. 226
Return to Inquanok...................................................139 Chapter Eleven: Sarnath.................................... 228
Judgment................................................................... 140 The Nameless Lake................................................... 229
The Book of Keys and Gates..................................... 141 The Idol...................................................................... 230
Rewards and the Journey South...............................142 The Offering.............................................................. 230
Chapter Nine: Lhosk...............................................143 The Doom...................................................................233
Map of Lhosk............................................................. 144 The Green Priests’ Plan............................................. 234
The Docks...................................................................145 Dealing With Uvan Go..............................................237
The Bazaar and Council............................................ 146 Manifestations of the Doom................................... 242
The Lay of the Land...................................................147 The Consumption of Uvan Go.................................246
Arrival in a Black Galley........................................... 148 Chapter Twelve: Ulthar......................................248
Wealth in Lhosk......................................................... 152 The Burgomaster Kranon.......................................... 251
Shops of Interest........................................................ 153 The Keeper of Dreams.............................................. 254
Mortimer’s Sundry Potions and Chemicals.............. 153 The Enchanted Wood................................................257
Ballud’s Outfitters..................................................... 160 The Steps of Deeper Slumber................................... 271
Room and Board........................................................162 Chapter Thirteen: Return to Earth.............. 272
The Eye of the Needle...............................................162 Awakening................................................................. 272
The Men from Leng In Lhosk...................................165 By Foot and Rail.........................................................277
The Ebony Temple..................................................... 175 Finding Mr. Lao......................................................... 278
The Trade Family Tha............................................... 184 Closing the Circle...................................................... 279
Maras-Tha, the Heir of House Tha.......................... 190 Madaeker’s Promise.................................................. 279
The Trade Family Bahaot......................................... 194 Nyarlathotep’s Defeat and What Comes After.......281
Chapter Ten: Ilek-Vad............................................ 196 Appendix A: New Spells......................................... 282
Fellow Travelers........................................................ 198 Appendix B: Prisoners of
Arram, Cat Apostate................................................ 200 the Ebony Temple...................................................288
The House Dreary.....................................................202 Index............................................................................. 293
4
Foreword
There is nothing more satisfying, I think, than to write for a
pre-established cause—to create something that you know will find
its way to the hands (and eyes) of those who really, sincerely wish
to read it. Strike that. Perhaps there is something more satisfying:
knowing that the work will live on, on the gaming tables of those
readers—where the ideas will leap to life amidst dice, pencils, papers,
laughter and fun. The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man represents some-
thing special: a perfect confluence of want and willingness.
Roleplaying games and the books written for them are not private
things. They encourage people to pull them apart, to spread them
about, to share them, to fight over and through them. The words I
wrote here will gain a second life. Not only did fans of my work turn
out in record numbers to support the product, they will now take the
work and make it their own in a thousand gaming rooms around the
world.
I’d like to take a moment to thank those who contributed to the
Kickstarter project that funded this work and those who convinced
me to put The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man up on the service in the
first place.
I’d like to thank Adam Crossingham, who saved this project from
the doom of the ever-present and voracious WORK IN PROGRESS
folder. And I’d like to thank Greg Stolze for showing nearly every-
one the way in the fan-funding movement of the last decade. Don’t
believe anyone else who attempts to take credit for this. Greg—and
Greg alone—led the way.
I hope all who contributed find the work contained in this book as
satisfying as I found it to create and run it for my own group. If you
have stories to share, please email them on to me at dennis.detwiller@
me.com. I’d love to hear them. Finally, please follow me on Twitter
@drgonzo123 and check out my ever-expanding body of work (art,
roleplaying and writing) at www.detwillerdesign.com.
Dennis Detwiller
November 2012
5
Special Thanks
This book exists thanks to the amazing support of these backers of its
Kickstarter campaign. Thank you all.
Adam Neal Dalton Granja

R Thomas Allwin Dashjperiod Chris Green
Omar Amador Ian Davidson Josh Gregal
Anderland DaveL Chris Gunning
Jesper Anderson Steve Dempsey Judy Haber
Martin Andersson Tyler Dion Breon Halling
Raymond D. Arrastia Dominik Douville- Ville Halonen
David Bagdan Bélange Dan Harms
Roland Bahr Bill Drover Larry Hassenpflug
Candice Bailey Rodolphe Duhil Kukka Hautamäki
Randall Padilla Darin DuMez Morgan Hay
Barrantes Dumon Giles Hill
Andrew Baswell Vivienne Dunstan Hmackiernan
Nick Bate Jason Durall Jonathan Hsu
Robert Baxter Robert Dushay Drew Huntley
Michael Beck Dweller on the Richard Iorio II
Ben W Bell Threshold Glen Ivey
Thomas Beuleke Dysjunct David M Jacobs
JF Boivin Brett Easterbrook David Jenks
Michael Bowman Edchuk Martin Johnston
Rob Boyle Nick Edwards Jonathan Jones
Julian Breen Stephen Egolf Esa Kankaanpää
Han Bukulmez Otto von Eichbaum David Karoski
Christian Bull Stephen Joseph Ellis Ralph Kelleners
Chris Butler Dean Engelhardt Jussi Kenkkilä
Andrew Byers Mikael Engstrom Black Kestrel
Caelric Jamas Enright James King
Carl Pierre-Jean Espi Jim Kitchen
Carl-Niclas Doug Fales James Knevitt
Matthew Carpenter Fantomas John Kovalic
Juan Felipe Castillo David Farnell Bret Kramer
Michel Cayer Jules Fattorini Scott Krok
Ludovic Chabant Ben Ferguson Adam Krump
Chad John Fiala Victor Kuo
Ken Chang J. H. Frank Arseny Kuznetsov
Peter Chenery David R. Forsey Daniel Lackey
Nick Clift Jason Fritz Brian Lavelle
John Coates Tóth Csaba Gábor Ville Lavonius
Wayne Coburn Marshall Gatten Marc di Lazzaro
Jon Cohorn Sergio Silvio Herrera Symon Leech
Colin Gea Kris Leeke
Sam Condon Claes Gerleman Olivier LeFebvre
Contesse Eric Gillespie Christian Lehmann
Galahad de Corbenic Patrick Gingrich Nathan Lewis
David Corrie Scott Glancy Daniel Ley
Adam Crossingham Patricio Gonzaga Robert Lint
John D Duran Goodyear Matthew H. Lipparelli
Thomas Dahmen Diego D’Oliveira Henry Lopez
6
Special Thanks
Lukulius Pwmiller74 Frank Troise

HP Lustcraft Dane Ralston-Bryce Brian Trosko
Paul Maclean Frédérik Rating Mark Tudor-Williams
Adrian Maddocks John F Rauchert Justin Unrau
Roberto Mandrioli Denis Regenbrecht James Van Horn
David March Revnye Aaron Vanek
Emma Marlow Reza H. Alexander
Ilias Mastrogiorgos Mark Richardson Velásquez García
Andreas Melhorn Peter Risby Steven Vest
Patrice Mermoud Philip C. Robinson Jori Virtanen
Jason Mical Stephen Robinson Dirk Walls
Nick Middleton Stewart Robertson Phil Ward
Darren Miguez David Rodemaker Dr Rachel Mizsei Ward
Todd Miller Bryan Rombough Warren
William David Miller Michael Ross Matthew Wasiak
Gary “Sneezy the Matthew Ruane Benjamin Wenham
Squid” Mitchel Steve Rubin Weirdocollector
M. Sean Molley Runeslinger Petri Wessman
Filthy Monkey Andrew Salmons Sean Whittaker
Dom Mooney Matthew Sanderson Barac Baker Wiley
Ryan Moore Rowdy Scarlett Charles Wilkins
Steve Mumford Jakob Schilling Benjamin Williams
Brian Murphy Anthony Schocke Daniel Williams
Mythago Andrew Schubert Jason Williams
Gary McBride Thorsten Schubert Russell Williams
Jed McClure Juhani Seppälä Jonathan Wilson
Calum McDonald Robert Shankly WiNG
Matthew Mcdonnell Patrick Sheehan JoAnna Wioskowski
Matt M McElroy Christopher Sheldahl Dan Wood
Ben McFarland Shoggothic Sid Wood
Nachtflug Nikodemus Siivola Jason Wright
Naël Adam Silva-Miramon Arthur Wyatt
Rick Neal Sean Silva-Miramon James M. Yager
David Nichol Robert Simon Jeremy Zimmerman
Andrew Nicholson Skook
Christian Nord Skrymir
Tristan Oberon Michael Smith
Owlglass Dave Sokolowski
Lisa Padol Tuomas Sorto
PallidSign Daniel Stack
Robert J. Parker John R. Stanfield II
Ross Payton Dr Gesine Stanienda
Luke Pendo Richard Starr
Stuntlau Perez William Stowers
K Peterson Paul Sudlow
Kristian Petersen Laszlo Szidonya
Shane Phillips Craig T.
Rob Pinkerton Tamoline
Matthew Plank Tannjew
Pookie Temoore
Ed Possing Yukihiro Terada
Jon Potter Tony Toon
KJ Potter Nick Townsend
Graeme Price James Traino
7
Chapter One
Character Creation - Overview - Two Alike In the Make of the Mind
“Profound poetry of the poor and of the dead,

As in the last drop of the deepest blood,
As it falls from the heart and lies there to be seen”
—Wallace Stevens, “To an Old Philosopher in Rome”
The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man is a campaign set in the Dream-

lands for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. The player characters
share a singular past, although they do not know one another, and a
singular fate, although they are not sure what that fate may be. These
adventures span from 1925 New York to the many realms of the
Dreamlands, where time has no place.
Character Creation
In this series of scenarios, the creativity of the players and the
Keeper is put to the test. Each player takes the role of two characters,
one on Earth and one in the Dreamlands—two characters that share
one mind.
The players create their 1925 Earthly characters normally, with
the exception that they all must be addicted to opium. See “Gifted
but Damaged,” page 10, for guidelines and suggestions to customize
Investigators for this campaign.
Keepers, be certain to make the players detail these characters
lavishly. Make it clear that every detail matters: the character’s back-
story, hopes, dreams, fears, loved ones, and especially what factors
keep them coming back helplessly to their drug. If they have no idea
what’s coming, it’s best to keep the nature of the adventure a secret.
After all, it will be far more startling and shocking if the players don’t
8
Chapter One: Character Creation
know they will be playing in the Dreamlands.

The Keeper creates the attributes for players’ Dreamlands sur-
rogate bodies separately. Their POW, INT and EDU scores—and
all related values such as the Idea, Know and Luck rolls—remain
constant between both characters. Skills too carry over to the
Dreamlands. Other statistics must be created from scratch. Some
sample Dreamlands character bodies are presented in “New World,
New Bodies” on page 28. This odd arrangement will provide both the
players and Keeper with a new and exciting experience.
Through the use of a special drug on Earth, the characters’ minds
and knowledge are moved to other bodies in the Dreamlands, from
which the previous soul has been removed. See “Chapter Three: Life
in a Dream” on page 21 for details.
In this campaign we refer to the player characters, whether wan-
dering the land of dreams or scrabbling for opium in New York, as
Dreamers.
9
Gifted But An Overview

Damaged New York is a city of vices. The year is 1925 and it is the height of
The player characters
Prohibition, but the flow of drugs and liquor continues unhindered
in this campaign are
gifted but damaged in through dark corridors in darker hands. For the few who can afford
ways that bring them,
it, opium is the drug of choice. Very few can afford it for very long.
in particular, into the
campaign. To reflect this, The Dreamers, who do not know each other, have fallen behind on
adjust character creation as
their payments to their supplier of opiates, Mr. Lao. He has shown
follows.
his displeasure with polite threats and now offers demonstrations of
Add +3 to each player
what his men, the Tongs, will do if he does not receive his money.
character’s POW (up to a
maximum of 18). These demonstrations involve swords.
Dragged towards what each character is sure will be his or her
Their SAN scores start at
POW x 4 rather than POW turn under the blades, they instead find themselves face to face with
x 5.
each other and Mr. Lao. Lao offers them a last smoke, a type of
Each begins play with opium he calls bywandine, before his men complete their task.
addiction to opium,
The drug is smoked, and as they pass into the haze, prepared now
morphine or heroin as an
indefinite insanity. for knives and blood and death on a wave of opium, the Dreamers
realize they are somewhere else . . . that they are someone else.
Each player character
also begins with bonus In truth, Mr. Lao is a trader of much more than drugs in the empty
skill points related to the
world of Earth. He trades in Kadath, in Celephais, in Lhosk, in Leng.
factors that contributed
to the addiction. (And as He trades souls.
it happens, these skills
Mr. Lao is a rarity. It is unusual to know oneself in both the wak-
may prove useful in the
Dreamlands.) For each, ing and sleeping worlds. But Lao was born in Leng, conterminous
choose an entry below or
on both Earth and the Dreamlands. He has used this talent to his
roll 1D6.
advantage, teaching skills to his dream twin and vice versa. They
(Continued.)
have known each other in dreams for many years, Mr. Lao and Sa’n
Seith, his Dreamlands counterpart. They have talked often with one
another. They have struck bargains.
When Mr. Lao discovers a person of powerful spirit—a character
with a high Power stat—or when one has aroused his displeasure,
he sends him or her to Sa’n Seith, using the mixture of herbs called
bywandine. This exceedingly intricate mixture of rare plants, some of
which grow on the plains near Leng, takes many months to prepare.
10
Chapter One: Character Creation
He has yet to perfect the process. Mixed properly, it causes the

1. You needed the drug
imbiber to shift physically from one realm to another, either from to cope with the pain of
wounds and/or shell shock
Earth to the Dreamlands or vice versa.
suffered in the Great War.
A fresh human is of great value in the Dreamlands. Add +10 percentiles each
to First Aid and Bayonet
Sa’n Seith is a Man from Leng, a hunched and pockmarked satyr
if you were a foot soldier,
who serves the faceless monstrosities from the dark side of the moon, to Swim and Boating if
you were a sailor, or to
the moon-beasts. Long ago, the powerful moon-beasts subjugated the
Navigate and Spot Hidden
Men from Leng, and that race lives now only to serve them. Seith if you were an infantry
officer, a navy officer or a
provides fresh humans of powerful soul, and in exchange, as they
pilot.
have done for eons, the faceless ones produce the rare blood gems. It
2. You needed the drug
is unknown where they come from; even the Men from Leng have no
to cope with the pain and
idea. These gems are sought-after prizes in the realms of the Dream- terror of a terrible accident.
Add +10 percentiles each to
lands. Their value is immense.
Dodge and Listen.
In truth, the moon-beasts do not mine the gems from secret places
3-4. You needed the drug
on the moon. They torture them from the humans provided by the
to cope with the stress of
Men from Leng. The gems are the souls of these victims, ripped free the impossible demands
of work and/or family.
by magics just short of death, souls traded with and bought and sold
Add +10 percentiles each
every day. either to Accounting and
Bargain or to Persuade and
Mr. Lao is to send the Dreamers over to the Dreamlands city of
Psychology.
Sarkomand, where they will be transported to the dark side of the
5. You needed the drug to
moon and the cities of the moon-beasts for Sa’n Seith. In the past,
escape the flashy, shallow,
his mix of bywandine has taken many days to work, slowly erasing the desperately careless
excesses of the modern
imbiber from the Earth and re-coalescing them in physical form in
age. Add +10 percentiles
the Dreamlands. each to Art (choose which
art form) and Fast Talk.
But the last of Lao’s bywandine was imperfectly mixed. Instead of a
gradual physical shift, the bywandine causes only the character’s mind 6. After reading too deeply
in a translation of the
to be flung over to the Dreamlands, his or her soul instantly disap-
dreaded Necronomicon,
pearing from Earth, disintegrating the earthly physical form with you needed the drug to
make peace with your
it. The spirit inhabits the first and nearest form in the Dreamlands
despair of finding meaning
found without consciousness, the discarded bodies of soulless prison- in a hopeless world. Add
+10 percentiles each to
ers, their essence squeezed free into the blood gems.
Cthulhu Mythos and
Library Use.
11
The Central Conflict

Part of the conflict in The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man is a
struggle to return the Dreamers to Earth. But the deeper conflict of
the campaign is between the Dreamers and Nyarlathotep, the trick-
ster god. Many elements of the campaign—such as Mr. Lao, the Men
from Leng and the monsters of the Dreamlands—serve this god’s
dark purposes, whether they know it or not. The reasons for this
conflict with Nyarlathotep are never clear. The Dreamers may sense
only that they are some sort of prize to be “won” by Nyarlathotep.
Their escape, happiness and victory are somehow anathema to the
messenger of the Old Ones.
This conflict plays out on many levels, and it is up to the Keeper to
properly portray the depth of the struggle. Though many examples
and suggestions are sprinkled throughout the campaign, it remains
ultimately up to the Keeper to maintain that drama, fear and horror
throughout gameplay. Dreams, portents and visions may haunt the
Dreamers, showing the Black Pharaoh watching their progress. Con-
frontations with a Black Man on the road or in a dream may foretell
some doom. Sa’n Seith may speak of a portent. Mr. Lao may mention
it before they are cast into the ruins of Sarkomand. But as a game
element, it should always be given in hints to add some of the depth,
gravitas and cosmic significance found in such works as The Dream-
Quest of Unknown Kadath and “Through the Gates of the Silver Key.”
12
Chapter Two
The Tongs - Mr. Lao - Bywandine - Came The Attendant Byzantines
“Beauty is momentary in the mind—

The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.”
—Wallace Stevens, “Peter Quince at the Clavier”
The Tongs’ threats have gone unanswered, the Dreamers’ debts

have remained, and Lao has grown impatient. The Dreamers have
been watched and their schedules have been noted. When Lao feels it
is time, they are all brought in.
At Lao’s leisure, a gang of 10 Tongs show up out of the blue to
each Dreamer’s place of employment, home, or favorite speakeasy
and drag him or her out into the street. If the Dreamer resists the
Tongs manhandle the character, grabbing arms and legs and mov-
ing rapidly towards the waiting cars. No matter how much of a
disturbance the Dreamer makes, no one does anything. Not even the
police. The Tongs are a wealthy gang.
The leader, Tsing, encourages the Dreamers to come along quietly.
If they cooperate, they remain surrounded at all times by gang mem-
bers but are not openly threatened. Escape attempts incur beatings,
and the gang pursues escapees to the death if necessary. Persistently
foolish characters may get themselves seriously injured or killed
before the campaign has begun.
The Tongs’ method of transport is two beat-up 1921 Packard Twin
6’s, into which the Dreamers are ushered if they are smart.
During the drive, if asked, the Tongs simply state that Mr. Lao
has invited the Dreamers to dinner. No other answers can be gleaned
from the Tongs no matter the method of inquiry.
13
The Tongs
No. Str Con Siz Int Pow Dex App Edu DB HP
#1 9 13 12 10 10 15 10 5 – 13
#2 11 11 9 12 9 14 11 7 – 10
#3* 18 10 12 9 10 12 10 7 1D4 11
#4* 10 12 11 12 11 12 10 5 – 12
#5 11 10 13 13 10 11 12 7 – 12
#6 13 15 10 11 13 11 16 8 – 13
#7 17 10 15 11 11 11 9 9 1D4 13
#8 10 9 9 9 11 11 11 5 – 9
#9* 11 12 13 10 11 10 8 7 – 13
#10* 9 15 11 17 12 9 10 5 – 13
Skills: Dodge (DEX x 2) + 10%, Hide 35%. Languages: Mandarin

(Own) 55%, English 23%.
Attacks: Punch 65%, damage 1D3+db
Dagger 48%, damage 1D4+2+db
#3, 4, 9 and 10 only: .38 revolver 25%, damage 1D10 (6 shots)
The Peach Blossom

Restaurant
This establishment is located in Manhattan’s Chinatown, sur-
rounded by Italian, Chinese and Polish immigrants. The restaurant
does no business except the illicit dealings of Mr. Lao.
14
Chapter Two: Mr. Lao
The Tongs—Lao’s servants—control the block, Delancey Street,

and patrol it regularly in roving packs. Dozens of Tongs lounge in
front of the restaurant, playing dice or listening to scratchy records
on a bright red phonograph, glaring at passersby. A number of them
openly display swords and knives and pistols with indifference.
15
Lao won the Peach Blossom Restaurant in a turf war with the
Cho Sai gang in 1920. Its original owner is now a permanent fixture
on the bottom of the Hudson River. His surviving men are now Mr.
Lao’s Tongs.
Since that time, the restaurant has been Mr. Lao’s place of busi-
ness. In a somewhat unusual arrangement, Lao himself oversees the
sale of drugs from the establishment. He usually only makes the first
sale to a new customer.
With his formidable library of spells, Lao can tell many things
about a person by magical observation. If a customer is of strong soul
(i.e., a high POW statistic), Lao continues to sell the drugs in person.
He maintains a list of these people, and extensive files on them, in
case he is called upon to send them to Sarkomand to serve his moon-
beast masters.
The Dreamers know the restaurant and neighborhood well. They
went there many times to buy opium from Lao before their money
dried up.
It is a dingy, poorly kept front. Inside is a classic Chinese restau-
rant, done up in old red velvet and gaudy gold paint, with tattered
paintings and rotting felt tabletops. Everything in it is covered in a
fine layer of dust.
Only the former kitchen and back rooms are kept in an orderly
state. The kitchen is used to process the raw poppy bulbs into opium
paste, and 24 hours a day several men and women grind up the seeds
with mortar and pestle. The new poppies lay in wet wood crates
covering a wall, three deep.
The office is Mr. Lao’s domain. It is incredibly lavish, with fine
rugs, large sitting pillows and silk hangings. A large silver and gold
water pipe with seven stems is mounted in a finely cut rosewood
table at the room’s center. A small alcove to the rear conceals a small,
plain wood desk, chair and file-cabinets. The windows have all been
bricked over except for narrow, shuttered slits.
The Dreamers are led together to the office to meet with Mr. Lao,
perhaps for the last time.
16
The Secrets of Lao’s Texts

The Dreamers do not have
Mr. Lao’s Office time to study Lao’s books

in depth, and Instruction is
in a language none of them
Hidden among the many exotic objects in Mr. Lao’s office are
yet know. But by thumbing
several more esoteric items from the Dreamlands. Some of these are through pages they can see
references to names and
Earthly tomes which deal with the fantastic world of dreams. Others
places that will let them
have been transported physically through Dreamland gates to the make sense of the journey
to come. In Reflections,
waking world by ghouls in exchange for magical services. Still others
they see a passage on a
have been dictated to Lao in dream by his counterpart, Sa’n Seith, drug called bywandine that,
when smoked, transports
and have been meticulously recorded in files and folios too numerous
the soul to another realm.
to document. And even in Instruction
they might see a passage
On the plain wood desk in the alcove are two books, Reflections
in alien script circled by a
Upon the Other World and The Instruction of Tlane. modern pen with the word
“Sarkomand” scrawled in a
margin.
Reflections Upon the Other World
“And yet within endless ecstasies I did begin to spy a pattern, a form of a
world more complex and colourful than any I had known before. I longed to
be there at any cost.”
In English. +2% Cthulhu Mythos. –1/1D4+2 SAN. Study time: 5

weeks. Skill check: Pharmacy. Spells: Create Bywandine, Transcen-
dental Mind, The Measure of the Soul.
Contents and Description: This book was published in a limited
run for a theosophical society known as the Order of the Travel-
ler, which led a short but popular existence in 1890s London. The
group’s leader and the book’s author was Arthur Emery Smyth, a
failed poet and drunk, who late in life became involved in mysticism
and drugs.
Beginning with a small congregation of many “upstanding” people,
Smyth snowballed his organization into one of the more lucrative
theosophical societies in London by 1899. Due in part to his magnetic
personality and his ability with the written word, Smyth rebuffed
attempts to discredit him, invited members of the press to participate
in “rituals,” and drew more members, totaling 120 before an incident
17
in 1899. Smyth managed to proselytize several members of the press

during a period when it was popular in the news to discredit medi-
ums and false prophets.
This book details Smyth’s “discovery” of the World of Dreams,
called by him the “World of Fancy,” which was made possible by a
special mixture of an opium drug called bywandine. The method of
mixing the drug was given to him by an Indian fakir in Bombay.
With this drug one could travel for a time to the World of Fancy,
but only mentally, leaving a sleeping form behind on Earth. It warns,
however, that an improper mixture will cause deviations. What they
might be are not mentioned.
This limited travel was incidental, Smyth believed, to a true spiri-
tual transfer to the other realm, which he claims to have perfected
with a stronger version of bywandine. This new mixture of the bywan-
dine drug causes a permanent transfer of mind and body to the other
realm. For this, many varying and exceedingly rare chemicals and
plants were required, some found only in the realm of dreams.
The book also details the city in the Dreamlands which Smyth
frequented, Celephais, where he spent unmeasured time composing
poetry and enjoying the haunting beauty of the city in which none
may age.
18
(In fact he may still be found there along with all 120 members of
the Order of the Traveller. They all disappeared from Earth in 1899
after imbibing the new form of the more potent bywandine.)
The Instruction of Tlane
“The abilities of those beyond, the Gods we consider immeasurable and

immutable, are a careful interplay of powers we perceive as such simply
because we cannot comprehend the vast and true glory of the universe.”
In Oeuth. +4% Cthulhu Mythos. –1/1D6 SAN. Study Time: 10

Weeks. Skill check: Other Language (Oeuth). Spells: Eye of True
Sight, Endless Rhyme, The Flutes of Nar-Haal, Word of Doubt,
Morhalas’ Gate.
Contents and Description: An ancient and battered folio, this
tome is written in a language not native to Earth and will stump
even the best Earthly linguist. Its characters are tiny interconnected
symbols, reminiscent of both Sanskrit and Chinese. In actuality it
is the language Oeuth, that of the Men from Leng. The paper is a
bizarre animal skin not identifiable by Earthly science. If found by
the authorities, this tome may become the next Voynich Manuscript.
This book predates Earth itself, and is the grimoire of one of the
greatest enchanters of his time, Tlane of Sarkomand. This wizard
perished thousands of years before Sarkomand fell to the moon-
beasts. His grimoire passed through the hands of the powerful of his
dwindling race until it finally fell to Sa’n Seith, a limited but adept
sorcerer. He in turn gave it to his Earthly counterpart Lao to study.
Most of the spells contained within the book are coded and have
yet to be deciphered. So far only 5 out of the 30 or more spells known
to be contained in the book are understood.
The successfully deciphered spells each have notations in the mar-
gins giving the proper translation method (into Oeuth, not English).
The others, although covered in hand-written notes, offer no such
solutions.
19
A Final Smoke
Mr. Lao, polite to a fault, asks the Dreamers to sit around the rose-
wood table. With a faint smile, he recommends that they get to know
each other well, as they will be spending a length of time together.
With this cryptic comment he excuses himself into the alcove.
Any Dreamer attempting to observe what Lao does in the alcove
behind the silks may make a Spot Hidden roll at half chance, or a
Sneak roll if the Dreamer wishes to inch toward the alcove despite
the guards. If either succeeds, Lao is seen to remove a key from the
base of a small doll. With it he opens a locked drawer on the desk.
From that he removes a small teak box.
If a Dreamer is caught in the act of spying, Lao smiles and says,
“Keeping eyes to oneself can become doubly difficult with such
behavior.” He goes on to say many Medici courtiers ended up having
their eyes put out due to their overly curious nature.
Lao carefully opens the teak box and removes a packet of dried
yellowish powder. Anyone making a Spot Hidden roll notices that the
powder is different than powdered opium: the coloring is slightly off.
If asked, Lao explains that it is a special opiate called bywandine,
and that it comes from his homeland of Leng in the Far East.
After igniting the burner, Lao invites the Dreamers to smoke. He
confesses that even in his restaurant they cannot allow screaming.
Dreamers that refuse find themselves at gunpoint. Lao produces a
silver automatic from the folds of his robe.
“Indulge yourselves. I insist.”
Anyone refusing further is hauled to the kitchen, tied down on a
butcher’s table and injected painfully in the thigh with a bywandine
solution. As the drug takes effect, the obstinate Dreamer is returned
to Lao’s office.
Chapter Three
Life In a Dream - Healing - Sanity - Like a New Knowledge of Reality
“It was not from the vast ventriloquism

Of sleep’s faded papier-mâché . . .
The sun was coming from the outside.”
—Wallace Stevens, “Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself”
Previous Call of Cthulhu game supplements have done their best to

outline the world of dream and to provide rules to handle the “dream-
ing” skill: the power to change the reality of the Dreamlands by will
alone. Find a copy of H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands—it will go a long way
to supplementing the ideas presented in this chapter.
However, we suggest that Keepers of this campaign DO NOT per-
mit the use of the previous rules for “dreaming.”
The reasons are twofold. This campaign is about surprise and the
lack of control. Once the players establish a stable, reliable footing
in the world of Dreams, it ceases to be the world of Dreams and
becomes yet another game system to exploit or abuse. When a player
can predict with certainty the outcome of an action, it ceases being
fun.
To this end, ignore the first section of H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands
(“Entering the Dreamlands”) and instead utilize the rules that follow.
Life In a Dream
The world of dreams, known as the Dreamlands to those with
esoteric knowledge, is like a reflection of the minds of those who
occupy the waking world of Earth—and hundreds of other worlds.
As those in the waking world of Earth sleep, their alter egos populate
the Dreamlands, and vice versa. Most denizens of Earth have no
recollection of these nightly jaunts, but some Dreamers consciously
enter the realms of the Dreamlands by choice. Some creatures and
beings, however, exist solely in the Dreamlands or transition there
when their earthly forms perish.
21
Life in the Dreamlands is unusual. Though the basics of existence

on Earth are mimicked, characters set loose in the dream realms
quickly find that there are no hard and fast rules; even constants
like the basic physical laws on Earth often have no exact application
in the Dreamlands. Water can run uphill. Time can stop. Inanimate
objects can come to life.
Unlike Earth, the Dreamlands’ reality is predicated on belief and
the strength of that belief. Nearly anything is possible. Although
some ideas remain rock-solid (such as, say, the existence of a city
named Sarkomand) others come and go as dreamers exert their will.
The smaller and less significant the change, and the stronger the
power of the believer, the more likely a change will take place.
The most powerful dreamers are like gods of limited power and
scope, people who can simply wish events to occur. However, this
ability is not intrinsic to the denizens of the Dreamlands; some have
it, most don’t.
Magic in the Dreamlands—as readily accepted there as science is
in our world—represents a way to exploit the loopholes and powers
of pre-existing belief upon the world of the Dreamlands: a kind of
shortcut to godlike power. But of course, it has a price.
The Dreamlands have a quality of life all their own. The regular
pace of Earthly existence does not apply. Instead, the focus of atten-
tion and will warps and changes perception, time, needs and other
things that would be constants on Earth. For example, people sleep
and eat in the Dreamlands, as they do on Earth, but one might go
days, weeks or years without food and never starve to death. Simi-
larly, if a task consumed the will of a being utterly, he or she might go
indefinitely without sleep. If the quest is engrossing enough to divert
the dreamer’s mind away from the usual mundane necessities (eating,
sleeping) it’s common for such needs to simply be put on hold.
Perception and Direction

The very nature of the world of dreams is change. Things are
always subtly changing around the Dreamers. For example, a
Dreamer might look away from an empty-handed statue of a satyr
for a moment and look back to find it holding a flute. These changes
22
Chapter Three: Life In a Dream
are subtle and seamless, and always seem to occur when a Dreamer
is not looking. The Keeper can do much to keep the players guessing Notches
The key to Directed
when such changes occur.
Dreaming is for Dreamers
Only when the players themselves bring these changes up to the to accumulate “Notches.”
The Dreamers get Notches
Keeper do things become interesting. Perception is the key—Dream-
only in moments when
ers that simply plod onward without paying attention (or who pay their players say that
they notice the unreal
attention but don’t question the Keeper about it) gain nothing from
dreaminess of the world
such shifts. Those who notice and comment, however, have taken a around them—the subtle
changes that occur when
step towards becoming a Directed Dreamer—one who can manipu-
their characters aren’t
late the world of dreams in subtle ways. looking. That cannot
happen unless you, the
Of course, this should never be told to the players.
Keeper, make it happen.
Keep a tally of remarks by each player that indicate the player is
First, you must remember
noticing the changes. (“Wait, I thought you said the door was on the
to frequently add those
left side of the cavern.”) Each of these “perceptions” grants the player subtle changes to your
descriptions. In every scene
a “Notch” which the Keeper holds in secret. The players should never
include details of shape,
know such a thing exists. color, smell, and feel to
evoke atmosphere. Then
These Notches represent each Dreamer’s growing ability to exist
mention a detail again—
and work his or her will within the odd reality of the Dreamlands. but inexplicably changed.
When the players

Changing Things acknowledge those
changes, you must
Players who pay attention can eventually learn what is required to
remember to keep a
change small things themselves in the Dreamlands. However, there running tally of Notches
for each of them.
are some hurdles to overcome.
First of all, talking in detail (in character) to one another about the Sometimes the players
won’t pick up on a change.
possibility of making these changes dilutes the experience. If Dream-
Sometimes they may pick
ers plan together for making such a change, each involved loses one up on it without saying
so. If you can tell by body
“Notch.” Dreams are personal experiences—even shared dreams.
language and expression
They lose their magic when subjected to multiple points of view. that a player has observed
some change in reality,
Secondly, Directed Dreaming never leads to an exactly directed
you may want to award a
outcome. A Dreamer wishing for rescue from an island might sud- Notch even if the player
says nothing out loud.
denly find himself in the hold of a slave ship as fresh stock. One
wishing for fresh water in the desert may find himself suddenly Stay alert for opportunities
to inclue subtle changes to
washed away in a flood. The world of dreams has its own desires,
the reality through which
needs and will. These “Notches” might give the Dreamer a leg up, the Dreamers move, and
for every moment when a
but they can be a double-edged sword.
player catches you doing it.
A Dreamer with Notches may attempt Directed Dreaming.
23
Directed Dreaming
An Example Directed Dreaming is the act of willing something—usually a
Chet Ridgely hopes to
small, singular change—to occur in the Dreamlands. The Notches
bend the world of the
Dreamlands to his will gained by players recognizing changes in the Dreamlands fuel this
by finding a sword. He
ability. Since the player never learns that Notches exist, attempting
imagines a jewel-encrusted
scimitar. Unknown to him, to direct the reality of the Dreamlands is always an act of faith.
Chet has 3 Notches gained
The deeper the Dreamers travel into the Dreamlands, the more
from observant game play.
the possibility of exerting such a change should grow in their minds.
The scimitar is a Substantial
The Keeper should never confirm that such an outcome is possible.
outcome (+1 Notch) on
top of the base cost of 1 Instead, the player should arrive at this conclusion and experiment
Notch, for a total cost of
with it. With a limited number of Notches as fuel (remember, the
2 Notches. Chet’s POW is
12. The Keeper rolls against players should have no idea how many Notches exist—or even that
POW x 5 to see if Chet
they exist at all), such Directed Dreaming is likewise limited.
succeeds—a 60% chance.
When a player announces that a Dreamer hopes to change reality
The Keeper rolls 16,
in some way, it requires a POW roll. If it succeeds, it uses up Notch-
succeeding. But to
maintain mystery, he es. The minimum cost is always 1 Notch. The Keeper rolls against the
strings Chet along. After
POW of the Dreamer, keeping the results secret. A player with no
several fruitless minutes of
searching his surroundings, Notches can attempt a change but nothing happens.
Chet becomes frustrated
The cost and difficulty depend on the degree of change. Cosmetic
and sits down on a rotted
log. The log collapses, changes are easy but at very large scale might be costly. Here are
revealing the skeletal
guidelines. The final difficulty, and whether a roll is even required, is
remains of a long-dead
warrior inside, clutching always up to the Keeper.
the scimitar of Chet’s
dreams.
Type of Directed Dreaming Change Cost POW Roll
Base (and minimum) cost 1 Notch n/a
Is the outcome cosmetic? (Appearance, –1 Notch POW x 8
clothing, etc.)
Is the change personal? (Something –1 Notch POW x 7
which matters only to the Dreamer.)
Is the outcome substantial? (Some +1 Notch POW x 5
physical gain, money, property,
weapons, etc.)
Is the change something large? (Bigger +2 Notches POW x 3
than the character himself or herself.)
Is the change something vast? (Bigger +5 Notches POW x 2
than a mansion.)
Is the outcome of the change a matter All Notches POW x 4
of life or death?
24
Injury, Sickness
and Death
Injury, sickness and death in the Dreamlands bear a fundamental
resemblance to their counterparts on Earth. But in the Dreamlands,
death and disfigurement are preventable, even permanently avoid-
able.
In addition to normal healing per the Call of Cthulhu rules, injured
Dreamers can “recover” hit points by spending Magic Points. Each
magic point spent heals one hit point of damage. This ability is
natural to all inhabitants of the Dreamlands, and all Dreamers have
an intrinsic sense that such healing is possible. Still, it is amazing to
see in action, particularly to those from Earth. Even disfiguring or
crippling injuries can be restored by faith that they are not real. Each
Dreamer suffers a SAN loss of 1/1D4 the first time he or she sees
more than 4 HP healed in this way.
Disease and poison are more difficult to change, but can still be
affected. Spending 1 magic point reduces the Potency (POT) of the
disease or poison by 1.
Death in the Dreamlands is unusual. Certain beings are effectively
immortal. Others live the equivalent of centuries of Earth time. For
many it is a place where time means nothing.
The player-character Dreamers are unusually vulnerable. Most
Dreamers of Earth come to the Dreamlands only in spirit, leaving
their bodies waiting for them safely on Earth. Not so for the player
characters. Their living bodies have been brought to the Dreamlands
and transformed. If they die here, they die altogether.
Chances are the player characters will search for a route back to
Earth, where their families and lives await—flawed lives, but their
own. Those who head upon the dangerous and mystery-laden path to
immortality in the Dreamlands must look elsewhere than this cam-
paign to find their direction.
25
Sanity
In the world of Dreams, Sanity is more resilient and change-
able than in the real world. At the beginning of each new day in the
Dreamlands—or each equivalent transition, in times when the pas-
sage of days is impossible to track—each Dreamer may make a San-
ity roll. If it succeeds, the Dreamer regains 1D4–1 SAN. If the roll
fails, the score does not change. Dreamers can go up to their starting
Sanity (POW x 5) in this manner.
Dreamers may also gain SAN for defeating monsters, as described
in the Call of Cthulhu rules.
Luck
In the Dreamlands, the tide can turn in an instant for the worse or
for the better. When a group of Dreamers faces some peril or change
of fortunes we may call for a group Luck roll. This determines the
outcome of some binary element: whether or not a cave-in lands on
the characters, or a book of ancient spells crumbles to dust.
Find the character with the lowest Luck score and roll against that
score in secret. If it succeeds the outcome is positive; if it fails the
group suffers the consequences.
Addiction
In the Dreamlands, the Dreamers do not suffer from physical
addiction to opiates but the psychological addiction remains. This can
come up whenever you want to use it as a motivator. If they settle
in and refuse to seek a way home, the need begins to set in. The one
thing they can never find in the Dreamlands, even if someone tells
them it exists, is a drug that will satisfy that need. Once the need sets
in, a Dreamer suffers penalties of 10% to 30% to all rolls every day
until he or she sets out in search of a way home.
26
Languages Skill Checks

The Dreamers will be called
Alien languages never heard before on Earth are the common
upon to learn and use skills
parlance in many regions of the Dreamlands. However, thanks to that their waking selves
never had a reason to
the nightly visits of millions from Earth, in the main region of the
know. The Keeper should
Dreamlands, English is commonly spoken. allow them to improve
skills more frequently than
Or is it English? A native French speaker might swear everyone in
in the waking world.
the Dreamlands is speaking French. The key is that Earthly Dream-
Let the player note a skill
ers can speak to each other without the barrier of Earthly languages.
check any time a Dreamer
When you see “English” in this book, let it stand for whatever Earth- spends a significant
amount of time and effort
ly language you wish.
studying or practicing a
The common native tongues of the Dreamlands are listed below, skill; and any time the
Dreamer attempts a skill,
along with their region, and the races that speak them:
even if it fails, as long as
the attempt itself seemed
Language Description Written Race/Region
instructive.
Cum’Teha An Earthly-sounding Yes Human/Baharna
language; like a By the same token, allow
Polynesian tongue improvement rolls at the
Morga The language of No Ghouls, Gugs, Ghasts/ end of each chapter and
the Underworld, Underworld at transition points or
unspeakable by dramatic gaps that occur
humans during a chapter.
Oeuth A brutal, feral Yes The Men from Leng
The Keeper might allow
language of sharp
Dreamlands languages
consonants and barks
to come more easily
Pross An Earthly-sounding Yes (rare) Human/Ilek-Vad to Dreamers who have
language a little like mastered foreign Earth
Polish languages. For example,
Skand An Earthly- Yes Human/Inquanok a Dreamer with any skill
sounding language, in Other Language who
Scandinavian- studies a Dreamlands
sounding language intensively may
attempt a roll with his or
Talunen An Earthly-sounding Yes Human/Lhosk
her best Other Language
language, much like
skill, no matter what that
Spanish
Other Language is. If it
Ulet An earthly-sounding Yes Human/Ilarnek succeeds, the Dreamer
language like an gains a starting rating of
African tongue EDU + 1D10 percentiles in
the Dreamlands language.
He or she may increase it
from there as usual. What
qualifies as “intensive”
study is entirely up to the
Keeper.
27
Better Forms
Some Dreamers can
New World, New Bodies
When the Dreamers wake in the Dreamlands, their minds have
unconsciously shape their
new forms. Each player been transplanted into the soulless living cadavers of human slaves in
has a budget of bonus
the ruins of Sarkomand. Needless to say, the shock of such transfer-
points that can be added
to physical attributes: STR, ence will most likely be severe, especially if the new form is extreme-
CON, SIZ, DEX, and/or APP.
ly different from their native body.
These are dream bodies, so
the bonus points can raise Upon discovery of their predicament, each dreamer must make a
physical attributes higher
Sanity roll or lose 0/1 SAN. In the waking world the toll would be
than 18.
higher, but this is the land of dreams.
Powerful, simple minds
However, until the Dreamer becomes comfortable with his or her
have the most influence
over their dream-selves. new form, the roll must be made each time this new fact of life is
The bonus points equal
confronted (i.e., noticing increased or decreased physical strength,
POW x 2 minus the sum of
INT and EDU. For example, height or weight, or viewing a reflection of oneself in a mirror or pool
a Dreamer with POW 15,
of water.) Until this roll is made 3 times in a row successfully, the
INT 12 and EDU 13 would
have 30 (POW x 2) minus SAN loss continues.
25 (INT + EDU) or 5 bonus
Here are sample alternate bodies for the Dreamers. The players
points to add to the new
dream body’s STR, CON, may also roll up new stats from scratch.
SIZ, DEX, and/or APP.
Description Str Con Siz Dex App DB HP
Male, African, covered 11 4 12 11 7 – 8
in complex rectilinear
tattoos
Female, northern 8 15 11 6 16 – 13
caucasian, with crimson
eyes
Male, Asian, with 18 17 18 13 9 1D6 18
ritualistic piercings on
face and arms
Male, Polynesian, with 15 17 17 7 5 1D4 17
ritualistic scarring on
back and face
Female, Indian, with an 6 15 9 14 17 – 12
ornate and beautiful
butterfly tattoo across
her face
Male, Mediterranean 13 14 14 11 12 1D4 14
caucasian, with very
long hair
Male, caucasian, with 18 11 16 7 10 1D6 14
long-healed scars from
combat
28
The Transition
Now, back to the matter at hand. When the euphoria of the
bywandine begins, the Dreamers notice a strange distortion in their
sense of sight. Their peripheral vision is slowly disappearing, making
anywhere a Dreamer looks seem like a dim tunnel opening into the
world, which itself keeps getting smaller and smaller. The effect is
much like slowly, slowly falling down a well.
The door on Earth closes suddenly, shutting out all sight, leav-
ing the Dreamers in the void, each utterly alone, their bodies lost in
empty space. With the euphoria of the drug at work, the fall feels
delightful, leaving the Dreamers giddy.
As suddenly as everything disappeared, they find themselves
awake. Through closed eyelids they perceive bright light and the
pains of their new bodies.
They awaken in the ruins of Sarkomand.
29
Chapter Four
Sarkomand - The Collector - The Black Galleys -
A Postcard From The Volcano
“A dirty house in a gutted world,

A tatter of shadows peaked to white,
Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.”
—Wallace Stevens, “A Postcard From the Volcano”
Sarkomand
A truly ancient city, Sarkomand is older than humanity itself in
both realms. It fell to ruin long before man’s ancestors even began to
subsist in caves. It was constructed eons ago by the Men from Leng
and was a point of trade with many exotic races from beyond the
west.
It was once a beautiful port, with six sphinx-crowned gates that
have now mostly fallen to ruin. Still standing, however, in the center
of the ruined city are two huge lions sculpted of dark grey stone—
diorite, notoriously hard—that guard the entrance to the Under-
world, flanking the basalt steps that descend into absolute darkness.
Dozens of large buildings still stand, and hundreds of smaller ones,
although no one lives in them. The moon-beasts and the Men from
Leng make their home in the tunnels beneath Sarkomand.
Sarkomand fell to the moon-beasts and their magics in pre-history.
It is now used as a camp for their folly, and for their servants’ trade
with the outside societies of humans and the strange societies of the
Underworld.
The ruins are populated with a few moon-beasts and overrun with
Men from Leng. Human and alien slaves, although rare, are found
performing repetitive and disgusting tasks in service of their masters,
such as sorting and disposing of bodies, cleaning up moon-beast
defecate, or performing in battle to entertain the Men from Leng.
30
Humans with strong souls are taken in black ships to the cities of
the moon-beasts on the dark side of the moon, where their souls are
ripped from them in torment to create the blood gems. Those still
alive who suit the tastes of the moon-beasts are consumed; soul-
less bodies which disagree with the moon-beasts are brought back
to Sarkomand to be traded to the creatures of the Underworld for
exotic fungi and animals. This, notably, is the origin of the bodies the
Dreamers occupy.
31
Subtle Changes
Here are a few elements
Awakening
The Dreamers awaken to the smells of urine and feces, in bright
to describe and then subtly
change to allow players a sunlight. They are lying amidst a litter of human bodies. All are alive
chance to collect Notches
and breathing but still somehow wrong. The bodies’ eyes are blank
for Directed Dreaming.
and no expressions save stupefaction are to be seen. Most sit in
• The stark hue of bright
puddles of their own excrement.
sunlight.
Heaps of these still-breathing forms lie inert atop each other. Most
• Tattoos or jewelry on a
are naked; some are clad in ripped cloths or skins. Some show signs
particularly distinctive
body. of once possessing wealth: clean fingernails or an occasional ring
or necklace. Others are covered in scars and welts, some of them
• The phosphorescent
clouds of a northern quite recent. All show a peculiar mark on their backs (including the
night shining sickly.
Dreamers if they check). This odd wound is two small burns on the
• A crumbling satyr base of the back, each about an inch across.
statue.
It becomes immediately apparent that someone is moving among
the living cadavers, singing in a cracked and off-key voice in a wholly
foreign language. The voice occasionally breaks off its singing, only
to begin again after a small shuffling or fleshy noise.
The Collector, as he is known, is a hunched human slave who sorts
through the living cadavers before they are sent into the Under-
world. He collects jewelry or valuables from them, shaves the hair
from some for use in trade or the making of ropes, and occasionally
removes certain organs for spells, such as eyes, fingers or testicles
(0/1 SAN cost to witness). He is the servant of the Men from Leng,
who prefer the darkness of the tunnels beneath and dislike dealing
with the empty human vessels, which they cannot cajole or threaten.
On certain nights the Black Galleys come from the moon and
deliver living but comatose bodies to Sarkomand. The next day the
Collector sorts and sifts through the bodies in the hope of finding
something of value to turn over to his masters. That night they take
the bodies to the great plaza for delivery to the Underworld.
An absolute coward, the Collector is liable to run off at the first
sign of a disturbance. If captured by someone larger than him, he is
completely and pitifully subservient. He remains so until he spies a
chance for trickery or escape.
32
Chapter Four: Sarkomand
Key to the Map

1. The Collector
2. Wamp Lair
4 3. The Black Galleys
4. The Plaza
Sarkomand
Looking Around
Dreamers who wish to get a better view may climb on top of
rubble heaps or up the remnants of buildings. A Luck or Climb roll
(whichever is higher) must be made; if it fails, bad footing, structural
failure or clumsiness costs the character a spill for 1D4 HP damage.
At a sufficient height, the Dreamer can observe a large plaza to
the north, nestled among many ruined buildings. A Spot Hidden roll
spies occasional movement by shadowy, human-sized creatures in the
plaza. In the distance, huge mountains stretch off to the horizon.
To the south, ruined docks can be seen with many submerged
and half-submerged ancient ships, and past that the gray green of
the ocean. A Spot Hidden roll notices that several docks have been
restored. At those, several large black ships float.
It is obvious to anyone who takes sufficient time to examine their
surroundings that this is not Earth (SAN loss 0/1).
33
The Collector
The Collector is a short, fat, disfigured man with Asian features,
yellowed rotting teeth and a slight hump. Although his speed is unaf-
fected by his disfigurements, he walks and runs with a pronounced
limp on his right side. He is covered in rolls of fat. His forehead is
marked with the symbol of the Men from Leng.
He always wears rotting leather leggings, a cotton shirt and a large
furred cloak made from the skin of a Buopoth. He carries no weap-
ons, relying instead on his knowledge of Sarkomand to keep him
from danger. He speaks many languages including English, Talunen,
Oeuth, and Skand.
History: The Collector remembers little of his life before the age
of 16, when he was sold into slavery to the Men from Leng. He was Playing the
cast out of a family of some prominence in Lhosk and soon found Collector
The Collector is a
his way to the slave markets. The mysterious merchants from Lelag-
tremendous coward, but
Leng seized him and sent him across the seas in the fabled Black don’t have him flee too
quickly. He’s crucial to
Galleys. There, for the first time in his life, his deformities were an
conveying things that the
advantage. The moon-beasts found him too repugnant for food, and Dreamers need to know. If
he flees or dies too soon,
the Men from Leng treated him far more kindly than other slaves
watch for other ways to
due to their physical similarities—to them he was not as disgusting as convey the basics:
other humans. Instead of becoming a meal or a slave, he became an
• They are in Sarkomand,
interpreter. an ancient city of long-
forgotten glories.
The Collector learned many languages, and as a sign of favor has
recently been put to the task of sorting bodies unattended. • He serves the Men from
Leng, and they serve the
Goals: To escape any danger, and, if possible, to exact some sort of
moon-beasts. He holds
revenge on those he pitifully serves. them in terror deep enough
to guarantee his loyalty.
He will not depart unless
The Collector forced.
Sen Saot of the Family Bahaot, of Lhosk, Servant of the Men from Leng, age 41
• He is terrified of what his
STR 8 CON 10 SIZ 15 INT 14 POW 12 masters might do to him
if they think he awoke the
DEX 13 APP 5 EDU 10 SAN 35 HP 13
Dreamers. His masters will
Skills: Bargain 37%, Climb 49%, Conceal 62%, Fast Talk 51%, Hide stir at nightfall.
65%, Navigation 36%, Persuade 43%, Spot Hidden 52%, Track 38%.
• At the Plaza is a portal
Languages: Talunen (Own) 40%, English 39%, Oeuth 35%, Skand to the Underworld. The
Men from Leng and the
13%.
moon-beasts do not
Attacks: None of any consequence. venture there, but they
send comatose bodies to its
denizens in trade for exotic
What the Collector

fungi and foods.
• They are not on Earth,
Has to Say
but this realm is connected
to Earth at many points.
He has heard there is
The Collector is the key to exposition at the start of this campaign. one somewhere in the
Underworld. He does not
If at all possible he should be encountered for some length of time, in
know where others might
the hopes of giving the Dreamers a better idea of where they are and be—only that they are out
there, somewhere.
how they got there. This section is divided into general questions that
might be asked of the Collector, but the sum of his knowledge and
what he reveals is of course left up to the Keeper.
35
1) Where are we? How do we get back?

The Collector calls Sarkomand “the greatest city of this ancient
world,” and reveals only that he serves his masters as a collector of
items rightfully belonging to them. If asked at length about his mas-
ters, whom he calls “My Lords,” he points towards a statue of a satyr
and says the people of Sarkomand were subjugated long ago by the
moon-beasts, of whom he knows only a little. He has never seen one.
Otherwise the Collector is surprisingly well versed in the lore of
the world of Dreams. He knows that the Dreamlands are physically
connected to the Earth at several points, but that the majority of
travelers from Earth enter only mentally. If asked about the nearest
physical exit to Earth he says that it lies somewhere deep beneath the
city, although exactly where he does not know.
Having been to the underground city of the Men from Leng sev-
eral times, he knows that the main entrance is in the city plaza, but
can offer little more in the way of directions. If dragged along to the
underground city he resists, finally admitting that it crawls with all
manner of unwholesome creatures who consider humanity a delicacy.
Other exits are many miles away and lie across the ocean. He does
not know where.
If the Dreamers seem likely to slay him, the Collector tells them
quite convincingly that their souls must find a way out of the Dream-
lands and thus be reunited with their waking bodies or their dream-
selves will sooner or later begin to unravel. He says he can help them
if they swear to protect him.
2) What will happen to the other Humans?

The Collector says they are to be sold to the denizens of the
Underworld, who often use them for food or entertainment. In
exchange, the Men from Leng receive balms of a healing fungus
called Keim which they can trade in outside lands.
If asked more about the denizens of the Underworld he elaborates,
telling often fanciful tales of gugs, ghasts and ghouls, all of whom he
believes are huge, blind and mindlessly carnivorous. (He has never
seen any.)
36
3) Where can we get supplies or weapons?

The Collector knows of many caches of artifacts and items among
the rubble, kept mostly by the Wamps which hunt there at night and
sleep in deep burrows during the day. (If the characters pursue this
avenue see “The Wamp Lair” on page 39.) He is too afraid to disturb
their lair himself.
If asked about Wamps, he shows the Dreamers a Wamp skull, an
ugly thing with no eyes, and give them a basic physical description.
The Collector has a great bit of jerked meat (from a “voonith,”
whatever that is) stored in his home nearby. It tastes horrible but is
nourishing, and his supply will provide about two weeks of regular
meals. If forced to bring the Dreamers to his home he openly offers
them the meat in the hopes they will let him go.
4) Where can we find a ship?

He says that he is not allowed near the docks, but there are ships
there that remain empty, as far as he knows, during the day.
5) What is the nearest safe town?

The closest human town to Sarkomand is Inquanok, although the
Collector knows little about it except that his masters do not like to
trade there often. Other cities include Ilek-Vad and Lhosk across the
Cerenarian Sea.
6) Where is Leng? Do you know Mr. Lao?

Leng, the Collector patiently and grovelingly explains, is where
they are. Sarkomand is in Leng, although the famous plateau proper
does not begin for another fifty miles inland.
He knows no one by the name of Mr. Lao. He pronounces “mister”
as “missed her.”
7) Where did you learn English?

In the city of Lhosk, he claims, as many dreamers from Earth go
there. It is a common language in the Dreamlands.
37
Treasures in The Hovel

the Hovel If forced or followed, the Collector will lead the characters to his
The Collector gathers these
home, a patchwork shack made of old stained wood and pinkish
artifacts from the ruins of
Sarkomand. furry skins. (A Zoology roll leaves the Dreamer baffled as to the
creature; if asked, the Collector says the skins are from a buopoth.)
Statues The ramshackle house lies in the huge courtyard of some desolate,
These beautiful veined
marble statues depict the long-forgotten building.
Men from Leng before
The building itself is fabulous and the architectural style is fasci-
the arrival of the moon-
beasts. There are three nating to anyone from Earth. It is almost reminiscent of Indian tem-
statues of satyrs, one
ples, with smooth sinuous lines dictating space and form. Occasional
playing a bagpipe-like
instrument, one dancing, rune-like carvings can be spied, but they are in no known Earthly
and another writing upon a
language (they are in Oeuth). Dozens of empty black windows look
rock. All of the statues are
exquisitely made but have into the courtyard of the building, and anyone entering it is struck by
various chips and cracks
an uncontrollable wave of paranoia as to what could be hiding up in
throughout due to age.
Each weighs about two all those rooms. In addition, stealthy sounds can often be heard in the
hundred pounds.
building: structural creaks, the dripping of water, strong echoes and
other, less identifiable noises.
Scrolls and Papers
These conglomerations The hovel is a lavish pit built from the remnants of a dead city.
of papers are extracts of
Dozens of out-of-place objects dot the one-room tent, including
ancient legal proceedings
written in Oeuth, the several large, broken sculptures of satyrs, a water pipe, an open box
language of the Men
of huge red gems, dozens of piles of scrolls and rotting papers, and
from Leng. Among them
is a scroll of the spell everyday belts, wallets, and shoes from modern Earth.
Endless Rhyme (see page
The Collector pretty much has the ruins of the city to himself
284), also in Oeuth but
of considerable value to during the day. At night he hides in the shack, in the safety of the
those interested in magical
courtyard. Most nightly predators in Sarkomand hunt by sound, so
matters.
they tend to steer clear of the courtyard due to its strange echoing
(Continued.)
effects (not that he will tell the characters this, if he can help it).
Occasionally a strange creature wanders in and gets disoriented, and
the Collector beats it to death with a rock and eats it.
38
The Wamp Lair Earth Artifacts

A leather Sears belt, a
pair of cheap suede shoes,
The Collector will lead the Dreamers to the Wamp lair only during
and a leather wallet were
the day. It is a short walk south towards the sea, through several recovered off the body of
one of the living corpses
avenues of ruined buildings. As the Dreamers approach the smell
some time ago, or so claims
becomes evident, a pungent odor of ammonia and rot. the Collector.
The Wamp lair would have been a gatehouse in ancient times.
The wallet holds several
Dozens of rotting bodies and bones lay about, all stripped of valu- scraps of paper. On one
is a telephone number,
ables and clothing. Several are noticeably human. (Cost: 1/1D3
Manchester-6110 (a
SAN.) New York number). On
another is the address and
The Collector knows quite a bit about Wamps and has no wish to
telephone number of the
contract diseases from an infected Dreamer, so he is quite up front Peach Blossom Restaurant.
There are no identifying
with the facts. He recommends that Dreamers cover their mouths
marks on the wallet, shoes
with cloth and not breathe too deeply of the air inside. When it is or belt.
daylight out, he assures the characters they have nothing to fear.
Gemstones
Inside the lair careful collections of valuables lay about, along with
This chest holds 2D100
several sorted piles of blood-encrusted bones, still fresh. There is a small blood gems
scrounged from the living
pile of 23 swords of various designs and styles. Most are covered in
corpses by the Collector.
a thin film of rust that is readily cleanable. Many have markings and They were considered
too small for harvesting
runes that the characters will find indecipherable. Elsewhere is a pile
and remained stuck in
of coins of ancient Sarkomand. Although they are worth something the living corpses when
they returned. He is not
as collectibles, they are worthless for their metal. They are merely
supposed to have them,
lead with a thin layering of gold. And there is an assortment of 39 and will offer them to
the characters without
belts of different styles, none of Earthly make, each worm-eaten or
hesitation. In other, far-off
rotting. An Idea roll recognizes bite marks made by something with parts of the Dreamlands
this chest would be worth a
dozens of tiny, needle-like teeth—the Wamp.
large portion of a city. Here
The room is otherwise empty. The smell climbs to new levels in the it is worth nothing.
enclosed room, and Dreamers failing a CON x 3 roll must leave or
become violently ill for 1D6+2 rounds.
Dug through the flagstones on the floor is an open pit, smooth
with age and wear. It recedes into the ground at nearly a forty-five
degree angle, and is the source of the horrible smell of ammonia. The
Collector informs the characters that the Wamp sleeps at the base of
the pit, and it is to be avoided.
Unless physically disturbed the Wamp will not wake.
39
The Wamp
Treasures in Inhuman, Diseased Horror With an Appetite
the Wamp Lair STR 15 CON 29 SIZ 17 INT 10 POW 10
These objects stand out
DEX 12 Move 9 HP 23
from the refuse and gore.
Damage Bonus: +1D4
The Sword of Weapon: Bite 41%, 1D6+db+infection.
Kamas-Tha Armor: 2 points of flabby hide.
This is a light, narrow
blade of a thin greenish Sanity Loss: 0/1D8
metal. Once cleaned Notes: The Wamp is pale, bloated, with nine long legs, knife-like ears
it is of obviously high
craftsmanship and value. and a thin, wrinkled snout and flabby lips in an eyeless face. The bite
Damage 1D6+1 (can of the Wamp is contaminated. Anyone bitten who fails a CON x 5%
impale), HP 15, +10% to hit
and parry. roll will be infected with a random disfiguring illness such as bubonic
plague, leprosy or elephantitis (POT 15).
Talunen writing on the hilt
explains it belongs to the
head of the family Tha of
the city of Lhosk. If asked,
the Collector can read it.
He adds that returning it
to the family will mean a
large reward. This sword
has been passed down
from father to son for over
twenty generations. It was
last in the possession of
Kamas-Tha, who perished
when moon-beasts raided
his ship on the high seas
due to political treachery.
(If the characters pursue
this, see “The Trade Family
Tha” on page 184.)
To further this lead, if the

characters fail to enter
the Wamp lair the sword
might also be found on the
Nameless Rock (page 54)
or in the Collector’s Hovel
(page 38).
The Docks
On the south tip of Sarkomand about a dozen miles of shoreline
(Continued.) are taken up by ancient docks of wood and stone. The hand-carved
flagstones around the docks each portray the happy face of a satyr,
smiling, laughing, each expression slightly different. Covered in moss
and worn smooth, these blocks are among the few reminders that
Sarkomand once was a happy city.
40
Most of the docks have fallen into ruin, some centuries ago. Once
An Enchanted Saber
beautiful, they are now little more than rotted wood planks suspend- If placed upon a flat
surface, this slightly curved
ed between shifting basalt stands, covered in a light mauve moss.
sword spins and points
Anyone foolish enough to climb out on the docks must make towards the closest safe
port. The character who
a DEX x 3 or Climb roll every minute or fall into the water. If a
placed it there knows the
Dreamer falls, an additional Luck roll must be made; if failed, the name of the city and its
distance. (In Sarkomand
Dreamer suffers 1D10 damage striking underwater debris. Two
it points towards Lhosk.)
Swim rolls are needed to get to shore. The saber was a gift to a
Baharnian sailor from a
Two docks stand out from the rest. It is hard to tell whether they
wizard to whom he gave
are recent additions or resilient artifacts. They look nothing like the safe passage.
rest of the city’s architecture. The entrance is an arched peak, and
like the strange docks themselves it seems to be made out of a single The Astrolabe
This is a rusty but workable
chunk of cold black stone. There are no seams or rivets. It is as if ship’s astrolabe: a hand-
sized brass wheel with a
some huge giant dropped the docks, whole, into the water in one go.
rotating cross-staff, used
Tethered at each of these black docks is a huge galley, 150 feet for navigation by marking
the movement of stars. It
long, seamless and black like the docks. It has no windows, sails or
is haunted by the soul of
apparent steering mechanism. the captain to whom it last
belonged, Talmes Reesh of
Rinar. Every week, on the
The Black Galleys

same night, its new owner
relives the last moments
of Reesh’s life at the helm
These are the moon-beasts’ vessels, a source of legend and intrigue of his ship, the White
Palace, which was sunk by
in all lands of trade. When in foreign ports, only the Men from Leng
a Cloudbeast (see page 51)
interact with humans, and then as quickly as possible, as the ways of off Ilek-Vad. These visions
each cost 1/1D4 SAN. They
humans do not agree with the satyrs. It is not known to the general
continue until the astrolabe
public of other lands exactly where the men who pilot these ships is given a proper Rinarian
burial. Researching
come from, nor that they are satyrs at all, as they wear voluminous
Rinarian customs reveals
robes and turbans to cover their inhuman features. the way to stop the visions.
Burying the astrolabe
The ships’ rowers are the source of much speculation, as the tire-
properly grants 1D4 SAN to
less, rapid movement of the oars is the envy of every sea captain. At those who participate.
full speed the Black Galleys can top forty miles in an hour, faster
than any other ship in the Dreamlands. No one has ever seen who or The Silver Chalice
This solid silver chalice is
what powers the ships, but the oars move in unnatural unison, as if worth a great deal in any
major port. It is of ancient
one giant hand moved every oar at once.
Sarkomand design, and if
In truth, convict moon-beasts row the ships. Torture machines sold to a collector will fetch
a high price.
force the convicts to row in unison. If they resist or tire or row out of
order they are shocked; if they falter too many times in a single day,
41
they are horribly and finally electrocuted. Many moon-beasts perish

Treasures in the despite their exceptional strength and constitution, and the rowers
Black Galleys rest only when in port, a rarity. They do not leave the ship ever, until
These can be found on any
dead. They are fed and excrete through tubes. A Dreamer foolish
Black Galley.
enough to go below deck, although physically safe, suffers a loss
The Double- 1/1D8 SAN, confronted with the terrifying forms of the moon-beasts
Pronged Spears trapped in their torturous prison. Such service is the penalty for the
Twelve of these modified
moon-beast spears are only crime among the moon-beasts: failure to worship Nyarlathotep
kept on board each ship in as their lord and master. (Even so, many still choose to worship
case of mutiny. They are
considerably smaller than Azathoth directly instead.)
usual so that the Men from A simple panel on deck controls the direction and speed of the
Leng can use them (but so
can humans). rowers. Besides that, there is only a single extremely large hatch
leading below. Most of the interior of the ship is made up of storage
A careful winding of silver
filigree runs to each tip space, holds for cargo and for human slaves bought at market. The
from the handle. The huge hold of the convict moon-beasts comprises most of the lower
wielder loses 1D4–2 Magic
Points upon contact with decks.
a spear. Each point does The crew quarters for the Lengian sailors is a room of strange
1D4 HP stun damage; if the
target’s CON is exceeded hammock-like hanging bags (they sleep standing), with an adjoin-
by accumulated stun ing galley filled with horrific smells and what passes for food to the
damage, he or she remains
unconscious for 1D6+2 satyrs. The ceilings on this level are low and difficult for humans to
hours. Upon waking (or get used to.
after a normal rest), this
stun damage is “shaken Each ship is loaded down with horrible food and fresh water
off” and does not last like enough for a journey of several months. Three nights after the
normal Hit Point damage.
Dreamers awaken in Sarkomand, the Black Galleys leave for the
The Moon-Beast Charts dark side of the moon.
These huge, silver discs At night the docks and galleys are crawling with Men from Leng.
expand and rotate
mechanically, and are Any human discovered there will be “processed” as a slave.
covered in a fine series of
raised dots. Each weighing
in excess of 100 pounds,
they are difficult to move.
(Continued.)
42
The Plaza of the Lions The moon-beast charts

contain distances to
various ports, including
Once the heart of the city, the plaza is now the only remnant of the dark side of the moon,
Sarkomand’s former glory. Ferocious stone lions, twenty feet tall, still Celephais, Inquanok,
Hlanth, Lhosk, Aphorat,
stand, each in repose, around the onyx flagstone square. (Each flag- Thalarion, Rinar and
stone once contained a gold coin, but all have long since been scraped Baharna. The charts
contain only distances,
out by greedy, inhuman hands.) not any geographical
Near the center of the square, a large, filthy green tent has been information.
erected, flying a red flag. This tent covers the huge trapdoor to the At sea, the charts’ distances
Underworld, and is always guarded by a Man from Leng. If an alarm are constantly, magically
updated. If one studies
is raised a dozen of the satyrs pour up from below. (If there’s fight- the charts while the ship
ing, there’s a 10% chance the first round that it’s overheard and the is moving, the direction
of any city on the chart
alarm is raised, 20% on the second round, 30% on the third, etc.) can be determined as their
If the guard is taken quietly and the characters have time to distances slowly change.
This can be very valuable
explore the tent, they also find a smooth, greased hole, four feet wide, at sea.
which drops at a 45-degree angle into the earth. This is where the
A Dreamer studying these
slaves are dropped down to the gate that leads across the Under- charts at length may make
ground Sea to the Vaults of Zin. an Idea roll. If it succeeds,
the operation of the
If asked, the Collector says that the gate is lightly guarded below, machine seems incredibly
as the ghouls do not like to come that close to the white fungus that simple and all the raised
dots appear as tiny English
grows there; they do so only to trade. The next shipment is not due words, or the native
for at least a week. language of the character.
(Not even the Men from
Leng can read moon-beast
Guards: Men from Leng writing.)
No. Str Con Siz Dex Pow DB HP

Keim
#1 12 11 13 13 11 1D4 12 Four boxes of this odd
#2 15 10 15 13 12 1D4 13 substance are on board
each vessel. It is a lumpy,
#3 9 8 9 11 11 none 10
phosphorescent, grayish-
#4 13 14 15 10 10 1D4 15 green moss. In most realms
#5 13 9 13 9 9 1D4 11 it is worth quite a bit of
money. If used properly
Skills: Listen 33%, Sneak 41%, Spot Hidden 43%, Track 49%. Lan- as a poultice on a wound
(requiring a First Aid
guages: Oeuth (Own) 57%. roll once per day) Keim
Attacks: Punch 45%, damage 1D3+db prevents infection and
heals 1D6 HP per day. Each
Sword 40%, damage 1D8+1+db box has 50 applications.
SAN Loss: 0/1D6–1.
43
Entrances to the
Underworld
There are two entrances to the Underworld in the tent: the greased
chute which the Men from Leng use to send the mindless bodies
below, and the trap door, which allows access to the Ten Thousand
Steps, a huge and terrifying staircase which winds ever downward
into the dark, guarded by pockets of the Men from Leng.
The Ten Thousand Steps

Flipping over the ancient, rotted wood trap door reveals the begin-
ning of the Ten Thousand Steps, a dizzying tower of stairs that lead
all the way to the base of the Underworld, nearly a mile below.
They begin as small, uneven, hand-hewn rock steps, but spread
and change until they become immensely broad stairs, perfectly cut
in a low, long fan. The rock wall occasionally opens onto vistas of
blackness at the edges. These portholes into the vast Underworld
hover nearly a mile up from the bottom, and nothing is visible in
them.
Under no circumstances except direct threat of physical violence
will the Collector enter the trap door. He informs the Dreamers that
should they venture down the steps, there will be no hope of escape
from his masters. If attacked, he flees down the greased chute instead
of the stairs or else back out into the plaza.
If the trap door is opened, it emits a huge shriek as the rusted
clasp sheds brown-green dust. Anyone making a Listen or Luck roll
can hear the Men from Leng far below as they stir along the stairs,
hooting and shouting in their alien language. This sends the Collec-
tor into a panic. If given a choice between waiting for the Men from
Leng to arrive or taking the chute, the Collector leads the way, leap-
ing down the hole without hesitation.
44
The Greased Chute

The Collector will struggle and fight if forced to the chute without
some other motivation, but after 1 HP of damage or more he kow-
tows to the demands of the Dreamers and climbs in.
Riding down the greased chute is a harrowing experience. The
ride takes more than a full minute, during which the Dreamers
sometimes slide as fast as a horse can gallop. Those failing a Luck roll
take 1 HP damage from friction burns, bruised shoulders or injured
legs. Those rolling 100 suffer 1D10 HP damage as they break bones
on the descent.
Down below, there is no light save for the soft glow of the white
fungus that grows everywhere, and all attack and Spot Hidden rolls
are halved. It is obvious that the Dreamers are in a huge under-
ground passage. A foul breeze blows from the south. Besides that,
little can be discerned.
As the Collector said, there are no guards at the base of the ancient
steps nearby that lead up about a mile to Sarkomand. If the Men
from Leng have not detected the characters’ entry by now, Dream-
ers making a Listen roll can hear a great deal of noise echoing from
above. If the characters persist here, in a matter of minutes a group
of fifty Men from Leng will descend from above to capture them.
Fleeing deeper into the Underworld is the only possibility of escape.
If the characters continue into the Underworld, see Chapter
Seven.
Sarkomand at Night
At night the city crawls with monsters. Dreamers foolish enough
to venture out as a group most likely encounter a Wamp or a party of
Men from Leng, or at worst a moon-beast.
A Dreamer venturing out alone is never seen again.
45
Moon-Beast
Evil from the Dark Side of the Moon
STR 18 CON 10 SIZ 24 INT 13 POW 16
DEX 7 Move 7 HP 17
Damage Bonus: +2D6
Attacks: Spear 41%, damage 1D8+1+db.
Armor: None, although it always takes the minumum possible dam-
age from impaling weapons.
SAN Loss: 0/1D8
Spells: This moon-beast casts Emerald Darts of Ptath on the first
attack, spending 12 magic points and doing 3D4 points damage
which ignores all armor.
46
Chapter Five
Escape By Ship - Shipboard Life - Finding Port -
Winding Across Wide Water, Without Sound
“Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped

On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.”
—Wallace Stevens, The Idea of Order in Key West
Method and Direction

Unless they tumble down the chute to the Underworld, the most
likely method of escape from Sarkomand for the Dreamers is the
daytime theft of a Black Galley from the docks. Other methods are
available, though not recommended.
Foot travel up the rocky coast to the west is possible, and will
eventually lead to a human realm (Inquanok). But the trail is beset
by many dangerous obstacles, including the infamous Spiders of
Leng. For more on Inquanok, see Chapter Eight: Inquanok on page
105. For possible encounters while exploring the Dreamlands by
foot, see Chapter Six: Wandering, on page 58.
Directly south across the sea is Ilek-Vad, a city of glassy turrets
built atop the convoluted mazes of the gnorri. This city often trades
with the Men from Leng, and is by no means considered friendly to
human dreamers. Although quite beautiful, the city maintains a dark
reputation due to the lack of hospitality shown to travelers and the
odd habits of its inhabitants. For more on Ilek-Vad see Chapter Ten:
Ilek-Vad on page 196.
A bit to the west on the same coast as Ilek-Vad is the friendly port
city of Lhosk, former home of the Collector. If the Dreamers land on
the coast between Ilek-Vad and Lhosk, the Collector will be able to
find his birthplace without difficulty. For more on Lhosk see Chapter
Nine: Lhosk on page 143.
47
Chapter Five: Escape By Ship
Campaign Paths
This campaign is meant to be explored. It’s not a fixed story in
which one element must build on another. The Dreamers awaken
in Sarkomand—that’s the beginning, and it’s fixed. They return
to Earth (if they ever do!) through the Enchanted Wood near
Ulthar. But the whole campaign waits in between.
From Sarkomand, the Dreamers either flee into the Underworld,

or travel by land to Inquanok, or take ship to the sea. From those
beginnings anything is possible. They might delve into every
adventure across the Dreamlands or they might skip whole
chapters altogether.
Into the Underworld

From the Underworld, they’ll emerge in Sarnath and then might
come to rest in Ilarnek. From Ilarnek they might already set their
sights on Ulthar itself. But they must travel by sea or by land
to get there. Waylay them! If they go by sea, the Merhadeen
Pirates (page 52) could abduct them to the Nameless Rock.
From there the Dreamers might flee to Inquanok as the nearest
safe port. Only by performing a quest for the sages can they get
passage south again—but perhaps the only ship that will carry
them is going only to Lhosk. There they are pursued by the
servants of Nyarlathotep until they arrange passage to Ilek-Vad.
After an adventure with Randolph Carter they sail west and
accompany merchant barges and caravans up the River Skai until
they reach Ulthar.
By Land to Inquanok
If the Dreamers go first to Inquanok, they might fulfill the quest
for the sages only to be forced into the Underworld after all on
the way back, perhaps pursued by slavers or the Spiders of Leng.
Or perhaps they’ll take a ship and see what adventures await
them by sea.
In a Black Galley
If they take a stolen ship from Sarkomand (or Inquanok), they
might land in Lhosk, Ilarnek, or Ilek-Vad. In their explorations
you can waylay or divert them however you like. Perhaps the
Men from Leng drag them back to Sarkomand to sacrifice them
in the infamous monastery, and like Randolph Carter in his
dream-quest, the Dreamers must flee into the Underworld to
escape. From the Underworld, Sarnath awaits.
The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man provides every manner of

adventure and terror for your Dreamers, and it just scratches the
surface of the Dreamlands. What the Dreamers encounter—and
how they encounter it—we leave up to you, the Keeper.
49
Subtle Changes
Travel Time
Time in the Dreamlands is an odd thing. Especially during long
change to allow players a journeys, large sections of time can flash past, broken only by unorth-
odox encounters or other singularly strange events. The Dreamers
do not lose their ability to motivate themselves, but unimportant
• Seabirds of bizarre color
stretches of routine seem to rush by, leaving the characters suddenly
and sound.
at their destination.
• The shape of an ominous
The Keeper may use this strange effect to his or her advantage by
cloud ahead.
summing up what would have been weeks at sea in a single sentence,
• The color of a vast
speeding game play and reinforcing the feeling of the dream.
waterfall leaping to the
ocean from a verdant
cliff.
• Phosphorescence in the
waves, unseemly in its
Finding Port
Sailing south or following the coast west from Sarkomand are
rhythmic writhing.
both valid methods for finding port. Utilizing the constantly updated
moon-beast charts on the Black Galley will allow any Dreamer to
reach any of the ports listed on the charts.
Blind sailing south will also work, but will take far more time, as
the ship may find the coast at almost any point. The Keeper may elect
to have the Collector know the sea lanes so as to speed time to port.
Taking more time doesn’t really matter to the Dreamers, but it ought
to mean more encounters at sea.
Hazards of Sea Travel

The seas of the Dreamlands are dangerous. Malevolent and often
intelligent creatures hunt both above and below the ocean, taking
food wherever they can find it. Many ships leave port never to be
seen or heard from again. Still others are found later wrecked upon
foreign shores, or floating derelict, without crew.
Although certain areas of the seas are commonly sailed, no sailor
will ever guarantee absolute safe passage, and those that do know
nothing of sailing. Still the seas call, and people continue to sail
despite the dangers. It has always been this way, and perhaps it
always will.
50
Two options for seaborne encounters are offered below to make

the campaign more difficult and entertaining. It is left to the Keeper
to decide which (if any) are appropriate.
The Cloudbeast
These huge beasts composed of a cloud-like substance often attack
small ships, either picking them up and devouring sailors on deck or
consuming the boat whole. Sometimes, when especially hungry or
enraged, one attacks even a large vessel.
One day, this creature decides the characters’ ship looks like a
promising meal. The Cloudbeast slowly descends above the ship and
attempts to snatch any targets it deems tasty off the deck.
If characters have not expressly set watch, each character is
allowed a Spot Hidden roll. If any succeeds, the characters are
alerted to the silent presence of the creature as it slowly approaches.
If not, the creature is allowed a free attack on a Dreamer (or if the
Keeper is kind, on an NPC). This will most likely give time for the
crew to climb to relative safety below deck.
When no targets are left on deck, the Cloudbeast rocks the gal-
ley several times with its powerful tentacles and finally flies off, its
hunger or territorial instinct satisfied.
Cloudbeast
Vaporous hungerer
STR n/a CON 32 SIZ 63 INT 4 POW 9
DEX 10 Move 8 HP 48
Damage Bonus: n/a
Attacks: Bite 40%, damage 1D3+6
1D4 Tentacle-Paws 25%; each hit increases bite damage by +1D6
Armor: None, although takes no impaling damage. Regenerates 43
HPs per round until dead.
SAN Loss: 0/1D6
51
The Merhadeen Pirates

This crew of degenerates operates from a hidden cove at the
Nameless Rock—a spiral edifice of stone that juts from the ocean
south of Sarkomand like a rotted tooth. They are cutthroat murderers
who have given themselves over to the immoral worship of the soul of
the Great Old Ones, the black man of the west, Nyarlathotep.
Like the Men from Leng, they serve the moon-beasts, giving over
those they capture on the seas in exchange for tokens from the moon
and the Underworld. A lone moon-beast oversees the ceremonies at
the rock, a chosen spot for the worship of Nyarlathotep; it is also the
nursery for one of Nyarlathotep’s many horrendous offspring.
Though the pirates leave the Black Galleys alone and prey only on
human ships, they have been informed of the character’s “liberation”
of a galley and of a bounty for its return.
Pirate Attack!
The pirates attack the galley at night. Their captain, Seraj, uses
his spell Jaunt to move fourteen of his men to the fast-moving galley.
They silently arrive on deck, weapons drawn, ready to do battle. If
they can, they stalk across the ship and attempt to overwhelm the
Dreamers one by one.
The pirates hope to capture the Dreamers alive so they can offer
them to the Lurker in the Pit, a larval Great Old One.
Dreamers who struggle too much or who kill more than two
pirates find the attack becoming bloodier. The pirates keep up their
attack until half of them fall in battle. At that point they flee with
Seraj if he still lives, or they surrender or leap overboard if he has
been slain.
52
Seraj
Leader of the Merhadeen Pirates, Servant of the Crawling Chaos, age 50
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Skills: Climb 55%, Conceal 71%, Degenerate Prayer 35%, Dodge
35%, Hide 40%, Navigation 40%, Threaten 60%. Languages: Skand
(Own) 70%, English 29%, Oeuth 12%.
Spells: Commune with Nyarlathotep, Drain Soul, Jaunt, Summon
Lurker in the Pit.
Attacks: Longsword 55%, damage 1D8+1+db
Long knife 75%, damage 1D6+db
Punch 55%, damage 1D3+db
Bite 25%, damage 1D4
Seraj, obviously mad, is a huge, muscular Inquanok man with pale

blue eyes, hair so blonde it appears white, and thick yellow teeth.
His body is covered in scars and in tattoos and symbols of his god.
He speaks very little, and instead seems to dominate all who come in
sight of him silently. His terrified men follow his every gesture.
53
Converted to worship of Nyarlathotep in his childhood, Seraj was

raised in an ancient monastery in the mountains of Leng. He spent
three decades hunting down the process of creating offspring for his
lord. Piracy helps him gain fresh bodies to sacrifice. Now, he sees
himself as the guardian of the Lurker in the Pit.
Seraj will willingly give his life to destroy anyone who opposes
Nyarlathotep’s goals.
The Merhadeen Pirates

No. Str Con Siz Pow Dex DB HP
#1 5 12 6 8 17 –1D6 9
#2 14 16 14 15 17 +1D4 15
#3 16 7 17 5 16 +1D6 12
#4 10 6 10 13 14 none 8
#5 13 11 11 18 14 none 11
#6 5 12 8 14 14 –1D4 10
#7 14 5 15 6 12 +1D4 10
#8 7 14 10 10 11 none 12
#9 10 18 10 16 9 none 14
#10 13 18 12 18 7 +1D4 15
#11 13 14 13 17 5 +1D4 14
#12 15 11 14 16 5 +1D4 13
#13 14 9 15 14 4 +1D4 12
Skills: Sail 35%, Sneak 40%, Swim 60%. Languages: English 12%,
Skand 30%, Talunen 25%.
Fighting knife 60%, damage 1D4+2+db
Cutlass 55%, damage 1D6+2+db
The Nameless Rock

This horrific rock rises from the Cerenarian Sea. There is no shore;
instead the ocean beats relentlessly on the sheer faces of rock, long
since rendered razor sharp from the surf. Any Dreamer unfortunate
enough to end up in the ocean surrounding the mountain must make
two Swim rolls every ten minutes or be smashed upon the rocks for
2D10+6 HP damage. Four Swim rolls brings the swimmer to safety.
There are no exterior landings, just a veiled cave that pierces to the
54
heart of the mountain, visible and traversable only at low tide. This
huge cavern grants access to the Pit: a vast interior lake which makes
it plain that the Nameless Rock is not a mountain but was, instead, at
some time a volcano.
It is here the pirates have made their home. Rickety pilings and
wooden shanties overhang the vast interior and wind their way up to
the lip of the cone, nearly 1,000 feet above. When the pirates put into
“port” they enter through the cave, row their way into the interior,
and wait for the tide to rise, securing their ship in the center with
ropes hurled down from above. (If the players’ galley was captured,
the pirates bring it back to the Nameless Rock as well.)
All told, forty-six pirates make their home here, celebrating in
horrific worship of Nyarlathotep. Nearly a decade ago their worship
paid off, and in a terrible ceremony during an eclipse the dark water
of the ancient volcano became home to the Dark One’s nightmarish
offspring, the Lurker in the Pit.
The Pit and the Prisoner

Captured characters find themselves thrown in a stone pit embed-
ded in the side of the mountain. In the pit they find a single, dying
man—an odd-looking man with greenish skin, yellow hair and white
eyes. He looks as if he has been subjected to years of systematic
torture and starvation.
The tongue he speaks seems to be beyond the ability of the human
ear and mouth to reproduce. This does not stop him from focusing
upon one Dreamer (the one with the highest POW), and waving
him over, chattering in his strange tongue. He seems quite insane but
harmless.
When the Dreamer comes close, the prisoner suddenly clutches
him or her in a frenzy of inhuman strength. When he releases, the
prisoner is dead. Where he touched, the Dreamer is marked with an
odd, tattoo-like symbol—an eye.
The man is from the east, from another world’s Dreamlands. He
was a priest bent on the destruction of the servants of Nyarlathotep,
and was captured and imprisoned here long ago with two associates.
Seraj long ago killed the other two.
55
In his last throes of death, this priest has called upon his god—
The Eye of Nodens, the lord of the Abyss—for favor. Nodens heard his call and
Nodens sent him a vision: Strangers would come from Earth, and one of them
The Eye of Nodens is a sigil
would be the vessel to destroy the offspring of the Crawling Chaos.
that grants supernatural
power against the servants The Dreamer is now that vessel, imbued with the power of the Eye
of Nyarlathotep. It never
of Nodens.
leaves the target. It is
even visible in the waking
world, and its powers
function there fully, should
The Ceremony
the wearer ever return When the moon rises, heavily-armed pirates chain the Dreamers
there. When servants of
and drag them up an endless series of shabby catwalks to the top of
Nyarlathotep are near,
the eye fills the target the volcano. There, surrounded by pirates, Seraj enacts ancient rites
with certainty and peace,
to Nyarlathotep.
granting the following
abilities: The chant continues for an hour as the moon fills the sky. Finally,
the moon-beast priest emerges from his cave and takes the dais. This
1) SMITE: Simply touching
a servant of Nyarlathotep terrifying creature begins a chant in its own alien tongue, a mewling,
with the intent to cause
deep howl.
harm inflicts 3D20 HP
damage. This permanently Soon a rumbling begins from below, ending with the horrific arriv-
drains 1 POW point from
al of the Lurker in the Pit: a terrifying spray of blood-red tentacles,
the sigil’s wearer.
eyes and maws erupting from the holes in the corona of the volcano.
2) CLARITY: Every roll
to attack, injure or
outperform a Servant Moon-Beast Priest
of Nyarlathotep may be
Servant of the Crawling Chaos
rerolled once if it fails. Each
reroll costs 1 SAN point as STR 19 CON 12 SIZ 22 INT 13 POW 18
time seems to slow around
DEX 7 Move 7 HP 17
the character.
Damage Bonus: +1D6
3) PURPOSE: No matter
Attacks: Ceremonial Spike 51%, damage 1D6+1+db
what disguises they may
employ, every servant of Armor: None, although it always takes the minimum damage from
Nyarlathotep is clear to
impaling weapons.
the Dreamer. In addition,
the moment the servant is Spells: If attacked, the moon-beast will cast Living X on two Dream-
seen, the Dreamer becomes
ers (see page 269), hoping to immobilize them so they may be fed to
aware of the first two
abilities of the eye, Smite the Lurker.
and Clarity.
SAN Loss: 0/1D8
Notes: This moon-beast lives in a cave on top of the Nameless Rock,
emerging only to lead the ancient rights to Nyarlathotep and its
offspring, the Lurker in the Pit. If touched with the Eye of Nodens’
Smite power, the moon-beast immediately suffers 3D20 damage.
56
The Lurker in the Pit

Larval Great Old One
DEX 10 Move 12 HP 33
Damage Bonus: +2D6
Attacks: Tentacle 61%, damage 1D8+1+db
Maw 70%, damage 2D10+6
It attacks with maw or with 1D8 tentacles, all on a single target. The
Lurker can use the maw attack after it has hit the target with two or more
tentacles.
Armor: 3 points of gelatinous blubber; it takes no damage from
impaling weapons
Notes: This being lives in the dark waters of the volcano and winds
its way up the cone amidst a hundred intertwining stone holes,
squeezing its massive bulk through the tunnels like a giant slug. It
treats the pirates—those who worship its father—with indifference,
and will not hesitate to make a meal of them if they interfere with its
feedings. It favors the moon-beast priest, and becomes incensed if
this creature is attacked, protecting it with a child-like rage.
Weakness: When touched with the Eye of Nodens, the Lurker
immediately suffers a “Smite” attack (page 56). If it is not slain, it
immediately retreats into the rock and does not return.
SAN Loss: 1D4/1D20
57
Chapter Six
WANDERING - WALKING THE DREAM - TRAVEL -
THE RIVER THAT FLOWS NOWHERE, LIKE THE SEA
“No shadow walks. The river is fateful,

Like the last one. But there is no ferryman.
He could not bend against its propelling force.”
—Wallace Stevens, “The River of Rivers in Connecticut”
Movement In the Wild

Walking the less dangerous areas of the Dreamlands is a distract-
ing, fascinating, wonderful pastime, occasionally punctuated by
nightmarish flashes of the horrors that persist always in the shadows.
Many areas in the Dreamlands are simply not settled, and are cov-
ered in unspoiled wilderness of many types: marsh, forest, desert.
These areas have a stillness that the Dreamers will not find familiar.
With no minds to work upon them, these areas remain in an endless
loop of natural order, never spreading, growing or dying, but simply
being. This leads to areas of breathtaking, permanent beauty that far
surpass anything found on Earth.
Moving about in these areas is never a problem unless there is
conflict within the group. Arguments, disagreements and even hidden
resentment can cause obstacles to manifest themselves in the placid
environment. Dreamers who are foolish enough to plot against one
another or to openly fight find their path wrought with thunder-
storms, deadfalls and worse.
If this portion of the world has an analog in the mind of sleeping
humanity, it would be the more calm, fitful dreams that most sleep-
ers have, which are forgotten upon waking. Like these areas of the
unconscious mind, darker areas persist at the edges, haunted by crea-
tures of nightmare and horror. Characters who push the boundaries,
or who poke their heads into the darker recesses of such areas, might
find something they did not expect to see there; something with teeth.
58
Chapter Six: Wandering
Food and Shelter Subtle Changes

Characters who have a clear direction and goal, and who are
not fighting with one another, find that issues of food and shelter change to allow players a
really don’t come up until someone brings the subject up. Dreamers
confronted with the fact that they have not slept or eaten or even
• The antler shape or
drunk water—to their recollection—despite days of travel might find
coloring of strange
themselves a bit upset by such a discovery. herd-beasts that seem
suitable for hunting.
Once the subject of food and shelter is brought up, each character
must make a Sanity roll. Those that fail continue to enjoy the effects • The direction or shape
of a grove of trees not
of being immune to exposure and starvation for as long as they are
far off, too dark and
in the wilderness. They have discovered a secret knack of survival overgrown to promise
respite.
in the Dreamlands: the subconscious ability of the human mind to
bypass particulars while in the midst of a journey. Those who succeed • The hue or smell of
vegetables from the
at the Sanity roll must find shelter each night and food and water
ground, perhaps edible.
each day or suffer 1 HP damage from exposure and starvation.
• The threat or quality
Clever Dreamers who have lost the knack and who think about
of rainfall beneath a
food or shelter consistently (and who, of course, mention this to the looming lavender sky.
Keeper), can make a group Luck roll each day to come upon black-
berry bushes, dry caves cluttered in kindling, and other conveniences
that just seem to appear from the ether.
Threats and Travelers

The roads of the Dreamlands are well worn. A million dreamers
have crossed every track and parcel, even those forbidden haunts in
the extremes of the world, and some have died there. There is always
an interesting figure coming down the road to encounter the charac-
ters. A few are detailed below to use as the Keeper sees fit.
And even the safest areas of the Dreamlands have dark corners. A
few threats are presented here to make the journey more heroic and
exhilarating. They can be used nearly anywhere in the Dreamlands
outside of civilized areas, and their exact disposition remains up to
the Keeper.
59
The Bandits of
the Red Earth
The Dreamers find themselves camped near a huge, blood-red
dirt barrow, punctuated with rough-cut stones and overgrown with
a complex web of green ivy with huge purple leaves. It is obviously
some sort of burial mound from ancient times, though for whom, no
one can tell. No writing is visible on the structure. The hill is the only
significant location in the area. It overlooks the worn goat track of
a road that winds off over hills which are covered in deep grass and
clover.
There is evidence that people and hoofed animals passed this way
recently. With a Track roll Dreamers can discern that the animals
were sheep or goats led by men armed with spears. (The spears have
left circular holes in the earth where the men stood guard.) Areas of
the grass have been eaten away by these animals.
By searching the area the Dreamers find a cache of bones on the
far side of the barrow. The bones are human, and have been picked
clean by scavengers and plants. Some of the skulls have had teeth
pulled from them. Others have been smashed by blunt force.
These are the victims of the Bandits of the Red Earth, an inbred
family of killers that have found their way into the barrow and that
attack those foolish enough to camp nearby. They have cleverly
preyed upon the superstitions of the local goat herders and pretend to
be the ghosts of the people buried in the mound. They emerge only at
night, covered from head to toe in the red mud of the barrow, armed
with ancient weapons they found in the burial chamber.
Their methods are most blunt. They attempt to surprise small
groups of travelers, avoiding, if they can, attacking the local goat
herders. They skulk up in the dead of night, armed with spears and
covered in red mud, wild-eyed and silent, and attempt to run their
victims through before they are even detected. Past that, they have
never had to consider their actions; so far this method has proven
most effective. It is likely that if the Dreamers counter-attack, the
Red Earth family will prove more cowardly than they appear at first
60
blush. If Mother or Father is killed in the melee, remaining family

members must make POW x 5% rolls or retreat.
Dreamers venturing inside the barrow mound (after locating
the hidden entrance with a Spot Hidden roll) find an assortment of
ancient weapons, armor and ceremonial gear from some long lost
culture scattered about a room which was once a burial chamber.
This is where the family makes its filthy home. In years of predation
they have gathered food, treasure, clothing and supplies from dozens
of victims.
The Bandits of the Red Earth

Name Str Con Siz Pow Dex DB HP
Cemel 16 12 15 4 16 +1D4 14
Rahs 9 12 9 8 15 — 11
Mother 7 12 10 10 15 — 11
Father 11 12 11 9 14 — 12
Edek 18 17 18 10 12 +1D6 18
Skills in Common: Dig 22%, Dodge (DEX x 2) + 10%, Sneak 35%,

Spot Hidden 30%. Languages: Talunen (Own) 80%, English 20%.
Attacks: Spear or sword 40%, 1D8+1+db
Dagger 50%, 1D4+2+db
61
Servant of the Dark Man

The Dreamers come upon a thin man wearing black robes, sitting
upon a lightning-split tree at a fork in the road. His face is obscured
by the robe and his hands are gloved. He is shuffling and unfolding
cards on an old stump of wood. Every few moments he flips a card,
reacts to it with a sigh or a laugh, and then considers all the cards
together. After a few cards are arrayed he slides them up in a gloved
hand, puts them back in the deck, shuffles it, and starts again.
When he sees the characters, he laughs and beckons. His voice is
deep and loud. No face can be seen in the hood. “My friends! Allow
me to read your fortune!” he shouts jovially. He says there is no
cost and that the cards said the characters would be coming. If the
Dreamers refuse, he waves them off: “Ah well, no mind, others will
come. Earth can wait.”
Dreamers desperate to return to Earth may find themselves ter-
ribly intrigued. Those who still manage to resist may leave. The man
causes no other fuss. He remains sitting, reading his cards.
Asking this man’s name leads to a looping game of semantics.
“What is a name? Perhaps here I shall be called ‘John’ and here I am
called ‘Jake,’ but which is truth?” He implies that names are second-
ary to fate, and that as a reader of fate names mean little to him; roles
mean more. Questions of his origin lead to similar comments. He
finally, grudgingly admits only that he comes from the west.
Those who stop for a reading find themselves sitting across from
a figure who, they now notice, has no skin showing. He picks one
of the Dreamers to sit across from him. He unfolds the cards one by
one. The cards are similar to tarot cards, but their suits and purposes
are alien: the Drunkard, the Dwarf, the Retainer. He weaves a tale,
answering questions and making vague guesses at the future. He
implies the character’s way will be hard, that he or she will face many
dangers, and that it is likely the character will fail. He paints a future
of drudgery, danger and death—or, he suggests, the character can
simply settle in the land of dreams forever. If so, he claims, they are
destined for a wonderful future of riches and joy.
A Dreamer making a Psychology or Idea roll detects a note of
62
falsehood in the figure’s prediction, and a manipulation in the shifting

of his predictions from dire to wondrous when the characters decide
to stay in the Dreamlands. Those who succeed realize he is manipu-
lating them. Those who do not are shaken by his dire predictions. It
seems, for some reason, he hopes to keep the characters permanently
in the world of dreams. If asked about this, he denies it and replies
that the cards tell the future, he does not.
He reads only a single fortune for the group, insisting that it marks
the limits of his power. He bids the Dreamers good day and directs
them wherever they care to go, sending them in the correct direction
towards civilization.
If the Dreamers suddenly lash out they find that the robes hold
nothing as they collapse to the ground, empty.
Those who confront the figure about his identity, or those who
imply he might be Nyarlathotep (the Dreamers may have encoun-
tered him before) find the figure freezing in place, as if startled. From
that point on it does not respond to voice or threat. Digging beneath
the robe reveals a statue of a large, sexless human made of onyx,
intercut with ritualistic etchings. (Cost: 1/1D6 SAN.)
The Goblins and

the Changeling
Entering a deep, thick forest, the Dreamers sense something is
wrong. The weather changes, becoming dark and overcast. The air
fills with the stench of something foul and the wind picks up. In this
gloom, the Dreamers begin to hear noises. First they hear whisper-
ing, and a Spot Hidden roll barely notices movement in the under-
brush. Then they hear the distant wailing of a child.
The sound leads to a clearing, within which a shape like a baby
can be spied. The baby is swaddled in white linen and is tilted at an
odd angle on the ground, as if it had been simply dropped there. The
crying is loud and endless. Each Dreamer present must make a POW
x 3% roll. Those who fail see a struggling, terrified baby mewling on
the ground. Those who succeed see a rough, wooden statue of a baby
63
with a mechanical hinged mouth which clicks open and shut and
emits a whooping cry like a bellows. (Cost: 0/1 SAN.) This is a gob-
lin changeling, used to fool parents whose child has been snatched by
the goblins.
If the group is split in this perception, fights may arise over that
fate of the “baby.” Those who fall under the changeling’s spell will
not be swayed by arguments that it is not a real baby, albeit one that
never stops crying and struggling. Abandoning it or killing it costs
those Dreamers 1/1D10 SAN. Arguments should be roleplayed
out. The only way to break the changeling’s spell is to destroy the
thing, by smashing it on a rock or burning it with fire (of course,
those under the sway of the spell and with any sense of decency will
attempt to protect it). A clever Keeper will use this argument as an
opportunity to set up the goblin attack.
The goblins have gathered all the warriors they could, using the
changeling as a distraction, and will attempt to ambush the Dreamers
that have pierced their woods. The Dreamers’ high POW scores have
allowed them to bypass the magics that conceal the goblin lair. The
goblins are frightened and attempt to kill them before they can lead
others here.
If the Dreamers defeat the goblins they find their camp easily as
the goblin magic collapses. In the camp are various bits of offal and
garbage, a small, uneven wooden hut laden with dozens of poorly
built bunks, and three human children—real ones, five years old,
three years old, and one year old—chained to a poorly built stove,
weeping. These children were kidnapped from a nearby village and
replaced by mechanical, magical changeling devices.
The five-year-old, Sohn, can describe life in the goblin camp. The
children were stolen over a period of months from a nearby hamlet,
one by one, and replaced with changelings. The goblins bound the
children during the day and plied them at night with various rituals
which Sohn did not understand. (In fact the goblins were casting
progressive spells to transform the children into goblins.)
Sohn can direct the characters back to their village. Those who
manage to return the children to their families receive 1D4 SAN
points in reward and any gifts the villagers can spare.
64
The Goblin War Band

Name Str Con Siz Int Pow Dex DB HP
Grunt 9 10 4 14 4 28 –1D4 7
Squee 10 11 5 12 8 25 –1D4 8
Slurp 10 11 4 15 10 20 –1D4 7
Stick 11 14 8 16 7 15 — 11
Bone 9 14 8 8 5 14 — 11
Skills in Common: Hide 90%, Sneak 70%.

Attacks: Club 25%, damage 1D10+db
Fork 25%, damage 2D3+db
Hammer 25%, damage 1D6+2+db
Sanity Loss: 0/1D6 for encountering the goblins
The Bronze Wheel Circus

This merry band can be heard from quite a distance. Their rickety
cart, near collapsing under the weight of a ratty canvas tent and tent
poles, slides across the track. A simple, looping, mechanical calliope
plays, occasionally pausing as the vehicle pauses only to continue
again. As it approaches, the Dreamers can spy its bronze wheels,
green with age as they clack along. The calliope is an ancient affair
affixed to a single well-greased mechanical shaft on a single wheel,
with three pipes to amplify the sound.
Ten individuals accompany the cart in a loose band, two guiding a
huge ox that pulls the cart and its contents. The group is led by Ohm-
on, a man in a bright red pointed cap, who is the apparent “founder
of the feast.” The other nine are workmen, clowns, and acrobats who
follow Ohmon’s rules to the letter. All look to him for instruction and
direction and all are quiet around strangers.
The Bronze Wheel Circus sets up outside small villages, buys sup-
plies for a small feast from the profit of their previous engagement,
and then throws a party with acrobats, jugglers and clowns while
selling food and spirits to the locals. They are completely mundane,
and are not criminals by any stretch of the imagination, though
they are often mistaken for such. They are wary of those they are
just meeting, but seem to thaw as words are exchanged and Ohmon
65
comes to the conclusion that no harm is meant and that they are not
dealing with cut throats or thieves.
The circus has a near perfect memory of towns, villages, roads,
lodgings and directions, and they are a valuable resource for those
lost on the road.
Ohmon
Leader of the Bronze Wheel Circus, age 33
Damage Bonus: +1D6
Skills: Accounting 14%, Art (Performance) 44%, Bargain 51%,
Conceal 20%, Dodge 57%, Fast Talk 65%, Listen 70%, Mechanical
Repair 23%, Navigate 40%, Persuade 48%, Ride 33%. Languages:
Talunen (Own) 55%, English 35%.
Attacks: Punch 67%, 1D3+db
Ohmon is hugely bulky, almost as wide as he is tall. He is never

without a tall, peaked, red wool cap. His face is often split disarm-
ingly by a bright, yellow-toothed smile. His voice is quiet and affable,
but can rise to terrifying levels if need be. He is extremely physically
intimidating, and uses this to his advantage in personal dealings by
leaning in close in conversation. Still, Ohmon is a kind and giving
individual, who is nearly as concerned for strangers as for his “fam-
ily” in the circus. But the years on the road have taught him to be
cautious.
Ohmon runs the Bronze Wheel Circus like his father before him.
Many performers in his circus served under his father, Ahm, for
years, and now serve Ohmon with equal fervor. Since his father’s
death, Ohmon has maintained the circus much as it was when he
was born. He has no family remaining except for the members of the
troupe, for whom he would do anything.
Ohmon is eager to protect the future of the circus and its members
and, after that, to do the right thing in tough circumstances. He will
66
not knowingly commit a crime or or allow one to be committed in his

presence, and will even go so far as to put himself in harm’s way to
assist a stranger.
He will also go out of his way to help those travelers the group may
come upon who are lost.
Par of Sonya-Nil
Par appears as a lone figure on the road and is perhaps the most
beautiful creature any of the characters has ever seen. She appears
as a perfectly formed (however each Dreamer conceives perfection),
petite woman with deep golden skin and white hair, garbed in a
unblemished white robe inlaid with a blue-white filagree. She smiles
easily and is eager to speak to those she comes across.
She appears unarmed, and indeed unsupplied—without kit or
food—in the middle of the wilderness. If threatened, she attempts to
calmly talk the source of the threat out of any action which might get
them injured. If assaulted, she easily steps aside from any attack and
the assailant ends up on the ground, either flipped, tripped or fallen.
This is always followed by a disarming laugh on the part of the tiny
scribe.
She is eager to converse with the Dreamers. With an apology, she
attempts to write down their life stories with a book and pen that
appear from nowhere. If she discovers the truth of the characters’ his-
tory—of their magical banishment from Earth—she becomes doubly
eager, probing them for details.
If asked about her own origins, she explains she is from Sonya-
Nil, the Land of Fancy, a place beyond the edge of the Dreamlands
where time and space do not operate under the rules found here or on
Earth. It is a land of constant, perfect dream. She left this perfection
to document the trials of those who live and exist in the lands where
time and circumstance conspire against them. She finds imperfection,
in all of its glory, to be fascinating. She quite literally surrendered
perfection for chaos.
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Lord Ivar of Imel

(and Company)
This retinue can be heard at a great distance and banners hung on
high poles can be spied coming over the hill. It sounds like a carriage
of some sort, along with at least ten horses, and the ground rumbles
as it approaches.
Four well-armed guards arrive well ahead of the company, riding
up to the Dreamers and demanding their names. Those who do not
comply, or who draw weapons, find that facing someone on horse-
back is not as easy as it might seem. These mercenaries simply circle
around and rush the characters at high speed, sending them scatter-
ing. Any who attempts to stand his or her ground must make a Luck
roll or suffer 1D20 damage.
Those who are peaceful, or who claim to be from Earth, note that
the mood shifts. The mercenaries suddenly seem uninterested in
them. With a whistle, the carriage comes over the hill. It is a powder-
blue wooden construction of intricate detail, flying a gold, black and
red banner on a high pole. The driver, like the mercenaries, is well
armed. The passenger in the cart cannot be seen as a powder-blue
filagreed cloth covers all windows. Six horses pull the cart, which is
laden with luggage tied down by a canvas cover.
If anyone has discovered the characters are from Earth (whether
there has been a conflict or not), the cart rides up and with great
pomp, discloses a single, small passenger. This is Lord Ivar of Imel, a
boy no more than ten years old.
He is eager, full of energy, and extraordinarily well-spoken for
someone so young. He is eager to learn all he can of Earth and seems
to know much already. If the characters will, he invites them to a
lunch to discuss their lives on the distant world which seems to be his
obsession. Those who agree find themselves in a clear field, flanked
by mercenaries turned waiters, sitting in finely crafted folding chairs
and eating fruits and cheeses. Those who decline are told to call upon
him if they ever arrive in Lhosk, where he is traveling to marry into a
family of some trade influence to further the ambitions of his house.
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He even offers a scribbled note marked with his seal.

Ivar can become a valuable ally. His family is well known and his
wealth is vast. He will, if he is met in friendship, assist the Dreamers
in any way within his power—all for simple stories of life on Earth.
Those who are charming or who take the little lord under their wing
find that kindness repaid a thousand fold, as a single word from Ivar
in nearly any civilized land can place the group high in local stand-
ings.
The Mercenaries
1 15 15 9 4 18 — 12
2 13 18 14 5 15 +1D4 16
3 12 5 17 15 13 +1D4 11
4 14 12 8 12 11 — 10
5 14 4 16 18 11 +1D4 10
Skills In Common: Dodge (DEX x 2) + 10%, Ride 49%, Spot Hid-

den 61%. Languages: Talunen (Own) 80%, English 30%.
Attacks: Lance 56%, 1D10+1+db
Cavalry sword 45%, 1D8+1+db
Dagger 65%, 1D4+2+db
Lord Ivar
Ivar, Son of Iva, Regent of Imel, age 9
Damage Bonus: –1D6
Skills: Accounting 12%, Art 9%, Astronomy 11%, Climb 45%, Credit
Rating 75%, Dodge 40%, Hide 51%, History 25%, Law 19%, Listen
62%, Occult 9%, Persuade 13%, Ride 22%, Sneak 60%, Spot Hidden
30%, Swim 42%. Languages: Talunen (Own) 40%, English 25%.
Attacks: None to speak of.
Ivar is a small, thin child with light brown hair, blue eyes and a
thick chin. He is eager, easily excited, and has a hard time suppress-
ing his emotions.
69
Lord Ivar has little history to speak of, being only nine years old.
Still, he eagerly looks forward to someday interacting with a wider
world. He is a kind, forward-thinking noble, eager to secure and
expand his family’s good name.
Locating Civilization
Huge expanses of the Dreamlands remain uninhabited, but marks
of the passage of man, as well as the remnants of ancient civiliza-
tions which predate his reign, are everywhere. Finding the direction
towards civilized spaces is usually as easy as walking a few miles in
any direction, following a river towards the sea, or looking for smoke
on the horizon.
Characters who do any of these things discover that even the most
removed areas of the Dream are not too far from shelter and civiliza-
tion.
Smaller Towns
Small towns of less than fifty souls are common in the Dreamlands.
These villages are almost always agrarian, raising crops and livestock
for sale in larger towns or cities, or simply for subsistence. Such a
hamlet is usually ruled by a powerful family or a single individual of
exceptional intelligence, strength or skill.
Characters entering these towns will find most doors closed to
them, at least initially. First, however, they will be bluntly met by
whatever passes for a militia in the town; usually a half dozen men
armed with farm equipment. As a rule the inhabitants are distrust-
ful of outsiders, but many will be friendly and forthcoming if they
discover the characters come from Earth. Once this boundary is
breached, and the characters are deemed inoffensive by the leaders,
all barriers drop.
Money is of little use in these towns, which rely instead on the
barter of skills or goods as an economy. Still, things with utility hold
value, and often the leaders will trade food, clean water and shelter
for useful tools.
70
Trade Routes and Roads

Roads, tracks and paths crisscross the Dreamlands. Many are
ancient and were laid in antiquity before humans arrived. Others
are modern, with recently cut stones maintained on a yearly basis by
nearby cities. Others still have guardposts to protect the caravans
that wind along them.
Dreamers who seek such things rapidly locate a path, road or
track, with one often leading to another. The larger roads invariably
wind towards the sea, crossing small towns and villages along the
way which feed into the highway system, and which bring food and
goods to the seaside cities for trade.
Hitching a Ride
Anyone coming upon a road heading towards the sea meets many
travelers. Some are on foot, but many have horses or carts. Hitching
a ride on a cart is not difficult (the world of Dreams is more trusting
than 1920s Earth), especially if the characters identify themselves as
dreamers from Earth.
Dreamers who attempt to waylay, rob, or ambush travelers along a
road will soon find themselves the subject of a hunt by local authori-
ties (use guards’ stats from page 147).
71
Other Ways
Into the Dark
Chapter Seven
The Underworld - Ghouls - The Vaults of Zin -
If you wish to send
The Gug City - To Inhuman Depths
the Dreamers into the
Underworld but they
fled Sarkomand without
“This bitter meat sustains us...
venturing into the Plaza,
don’t despair. In the Who then are they, seated here?
Dreamlands, any cave
Is the table a mirror in which they sit and look?
or gap could lead to a
new version of the Ten Are they men eating reflections of themselves?”
Thousand Steps, without
—Wallace Stevens, Cuisine Bourgeoisie
the Men from Leng
guarding them.
Dreamers in flight from
At the Base of the

slavers or goblins or
warriors might flee down
the steps and realize that
Ten Thousand Steps

their pursuers have stopped
above, refusing to venture
into the depths but waiting
for their prey to come out Characters fed down the chute in Sarkomand arrive here, at the
again.
foot of the Ten Thousand Steps (which wind a mile back to the
Venturing into the surface), bruised and friction-burned, sliding to a stop on a bed of
darkness, the Dreamers
spongy, glowing moss. There is no way back up the stairs as teeming
stumble across Madaeker
and their grim adventure hordes of Men from Leng are descending them even as the characters
begins.
recover. Those who remain here for too long face a vast contingent of
armed Men from Leng bent on murdering them.
The area is lit with a ghostly white light from the moss; otherwise
it is barren of plant-life. Everything past thirty-feet is lost, first in
a haze of grey and then in complete blackness. The only vertical
surface of substance is the staircase—within and alongside it is the
greased shaft in which the characters rode down. Everything else
is relatively flat. The sensation of the area is that of a vast, terrify-
ing gap beneath the earth whose ceiling is some enormous distance
above. The thought that the entire city of Sarkomand sits on top of
this chasm is utterly terrifying to most (0/1 SAN).
Near the point where the shaft opens is a scattering of human
bones; leg bones and a skull or two. Those examining these bones
closely (who make a Spot Hidden roll) realize they have been
gnawed clean and the skulls carefully split, as if they were some sort
72
Chapter Seven: The Underworld
of fruit (cost: 0/1D4 SAN). In addition to these bones, there is a

scattering of the crude equipment of the Men from Leng, including Motivating
a backpack of leather, two cheap swords, some rotted shafts of wood the Players
Once in the Underworld,
which might have once been torches (but which are too wet to be of
it’s vitally important the
use) and some damp, rough cloth. characters move deeper
into the darkness, as
opposed to attempting to
Into Darkness
fight their way back up the
stairs. Getting back out of
the Underworld up the Ten
Wise characters retreat into the vast darkness surrounding the Thousand Steps must be
clearly portrayed as suicide.
Ten Thousand Steps before the Men from Leng arrive. Those that
wait too long can even see the creatures descending the stairs by the This is easily achieved
by illustrating the point;
dozens, prepared for battle.
make it painfully obvious
From the safety of the darkness, the stairs can be perceived, as can a vast number of Men
from Leng are descending
the bestial Men from Leng. The creatures circle the landing of the
the staircase – describe
steps, but never venture far from them; it’s obvious to all that they the growing cacophony of
terrifying sounds spilling
will not enter the darkness willingly. Even so, a detachment of 100
down from above, growing
creatures fan out in a rough circle around the steps. It is clear they closer and closer. If that
fails, have the Collector
are not leaving and that there is no way to defeat them or sneak by
insist that (though he’s
them. still horrified of the
Underworld) waiting
There is nowhere to go now but further out into the darkness.
around means certain
death.
The Ghoul Trader If the Collector is not

present, introducing
Madaeker the Ghoul Trader
Suddenly breaking the silence of the darkness, a lilting, almost
early may be a way to
melodic voice emanates from the caverns of the Underworld. It draw the characters away
from the Steps. Once the
speaks an odd, old-sounding English. It hesitantly circles the players,
characters move several
asking strange questions such as “Are you of New Amsterdam?” and hundred yards from the
stairs, the Men from Leng
“How fares the port city?”
will not pursue.
This odd being was born on Earth and, through darker means than
Even they are not foolish
the Dreamers, found his way to the Dreamlands: Madaeker, once
enough to fully enter the
Michael Daeker of New Amsterdam, left our world in the middle- Underworld – they never
go more than a dozen yards
1600s, never to return. He was once a man but now is not human.
from the base of the steps,
He looks like a cross between an ape, a dog and a man (cost: 0/1D6 no matter the reason.
SAN), though his white eyes are filled with a coherence that clearly
implies intelligence. He stands upright but with a severe hunch, and
wears a hooded robe over his thick, white fur. He carries a rucksack
73
of ruined leather filled with various artifacts of the world of the

Subtle Changes ghouls.
He’s hesitant, bookish and strange. He speaks like a human but
change to allow players a with a severe lisp. He trades with the Men from Leng that occasion-
ally come down the steps, but he is not part of the warren of ghouls
who normally trade here. In fact, he’s a very anti-social ghoul.
• The dank, peculiar,
Long since lost to the insanity of a ghoul’s mind, Madaeker treats
altogether
unwholesome smell of the Dreamers with a reserved air until he finds they are indeed from
the underworld air.
New York. (“So, the King took New Amsterdam, then?”) He seems
• The hue of luminescence interested in the politics of what went on there, but has no idea of the
leaking from
amount of time that has passed since New Amsterdam became New
phosphorescent fungi.
York (nearly 300 years).
• The taste of the fungi
He is far too fast, agile and at home in the darkness of the Under-
that the Dreamers or
their guides deem safe world for the Dreamers to pose any significant threat. Even so, he
to eat.
keeps his distance until he learns he can trust the Dreamers. Past that
• A rain of condensation point, Madaeker, despite his hideous appearance, will be forthcom-
from vast distances
ing and cooperative—even kind—something not all humans will be
overhead, tasting of
bone and stone. prepared for.
He is a clever fellow, but has forgotten most of his days on Earth.
He understands such a place exists, but to him it is the equivalent of
the world of dreams. He remembers dim snippets of what life was
like “above,” in the waking world, as well as “Mina”, his “love”—but
little else.
Madaeker will make a deal with willing humans, offering to guide
them safely through the Underworld to another exit to the surface
many miles away. In exchange, they must perform a task for him in
the waking world when (and if) they ever return. (He seems to know
that the characters are of the waking world.) He will not say what
this task is until the journey is done. The Dreamers have little choice.
If the Collector is present, he urges the players not to trust the “ter-
rible creature,” but wise Dreamers will see that Madaeker is far more
benign than the Collector will ever be.
If told to leave, he does so willingly, but he watches the characters
from a distance with his keen eyesight, shadowing them silently in
the dark. After several hours to themselves in the Underworld he
may quietly announce, “You’ve turned a circle in the black twice.
74
76
Only I can show you the way.”

If pressed for details, Madaeker confirms the journey is far, and
dangerous, but less dangerous than attempting to journey back up
the Ten Thousand Steps. It involves a secret exit to a secluded wood
accessible underground only in a place called the Gug City. Hearing
this, the Collector begins to weep and whimper uncontrollably.
To seal the deal, Madaeker insists on a handshake—something that
requires a SAN roll on the part of the human party (0/1 SAN). When
he shakes the Dreamer’s hand, he looks deeply in the character’s
eyes and says, “I have friends in your world as well. You shall keep
whatever bargain we strike.” He does not release the hand offered
until the character agrees. His strength is astonishing.
If the characters have not gained a respect of Madaeker by now,
by the end of their journey, they will. When the characters agree to
do all he says upon completion of his bargain, Madaeker turns into
the darkness and beckons once: “This way. . . .”
Madaeker (Michael Daeker)

Lesser Ghoul of New Amsterdam, age 352
DEX 16 APP n/a EDU 10 SAN n/a HP 16
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Skills: Burrow 72%, Climb 70%, Dodge 70%, Hide 80%, Jump 81%,
Listen 61%, Sneak 85%, Underworld Navigation 80%. Languages:
Morga (Own) 55%, English 31%, Dutch 39%.
Attacks: Claws 35%, damage 1D6+db (attacks with both claws and a
bite each round)
Bite 31%, damage 1D6+automatic worry (see Call of Cthulhu Sixth
Edition, page 160)
Armor: Projectiles do half damage; round up.
Spells: Ghoul’s Bargain (see page 285), The Mark of Mordiggian
(see page 285), Summon/Bind Nightgaunt.
About Madaeker
At 5’9” tall but monstrously strong, Madaeker looks like a cross
between an ape, a man and a dog, with legs ending in scabrous
77
hooves. Despite this, his glowing eyes are human and retain some
semblance of sanity.
Madaeker was born on Earth in New Amsterdam in the early
1600s. At some point in the distant past, he descended through the
ghoul warrens which connect the waking world with the world of
dreams, and since then has never left.
Madaeker is honest. Disinterested in communing with others of
his kind, he scours the Underworld for news of the waking world,
which to him has become the equivalent of the world of dreams.
Questions About
the Underworld
Madaeker readily answers all questions put to him except one—he
will not state the nature of the bargain struck by the characters for
his assistance in the Underworld.
1) How Far Must We Travel?

The journey, he says, can take as long as 50,000 paces. He con-
fesses humans find keeping time in the dark difficult. Madaeker
recalls clocks and their basic use, but not well. All time is measured
underground in movement.
2) What Dangers Will We Face?

Gugs, ghasts, and other ghouls who are not so well-behaved as
himself. Madaeker clearly illustrates the situation. The Men from
Leng were a dim shadow of the threat they now face; the only differ-
ence now is that there are places to hide in the dark. Confronting the
Men from Leng at the Ten Thousand Steps is certain death; traveling
through the Underworld is merely probable death.
3) What We Will Eat and Drink?

Madaeker drives this point home–the characters MUST NOT eat
or drink ANYTHING in the Underworld. He will not say why, only
that “it is forbidden.” He will not elaborate.
78
4) What is a Gug or Ghast?

What are Ghouls?
A gug is a gruesome giant, more than a match for all of the Dream-
ers put together. Though intelligent, they are not clever, and they
hunt by sound and smell. Ghasts are unintelligent, wild beasts that
haunt various portions of the Underworld. Gugs often eat them.
Ghouls are those like himself, creatures—he claims—which were
once men. They feed on the rotting flesh of the dead. They have no
interest in live humans (the “unripened fruit”). Most ghouls are in
league with other forces in the dark, such as the Men from Leng or
even the gugs. Madaeker claims (truthfully) to be independent of
such allegiances.
5) What is the Gug City?

The Gug City is a huge, ancient edifice built long ago by the
forbears of the gugs, beasts too large and horrible to imagine, which
once haunted both the upper world and the Underworld. It has long
since fallen into decline and is now occupied by the biggest, strongest
and most terrible gugs. They use it to worship their god Ummar, the
Blind One. It is the only exit from the Underworld that he knows
other than the Ten Thousand Steps.
6) What is the Task We Have Agreed

To Do In Exchange For Your Help?
Madaeker says nothing of the bargain until the end of the journey.
Journey Into the Black

Madaeker outfits each character properly for a journey through
the Underworld. He answers questions readily—disturbingly so—as
he searches the Dreamers. Those mistaking his probing for an attack
or an attempt at robbery find him far beyond their reach before they
can react violently. He reassures them: “I mean no harm. There are
things in the dark that can smell a morsel at 500 paces and hear a pin
drop on a goose-down bed.”
79
He locates any food on the Dreamers and discards it, with or

Eating and without each Dreamer’s permission. He refuses to begin the journey
Drinking in the until all food is removed. In fact, he discovers several pounds of food
Underworld secreted about the person of the Collector, who weeps when it is
Dreamers are forbidden
removed and thrown off into the darkness.
from eating or drinking
anything in the Next he urges the characters to discard any unnecessary metal
Underworld. This is part of
items before the journey begins. When this is done he secures all
the curse inflicted on the
Underworld denizens by remaining metal on their persons with rotten ropes from his ruck-
the Great Ones in ancient
sack.
times.
This does not mean the

Dreamers will perish
from starvation or thirst.
Despite such feelings, no
The Route
The journey is far and involves traveling through the most dan-
negative physical effects
are ever felt from lack of gerous reaches of the Underworld. Since it is part of the bargain,
food or water. Willful
Madaeker will not be forthcoming with the exact route or method he
Dreamers might live in
the Underworld forever chooses to take; instead, he generalizes and shares important infor-
without ever eating
mation only as it is needed along the way.
or drinking. (Unless,
of course, one of the Madaeker plans to guide the Dreamers first to the edge of the
terrifying denizens of the
Underground Sea, a vast saline lake inhabited by horrible beasts.
Underworld gets them.)
There he will parlay with Graal, a withdrawn creature not native to
Those foolish enough to
Earth’s Dreamlands but who has fished the lake for centuries. If all
tempt the curse of the
Great Ones by eating goes well, Graal will bring them across the sea to the Vaults of Zin,
or drinking are in for an
the home of the ghasts.
unpleasant surprise at the
end of the journey to the The Vaults of Zin are almost an Underworld unto themselves,
surface. See “Those Left
a vast maze of crags with winding paths filled with ghasts. They
Behind” on page 104.
eventually bring travelers through the hunting grounds of the lesser
gugs—those not strong enough to rule a portion of the Gug City.
The periphery between the Vaults of Zin and the gug hunting
grounds is particularly dangerous. It is open ground, littered with
the bones of thousands of creatures, including gugs, ghasts, ghouls
and even humans. Those crossing the zone find it impossible to move
silently—something vital if one is being hunted by a creature that
tracks by sound.
This zone eventually leads to the hunting ground known as the
Forest of Monoliths. It is marked by huge, conical stone shapes more
than 30 feet high that dot an otherwise naked landscape leading up to
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the Gug City. In actuality, these shapes are the tombstones of the gug
forebears who perished long before the Great Ones cursed the gugs
to remain forever in the Underworld. Here sickly ghasts are hunted
by juvenile gugs throughout the tombstones. When these smaller
gugs come of age or size, they battle for entrance to the Gug City, or
are forever banished to the Vaults of Zin.
Finally there is the Gug City itself, a series of smooth, conical
structures carved from stone, winding upwards to a vast tower that
spirals up to the surface—the Tower of Koth—and finally a huge,
stone gate that opens to the Enchanted Wood.
The Underground Sea

The Dreamers smell the Underground Sea long before they reach
it. The air is filled with a pungent, sharp aroma of salt water, with an
undercurrent of rot and moisture.
Moving through the dark, the Dreamers’ eyes grow somewhat
used to what seemed like absolute blackness. Madaeker plays shep-
herd, circling the group and making sure everyone is present and is
keeping up.
All Spot Hidden rolls are at half chance. Dreamers who make two
successful Spot Hidden rolls in a row can continue to see everything
within 50’ normally until they enter a new area. Any Dreamer who
fails two in a row, however, must make a Luck roll or accidentally
wander off (only to be found and returned to the group by Madae-
ker). Others remain with the group but can see only a few feet.
Several times in the dark, noises can be heard. Once it sounds like
distant laughter. Another time it’s the sound of flapping wings lost
somewhere high above in the dark. (If asked, Madaeker states the
wings belong to a creature called a “Nightgaunt.” He does not elabo-
rate.)
Finally, after what seems like countless hours of walking across
smooth but undulating and uneven ground, each Dreamer who
makes a Listen roll can hear the sounds of waves falling on a beach.
They have arrived unmolested at the Underground Sea.
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Graal the Old

Upon arriving at the pebbled shore of the Underground Sea,
Madaeker informs the characters of his intention of “buying passage”
on the ship of a being that is known to him—Graal the Old. Graal,
he states plainly, is like him, holding no allegiances except to himself.
He’s from another, distant dreamworld, and came here to the Under-
ground Sea before Sarkomand fell to the moon-beasts in antiquity.
He has lived here quietly since, hunting terrible underwater beasts
that haunt the sea. Madaeker has dealt with Graal many times and is
certain he poses no threat.
Madaeker attempts to hold the characters back as he walks down
to the shore. Insistent characters find him pliable on the matter, as
long as only one or two accompany him at first. More than that and
he fears risking Graal’s “hospitality.”
Graal is a huge being, nearly nine feet tall and weighing in excess
of 750 pounds. He looks basically human but is seemingly composed
of a pale, translucent substance reminiscent of amber, which darkens
to a honey color as the skin deepens and is lit from the inside by a
flickering blue-white light. His eyes are simply blank sockets with
sparks of blue-white light for pupils. He has no sex, three fingers and
only the dimmest outlines of facial features.
At first, Dreamers find it difficult to read Graal’s intentions. It
is clear the characters are seen as they approach, and Madaeker
does much bowing and scraping as they come upon the camp. Graal
stands completely still, emitting ghostly light from his skin and eyes,
watching as they walk towards him. (0/1 SAN).
Graal speaks bluntly, and it becomes clear quickly that all subter-
fuge and subtlety is lost on this being. His statements are simple fact,
emitted in a voice that sounds like air forced through a bellows. His
breath is hot and reeks of sulfur. He wears no clothing and seems less
to move his body as to retract and regrow his body to move. It is like
seeing a film of an ever-changing statue that moves through space
and time frame by frame.
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Graal says that he has dreamt of carrying a number of people and

Madaeker across the sea. In exchange, they must grant him a portion
of their “will,” with which he will shape more weapons and expand
his ship. Madaeker translates to characters that do not understand:
Graal will take a “a tiny portion of their mote—the power which fuels
their being—something not missed.” Madaeker makes it plain that
there is no other way safely across the sea. He also makes it plain that
he too must offer such a sacrifice to cross.
Graal the Old

Other-Worldly Hunter of Bholes
DEX 13 Move 8 MP 31 HP 30
Damage Bonus: +3D6
Skills: Boating 51%, Empathy (Understand/Speak Any Language)
60%, Fashion Items from His Flesh 55%, Underworld Sea Naviga-
tion 90%.
Self-Grown Spear 59%, damage 1D10+db (impales)
Armor: 10 points of stony hide.
Spells: No conventional spells. Graal’s abilities are native to his kind.
Graal is a hunter from a world somewhere beyond the Dreamlands

of Earth. He came to the Dreamlands in antiquity to hunt a terrible
creature which apparently tormented his kind. This beast, called a
bhole, apparently devours entire worlds.
Graal’s sense of time is dilated to the point where the time he has
spent in the Earth’s Dreamlands seems nothing more than a short
excursion, despite the fact that he’s lived near the Underground Sea
since before Sarkomand fell to the moon-beasts.
Graal pursues the bhole on the Underground Sea, occasionally
killing its young before they can nest and breed. In all this time, he
has only encountered the sire of the juvenile bholes twice. Both times
it survived him. The next time, he is certain, he shall kill it.
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Questioning Graal
Graal speaks plainly to any topic brought up, answering truthfully
and without any attempt to shade his statements in duplicity.
1) What are Madaeker’s Intentions?

Does He Mean Us Harm?
Graal says that Madaeker has never betrayed him, and that the
ghoul is of a “higher order” than others of his kind. Madaeker—like
all ghouls—eats only rotted flesh, something that Graal speaks about
with some fascination (he has little concept of what “eating” is, but
finds it interesting). Madaeker poses no threat to the Dreamers.
2) What Are Your Intentions?

Do You Mean Us Harm?
No, as long as the bargain is kept.
3) What World Are You From?

Graal states he could not explain it clearly; that even the form they
see is worn “like a suit of armor to interact with this place.” The place
he comes from is beyond the furthest points of light in the night sky.
4) Why Have You Come Here?

Graal is a “hunter” searching for a beast that has wronged him in
another, distant world “beyond the moon.”
5) What Will You Do With the

‘Will’ Taken From Us?
Such power is used to shape his form and to generate the weapons
and ship he uses to hunt the Underground Sea.
6) What Do You Hunt?

The creature he hunts is a huge, terrible thing known here as a
bhole. He has twice encountered it here, and twice it escaped. He will
find it, slay it, and return its “will” to those from whom it has stolen.
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7) How Far Is the Journey Across the Sea?

Not far. But it is sometimes dangerous.
8) Do you Know Any Other

Exits to the Surface?
Only the Gug City and the Ten Thousand Steps—which they
would surely not survive. “For fragile beings such as yourselves, the
Gug City is the only exit.”
Payment
Those agreeing to the terms find themselves face to face (or face to
abdomen) with Graal. The strange being gently places a huge, warm
hand on the Dreamer’s chest and drains 1 point of POW painlessly.
This point will regenerate over a period of time, returning to the
Dreamer in ten days—but don’t tell the players this.
Those refusing the payment will be left behind on the rocky shore
when the group boards Graal’s ship. Affecting Graal is completely
beyond the abilities of the characters (and even Madaeker). He is
immortal and, more to the point, immutable if a change is against his
will. He does not hesitate to use force to protect his ship from unlaw-
ful entry, but does his best not to kill. It is not his way.
Pale Beasts
After what seems like hours of movement over the Underground
Sea, the Dreamers are startled from the silence by the sound of
splashing water. Those carefully peering ahead towards the sound see
brief flashes of movement. Graal seems unpeturbed, and continues
forward unmindful of the disturbance.
As the boat approaches the noise, the Dreamers can spy huge, pale
beasts writhing and intertwined like the limbs of some giant squid on
the surface of the Underground Sea. They shake, twist and pull at
one another. It’s nearly impossible to tell if it is one creature or many
smaller creatures; in either case, such beasts could easily tip the ves-
sel. (Cost: 0/1D4 SAN.)
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Graal says nothing unless asked. If questioned, he says they are

the offspring of the creature he hunts—tiny versions of it. They infest
a planet like maggots, eating away its heart over tens of thousands of
years. When their sire dies, they too will perish.
As the ship approaches the disturbance, the creatures pull away
from the dim light generated within Graal, withdrawing back into the
depths without a sound.
The journey continues in silence.
Illusions on the
Underground Sea
Cruel Keepers may complicate the lives of the Dreamers by
populating the Underground Sea with creatures, illusions or distrac-
tions still more severe. Madaeker and Graal warn of the dangers of
the Underground Sea. They say the sea itself is haunted and can lure
unwary adventurers into its black depths.
Some options are outlined below.
1) Singing
One or two Dreamers hear a dim, melodic singing coming from
the dark, a woman’s voice in an unknown tongue. If asked, Graal and
Madaeker confess they hear no such noise. As the ship moves across
the Underground Sea, the singing grows in volume until the listeners
are certain that they must be right on top of the source. But just as it
builds to a crescendo, it subsides and vanishes. (Cost: 0/1 SAN.)
2) The Palace
A Dreamer peering into the black water notices tiny, yellow pin-
points of light beneath the surface. At first it’s impossible to deter-
mine what they are, but as the boat drifts towards them, it becomes
clear they appear to be fires. Anyone directed to look can see them.
Despite this obvious impossibility, as the flickering lights grow
closer two things become clear: first, they appear to be far underwa-
ter, 200 yards or more; and second, they appear to be torches.
86
As the ship slides over the point where these lights are closest,
an incredible event occurs. What appears to be a moon suddenly
materializes in an infinite sky beneath the waves, as if some under-
water clouds parted. The moon lights the spires of an ancient palace
of cupolas and spires for a few seconds, and then vanishes. Anyone
foolish enough to enter the water to try to reach the palace is pulled
under and never seen again. (Cost: 1/1D4 SAN.)
3) Hands
A Dreamer who places anything in the water finds it suddenly
grasped by pale, water-logged hands of enormous strength. If it’s an
item placed in the water, it is simply yanked out of the Dreamer’s
hands. If it is an arm or a leg, the Dreamer must beat a contest vs.
STR 21 or be pulled in. (Cost: 1/1D4 SAN.)
Those who fall into the waters are rapidly yanked under by hun-
dreds of such hands, never to be seen again. (Cost: 2/1D6 SAN.)
Landing on the Far Side

The landing on the far side of the Underground Sea is much more
rocky and dangerous than the one the characters embarked on. It is a
series of jagged, salt-slicked rocks, meandering up into the black.
Graal lands the ship at a single jutting shingle of stone. As Madae-
ker bows and scrapes once more, Graal encourages the Dreamers to
disembark.
Climbing the rocky slope requires a DEX x 5 roll or a Climb roll.
Those that fail slip and suffer 1D4 HP damage. Those that fumble
the roll plummet into the icy cold water and must make a Swim roll
every minute or drown (suffering 1D4 HP damage per round of
drowning). Rescuing such an ill-fated individual is difficult, requir-
ing a group Luck roll. Failing this roll indicates the character in the
water must make another Swim roll or be swept under. A fumble
on this roll and another character falls in, subject to the same rolls!
Madaeker will do his best to help, but he cannot swim.
After scaling the sharp rocks the Dreamers find themselves at the
top of a huge rise that spills down into a maze of smooth, undulating
87
passageways, which vanish into absolute blackness far below. As they

Replacing Lost stand overlooking the sloping, terrifying blackness that awaits them,
Dreamers Madaeker announces, in a whisper: “The Vaults of Zin.”
Replacing Dreamers lost
in the Underworld may be
The Vaults of Zin

easier than it seems. The
Vaults of Zin and the Sea
of Bones are directly linked
to the waking world by The Vaults of Zin seem vaguely familiar. They represent the vast
the deepest fits of sleep of
abyss of fear, anxiety and pain that dreamers from Earth often expe-
mortal men, who can often
be found wandering there rience in sleep.
in the midst of nightmares.
Located south of the Ten Thousand Steps across the Underground
Some fail to disengage and
are lost in the Underworld Sea, they are a huge maze of intertwining stone passageways—chan-
of Dreams. Often, these
nels carved through a plummeting field of lava stone. They are the
unfortunates eat or drink of
the foulness that they find only way deeper into the Underworld.
and become creatures that
forever haunt the dark. But
The Point of No Return

some hang on, searching for
escape.
Have the Dreamers come Entering the Vaults of Zin is a point of no return for the Dream-
upon such a lost dreamer
ers. There is effectively no way back to the Ten Thousand Steps once
from Earth—perhaps one
that cannot wake up to they enter the Vaults.
his or her normal life and
This also marks a sinister shift in the lethality of gameplay. The
does not know why—as
a replacement character Dreamers have enjoyed good luck in meeting a somewhat odd ghoul
in the pitch black of the
(Madaeker) and a harmless entity from beyond space and time
Underworld. From there an
alliance should not be hard (Graal). In the Vaults, things become deadly serious. There are two
to forge.
ways to communicate this:
1) A Change in Madaeker
Madaeker can become more gruff. He emphasizes with gruesome-
ly evocative descriptions that failure to follow his instructions to the
letter will result in death or much worse. If the Dreamers seem too
light-hearted, have Madaeker set them straight.
2) An Offering
More cruel Keepers might decide one or more characters will die
along the way as an object lesson. Having the corpulent, back-stab-
bing Collector eaten by ghasts or gugs in front of them is a nice way
to make the Dreamers reconsider their cavalier ways.
88
Descent Into the Vaults

The Vaults are a treacherous abyss. Descending into the Vaults
from the shoreline of the Underground Sea is dangerous: The
Dreamers must first climb up the razor sharp cliffs and then down
into the winding tunnels. Doing so requires a DEX x 5% roll or a
Climb roll; failure indicates a Luck roll is necessary. Those failing the
Luck roll fall and suffer 1D10 HP damage tumbling into the tunnels.
The Tunnels
Once in the crags of the Vault, the characters’ eyes require more
than a minute to adjust. It is darker in the Vault than on the Under-
ground Sea, although a strange, irregular luminescence seems to float
in the air, creating areas of nearly normal vision.
These tunnels wind for hundreds of miles, crossing back on one
another, going further underground in places, intertwined in a single,
huge maze of darkness. Dreamers separated from the group down
here are likely to get lost permanently. If they are separated, only
those wise enough to remain still and wait silently for help have any
hope of rescue by Madaeker; those foolish enough to plow ahead are
likely to run into a ghast or something worse.
The Ghasts
The ghasts are inhuman creatures that writhe, feed and mate in
absolute darkness. They are the primary prey of the monstrous gugs,
terrifying giants who haunt the edges of the Vaults of Zin, emanating
from the Tower of Koth like a disease.
Despite a vaguely human-like silhouette, ghasts are wild beasts. As
large as a small horse, they move upright on a pair of kangaroo-like
legs that end in scabrous hooves. They are animalistic, carnivorous
and fearless. They often work together in packs, like wolves, hunting
prey in the winding dark of the Vaults of Zin. When no prey is to be
found, they feed on one another.
Ghasts despise all light except the odd glow of the Underworld,
89
and perish due to exposure if the light is strong or persistent enough.

Even something as bright as a torch will send the most numerous and
powerful ghasts scrambling to safety.
After a few minutes of moving in the darkness of the Vault, it
becomes clear the Dreamers are being followed. A persistent scrab-
bling, sniffling noise can be heard. The distance is hard to approxi-
mate, but anyone who makes a Listen roll determines that, whatever
it is, it is less than 50 paces away.
Numbers are also difficult to guess. Sometimes it sounds like a
single creature, at other times like more than a dozen intertwined
sources at once. Those peering into the darkness and making a suc-
cessful Spot Hidden roll at half chance, or who suddenly ignite a
light source, find themselves surrounded on all sides by a vast horde
of ghasts. (Cost: 2/1D8+1 SAN under those circumstances.)
Hunted
Madaeker is a clever leader, and in the Vaults of Zin he does his
best to hurry the characters along. He rapidly circles the group three
to four times every five minutes to remain certain he has not lost any-
one. Madaeker is quite familiar with the ghasts and their methods,
and has contingencies to deal with the threat.
Every hundred feet or so, Madaeker pauses and pulls something
from the rags he wears. He hurls it into the dark down a passage the
group is not taking. Just seconds after the first piece is thrown, the
Dreamers hear terrifying sounds of creatures fighting in the dark-
ness. (Cost: 0/1 SAN.)
Those who make an Idea roll come to the conclusion that Madae-
ker is throwing food into the dark. Those who peer closer (requiring
a Spot Hidden roll at half chance) see Madaeker removing bits of
rotting flesh from a small pouch and throwing it into the dark (0/1
SAN). The ghoul is quite forthcoming (but impatient) with those
who ask—yes, it is human flesh, he confirms, and then shoves the
Dreamer deeper into the darkness.
Those foolish enough to refuse to follow, or who purposely leave
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the group, find themselves attacked by 1D4 hungry ghasts. Barring

some exceptional luck, or a light source, this can easily mark the end
of a dreamer.
The Ghasts
#1 24 21 23 9 16 +2D6 22
#2 22 20 20 12 15 +2D6 20
#3 23 19 20 10 12 +2D6 20
#4 22 16 19 7 12 +2D6 18
Skills: Sneak 70%
Attacks: Bite 40%, damage 1D10+db
Kick 25%, damage 1D6+DB
A ghast is able to kick once and bite once in each round.
Armor: 3 points of skin.
Sanity Loss: 0/1D8.
Playing Up the Pursuit

Once the ghasts are on the trail of the characters, clever Keep-
ers will not let up the pace. Pursuit by a slavering horde of unseen
creatures—nothing more than glowing red-green eyes in the black-
ness—is the epitome of Call of Cthulhu. Here are some tips to keep it
interesting.
1) Falling Behind
With Madaeker’s brisk pace, it is easy for a distracted Dreamer
to fall behind. Anyone attempting to do anything besides move or
communicate with Madaeker must make a Luck roll. Those failing
lose their footing and fall, suffering 1D4–1 HP damage, and are left
momentarily behind by the group. If the character holds still and
waits for help, Madaeker arrives moments later, just as the awful
noises following them seem to settle in around the fallen Dreamer.
A Dreamer foolish enough to shout for help while being pursued
immediately hears the shuffling sounds of something large moving
towards him or her in the dark. Seconds before the creature comes
91
into sight, the character is grabbed by strong arms from behind (cost:
0/1 SAN). Madaeker chides the Dreamer to keep up.
2) Clutching
Have the character with the lowest Luck score roll. If it fails, the
Dreamer falls slightly behind the group. Suddenly, the Dreamer is
clutched in a violent, iron grip (cost: 1/1D4 SAN). Claws dig into the
Dreamer’s flesh (1D6 HP damage). The Dreamer must resist STR 22
on the resistance table or be yanked into the dark and immediately
set upon by a dozen ghasts. There is little hope of survival.
If the Dreamer successfully resists, he or she pulls free and moves
closer to the group.
3) Something Bigger In the Dark

Madaeker sniffs the air tentatively, and then in a whisper urges the
Dreamers to get as low to the ground as they can. In the dim passage
ahead, a sound can be heard, a high-pitched squeal that grows in vol-
ume and fervor. A Dreamer making a Spot Hidden roll at half chance
dimly sees a pack of ghasts rush by, fleeing something.
Then something HUGE moves past the passage in pursuit of the
ghasts. It is there and gone so swiftly that even characters who made
the Spot Hidden roll at half chance don’t get a good look at it. What-
ever it is, it stands at least 20 feet tall.
Soon, it is gone. If asked, Madaeker reveals, “Such is a gug. And a
small one, at that.”
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The Cavern Opening

The Dreamers come to the end of the Vaults suddenly, spilling
from the maze into open air. Here, the winding passages open into
a vast, open space covered in dirt, giant, discarded bones (cost: /1
SAN), and darkness. The feeling is similar to the area next to the Ten
Thousand Steps—some enormous, open cavern. Noises, even quiet
ones, reverberate off unseen cliffs, making stealth all but impossible.
Madaeker has planned for this vast, open space. A straight run
across it to the cavern that leads to the plateau is certain death. Even
as the Dreamers wait for Madaeker to continue, the sounds of crea-
tures circling them can be heard (cost: 0/1 SAN); but their locations
cannot be pinpointed due to the odd acoustics.
Madaeker produces a stump of rotted wood from the rags cover-
ing his body, covers it with a spongy, green-white moss and then
meticulously sets it alight with flint and steel. Immediately the area
is engulfed in a wave of sound—the hoots, screams and shrieks of
the inhuman ghasts who were hoping to consume the Dreamers. The
torch reveals a veritable army of ghasts surrounding the group (cost:
2/1D8 SAN), who immediately flee away from the light. Several too
close to the light immediately collapse and begin smoking, as if the
dim torch was somehow cooking them at a distance of more than 10
feet.
Madaeker rushes the Dreamers forward to a gaping cavern in a
huge, vertical cliff-face. Upon closer inspection it proves to be an
enormous structure on the scale of the Empire State Building, con-
structed for beings 50 feet tall. (Cost: 0/1 SAN.)
Madaeker herds the Dreamers into the vast cavern and to the
remnants of a staircase with steps three and a half feet tall. He says,
“From here on, you shall not speak. We must be as silent as livestock
outside the butcher’s door.” If asked why, Madaeker replies, “If we
are not silent, we become the meal.”
He discards the torch and adds: “Even a wild ghast is not foolish
enough to travel where we plan to go.” His toothy smile is far from
reassuring.
93
The Giant Stair

Traveling the giant staircase upwards out of the Vaults of Zin is
exhausting. Each stair comes to the waist of an average man, and
climbing each one requires a full minute for the entire group. The
farther up the stairs the characters travel, a smell of feces and wet fur
emerges and becomes worse and worse.
Finally, after hours of brutal climbing, the characters arrive at
the top of the giant staircase, and find themselves on an enormous
plateau stretching off into the black.
Behind them, the stair descends into the stone. A bit past that, a
vertical drop descends nearly a half-mile down in blackness to the
Vaults of Zin. Looking off the edge of the plateau is sobering. The
edge is marked with the skulls of enormous beasts. Dreamers looking
closely at the skulls realize they are of from a bizarre creature with a
jaw hinged horizontally across the face (cost: 0/1 SAN).
The Forest of Monoliths

South of the cliff, the plateau past the Giant Stair stretches off
into the darkness. That is where Madaeker herds the Dreamers. He
immediately silences any who speak. If any are foolish enough to con-
tinue such frivolous behavior, Madaeker silences them violently—the
ghoul knocks the Dreamer flat with incredible force, but no damage.
At least not unless the Dreamer insists on making more noise. It is
clear Madaeker does not consider speech an option.
Madaeker leads the Dreamers towards something which reeks
horribly. It smells like feces from the largest, most foul creature
ever—which it indeed turns out to be!
This huge lump of excrement, nearly 60 pounds of it, is still
warm. Madaeker places his hand in it and wipes some of it on his
chest (cost: 0/1 SAN). To make matters worse, he then smears some
on each of the Dreamers (cost: 1/1D4 SAN). Madaeker pins each
Dreamer down if necessary to get the job done. He says it is a neces-
sary disguise.
Once all the Dreamers are marked, Madaeker leads them deeper
94
into the periphery. About twenty minutes into the journey, the
characters come upon the first monolith. These vast, conical, stone
towers stretch up into the black, nearly 30 feet tall. Each is roughly
carved with hideous symbols and faces (those looking too closely find
enough horror in the primitive craftsmanship to cost 0/1 SAN). As
the group continues onwards, they soon find themselves in a forest of
monoliths.
For an entire hour, the group travels silently through a winding
maze of monoliths, all similar in size and appearance. They are, in
fact, the graves of the forebears of the gugs. Those were clever, dan-
gerous creatures long ago banished to the Underworld by the Great
Ones.
As the hour comes to an end, the Dreamers begin to notice a
scattering of bones among the monoliths, and then fewer and fewer
monoliths. Some of the bones seem human, but most do not. Some
are enormous and bear little resemblance to anything the Dreamers
have seen before. The bones become more and more numerous as the
Dreamers move forward. Soon the Dreamers find themselves travers-
ing entire dunes of bones without a monolith in sight.
The Sea of Bones

This vast area on the periphery of the Forest of Monoliths is filled
with the bones of millions of creatures: humans, gugs, ghasts and
worse. The entire area glows with a ghostly, white-green phosphores-
cence. A vast landscape of undulating hills of skeletons, long gnawed
clean, sweeps south into the black.
Moving across the Sea of Bones is troublesome. Those moving at
full speed create such a ruckus that Madaeker quickly silences them.
Every incautious step causes a rattling of such huge proportions that
it must be audible for more than a mile.
Those imitating Madaeker’s style of movement on the sea soon
find their footing. The ghoul follows the lowest points in the “dunes,”
moving very slowly between the peaks, spending as little time on the
high points as possible. In this way the Dreamers make far less noise.
95
Speaking In the
Realm of the Gugs
Foolish Dreamers who disobey Madaeker’s orders find themselves
rapidly out of luck. Juvenile gugs 25 feet tall hunt for scavengers in
the Sea of Bones and the periphery of the Forest of Monoliths.
Any speech draws immediate attention from juvenile gugs. The
offending player must make a Luck roll at half chance. If it succeeds,
the Dreamer spies a pair of distant, red eyes blinking in the darkness.
If the Dreamers all remain silent, the eyes soon vanish. But if the
Dreamer fails the halved Luck roll, the group is suddenly set upon by
a single juvenile gug (cost: 0/1D8 SAN).
The monster is more than a match for all of the Dreamers put
together. However, the creature focuses only on the offending
Dreamer, not the group. It leaps at him or her with a monstrous
shriek of hunger. The victim is on his or her own—Madaeker leaves
him or her for dead, rushing the group away before they can react
with more disastrous speech.
To survive the pursuit, a hunted Dreamer must make two Dodge
rolls, two Sneak rolls and one Hide roll. Each time a roll is failed, the
Dreamer suffers 3D6 HP damage and must continue forward in the
96
sequence of rolls until all rolls are successful or the Dreamer is dead.
If the Dreamer does make it free, he or she is left wandering the
Sea of Bones, lost and alone in the Underworld. It remains up to the
Keeper whether escape is possible for such an unfortunate.
Juvenile Gug
Hunger Given Huge and Terrifying Form
DEX 8 Move 10 HP 39
Damage Bonus: +5D6
Attacks: Bite 39%, damage 1D10 (no db)
Claw(s) 29%, damage 4D6 each (no db)
Stomp 25%, damage 1D6+db
In combat, the gug may either bite, stomp, or attack with two claws. Both
claws must strike the same opponent. This creature is mad with hunger, and
will focus only on the character who made the noise to draw it to the party.
Armor: 6 points of tough hair, skin and cartilage.
Sanity Loss: 0/1D8
A Grotesque Escape
Just when the Sea of Bones seems to be diminishing, Madaeker
stops, sniffs the air twice and hunkers down with the group. He then
does something that should terrify anyone with half a brain—he
speaks: “We are being hunted and they are on all sides. There is but
one way out.”
Madaeker explains his plan. He will distract the gugs. While they
pursue him, the Dreamers must find the gugs’ collection of dead prey,
usually carried in a huge sack which the gugs drop while they hunt.
When the Dreamers find this sack, they must get inside it.
The ghoul insists this is the only way into the Gug City. The gugs
will hear or smell them if they do anything else.
In a moment, he is up and over the dune of bones, gibbering and
meeping, drawing a hunting party of gugs away from the group.
The Dreamers must now take the initiative. Any who hold still,
speak or make too much noise ruin Madaeker’s plan.
97
If the Dreamers move away from the terrifying sound of the gugs
hunting the ghoul, they soon spy a huge object dropped on the Sea
of Bones. It’s a stench-laden hide of some foul animal (actually gug),
dripping wet with black-red blood. It is roughly fashioned into a
huge, primitive backpack. Inside are the corpses of mutilated ghasts.
Up to five Dreamers can fit inside in addition to the ghast-corpses.
Crawling inside costs 1/1D6 SAN.
After an immeasurable period of time, the Dreamers hear move-
ment on the Sea of Bones as the gugs return for the sack. Suddenly,
the sack is lifted easily and seems to float nearly forty feet off the
ground (0/1 SAN). From that point little is heard except the pace of
the creatures moving on the bones, and a huge, terrible breathing.
By this time, the Dreamers are covered in feces, urine, blood and
worse in the sack. Some may be crushed by the weight (suffering 1
HP damage). Others may have to make another SAN roll to resist
the urge to cry out or attempt escape.
Each who makes a Luck roll is situated in a place in the sack
where he or she can peer outwards. Those making Spot Hidden rolls
are lucky enough to see a full-sized gug, one of the hunting party sent
from the Gug City to the Vaults of Zin to hunt ghasts. Congratula-
tions! This costs 0/1D8 SAN.
There are four gugs in this hunting party, enough to take on a
small army of mere humans.
An Average Hunting Gug

What’s Worse Than a Juvenile Gug? One That Has Grown Up
Damage Bonus: +6D6
Attacks: Bite 60%, damage 1D10 (no db)
Claw(s) 40%, damage 4d6 each (no db)
Stomp 25%, damage 1D6+db
In combat, the gug may either bite, stomp, or attack with two claws. Both
claws must strike the same opponent.
Armor: 8 points of tough hair, skin and cartilage.
Sanity Loss: 0/1D8.
98
The Gug City

This terrifying edifice of stone buildings surrounding the Tower of
Koth was constructed in antiquity by the forebears of the gugs. It has
fallen into ruin and destruction. Wars, skirmishes, one-on-one com-
bat and wholesale slaughter by 50-foot giants have taken their toll on
the conical towers, leaving wide areas in rubble.
In the center, spiraling upwards into the dark, is the vast tower
that leads to the surface of the Dreamlands. This tower, marked by
the Symbol of Koth, was once used by the gugs to gain entry to the
Enchanted Wood above, where they wrought havoc on dreamers at
night. Since the curse of the Great Ones, no gug may pass though the
giant, iron-runged wooden door to the surface.
In the Blind God’s Realm

Dreamers who insinuated themselves into the sack of ghast
corpses find themselves roughly dropped upon the ground in the
Gug City, taking 1D4 HP damage. Around them, giants walk to and
fro in absolute silence. After a while, the feeling of being surrounded
subsides.
It remains up to the Dreamers to decide how to proceed. Clever
Dreamers will carefully peek at their surroundings before risking
escape from the sack. A Spot Hidden roll is enough to register they
are on an ancient stone street amidst gargantuan buildings. A Listen
roll is enough to confirm that the immediate vicinity is abandoned.
Dreamers who simply rush out into the dark run into a gug.
The gugs are primitive, superstitious creatures ruled by brute
force, violence and bloodlust. They pay homage to their own deity,
the Blind God. It is he who enforces the laws of the gugs. It is he who
is offended by speech. Within the Gug City, the power and influence
of the Blind God should not be underestimated.
The Alarm: The instant a Dreamer is seen by a gug or speaks
aloud where any gug can hear, the alarm is magically raised: an
enormous, nerve-wracking clanging like some immense bell, coming
from nowhere and everywhere. From that moment the Dreamers will
know only pursuit.
99
Reunited
Fortunately, Madaeker—eager to keep his deal—is not far behind.
When he arrives, he renews his demand for silence with a thin,
clawed finger to his lips. He then leads the Dreamers deeper into the
city, carefully skirting the deep shadows at the base of the enormous
conical towers.
At last, arriving at the edge of some ancient plaza, Madaeker stabs
a finger up into the dark, indicating the giant Tower of Koth.
Up the Tower of Koth

This enormous conical tower spirals thousands of feet up towards
the surface. A large staircase winds upwards from the city of the gugs
to the trapdoor at the top. At its base, the Tower is marked with the
Sign of Koth.
As the Dreamers approach, Madaeker urges them to avert their
eyes from the maddening symbol. Those foolish enough to look lose
1D20 SAN and freeze in their tracks, trying to puzzle out the intrica-
cies and convolutions of the terrible symbol. Such a Dreamer can
be led on by others but remains in a stupor until he or she makes a
halved Luck roll, attempting once every few minutes. Having one or
more Dreamers in such a stupor ought to increase the tension and
suspense of the escape.
The staircase of the tower is ill-suited for human feet, but it is
much more manageable than the Giant Stair. Its low, long, flat steps
100
must have been built for beings not unlike men, long ago.
The Tower itself is featureless, nothing more than a seemingly
ordinary piece of rock surrounded by the spiraling stair.
Madaeker rushes the characters up the stairs, keeping the pace by
staying behind them and goading the slowest characters along. “To
the top! To the top!” he shouts as the terrifying gug alarms begin to
sound.
The Sealed Gate

The group arrives, hunted and exhausted, at the top of the Tower
of Koth—the place to which Madaeker has led them through the hor-
rors of the Underworld—only to find the exit blocked in a primitive
but wholly effective way. A wooden trapdoor is visible above, but
it has been blocked by a mountain of huge boulders packed tightly
on the stairs. There is no gap larger than a few inches. Each boulder
weighs tons.
Madaeker confesses that this is the sole exit that he knows from
the Gug City to the surface.
As the noise of the gug war-party below them begins to build,
Madaeker begins to chant unintelligibly. The ghoul rushes to the
edge of the spiraling tower, pulls something from his rotted garb and
hurls it into the dark. He shouts in English: “Nodens, Lord of the
Abyss, answer our plea!” Madaeker touches each character once and
then lays prostrate on the floor in submission.
After a long moment he slowly rises, looking drained and exhaust-
ed.
The ghoul draws the Dreamers to the far edge of the stairs just as
the first gug comes into sight. It’s a terrifying creature, easily 50 feet
tall and carrying a primitive spear the length of a telephone pole or a
railway car. It slowly begins walking towards the characters, relish-
ing the terror leading up to the kill. Madaeker shouts commands to
it in an inhuman tongue (Morga), but the gug laughs horribly and
continues forward.
That’s when the entire scene is suddenly engulfed in a sea of flap-
ping blackness.
101
The Nightgaunts
The Dreamers are violently swept away from certain death by a
vast horde of Nightgaunts. These beasts inflict 1D4 HP damage on
each “passenger” with their talons, and the bumpy, terrifying trans-
port costs 1/1D6 SAN. No speech is possible during the flight. The
only noise is the screaming of the Dreamers and the relentless flap-
ping of leathery black wings.
A Dreamer who struggles to gain a look at his or her “rescuer”
is met with the seamless, black face of the Nightgaunt (cost: 1/1D6
SAN). One foolish enough to attack a Nightgaunt is dropped, falling
to a screaming death in the rocky Underworld below.
This flight lasts mere minutes but feels much, much longer. Finally,
dimly in the distance, enormous snow-covered peaks can be seen
coming nearer.
The Peaks of Thok

The Nightgaunts drop the Dreamers roughly and suddenly onto a
snow-covered slope of the Peaks of Thok: giant, jagged, underground
mountains that loom above the grey-black of the Underworld. Each
Dreamer must make a Luck roll or suffer 1D6 HP damage from the
rough fall. The flapping Nightgaunts vanish into the black silence as
the Dreamers lay injured on the steep, icy incline of the mountains.
Madaeker, looking sickly and weak, rouses the Dreamers. “If I
had not been on the Tower, the minions of Nodens would not have
heeded the call,” he says. “Not far now.”
The Exit
Madaeker’s attitude seems to soften, indicating that this territory is
far safer than those they traversed before. The ghoul leads the group
slowly upwards on a winding path through the highest passes of the
mountains.
102
After several hours, with the path growing more and more nar-
row and treacherous, Madaeker rolls back a small boulder to reveal
a smooth tunnel, four feet wide. It slopes upwards. He says, “The
daylight awaits, my friends.”
Renewing the Bargain

Madaeker pulls aside one Dreamer as they move single-file into
the tunnel and takes his or her hand. “Your part of the bargain shall
be recalled when you return to New Amsterdam,” he says. The smile
on Madaeker’s face is horrific, something like fear, hunger and hatred
all at once.
Until the character shakes his hand in agreement, the ghoul does
not release it.
103
Those Left Behind

If any Dreamers were foolish enough to eat or drink in the Under-
world, Madaeker pulls them aside before they can leave. Even if
Madaeker had not before been aware of their eating or drinking, he
knows of it now.
He tells the Dreamer very plainly, “You may never return to the
surface. The curse is now upon you. Do not worry. You shall pass the
time as we all do, here in the dark.” If the Dreamer attempts to leave,
he or she is incapable of moving up the tunnel, and instead is frozen
in place until he or she decides to turn back. These is no cure for the
curse. Such a Dreamer is lost forever.
Any Dreamer who has eaten or drunk in the Underworld is
subject to the curse of the Underworld, the same powerful magic that
prevents the gugs from emerging. Attempting to leave the Under-
world despite the curse is a grave error. Any Dreamer so afflicted
who leaves the Underworld suffers 1D20+6 HP damage per minute
of exposure, withering and gasping in agony, until he or she returns
to the Underworld.
The Surface
The exit from the Peaks of Thok opens on to the ruined city of
Sarnath (see Chapter Eleven: Sarnath on page 228), but Keepers
can have the Dreamers emerge nearly anywhere in the Dreamlands.
The tunnel could just as easily open to Inquanok (see Chapter Eight:
Inquanok on page 105), Ilek-Vad (see Chapter Ten: Ilek-Vad on page
196) or Lhosk (see Chapter Nine: Lhosk on page 143).
104
Chapter Eight
Inquanok - THE COUNCIL - THE GATE ON THE PLATEAU -
Subtle Changes
DANGERS - IN RED WEATHER change to allow players a
“Only, here and there, an old sailor,
• The quality of light
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
reflected from
Catches tigers Inquanok’s gleaming
gate.
In red weather.”
—Wallace Stevens, “Disillusionment of 10 O’Clock” • The particular fold of
robes in fashion in the
Onyx City.
• The placement of the
The Road to the badges worn by the

Golden Sun.
Onyx City • The texture of the dirt

of the path leading into
the Oracle.
Dreamers that set off on foot to the west of Sarkomand (perhaps
at the suggestion of the Collector, who will, if pressed, direct them
towards the city he calls “Inganok”) find the ruins there difficult to
pass through. It is a mess of destroyed stonework, as if something
huge and terrifying smashed its way through the ancient structures,
leaving rocks the size of houses scattered about. The streets are
nearly impassable. Still, tantalizing glimpses of a winding, seaside
road can be spied from high points in the ruins. This road snakes off
to the west, hugging the mountainous coast outside of the city. From
a distance it seems well maintained.
Traveling through the ruins requires Dreamers to climb over
rubble heaps and up the remnants of toppled buildings. A Luck or
Climb roll (whichever is higher) must be made by each character
three times. Each time it is failed, bad footing, structural failure or
clumsiness costs the character a spill and 1D4 HP damage. When
three rolls are successfully made, the Dreamer has traversed the
nastier ruins and found the exit through the collapsed west gate.
The scale of the west gate is difficult to clearly envision. It was
once approximately the size of the Eiffel Tower, but built of blocks of
pure, white marble which seem to be shot with a blue stone unknown
105
to Earth. A Dreamer who makes an Architecture roll or a halved

Idea roll realizes it was once a giant arch which stretched more
than half a mile across, and must have risen to more than 300 feet
in height. Now it is nothing more than a scattering of building-sized
blocks covering a mile of open ground, toppled and destroyed.
The force of the arch’s destruction has left the boundaries to the
west of Sarkomand in complete shambles, full of pits, crevasses and
cantilevered streets. But a bit past the edge of the city, a road which
seems ancient yet well maintained winds cleanly to the west. This is
the road to Inquanok and the path to the Plateau of Leng.
What the Collector Knows of Inquanok

The Collector has had limited dealings with outcasts from the
city of Inquanok (which he calls “Inganok”). The Collector paints a
picture of a terrible walled fortress city, filled with blond, blue-eyed
men who work stone and hate anyone not from their citadel. In truth,
he has been no nearer Inquanok than the beginning of the western
road. He has only the word of the Men from Leng and the descrip-
tion of outcasts from the city to fill his imagination. His information
is limited, though not entirely inaccurate.
Those human outcasts with whom he has traded (and, on occasion,
whom he helped his masters ambush and capture) are wary, strong
and prone to violence, but they have deep knowledge of valuable
metals. They occasionally prove useful to the Men from Leng, who
are base creatures with little skill left in the working of precious met-
als.
If pressed, the Collector confesses that the men of Inquanok are
legendary stone-workers, who cut stone to the south and move it by
ship to sell in southern ports. Most of the southern cities have been
constructed with Inquanokian stone.
If further pressed, he admits that the Men from Leng are not per-
mitted near the city, that a state of war has existed between Inquanok
and Sarkomand for centuries, and that the Inquanokian men kill the
Men from Leng on sight.
The people of Inquanok are somber and quick to anger. They con-
sider the humans of the southern climes to be soft and stupid. Still,
106
Chapter Eight: Inquanok
the men of Inquanok are known for their closed mouths. They tell no
secrets. Inquanok is the only human city the Collector knows of that
is nearby.
The Western Road

Characters traveling the western road during the day have little
to fear, as nearly everything that hunts the Plateau of Leng hunts in
darkness. The Collector fears the men of Inquanok far less than he
fears the things which haunt the road at night.
High, impassable mountains stand between Inquanok and Leng,
but a narrow road winds between the coast and the slopes, linking
Inquanok to Sarkomand.
The road is clear of debris and appears to be in almost preter-
naturally perfect shape. There are no growths, split cobblestones,
collapses or other damage which deface normal roads over time.
The Collector claims the road was laid in antiquity by his masters to
reach the quarries inland with which they built and maintained their
city, and the road itself was laden with a magic that keeps it pristine.
Once, he sadly says, his masters knew how to work stone and metal
even better than the men of “Inganok.”
The road is eerily silent, save the sounds of the ocean crashing
far below and the occasional cry of a distant bird hunting far above.
During the day, nothing else is ever present on the road. There are
no other travelers, nor evidence of other travelers, no signs, and
nowhere outside the road to go except up or down a sheer face of
107
stone. The rises upward have inhospitable winding paths that cut
into the faces of the mountains, but these paths don’t go very far. The
cliffs below drop straight into a rough surf that smashes the rocks
with the force of a rockslide. Heading downwards is certain, watery
death.
At a brisk pace, traveling to Inquanok on foot takes at least a day.
If they set out from Sarkomand any time after first light, they are still
on the road when the kindness of daylight fades. They find the road a
very different place at night. If they fail a group CON x 5% roll (roll
once against the lowest CON) they face a second night on the road
before reaching Inquanok.
Night on the
Western Road
As dusk begins to fall, the Collector becomes very nervous. He
repeatedly urges the Dreamers to find a cave in the difficult rises
above the road, becoming more frantic with every minute. Dreamers
who follow his lead can locate a small cave before too long and hun-
ker down in it before complete darkness falls. The Collector pours a
foul-smelling black liquid in front of the cave entrance and instructs
the Dreamers to be silent. During the night, in absolute darkness, the
group hears the sounds of various horrific creatures outside the cave,
snuffling, grunting, and even speaking in unknown languages. (Cost:
0/1 SAN.) Those foolish enough to leave the cave before daybreak
are never seen again, alive or otherwise. The Collector tries (though
not too hard) to keep the characters in the cave.
Those who insist on making noise, shouting or drawing attention
to the cave hear something large shuffle towards the entrance, snuffle
at its threshold and then yelp in inhuman pain. In the dark it is diffi-
cult to see anything but a dim, tall shadow blotting out the blue-black
sky. Those foolish enough to light a torch find themselves face-to-face
with a monstrosity. It appears to be a deformed human head twisted
onto the body of a lion, with a giant barbed scorpion-like tail: a
manticore. (Cost: 0/1D6 SAN.) This is not some clean hybrid, but
108
instead looks as if a man’s face was melted like wax across the head
of a lion, who in turn was seared and burned by chemicals. It is large
enough to kill and devour a Dreamer in one go, but cannot pass the
threshold due to the Collector’s trick.
The liquid the Collector spilled at the cave entrance is manticore
blood, the one thing which repulses the hideous beast. It cannot enter
the cave. After its horrific revelation, it retreats back into the moun-
tains and vanishes before the dawn to a cave of its own.
Those who refuse the Collector’s advice (or who are not accompa-
nied by the Collector) must fend off the manticore themselves. If they
hide in a cave it simply waits; but if they stab it from hiding for five
or more points of damage past armor in a blow, it retreats howling.
The Manticore
Magical hybrid gone wrong
Damage Bonus: +2D6
Attacks: Bite 41%, damage 1D6
Claw 50%, damage 1D6+db
Sting 40%, 3D3+Poison (POT 13)
Notes: If stung, a Dreamer must resist the manticore’s poison (POT
13) or take the POT rating directly as HP damage. A Dreamer who
resists takes half damage.
Armor: 4 points of tough hide.
Sanity Loss: 0/1D6
The Lengian Hunt

Escaping from Sarkomand does not mean the characters have
escaped the influence of the Men from Leng. Vile and vengeful, the
beasts mount a hunt for the escaped prisoners, particularly those who
might have stolen from them, taken their servant (the Collector) or
interfered with the Black Galleys in any way.
The Collector remains silent about such pursuit as long as he is
in the presence of the group, but it is clear he wishes to reveal their
109
position to his masters. Smart Dreamers will bind the Collector or

keep him under absolute guard until they are far from Sarkomand.
Characters who are simply hunkered down on the road will first
hear the hoots and hollers of a group of creatures coming from the
east. There will be no lights, as the Men from Leng hunt comfortably
in darkness. No Listen or Spot Hidden roll is necessary to detect this
cacophony, and Dreamers will have several minutes to react.
Those who still remain on the road face a group of well-armed
Men from Leng prepared to subdue them and return them to Sar-
komand. This group fights until half its number are killed, and then
the survivors retreat. If the Lengians know the Dreamers have
learned any of their secrets (what powers the Black Galleys, for
instance), the entire group fights to the death.
The Lengian Hunting Party

#1 11 8 14 7 14 +1D4 11
#2 15 10 18 10 12 +1D6 14
#3 10 15 14 10 10 — 15
#4 15 5 18 9 10 +1D6 12
Skills: Listen 50%, Sneak 41%, Spot Hidden 43%, Track 60%. Lan-
guages: Oeuth (Own) 57%.
Sword 40%, damage 1D8+1+db
Armor: None.
Sanity Loss: 0/1D6–1.
The Men from Leng are persistent but not foolish. They will not
travel into the mountains. Instead they remain on the road near
where the characters left, sniffing the air and conversing in their
strange, barking language. Eventually, if the characters remain silent,
the Men from Leng retreat back the way they came. Due to the many
threats in the area at night, they dislike remaining in one place for too
long.
Dreamers who flee into the mountains can hunker down, but
finding a cave in the dark without a light source is nearly impossible
110
(on a group Luck roll at 1/4 chance, the group finds a small cave in
the blackness by touch and providence alone). Without a cave they
wander the crags and crannies of the mountain until they come upon
the manticore (see page 109) or the giant spiders that haunt the area.
The Spiders
Dreamers who remain on the road for a second night face one of
the terrors of the Plateau of Leng—Leng Spiders. The first indication
that something is amiss is a skittering sound. Dreamers must make
Listen rolls or mistake it for natural sounds such as the trickling of
water or the spill of pebbles. Actually it is the skittering of thousands
of chitinous feet. In either case, it is difficult to ignore and grows in
volume over time.
Suddenly, small translucent shapes are seen on the grey cobble-
stones, rushing towards the Dreamers. Each is a spider the size of
a cat, purple and bloated and glistening. These things have no fear
and relentlessly rush towards characters despite screams, protests or
attacks.
The Dreamers are swarmed. Each must first make a Sanity roll
(cost: 1/1D4 SAN), and then a Dodge or Luck roll, whichever is
better. Each who fails, or who chooses to attack and fails, is attacked
by 1D3 spiders. More are coming. This happens once per round until
there are three spiders on each Dreamer.
Dreamers who do not have spiders climbing on them can flee
instead of attacking. They can easily outrun the spiders.
Dreamers can swat and swing their fists in an attempt to smash the
spiders climbing on them, but attack rolls are halved and no weapons
may be used—otherwise, the Dreamers risk injuring themselves.
Or better, they can drop to the ground and roll about. A Dreamer
smart enough to drop and roll subjects one spider per round to a 75%
attack that inflicts 1D8+db damage. If it hits, it completely disrupts
the spiders’ attempt at entrapment for that round. But more arrive.
If three spiders climb onto a Dreamer, they begin to spin a web
while circling the body. This takes 1D6 rounds of uninterrupted
movement. If this dance is completed, the character is bound and falls
111
roughly to the ground, wrapped in disgusting webbing which reeks

horrifically and burns uncovered skin (1D4–2 damage per round).
Dreamers attempting to escape from the webbing may pit their STR
against the webbing’s STR of 2 per spider, or 6 total. On a success,
the Dreamer manages to struggle free, suffering 1D4–1 HP in the
process as the struggle removes webbing as well as skin.
What’s worse, these spiders are simply a precursor for their moth-
er, a giant Leng Spider that haunts the crags of the Western Road.
She approaches the road slowly to see what her offspring might have
bound for her. She is the size of a huge bear, suspended on legs that
have a reach of two dozen feet or more.
The Dreamers are best served by simply turning and running up
the road as fast as they can. Even at her top speed, the ponderous
size of the mother prevents her from keeping pace. Dreamers who
make CON x 5 rolls keep up their pace long enough to escape. Those
who fail are left behind to be devoured unless a companion makes a
STR vs. SIZ resistance roll to carry the laggard.
112
The Babies
Tiny Spiders from Leng
DEX 16 Move 4 HP 4
Attacks: Bite 30%, damage 1D6+db+poison (POT 2)
Web 35%, damage special (entangle with STR 2)
Armor: 1 point of chitin
SAN Loss: 1/1D4
The Mother of the Western Road

A Spider from Leng
DEX 16 Move 6 HP 23
Damage Bonus: +3D6
Attacks: Bite 41%, damage 1D6+db+poison (POT 16)
Web 60%, damage special (entangle with STR 15)
Armor: 6 points of chitin
SAN Loss: 1/1D8
Inquanok and the

Golden Sun
Arrival at the gated city of Inquanok is uneventful if the Dreamers
were wise enough to travel only during the day and hide at night, or
if they simply march there all in one go. The city walls are tall, more
than ten stories, and bow outward so they lean in an uncomfortable
and baffling manner out over the road. A large, square gatehouse,
carved from a single piece of dull, grey metal, juts out from the high,
bowing wall. The gatehouse is crowned with a gleaming golden sun.
The gate itself is a set of huge wooden doors painted with the red
circle of Inquanok.
The city itself is not visible past the walls, but the wall stretches
nearly a mile from the mountains to the edge of the cliffs, blocking
the Western Road, suggesting the city must lie behind it. It is as if
113
a giant crown which bows outward from its base was sunk into the
mountains and road, blocking forward progress.
Dreamers who approach within 50 feet of the gate hear a clarion—
a deep, resonating horn that shakes them to their bones. Suddenly
ten soldiers carrying pikes are on all sides, surrounding them, having
emerged from hiding places on the rises above the road and near
the edge of the cliffs. These are the Golden Sun, the gate guards of
Inquanok. They are human men who appear to be of Nordic extrac-
tion, almost all with blond hair and blue eyes. They seem fearful and
ready for violence. They speak in Skand, a tongue that is vaguely
Germanic. They shout demands in this language while menacing the
Dreamers with pikes.
Anyone foolish enough to incite violence will find themselves first
jabbed with a pike (1D4 damage) and then, if they still resist, all-out
114
attacked from multiple sides. The threats from the road are a very
real thing and these guards do not fool around. They do not hesitate
to kill a resisting Dreamer if that’s what it takes to subdue the rest of
the group.
The Golden Sun

No. Str Con Siz Int Pow Dex DB HP
#1 10 15 15 14 5 16 1D4 15
#2 11 17 18 16 15 15 1D4 18
#3 7 10 9 18 15 15 –1d4 10
#4 17 5 16 11 16 14 1D6 11
#5 13 4 16 13 10 13 1D4 10
#6 9 14 9 9 18 11 – 12
#7 13 14 13 14 5 11 1D4 14
#8 10 15 18 15 12 9 1D4 17
#9 9 12 8 13 6 7 – 10
#10 16 7 12 18 4 7 1D4 10
Skills: Dodge (DEX x 2) + 10%, Law 21%, Spot Hidden 50%. Lan-
guages: Skand (Own) 80%, English 20%.
Attacks: Pike 56%, damage 1D10+2+db
Dagger 55%, damage 1D4+2+db
Armor: Breastplate and helmet (4 in 6 chance of 9 armor points)
The encounter with the guards of Inquanok can play out in several
ways. Dreamers speaking English find themselves met with confused
smiles and broken English responses. Pikes are lowered (but not
withdrawn), tension fades, and questions will be asked instead of
demands shouted.
If the Collector is present, he will be subject to shouting, shov-
ing, and kicking. If the characters do not attempt to defend him,
the guards lead him away after slapping him in shackles; he is held
in one of the gate towers as a prisoner of the Sages of Inquanok. If
the Dreamers defend him, a clear wave of distrust from the guards
becomes evident. Why would they defend such a creature? He serves
the satyrs! If Dreamers persist in his defense, they too are shackled
and they are brought to the tower of the Elder Ones in chains.
If the Dreamers distance themselves from the Collector and
115
establish their identities as Dreamers of Earth, the guards lead them

through the streets towards the center of the city.
Beyond the door, the Dreamers spy for the first time the streets of
the onyx city, as well as a throng of fascinated onlookers. The city is
beautiful, dark and secretive—and big. Inside, the wilderness of the
Western Road gives way to comfortable streets where children play
and animals lay about, bored. In short, the city looks peaceful and
out of place compared to the horrors the characters have endured.
This is Inquanok.
The City of Onyx

Inquanok (sometimes called “Inganok” in the southern countries)
is a large city situated on the edge of the sea. Its walls encircle and
close off a natural valley, the Valley of Onyx. This valley winds
inland many miles to a plateau filled with quarries rich in metals and
stone, surrounded on all sides by impassable cliffs and mountains.
Inquanok is nearly impenetrable by land. Its weakest point is the
huge city gates and they have never been breached.
Rock and metal are worked in the valley, moved to the docks
on the city’s south side, and transported by ship over the sea to the
southern ports for trade.
The docks lie outside the protection of the walls or mountains and
are a weak point. As such, they are secured by a huge garrison of
soldiers (the Golden Sun) in strongpoints and pickets. Pulleys and
levers lower the stones down the cliff face to the docks below. This
process is dangerous, and the engineers who ply this trade are con-
sidered some of the most valuable and skilled workers in Inquanok.
Inquanok is a marvel of construction. It is a city hewn from onyx
rock and inlaid with craftsmanship of epic proportions. Every sur-
face, door, tile and cobblestone is worked in such a masterful way
that one could spend a week combing a street and still not find every
clever piece of art hidden there. The entire city is a singular master-
piece.
116
Built in antiquity by men fleeing the southern countries, Inqua-

nok has stood as a fortress city since the dawn of its existence. Its A Cold,
walls guard an isolated pass to a valley in the interior of the Plateau Twilight Land
“Their land, very far away,
of Leng which is rich in valuable rocks such as marble, quartz and
was called Inquanok, and
onyx, as well as silver, gold and platinum. Inquanok began as a not many people cared
to go thither because it
simple picket filled with resilient stone workers. It has grown in time
was a cold twilight land,
to a beautiful city of walls and gates of undreamt-of thickness and and said to be close to
unpleasant Leng; although
scale.
high impassable mountains
The outer walls stand ten stories high and hang outwards, tilted in towered on the side where
Leng was thought to lie,
a bow from the buildings which border them, fastened in a manner
so that none might say
known only to the workmen of the city with metal cords as thick as whether this evil plateau
with its horrible stone
a man’s arm, each composed of thousands of smaller cords wound
villages and unmentionable
together. These walls surround the entire city and are legendary in monastery were really
there, or whether the
their impenetrability. They have never been breached. Even the ter-
rumour were only a fear
rifying Spiders of Leng find transiting the tilted walls nearly impos- that timid people felt in
the night when those
sible.
formidable barrier peaks
The buildings of the city rise to huge heights and are topped by loomed black against a
rising moon.”
carefully built and mathematically precise domes inlaid with gold,
silver and lapis lazuli. Everything in the city is focused on stone or H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-
Quest of Unknown Kadath
metal craft. Inns are called the Hewn Rock or the Counterbalance,
and shops are filled with chisels, hammers, weights and pulleys. The
residents have fat fingers, yellow beards filled with marble dust, and
flinty eyes that seem to measure everything.
The streets are laid out in the manner of a cartwheel. In the city
center upon a hill is the huge, sixteen-sided temple of the Elder Ones,
topped by a flattened dome as large as a city block and hung with
bells. The highest peak of the temple soars over the walls of the city
and can spy the distant inland plateau, and the faces of the giant Old
Ones carved in misty distance of Mt. Ngranak. It is said that the
consecration of this temple in ancient times assured the safety of this
enterprise in the wild lands of the dream.
Surrounding this temple is the Round Street, the seat of gover-
nance and knowledge in the city. It is here the characters are led,
either as carefully watched guests or as prisoners.
117
Inquanok’s Geography and

Relationship with the South
The ships that occupy the docks are not of Inquanokian origin;
the natives of Inquanok do not sail and have no way with ships. The
ships come from many different ports: Sinara, Sarrub, Lhosk, Baha-
rna. Each flies a different flag.
To the southern city-states, Inquanok is a secretive, powerful
mining concern. Inquanok holds a nearly complete monopoly on
stone goods. Many foreign governments attempt to ply the Inqua-
nok council of sages with gifts to sway their favor, which sometimes
works—Lhosk currently enjoys reduced prices on stone goods thanks
to its gifts.
Inquanok trades stone for one thing: food. Inquanok needs grains,
green vegetables, fruits and meat. Though they grow beans and some
fruits on the inner plateau, the selection is lackluster and almost all
locals have a taste for foreign foods.
Needless to say, with such natural isolation, the natives of Inqua-
nok are not used to seeing people approach from the road.
The Sages of the

Round Street
The city council is composed of the aged and the educated, the
best minds of the City of Onyx. They rule from the Round Street,
the vast center circle of the cartwheel of the city. Each district of the
city has a representative called a sage who sees to its needs. At any
time of day the street is a madhouse of activity with people shout-
ing at their representatives or trading goods for favors, and with the
black-robed sages arguing and even fighting with one another. It is a
vibrant, and sometimes dangerous, place.
Even within this street of leaders, there are higher leaders still,
those who have accumulated the most favors or whose force of will
is greater than their compatriots. These men sit nearest the doors to
the temple of the Elder Ones, where no one enters. This is where the
Dreamers end up, one way or another, either as “guests” of the city or
118
on their knees in shackles as a enemies.

Here they meet two leaders vying for power over one another,
Drax of Hombur and Yveddes. Their two families have had members
among the sages for as long as anyone can remember, and these two
have risen in power and influence until each holds nearly half the
city’s representatives in his pockets. Evenly matched in influence,
they have turned to other methods to attempt to gain complete con-
trol of the city. Neither is truly good or honorable but Drax, unlike
Yveddes, thinks of the safety of the city above his own profit and
power.
The Dreamers have arrived just in time to become pawns in their
political maneuvers.
Machinations
Yveddes and Drax have been crossing political swords for years.
They vie for complete control of the Council of Sages in a singular
contest. The point of contention: whether to expand the quarries out-
side the Valley of Onyx. For centuries the stone-smiths of Inquanok
have dug and cut stone only within their valley, secured on all sides
by impassable mountains and cliffs and by the city on the southern
point. But the stones have been worked almost to exhaustion. Some
quarries remain but the quality of the cuts is becoming poorer and
poorer as the years pass.
Drax first broached the idea of establishing a new series of citadels
to the east, leading to a well-known quarry rich with stone and metal
outside the usual haunts of Inquanok. There new stone could be cut
and moved safely back to the city, and the influence of the city would
spread.
Yveddes has vowed complete resistance to such a plan, playing
upon superstition and fear of weakening Inquanok to keep it from
moving forward. In truth Yveddes’ family owns many of the quarries
in the Valley of Onyx, and their business would suffer greatly if such
an expansion took place.
With the arrival of the Dreamers, Drax sees an opportunity. If
the Dreamers voice their wish to return to Earth, the leaders say
they have a book which might help: the Book of Keys and Gates, which
119
details every exit to the waking world. To earn it, Drax says, the
Dreamers must serve the city Council of Sages in a task. They must
venture inland to the Gate of Crystal in the heights of the Leng Pla-
teau, and there question the Oracle.
Only travelers from Earth may put questions to the Oracle—hence
the need for the Dreamers. One question must be put to the Oracle:
Should Inquanok extend its influence east? An agent of Yveddes and
of Drax will travel with the group to hear the Oracle’s reply.
Yveddes, seeing no choice, agrees to Drax’s plan, as long as his
agent is included. It is decided that quickly. If the Dreamers agree,
they will be granted passage to the south, a generous stipend, and
access to the Book of Keys and Gates. If not, they may leave on foot and
return to the terrors of the wilderness of the Leng Plateau. No ship
will take them until they agree; all are terrified of losing favor with
the stone-smiths of Inquanok.
Yveddes
Elder Sage of the Round Street, age 66
Damage Bonus: None.
Skills: Accounting 44%, Art 30%, Astronomy 15%, Bargain 64%,
Conceal 45%, Fast Talk 71%, History (Inquanok) 84%, Law 60%,
Library Use 44%, Persuade 85%. Languages: Skand (Own) 85%,
English 22%.
Atacks: None.
Yveddes is an aged man of Inquanok’s Nordic stock, short and

fat, garbed in fine black velvet robes. He wears an ornate and richly
decorated version of the Golden Sun about his neck. His hair, once
red, is now all but white, and his gaze is blue and endless. He speaks
slowly, has a kind demeanor, and is not prone to anger. In fact he
appears to be completely serene on all subjects.
Yveddes has been a leader in Inquanok for nearly thirty years,
having taken the sage seat from his older brother who died in a
quarry accident. The Yveddes family is respected as miners and cut-
120
ters of stone, and they own many lots and quarries in the Valley of
Onyx. Yveddes has the reputation of an even-keeled, thinking man’s
sage. One not prone to rash or angry action.
But Yveddes’ serene demeanor is a clever façade developed over
the decades to cover his true intentions. He is consumed by greed.
Greed for money, and above all for power. He will do anything to
maintain the iron grip on mining that his family’s ownership of so
much of the Valley of Onyx currently guarantees, and he has dozens
of thugs, servants and cutthroats in his pay to carry out his plans.
Drax of Hombur
Up and Coming Sage of the Round Street, age 39
Damage Bonus: None.
Skills: Accounting 30%, Bargain 22%, Chemistry 21%, Climb 50%,
Craft (Stone) 44%, Dodge 64%, Law 15%, Listen 40%, Navigate
(The Plateau of Leng) 35%, Persuade 75%, Ride 25%, Track 25%.
Languages: Skand (Own) 65%, English 30%.
Attacks: Dagger 55%, damage 1D4+2+db.
Drax is young and vibrant, brilliant and full of energy. His ques-
tions are quick and clever and his patience is, at best, limited. He
comes from the common Nordic stock of Inquanok but his hair is
dark, and his face is covered with a spade beard that makes him a
dead ringer for the popular version of the Christian Devil as seen in
American advertising.
Drax is from the street of Hombur, which controls the main gate
from the Valley of Onyx, and thus the stones that come from the
quarries there. This alone has vaulted him to power, and he has
fought hard to advance his district. That has made him very popular
among the townsfolk.
Drax is seen as a progressive in the council and is positioned as the
voice of the future. Drax pushes to expand the influence of Inquanok
beyond the valley and the stone walls of the city, in the hopes of find-
ing new stone quarries, metal veins and other valuables for the people
121
to work. He envisions a kingdom that stretches across the coast from

Equipment the city to the east, guarded by new walls and new fortresses. The
Dreamers outfitted by
older folk of the city see this plan as dangerous, but the young see it
Inquanok are very well
fitted indeed. They want as the only option to continue the prosperity of Inquanok.
for nothing, and may pick
Drax is impatient to drag Inquanok into the future. He sees Yved-
and choose from the finest
armors and weapons that des as one of the old guard, hampering progress. But Drax naively
have been traded with the
believes that Yveddes is committed to good of the people of the city
port for its precious stone.
Supplies are so plentiful and is simply trying to protect them.
and perfect that characters
need not concern
The Mission
themselves with making
exact counts. There always
seems to be enough rations
and water. Weapons are The Dreamers are to accompany two servants of the council to the
treated as in the Call of
west, inland on the Plateau of Leng, to the Gate of Crystal. There
Cthulhu rulebook, but gain
an automatic +1 damage. they are to put to the Oracle the question of the city’s expansion.
Armor is detailed below.
Only Dreamers can approach the Oracle. Once this question is
answered, one way or another, the Oracle will grant the Dreamers a
Light Armor
Light armor is toughened token. The characters must return with the token to the city.
leather with light metal
If they succeed, the Dreamers will be granted a generous reward,
inserts, banded and
reinforced joints made with as well as passage to the south, and access to the most holy of books
furred hide, and a small
in the city of Inquanok: the Book of Keys and Gates, a manual which
metal cap. Light armor
offers 3 Points defense marks every known exit to the waking world of Earth.
against any physical attack
and penalizes Sneak and
The Oracle
Climb rolls by -5%. Wearers
are still somewhat nimble
and may run, duck, hide
and climb much as they It should be slightly disturbing to any Dreamer who attempts to
could without the armor.
learn more of the Oracle to find that the people of Inquanok know
(Continued.) little or nothing. The Oracle is simply a force of nature, like the wind
or sun or moon, yet one which has never been seen by any living
resident of the city. This ephemerality of the Oracle does nothing to
sway the locals’ belief in it, though what “it” is they could not say.
They know it exists inland on the Western Plateau through a
beautiful Gate of Crystal. Here, occasionally, Dreamers from Earth
appear. These people—the last was seen nearly one hundred years
before—are often holy men. They all appear the same way, outfitted
in warm clothing, with pack and gear, and speaking of the Oracle of
the Pass. When pressed, they have nothing further to add, except the
122
Oracle was kind and set them on a secret task.

Medium Armor
Once, in antiquity, the sages sent an Earthly dreamer back to the Medium armor is chain
mail with reinforced
Gate of Crystal to ask the Oracle for its favor. This mission returned
leather underpinnings,
the message that the men of Inquanok should build a city on the heavy boots and gloves,
and a large, cushioned
road. The sages hope to repeat that mission now in order to resolve
helmet. It offers 6 points
the strife that disrupts the city government. of defense against any
physical attack and
As for what the gate might be like, or who the Oracle is, the people
penalizes Sneak and Climb
of Inquanok have only a deep and abiding belief that all will be rolls by -25%. Wearers
cannot swim and have
answered when the Dreamers arrive there.
difficulty contorting their
body in strange positions
(such as bending at the
Preparation for waist to enter a cave).

Running is possible only
in short bursts (say one
the Journey combat round at a time),

whereupon the character
must rest and regain their
The Dreamers have few options—it’s either attempt the expedi-
breath.
tion or to return to the terrors of Sarkomand. No ship will take them
south; the passage west leads into inhospitable wilderness; and no Heavy Armor
Heavy armor is full plate
one in the city will assist them unless they accept the judgment of the
mail with fur vest and
Council of Sages. underpinnings, leather
reinforced joints, heavy
The moment the characters accept the task to find the Oracle at
gloves and boots, and a
the Gate of Crystal, they are suddenly heroes of the city. Fine weap- full helm with a closed
face. Heavy armor offers 8
ons, armor and supplies are rained upon them; there is nothing they
points of defense against
should be left wanting. Before the journey begins they are perfectly any physical attacks and
makes it all but impossible
equipped, down to their smallest request. All items are of the finest,
to Climb or Sneak. Running
most beautiful design. They make the Dreamers look like heroes and swimming are also
impossible in this outfit,
of legend. By comparison, the two mercenaries hired to travel with
and a sustained march
them, one representing Yveddes and one representing Drax, look or ride quickly becomes
exhausting. All travel times
positively shabby.
overland are doubled while
The council will even allow the Collector to be “released into the the armor is worn.
custody of the servants of the council” without any pretense or judg-
ment. Within a day or two, the group should be ready for a danger-
ous and long journey.
123
Avat of Hombur and Dem

The two mercenaries sent with the Dreamers are experienced
explorers known for ranging far outside the wall. They typically
search for easily recovered valuables or signs of great wealth, such
as surface gold veins and diamond. Each has been to the foothills
beneath the Gate of Crystal but neither has entered it.
Avat of Hombur serves Drax and Dem serves Yveddes. Each is a
creature of his particular employer, entrusted for a long time with less
than savory tasks. Avat and Dem are casual killers of men, women
and children as well as the inhuman monsters beyond the walls.
Worse yet, they obviously hate one another.
They argue about everything, refuse to share food, equipment or
assistance, and do their best to stay away from one another. If the
situation arises where one could do away with the other quietly and
without being seen, either would take it.
Avat of Hombur
Mercenary for Drax, age 29
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Skills: Astronomy 31%, Bargain 53%, Climb 82%, Dodge 33%,
Hide 30%, Jump 35%, Listen 30%, Navigate 50%, Natural History
50%, Sneak 30%, Spot Hidden 45%, Swim 35%, Track 30%. Lan-
guages: Skand (Own) 45%, English 16%.
Attacks: Heavy sword 51%, 1D10+1+db
Fighting knife 65%, 1D4+2+db
Avat is a big, tall man with a broad chest, thick arms and short-
cropped blond hair. He is perpetually scowling, and his presence
is intimidating to most. He suffers no SAN loss from cold-blooded
murder nor from most encounters on the plateau.
Avat has been in the pocket of Drax of Hombur since his bank-
rolled expedition discovered rich metal and stone quarries to the
east. Avat is not overly clever and has no mind for politics, but he is
124
certain which side he is on, and where the money he hopes to make
will be found. Avat will push the Dreamers to favor the expansion
of the quarries to the east, and try to keep Dem’s arguments from
poisoning their ears.
Dem
Lieutenant of Yveddes, age 39
Damage Bonus: none
Skills: Bargain 60%, Climb 70%, Dodge 50%, Hide 50%, Listen
70%, Natural History 60%, Navigate 70%, Sneak 55%, Spot Hidden
80%, Track 50%. Languages: Skand (Own) 80%, English 40%.
Attacks: Sword 40%, 1D8+1+db
Dem is a small, thin, quiet individual with large eyes and a wary,
clever demeanor. Nothing seems to escape his attention. He takes no
SAN loss from cold-blooded murder nor from most encounters on
the plateau.
Dem is a trusted lieutenant of Yveddes and has served him for
nearly a decade. He understands the subtleties of this situation and
will do his best to slowly, with careful words, turn the Dreamers
against Avat and the plans of Drax of Hombur. He will never directly
confront Avat unless accused of wrongdoing, and then he will have
several clear arguments to imply Avat’s guilt in whatever has gone
wrong.
The Western Plateau

A dilapidated, unused gate (called the “Gate Dire”) leads to the
Western Plateau of Leng. The main door has been barred by huge
stacks of timber, and only a small, steel door in the wall can be
opened. Here, watched over by guards armed with longbows on
the top of the bowed walls, the Dreamers venture onto the winding,
raised plateau of the west; a flat, empty expanse of scrub grass, iced
puddles and small drifts of snow. Distant, blue green mountains soar
125
to the sky on the horizon.

The door is shut without ceremony behind them and will not be
reopened until the characters return with the “token of the Oracle.”
Encounters in the West

The Western Plateau of Leng is a monotonous plain, occasionally
cut by boulders, small gullies filled with clear, running water, small
bushes, and occasional hillock-sized mounds that appear to be of
intelligent design. These mounds are piles of stacked rocks overrun
by red vines, spongy blue-green moss, and all manner of vermin.
They are the burial mounds of the huge men who once called the pla-
teau home, before they were overrun by the Leng Spiders. (Digging
into one of these mounds reveals the remains of an immense skeleton,
its skull nearly double the size of a normal human’s.)
In the far distance, huge mountains hover over the horizon. This is
the destination. Travel time across the plain is difficult to gauge, due
to the ghostly peaks that forever seem to float at the edge of vision
and never appear to grow any closer. Crossing the Western Plateau
at a normal pace will take a week. During that time three encounters
will frighten and engage the Dreamers.
Despite the apparent emptiness of the plateau, it is well-hunted
and haunted, known for its dangers.
The Titan
One day, as the Dreamers cross the endless plain, the ground
begins to shift beneath their feet as if a giant earthquake is rumbling
to life. Cracks appear, opening gaps in the Earth. Each Dreamer that
fails a DEX x 2% roll falls to the ground and suffers 1 HP damage.
The rumbling increases and the entire world seems to pitch and yaw
around them. Each who makes a Luck roll realizes something is
much more wrong than a simple earthquake.
The Dreamers suddenly find themselves plunged into darkness
as the sun is extinguished. The rumbling grows until characters are
being slammed to the earth and flung from point to point as if they
were chess pieces on a board being shaken. There is nothing really to
126
do except clutch the ground and wait.

Those who manage DEX x 1% rolls find their feet just as they
realize that an immense being is passing them by. The creature is
at least 800 feet tall, and each of its steps covers 100 feet at a fast
pace. It is within a half-mile of the Dreamers. It appears to be a huge
human composed of metal, casting a shadow a quarter of a mile long
in the sun. It ignores the Dreamers, content in its own business, ter-
rifying and vast. (Cost: 1D8 SAN.)
Once the immense thing is more than a mile away, the rumbling
subsides to the point where it is simply a huge, deep, resonating
sound. The vast figure can be seen to the east, hovering on the hori-
zon for an impossibly long time until it is gone.
Avat spits on the ground, calls it a “Titan,” and says, “They and
their kind are the least of our concerns.” He and Dem, dusting them-
selves off, seem somewhat bored by the whole ordeal.
Attacking the titan is beyond any conception, so no stats are
provided. Anything short of modern artillery (something not easily
come by in the Dreamlands) would fail to even alert the titan to the
characters’ presence.
The Undead
One night while resting, even if the group has posted a guard, all
the characters in the party—even the guard—suddenly find them-
selves awakened by distant, drunken singing. It sounds like a rowdy
group just far enough away that the words of their music cannot
be discerned. After the inevitable reproaches to the guards who
fell asleep, a cursory glance about sees a light about a quarter-mile
away—another camp site. A Spot Hidden roll determines that the
“fire” looks strange: It’s blue-white, more like moonlight or starlight,
although it is on the ground and flickering like a campfire.
The newcomers appear, at a glance in the dark, to be weary
mercenaries. But in fact they are not men but undead specters who
haunt the Western Plain and eat all unfortunate enough to cross their
path. They are immaterial wisps composed of hatred and hunger
and death. Despite their lust for human flesh, their curse is peculiar;
127
they believe they are living, and so their individual motivations and
personalities remain for the most part intact.
Leaving the area immediately is possible. If the Dreamers quietly
break camp and move off, have them make a group Luck roll. Suc-
cess indicates they escape the area without detection. If it fails, the
night is broken by one of the men at the fire standing and saying very
loudly, “Did you hear that?” The “men” then spread out in the direc-
tion of the characters and begin to search in the night. At this point if
the Dreamers move off quickly, have them make another group Luck
roll. If it succeeds they escape the area without encountering the
“men.” If it fails, one of the Dreamers turns back to find himself or
herself face to face with one of the specters and the battle is on.
If the Dreamers are overcome by curiosity and decide to spy on
the new camp, those moving towards the light must make Sneak
rolls. Those that fail find themselves set upon by the ravenous
specters, who hope to slay and bathe in dying blood for a moment’s
warmth in their endless night.
Those who succeed at the Sneak roll find a strange-looking blue-
white campfire surrounded by half a dozen shadowy men wearing
arms and armor, drinking and shouting at one another and occasion-
ally singing a dirge-like song. The light offers no heat. The song is
hollow and empty of emotion, but haunting. It seems to be in every
listener’s native language.
“Blood and bone, and marrow warm.

I find my life behind me, gone.
Death and cold and no more dawn.
My shape, it cuts a shadowed form.”
Carefully observing the “people” around the “fire” produces an

unusual optical illusion. The flickering light seems to show skulls
and blank bone in the gaps of their armor, and a moment later shows
instead the gaunt and sickly face of a weary mercenary (cost: 0/1D4
SAN). Their eyes are never visible, lost in pools of shadow. The feel-
ing around the “fire” is implacably cold.
Any Dreamer who succeeded at the Sneak roll to approach can
128
retreat again safely. Learning the details, the agents of the council,
Avat and Dem, hurriedly pack their gear and attempt to get at least
one Dreamer to follow them away, refusing to say just what about the
situation has upset them. They will not speak about it. In fact they
go out of their way to ignore the strange camp, as if it were not there.
They refuse to even acknowledge its existence.
Fighting the Specters is extremely dangerous. The creatures
are terrifying. Once engaged they become entirely inhuman. Their
features warp to become monstrous and their forms drift in and out
of solidity. They fight in a manner that is completely unnatural, tele-
porting from place to place in a blink, covering distances that would
take a man seconds at a run, turning up behind targets, and running
people through with ghostly blades. Worse yet, they are immune to
all conventional weapons. They fear only fire and magic.
Six Specters
Spirits of Hate, Hunger and Cold
STR n/a CON n/a SIZ n/a INT 12 POW 14
DEX n/a Move special HP n/a
Attacks: Drain, POW vs. CON, damage 1D6 STR loss
Notes: The Specters appear to be ghostly human mercenaries
until they attack or are attacked, whereupon they become terrifying,
warped apparitions of horror and death. They can teleport anywhere
they can see, cannot be outrun through normal means, and retreat
only if injured by magic or fire.
Treat Drain as a POW vs. CON attack on the Dreamer. If the
victim loses, he or she loses 1D6 STR. Each successful attack in this
manner appears as if the specter is slashing at the target and draw-
ing blood, but no wounds appear on the body. If the victim reaches 0
STR, all the specters descend on him or her, feeding on the still-warm
corpse. Other quick-thinking Dreamers might make their escape
during this frenzy.
Armor: Invulnerable to all attacks except fire and magic, which
reduce a specter’s POW rather than its HP. (When one reaches 0
POW, it evaporates forever.)
Sanity Loss: 0/1D8
129
The Slavers
One morning a distant horn sounds at dawn, followed by the deep
sound of drums. Avat and Dem immediately leap to alert, drawing
their weapons. They encourage the characters to break camp as
quickly as possible. If pressed, they warn they are being pursued by
slavers.
Persistent Dreamers can drag some details from the guides. The
slavers are degenerate humans from the Plain of Leng. They capture
and drag off humans for sale to the creatures at Sarkomand, or in
distant, unknown lands to the north. They hunt on horseback, using
dogs and poisoned bows.
Avat and Dem move off from the camp at a fast pace to the west,
occasionally calling for all in the party to lower themselves to the
ground. Throughout this ordeal, which lasts more than five hours,
horns are heard from all sides, and drums, and later, towards mid-
day, the sound of a big, wild dog baying.
To escape safely, each Dreamer must make two CONx2 rolls, or
become so exhausted they cannot carry on without 1D20 minutes
rest. A Dreamer who pushes on despite this exhaustion must make a
CONx1 roll after ten minutes or collapse, suffering 1D4 HP damage
and falling unconscious for 1D4 hours.
If a Dreamer is abandoned or if the group stops to rest, the slavers
come upon them and attack. Dreamers carried off by the slavers are
likely to become fodder for the Men from Leng or the horrific moon-
beasts, or worse things beyond the edge of the world.
There are ten slavers, five on horseback and five on foot, along
with three hunting dogs used for tracking. They are small, shriveled
men with yellow skin, black eyes and curly black beards. They wear
light armor, carry small bows and curved swords, and scream intimi-
dating commands in a language not known to anyone in the party.
The slavers on horseback circle their quarry, shooting small, poi-
soned arrows at them with little bows. Three of those on foot hold the
130
dogs on leashes. The other two move in to tie up their unconscious

victims. If a slaver is killed the group turns murderous. They loose
the dogs and all attack. If five of the slavers fall in combat, the rest
retreat and don’t return.
Ten Slavers
#1 10 6 8 16 16 — 7
#2 9 10 12 15 15 — 11
#3 11 7 15 3 14 +1D4 11
#4 11 3 14 9 12 +1D4 9
#5 13 10 12 11 12 +1D4 11
#6 10 10 10 13 12 — 10
#7 15 11 13 3 9 +1D4 12
#8 10 12 12 13 7 — 12
#9 9 10 10 5 5 — 10
#10 5 7 8 10 5 –1D4 8
Skills: Bargain 55%, English 8%, Sneak 41%, Listen 50%, Spot Hid-
den 51%, Ride 65%, Track 68%. Languages: Unknown Alien Tongue
(Own) 80%.
Attacks: Scimitar 56%, damage 1D6+2+db
Bow 44%, damage 1D4+poison* (only those on horseback)
* A victim must resist POT 10 or collapse unconscious for 1D4
hours.
Armor: Leather breastplate, 50% chance of AP 3.
Three Attack Dogs

Loyal and Dangerous
DEX 13 Move 10 HP 7
Damage Bonus: –1D6.
Skills: Listen 40%, Track 90%.
Attacks: Bite 25%, damage 1D8+db.
Armor: None.
131
The Path to the

Gate of Crystal
After a week or more of travel, the Dreamers reach the end of the
Western Plateau and gaze upon a series of rolling, mossy hills that
wind up over crevasses and become soaring mountains. At dawn and
at dusk, a single bright, blue-white speck of crystalline light is visible
from one of the peaks ahead. Avat or Dem might point it out—the
Gate of Crystal.
As the incline grows, traveling in the mountains begins to take its
toll. Avat and Dem seem unperturbed by the increasing difficulty
of the terrain and do not slow down unless asked. Dreamers who
attempt to keep their pace must make a CONx5 roll on the first day
(those that fail suffer 1 HP damage as they collapse and roll down the
slope); a CONx4 the second and third days; and finally a CONx2 roll
on the fourth day (failing this roll, where the incline is more than fifty
degrees, inflicts 1D8 HP damage). If the Dreamers insist on traveling
slowly, the climb takes eight days and no CON rolls must be made.
The Dead Pilgrims and

Ivu the Corrupt
Finally, as the slope of the mountain becomes nearly impassable,
the Dreamers come upon a sprawl of bodies lying face down, hav-
ing fallen and skidded down the mountain face. All of these figures,
in various states of decay, seem to have emerged from a single split
in the mountain ahead—a huge, vertical cut that leads further up
toward the Gate of Crystal. The path through this cut seems much
more manageable.
Any Dreamer that inspects the bodies and makes an Idea roll real-
izes three things. First, these people were shot in the back with a bow
firing large, three-foot arrows; second, their bodies were dragged
132
away from the opening to either side, so they would not be visible to
those coming away from the Gate; and third, all the bodies are identi-
cally dressed in linens, with empty wineskins and leather packs that
have been thrown open and emptied.
These unfortunate pilgrims are the victims of Ivu, an ancient man
of the hills who discovered long ago that people occasionally come
to the Oracle outfitted with fine food and gear. He has been casually
murdering the pilgrims as they issue from the Oracle, stripping them
of gear, and making his home in a cubby hole in the vertical face of
rock for nearly two decades. By day he picks through the corpses,
makes new arrows, and grows fat on the food and wine he loots from
the bodies, all the while chattering away to himself.
His scheme is hideous in its simplicity. The old man stashes a
ruined handbell, tied to a silver goblet, inside the path through the
gap, some distance back. At the first clank of the bell as a pilgrim
picks it up, Ivu rushes to his perch, loads his weapon and waits.
When the pilgrims come out of the gap, they pause as they see the
bodies sprawled on the ground. Then Ivu shoots them. Some even
turn in time to see the arrow coming. Ivu then loots the bodies, drags
them to the side, and returns his bell to its place in the gap. (The
dead pilgrims came from afar and awakened inside the Oracle, rather
than venturing into it on foot; they never saw the bodies on the south
face until it is too late.)
Ivu’s cave is accessible from a small, winding lip of rock that
moves up to the right of the gap in the mountain. Anyone climbing
to it must make a single Luck or Climb roll or fall, suffering 1D8
damage for tumbling down the rocks. Approximately 30 feet up is a
small ovoid cave that stretches into the rock face about 25 feet. At the
lip of the cave, Ivu has constructed a clever joist of cowgut, rope and
stones that holds a huge longbow tilted towards the ground, allowing
the old man to get maximum pull and maintain aim. From this crow’s
nest, Ivu can easily kill a victim who exits the mountain gap.
The cave is stacked full of wineskins, clothing, food and gear—a
grotesque amount of them. Those who count estimate that Ivu has
killed nearly 50 pilgrims. There are enough supplies in the cave to
last months.
133
Ivu the Corrupt

Nothing Is Beneath Him, age 57
Damage Bonus: none
Skills: Astronomy 22%, Climb 81%, Conceal 45%, Hide 35%, Jump
35%, Listen 40%, Navigate 44%, Spot Hidden 30%, Swim 35%,
Track 30%. Languages: Talunen (Own) 60%, English 21%.
Attacks: Hunting knife 60%, damage 1D6+db
Longbow 72%, 1D10+1D6
Ivu keeps the hunting knife cunningly hidden in a disgusting

bandage tied about his forearm (to discover it, a searching character
must roll Spot Hidden against Ivu’s Conceal). Ivu has no qualms in
cutting an unobservant character’s throat. He’ll even lick the blade in
front of the group before most likely being slaughtered himself—an
outcome he has been awaiting for nearly twenty years.
Ivu will shoot targets on the ground without any care for tactics. If
he has a shot on a character, he will take it.
Ivu is disgusting. A short, Asiatic man bloated with wine and food
and covered in open sores, he babbles to himself and is silent only
when aiming his bow. Grinning wickedly with black eyes and teeth,
Ivu cackles without provocation. He seems to be living half in a daze
of insanity and half in the “real” world. Despite his build, Ivu is fast
and can climb like a monkey.
Ivu does not fully recall how he came to the gap, as he calls it,
only that he escaped cruel men sometime in the past on the Western
Plateau and was pursued to a hole in the wall. There he met a trav-
eler at a fire laden with fine wine and food who refused to share with
the starving Ivu.
Ivu throttled the man with a knot of rope and looted his body.
Over the years Ivu has refined his technique, growing more and more
brazen. Today he refers to the pilgrims as “cattle” and has even, when
supplies have grown thin, eaten their flesh. He is quite insane.
Ivu’s only goal is the preservation of his lifestyle. If this seems to
be coming to an end, he lashes out and attempts to kill anyone he can.
134
The Western Machine

After another day climbing up the slopes of the mountain, the
Dreamers finally come to the glittering object they spied days before
across the Western Plateau—the Oracle.
Two giant statues, made of a blue-white metal unlike anything
found on Earth, flank a cleft in the mountain. They hang on the side
of the mountain, buried in snow and rock, as if knocked aside by
some giant creature. Each statue is about eighty feet tall and appears
to be a thin, Asian man or woman standing, hands held together in
prayer, eyes facing south. Past them a sparkling, crystalline cog, like
that found in a clock but the size of a house, slowly turns in the side
of the mountain. The cog glitters at each click of its workings, visible
135
across the plain. The ground shakes lightly with each click.
The cog recedes into the mountain, beneath the ground. Visible
beneath in the opening are dozens of similar works, connected and
spinning at varying rates. Hand-carved and well-worn steps lead
down into the rock. There are no gates or guards. Anyone may enter
freely. Avat and Dem, however, will not continue onward. It is, they
say, forbidden, though they will not say why. Nothing will persuade
them to enter the caves.
Descent
The depths of the mountain are lit well by endless reflections from
crystal. They are warm and hospitable, except for the noise. The tick-
ing of the machine is so loud in some areas that the Dreamers must
clutch their ears against the sound and conventional conversation is
impossible. Other areas are quieter, but the clank and click of parts is
always present.
There is but a single path with no deviations. Sometimes this nar-
row stair or hallway opens on a vista revealing the complexity and
136
scale of the machine. Ten minutes beneath the mountain, the char-
acters pass a chamber the size of a vast stadium, filled with work-
ing, glittering crystal parts ticking away at some unknown rhythm.
Certainly the machine was built with purpose and meaning, thought
what it might be is impossible to guess.
The path leads to a small, wooden door, marked with a symbol. It
looks like a five-limbed tree branch tipped to the right. A Dreamer
who makes a Cthulhu Mythos roll recognizes the Elder Sign. The
door is unlocked.
The Oracle of the

Western Machine
The chamber is large, and is evidently in the heart of the machine
that fills the mountain. The curved half-dome is split by spinning cogs
and pulleys and levers on all sides. The clicking in this room is quiet
and brings to mind a grandfather clock ticking away in a peaceful
study. Until the door is shut behind the characters, nothing happens.
The moment the door is shut a bell rings and the sound of a
machine “spinning up” breaks the relative quiet. Any Dreamer who
played with a string top as a child recognizes the sound of a string or
cable being pulled at high speed to spin some axle. This is followed
by four clicks. Any Dreamer who makes a Spot Hidden roll notices a
shape detach itself from the far wall and move forward.
The shape is human-sized, composed of shafts of crystal and thin
bars of metal. It is situated on a single steel pole instead of legs. This
pole recedes into the ground, in a clear groove that cuts rectilinear
patterns around the room’s stone floor. The face is a blank, white
marionette-like mask with no eyes, only the vague outline of a nose,
and a spring-loaded mechanical mouth. Its arms drift to its side in
a jerky motion and it slides forward until it reaches the halfway
point in the room. There it stops abruptly and then makes a series of
uneven movements in sequence. It takes a moment to realize that the
being has just bowed to the Dreamers.
This is the Oracle of the Western Machine.
137
Interacting with
the Oracle
The Oracle remains inert until engaged, though those stand-
ing near it can hear various flywheels and mechanics spinning and
moving in it. Attacking the Oracle is foolish, but those who persist
may easily smash and destroy it. Moments later, a “new” Oracle is
dropped into the slot in the wall from above, and the sequence of
events repeats as if nothing untoward happened.
The moment someone speaks to the Oracle in the form of a ques-
tion, it responds. Its voice is stilted and organ-like, emerging out
of sequence with its mechanical mouth clacking open and shut. It
responds only to questions. No other attempt at engagement works.
Once the characters have finished their inquiries, they may simply
leave. Nothing keeps them in the Oracle’s chamber.
1) Should Inquanok Expand?

The main question the characters were sent to ask is the easiest to
answer. The Oracle says, simply, NO. Its mouth then unhinges, and
a chip of crystal drops out of the glittering mechanical works in its
head. This is the token—a large, blue-white gem which seems, upon
inspection, to contain something in its center: a creature, a symbol or
some wires.
Further inquiry can reveal that if Inquanok expands, 55 years
from now it will fall prey to a coordinated, protracted war by Sar-
komand and the Spiders from Leng. It will take 72 years to complete-
ly collapse. Fewer than 190 residents will survive the final assault on
the walls of Inquanok. Each of these details is doled out as a single,
short, answer, and only if the character pursues such an answer.
2) What Is This Place?

THE WESTERN MACHINE, the Oracle says. THE WORKS
WHICH MOVE THIS CORNER OF THE WORLD.
138
3) Who Built It?

THE GREAT ONES, WHO LAID THE FOUNDATIONS OF
HEAVEN. Further questions about the “Great Ones” are met with
what seems to be a “glitch” in the machine. The mouth moves and
clicks but no sounds come out.
4) Why Can Only Earthly Travelers Enter?

ONLY THOSE NOT CONTROLLED BY THE MACHINE
MAY ENTER IT.
5) How Do We Escape the Dreamlands?

THERE ARE MANY EXITS. LOOK SOUTH IN THE
ENCHANTED WOOD.
6) What are the Intentions

of (Character)?
The Oracle can answer these questions with absolute authority, as
long as the subject is a native of the Dreamlands. The Oracle could
reveal that the Collector wishes to kill every member of the party and
escape back to Sarkomand. Or that Yveddes is motivated entirely by
greed, or that Dem is prepared to let them all die and lie to the sages
about what they found. It says such things with absolute certainty.
The implication is that the “Western Machine” is actually somehow
running these people’s lives, hopes and dreams like a clock.
Notably, questions about Mr. Lao cannot be answered. His dual
nature means he is free from the Oracle’s sight, for the most part.
Return to Inquanok
When the Dreamers emerge to the surface, those that show the
token to Avat or Dem are met with their stunned silence. It is clear
that the object means something to the men in a way it cannot to
the Dreamers. When they look at it their eyes are filled with a quiet
wonder, as if they are seeing something far more interesting than a
gemstone.
The two men pester the Dreamers for the answer to the question
139
they brought to the Oracle. If the Dreamers refuse to answer (which

would be wise), Avat and Dem encourage the group to return to
Inquanok as fast as possible.
Of course, if he learns the truth, Dem will watch for a chance to
get the whole party slain so he can take the token himself and tell the
Council of Sages what his master wants them to hear. But Avat will
be watchful. Dem should get a chance only if you feel the need for
another deadly encounter.
If the Dreamers avoided the Underworld and you wish to send
them there, this is a good chance. An encounter with one of the
threats that they did not face before—especially slavers or perhaps
a manticore—might drive them into a cavern from which the only
escape is the strange stairs leading far, far downward—down to a
fateful meeting with Madaeker the ghoul.
Otherwise the journey back to Inquanok is uneventful. The path,
now relatively well known, offers no resistance if the Dreamers sim-
ply retrace their steps. Approximately 20 days after leaving the city,
the characters return to the Gate Dire at Inquanok and are met by
applause, garlands and flowers thrown from the city windows as they
cross to the round street.
There Yveddes and Drax wait for the Dreamers, the answer to
their question, and the token of the Oracle.
Judgment
The sages require a council meeting to hear the answer of the
Oracle. The token is presented as evidence of the judgment, and none
seem to question it. Drax’s dream is defeated as the sages unani-
mously vote to remain in the city walls—Drax himself votes to follow
the Oracle. The Dreamers are thanked, named heroes of the city, and
laden with jewels, treasures and trinkets. Even Drax seems not to
hold a grudge, despite his defeat.
The characters are allowed unfettered access to the Temple of the
Elder Ones, and in it, the Book of Keys and Gates.
140
The Book of Keys Studying the

Book of Keys
and Gates and Gates
Those who wish to read
This vast book, written in some ancient magical tongue, sits at the
the Book of Keys and Gates
center of the Temple of the Elder Gods. The book itself is enormous, from cover to cover must
have 10+1D6 weeks of
easily three feet thick when closed and weighing three hundred
uninterrupted time and
pounds. To an ordinary person it is nearly unmovable; even opening make the POWx2 roll.
the cover is difficult.
Dreamers that do so suffer
The pages are made of a thin material, dark but transluscent, and 0/1D4 SAN loss. They gain
the information presented
their edges are folded and carefully sewn. The words on each page
in the book normally,
are inscribed in golden ink. At first they appear to be unknown recti- as well as the additional
ability to instantly spot
linear hieroglyphs, but every Dreamer viewing the book may make a
characters and objects
single POW x 2% roll. On a success, the hieroglyphs appear to flip, from Earth. At a glance,
the Dreamer can tell
one by one, becoming the viewer’s native language. Glancing at the
whether someone or
book peripherally or through squinted eyes destroys this illusion, something is from Earth
rather than being a native
but otherwise the book becomes completely readable. Those who fail
of the Dreamlands or
see—and will continue to see—only an alien language. some other realm. This is
not indicated by a visible
The book is thousands of pages long and is filled with many won-
glow or emanating power,
ders. Those spending time laboriously flipping through it find they but a strong and perfect
knowledge of their origin.
can read only five to six pages in a single day of tireless study, due
to the cramped writing on each oversized page. There seems to be
no rhyme or reason to the book. It meanders, changes subject, and is
filled with meaningless asides, as if its author had simply written the
whole thing down in a single undirected stream of ideas.
The primary focus of the book seems to be the various exits from
the Dreamlands and their intersections with Earth. While the book
often mentions unrelated things, it always finds its way back to the
theme of gates between the waking and dreaming worlds and the cor-
responding “keys” necessary to transit them.
Characters who search the book without any concept of what
exactly they seek must read it for 1D8+2 weeks before uncovering
one of the clues below. Those searching for something specific, such
as “an exit to Earth from the Plateau of Leng” or “an exit to Earth
from the Southern Cities,” must make a group Luck roll. On a suc-
cess, it takes them 1D8+2 days to uncover a clue.
141
Those successfully parsing the book at length discover that a

relatively safe exit to Earth exists in the south, in a place called
“The Enchanted Wood” near a city called “Ulthar.” Sages and city-
folk claim it is a great city, but say those traveling south must move
through the port of Lhosk first.
Rewards and the

Journey South
In Inquanok the Dreamers are laden with small chests full of gold
and gems, new armor, any weapons they like, and more—even brides
or houses in the city proper. They are untouchable heroes of the
walled city; if he is their companion, even the Collector is accepted
there as a friend.
Dreamers wishing to journey south to Ulthar are told that ships
run to Lhosk. From there, Ulthar may be reached by a journey on
foot or horseback.
When it is time to depart, the Dreamers find themselves on the
Lhoskian ship Yan, with their passage paid in its finest quarters, for
the passage south. (See Chapter Five for details on shipboard life.)
142
Chapter Nine
LHOSK - THE BAZAAR - COMPLICATIONS - YOUR BOND TO ALL THAT DUST
Subtle Changes
change to allow players a
“In the high west there burns a furious star.
It is for fiery boys that star was set.”
• The most popular fish
—Wallace Stevens, “Le Monocle de Mon Oncle”
on the supper tables of
Lhosk.
• The most common
Lhosk
figurehead seen on
the prows of Lhoskian
ships and boats.
A well-traveled human city on the coast of the Cerenarian Sea,
• The symbol used to
Lhosk has prospered as a trade center for many surrounding lands
designate a house as a
due to its low levy and easygoing economic policies. temporary residence
for travelers.
The city and its surrounding estates and farms wind along a thirty-
five-mile stretch of tropical coastline, and the natural bay is protected • The peculiar mix of
spices used by Lhoskian
by a series of small reefs and sandbars. Two large lighthouses called
cooks.
“the twins” mark the mouth of the port. At high tide the lighthouses
seem to float on the water; at low tide the small islands on which they
are built can be spied.
Lhosk’s beautiful teak docks are famous as far south as Baharna.
The intricate patterns and winding spires of their etchings, carved in
the classic Lhoskian style, make them a prized cultural treasure.
All Lhosk’s buildings except for port towers and lighthouses are
gambrel-roofed, making them easy to maintain in the frequent rain-
fall. No private house is over three stories, and none has a basement.
Hurricanes are frequent and the water table is quite high.
Most of the city proper stands within a mile or so of the sea, and
all Lhoskian children are equally comfortable on land and water from
a very early age. As one would expect, the major industry of the city
is fishing, and the native barks are known up and down the Cerenar-
ian coast as the prime traders of sea goods. In their own bazaars the
Lhoskians hold a near monopoly on fish, fishing goods, shipboard
goods and other maritime sundries. Other goods are left to foreign
traders, as this promotes a healthy relationship with other lands and a
strong economic base.
143
The city itself is quite old, although no records reveal its true age.
Key to the Map The people of Lhosk have been sailing and fishing on the Cerenarian
1. Lighthouses (“The
coast as far back as any human books remember. The native language
Twins”)
of the area is Talunen, although English and Skand are nearly as
2. Ballud’s Outfitters
common.
3. Grand (“Red”) Bazaar A small council of sailors and traders rules Lhosk. The Tha fam-
ily has held most of the council seats for many generations, although
4. Council Spire
some seats are purposely vacated for set periods and presided over
5. The Eye of the Needle
by foreign traders. The interplay and intrigues of great families has
6. Mortimer’s Potions become more and more complex and incestuous with each passing
generation.
7. Ebony Temple
Today, Lhosk is the predominant trade city in the northern reaches
8. Trade Family Tha
of the Dreamlands and is the gateway of trade to the exotic and
dangerous north.
Lhosk
1
8
1
2
5
3
4
6
7
144
Chapter Nine: Lhosk
The Docks
The ancient teak docks are the pride and joy of Lhosk. Intricate
and fascinating carvings cover every square inch. Artists and sages
travel from all over the Dreamlands to see them. They are a mecca to
the creative spirit.
Hundreds of ships of every description dock in Lhosk every day,
coming from ports as far west as Sarrub and as far east as Mhor.
Sails and flags of countless descriptions can be found, often including
some never seen before.
New traders must register with the Trade Council and offer a
tribute to trade in the Grand Bazaar. Those who do not wish to pay
the tithe and register may trade on the docks with no penalty (save
that most customers stay in the bazaar), but most choose to find favor
with the council. Those that do seldom go bankrupt.
Private owners rent dock slips to foreign ships. This lucrative
business has become extremely cutthroat, with each slip-owner
attempting to undercut his competitors with cheaper prices. Some
accept only currency as payment for slip time; others accept goods
or specialty services in exchange. The city manifest of ships in dock
is updated every day by the slip-holding individuals and conglomer-
ates. Any who fail to report a ship in a dock to the harbormaster are
145
subject to extreme fines and possible imprisonment.

Progress Pulling into the narrow docks is difficult and sometimes danger-
Through the ous, requiring a skilled pilot. Anyone attempting to steer a ship into
Campaign dock without the benefit of the Sailing skill, or if the Sailing roll
Arriving in Lhosk is
fails, must make a halved Luck roll. If that succeeds, a rough dock-
a significant step for
Dreamers hoping to find ing is achieved. If it fails, a mishap damages the dock, dependent on
their way to Earth. It is a
the ship’s size and top speed. If the halved Luck roll comes up 96 or
relatively safe port (as far
as the Dreamlands go), but higher, both the ship and dock are severely damaged, possibly even
is awash with the influence
causing the ship to sink or the dock to collapse.
of Nyarlathotep—mostly
through his agents, the The people of Lhosk value their docks greatly.
Men from Leng. Clever
Dreamers will take care.
Arrival in a
Black Galley
The Bazaar and Council
The Grand Bazaar runs in a two-mile strip just off the docks near
If the characters arrive
in a Black Galley, this the center of Lhosk. It is called the Red Bazaar by locals due to the
will cause a stir in the red tarpaulins that cover much of the bazaar from the frequent rains.
locals. The Black Galleys
are a well-known sight in This name often confuses newcomers. Sometimes a traveler can be
town and are the object found in the Grand Bazaar asking for directions to the Red Bazaar
of lust by every trader in
the northern oceans. See when they are one and the same place!
“Arrival in a Black Galley” Over two hundred permanent shops and boutiques make their
on page 148.
homes in the Red Bazaar, selling all varieties of goods and services.
Arrival with the Thousands of other small shops come and go, erecting simple facades
Sword of Kamas-Tha and tents daily in any available open spaces.
This sword, last held by the
now deceased Kamas-Tha, Almost any object imaginable can be found here for the right price,
is the key to a mystery in including live exotic animals, slaves, magical elixirs, enchanted rings
town and might gain the
Dreamers the assistance of and weapons, ancient books, tapestries, and totally alien goods from
Maras-Tha (his son) or the the lands of dreams to the West. In the Red Bazaar, money talks.
enmity of Emen-Tha (his
brother), who architected There is a small amount of regulated crime. Pickpockets are the
Kamas-Tha’s death. See most prevalent problem but they avoid well-known foreign traders
“The Trade Family Tha” on
page 184. and important buyers. The criminals want to be sure the Red Bazaar
prospers, and with it their income off unwary travelers. They have
struck bargains with certain unions of traders, monitoring crime and
often preventing theft by independent thieves.
The Council Spire stands in the center of the Red Bazaar, in the
remnants of the first lighthouse erected in the city. Inside, over thirty
tired and crowded bureaucrats muddle through endless reams of
146
Chapter Nine: Lhosk
paperwork. Once a year, for two weeks, the Council meets in the
(Continued.)
assembly hall in the base of the lighthouse. This event is the talk of
the town and draws huge crowds of merchants hoping to have their Arrival with the
problems addressed. Often only those with the largest purses are Collector
The Collector once lived
heard. in Lhosk but was sold into
Fifty men guard the Council Spire day and night. If this seems a slavery by his family due to
his horrific appearance. His
bit overzealous, one must think of the sensitive nature of much of the family will not stand for his
paperwork contained therein. Also, the commander of the city guards reappearance and will go
out of their way to remove
maintains his office in a small shack at the base of the Spire, so any him, no matter the cost. See
thought of thievery or assault near or in the spire is ill-advised. “The Trade Family Bahaot”
on page 194.
Lhosk Guards Arrival from the

Underworld
No. Str Con Siz Pow Dex DB HP Dreamers arriving from the
#1 16 12 15 4 17 +1D4 14 Underworld, ironically, find
#2 9 11 13 10 15 — 12 themselves the best off.
They appear to the locals to
#3 9 14 13 14 15 — 14 have come from nowhere
#4 17 8 17 4 14 +1D6 13 special and are just more
#5 18 16 12 15 14 +1D4 13 travelers visiting the city.
#6 6 12 12 15 12 — 12
Arrival from Inquanok
#7 15 15 16 15 10 +1D4 16
Characters arriving on a
#8 9 11 14 7 7 — 13 ship from Inquanok find
#9 9 12 8 6 7 — 10 the Men from Leng waiting
for them just as if they had
#10 13 10 12 17 6 +1D4 11
arrived in a Black Galley.
The Men from Leng’s blood
Skills In Common: Dodge (DEX x 2) + 10%, Law 25%, Spot Hid- gems make tongues waggle,
and merchants on Lhoskian
den 61%. Languages: Talunen (Own) 80%, English 50%. ships have let slip that
Attacks: Pole arm 56%, damage 1D10+db “heroes” from Earth arrived
in Inquanok. The Men
Short sword 35%, damage 1D6+1+db from Leng wait on all ships
Dagger 50%, damage 1D4+2+db coming into port from the
north, hoping to locate the
Dreamers and enslave or kill
The Lay of the Land

them.
Dreamers eager to immerse themselves in Lhosk need look no fur-

ther than the pubs and inns on the waterfront. Buying drinks for the
locals renders them more than willing to fill any gaps in the Dream-
ers’ knowledge. The following basics are easily gained—no rolls are
necessary, just time:
147
1) Lhosk is ruled from the Council Spire.

2) A free city with no king, Lhosk is led by a Council of Traders.
3) Taxes are fair, crime is low (in most of the city), and times are
prosperous.
4) The city guard is generally just, though they are not above
bribery.
5) People from many cultures of the Dreamlands call Lhosk
home.
6) Travelers from Earth are often seen in Lhosk.
Each Persuade or Fast Talk roll reveals a deeper rumor:

1) A dark cult has built a church in a district of Lhosk and that
district has fallen to ruin.
2) The dark church is called “The Ebony Temple.”
3) The foreigners who pilot the Black Galleys frequent the
Ebony Temple.
4) The trouble began with the disappearance of Kamas-Tha, a
member of the Council of Traders.
5) Since Kamas-Tha’s brother Emen-Tha took over his council
seat, the foreigners from the Black Galleys can be seen every-
where.
6) Some say Emen-Tha had his brother killed on the seas to take
his council seat.
In addition, nearly any local who has had a few free drinks will
direct the characters to nearly any location or any service in the city.
Arrival in a Black Galley

If the Dreamers arrive in a Black Galley, by the time they make
dock word of its arrival spreads to the Ebony Temple (see below).
Disguised as humans, four Men from Leng wait on the dock. Once
they see the Dreamers they beat a hasty retreat, choosing instead to
act under cover of darkness lest they spoil their disguises. (Anyone
who has seen an undisguised Man from Leng immediately recognizes
them for what they truly are at the cost of 0/1D4 SAN).
148
Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Any Dreamer making a Spot Hidden roll notices the ill-formed

men, wrapped in their huge cloaks and turbans, considering them
from the shore with obvious hatred and confusion. The Men from
Leng expected another group of their own kind. Finding the Dream-
ers instead, they retreat and plot their next move.
Likewise, the dockmasters will be confused at the arrival of
normal-looking humans in a Black Galley. This should be role-played
out, but characters who fail to handle themselves well here might find
themselves in the midst of a riot or worse.
First, the dockmaster asks if the characters own the ship. If the
answer is yes, word soon spreads of normal men owning the Black
Galley. Second, they ask if there is anything to trade. If the answer
is yes, within minutes a large group of traders congeals on the dock,
hounding the characters in an attempt to make a deal.
Surviving the Uproar

Any Dreamer can assert control of the situation by demanding that
the dockmaster alert the city guard. After a brief uproar and a gath-
ering of passersby to gawk and haggle, ten city guards arrive, armed
with pole-arms and short swords, and set up an effective perimeter.
The crowd, frightened by the guards, begins to quiet and eventually
waits silently behind the perimeter, watching.
If the Dreamers sit passively by, they watch in horror as an ever-
escalating mess of locals show up and begin to swarm the dock. None
attempts to cross the gangplank onto the Black Galley—such an
action is forbidden both by law and local superstition—but dozens
and then hundreds of people begin to swarm the dock, pushing the
Dreamers back towards the water.
Once the Dreamers are identified as the owners, the focus of
the crowd falls on them. They are pummeled, pulled and yelled at.
Escaping the dock on foot requires either a STRx2 roll or a melee
attack roll. However, Dreamers who attack with more than fists or
feet find themselves in the midst of a huge, rolling riot. Each turn
spent in the riot calls for a Luck roll. Failure indicates 1D4 HP
damage. A 00 roll on Luck indicates 1D10+2 HP damage. Making
three successful Luck rolls allows the Dreamer to escape into the city
149
streets away from the riot.

Retreating onto the Black Galley is an option, as no one will cross
the gangplank, but this effectively traps the Dreamers on the ship.
If the Dreamers make a group Luck roll they are soon greeted by
a contingent of city guards, looking to speak with the owner of the
Black Galley. Otherwise the characters are caught on the Black Gal-
ley for 1D20 hours before the crowd disperses.
Selling the Black Galley

One good way to find a buyer for the Black Galley—and anything
else the Dreamers might sell—would be to look for an overweight,
particularly well-appointed individual in the crowd. Agat the Corpu-
lent is such a merchant. He is attended by two well-armed mercenar-
ies who frown heavily upon anyone interrupting their fat employer’s
business.
150
Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Agat the Corpulent

Servant of the Coin and Dealer of the Red Bazaar, age 43
Damage Bonus: None.
Skills: Accounting 64%, Bargain 75%, Law 61%, Persuade 60%,
Spot Hidden 71%. Languages: Skand (Own) 100%, English 44%,
Pross 21%, Talunen 60%.
Attacks: None.
A very short man of Bohunk descent, Agat is so fat he seems to be

nothing more than pyramids of gelatinous limbs stacked one upon
the other in all directions. His rings are crevasses in the bulk of his
fingers. His neck is three blobs of bulk. His body, hidden beneath silk
and jewels, is much the same. His face is a childlike, corpulent oval
split by clean white teeth and blue eyes. His hair is a perfect, slicked-
back black, and he wears a wet-looking black goatee.
Agat was born in Inquanok but has spent twenty years as the main
seller of his family’s goods—mostly worked marble and stone—in the
Red Bazaar of Lhosk. This has made him a very wealthy man, and
that wealth is most accurately represented by his excessive weight.
As a sign of his success, his size gives him great pride.
Agat will do nearly anything to own a Black Galley. He does not
imagine the horrors that power it, or the enemies it might gain him,
but instead pictures the movement of vast tonnages of stone from
Inquanok to Lhosk at a speed never before imagined—and thus an
even fatter purse.
What an Offer Might Entail

If the Dreamers deal with Agat, the city guard and Agat’s merce-
naries show up in force and clear the dock. This alone should indicate
Agat’s deep interest in the Black Galley. His attendants bring folding
leather chairs, a table and a large coffer, and serve wine, apples and
fresh meats. Agat does not eat—he plans to satisfy his boundless
desires later—unless the Dreamers seem to suspect poison.
Agat offers to buy the Black Galley sight unseen for “a hefty
151
sum.” He offers the coffer that his attendants brought forth, filled
Wealth in Lhosk with gold, gems and copper. This is a vast amount of wealth for most
Lhosk, the center of
Lhoskians, but is not a fair trade for the Black Galley.
commerce for the
Dreamlands, dreams deeply If the characters act offended or displeased in any way, Agat
of capital, economy, and
immediately opens the table to anything within his power. Clever
trade. One might wander
penniless elsewhere in the characters can parlay this into homes, estates, ships, slaves and more,
Dreamlands and never
particularly with good Bargain rolls. The exact disposition remains
worry for food and shelter.
In Lhosk their lack is felt up to the Keeper. If they simply take the coffer, they will have more
keenly.
immediate wealth than they need, but in fact they will have been
The Dreamers might live in hornswoggled.
Lhosk for a long while and
they are likely to trade for
many things. Thus it might The Fate of Agat
be amusing to gauge how
The purchaser of the Black Galley—whether Agat or another
richly or poorly they live.
merchant—soon meets a singular fate. The new owner discovers the
This system is optional.
horrors below deck on the Black Galley, but word of these monstros-
ities does not spread. Instead the merchant attempts to protect the
new purchase from prying eyes. While struggling to formulate a plan
to either offload the new purchase or get it out of town, he or she is
set upon by the Men from Leng.
Using magic and subterfuge, the Men from Leng infiltrate the
merchant’s house and kill all within. They strangle the merchant in
his sleep, cutting out his tongue and eyes and severing his genitals.
(Cost to see the results: 1/1D4 SAN.)
The Black Galley vanishes in the night, along with the dockmas-
ter, who is later found floating drowned in the ocean. No one knows
where it went. It has, in fact, been sailed out of port back to Sarkom-
and by the Men from Leng.
This shake-up will be spoken of in hushed tones around Lhosk. A
Dreamer who makes a Persuade roll trying to learn more can catch
the undercurrent: This was done by the ill-formed priests of the
Ebony Temple.
152
Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Shops of Interest Wealth Levels

The Credit Rating skill
Lhosk is covered in shops. From the ocean to the inland fringes of
reflects financial savvy
the city, each street has at least one small shop, usually with a small in the waking world. In
Lhosk, the Dreamers have a
wooden sign in front proclaiming its trade. (Some are known only to
Wealth rating that broadly
locals and are found in the oddest places.) Two in particular will be reflects their resources:
Poor, Comfortable,
recommended as significant establishments well known in town: Bal-
Wealthy, or Rich.
lud’s Outfitters and Mortimer’s Sundry Potions and Chemicals.
Poor: The Dreamers are
barely scraping by. They
Mortimer’s Sundry
rest in the open elements
or in borrowed hovels.
They never have quite
Potions and Chemicals

enough to eat. If they want
anything useful or new
they must steal it.
Stephan Mortimer was once a resident of Earth, but since some-
Comfortable: The Dreamers
time in the early 17th century he has been in the Dreamlands, con-
have someplace warm and
tinuing the work he began in Florence many, many years before. Like quiet to live. They have
food and clothing. They
Nicolas Flamel, Mortimer pursued the Philosopher’s Stone, the key
might even have a servant
to the transmutation of lead into gold and the immortality to be found or two to help with menial
chores. Anything exotic
in that alchemical transmutation. In these studies he found a gateway
or especially valuable is
to the world of dreams. beyond them, but they
don’t need to worry about
Since his permanent transference to the Dreamlands, Mortimer
the essentials.
has enjoyed unnaturally long life due to the secrets, spells and chemi-
Wealthy: The Dreamers
cals he has uncovered in his searches.
have a life of luxury
Mortimer collects, mixes and sells alchemical concoctions. He is and plenty. They have
enough to throw parties
well known as a knowledgable and honest trader. His reputation is
and entertain, and to buy
above question and even the bosses of the Red Bazaar look to him for or trade for just about
anything they need. They
answers concerning crimes of a magical nature.
have servants in plenty
Mortimer appears to be a short, thick-waisted, dire young man. and a fine, big mansion
or a series of smaller but
The only indications of his age are his protruding bushy eyebrows
equally fine houses.
and yellowed teeth. Upon closer inspection, his skin appears worn
Rich: The Dreamers are
and lizard-like. It seems to go through patterns over the course of a
among the rarefied elite of
month, looking worse one day, worse still the next, until suddenly Lhosk. They live in comfort
and splendor that few can
appearing perfect and pink, like that of a newborn baby. His eyes are
even imagine. Princes,
a pearlescent blue which at first appears beautiful, but later seems diplomats and the highest
councilors curry their
reptilian and unnatural. He never blinks.
attention and favor.
He is always clothed in voluminous robes which obscure his body
153
except from the wrists down and neck up. Mortimer is very protec-
Initial Wealth tive of this concealment and reacts violently to anyone attempting
How wealthy are the
to remove it. Very occasionally (noticed with a Spot Hidden roll)
Dreamers? It depends on
what they brought when the robes seem to move around the midsection in an unnatural way.
they arrived at Lhosk and
(Cost: 0/1 SAN.)
what they did with it. They
can trade treasures to live Mortimer was born in Vienna but spent much of his life on Earth
well.
in Florence, studying mysticism, magic and the occult and hiding
Arrive with nothing but from agents of the Catholic church. Since his escape to the land of
their clothes, weapons,
dreams his life has become a frenzy of search, discovery and experi-
armor, and perhaps a camel
or two—POOR mentation. He has only recently settled down, nearly 300 years later.
For the last hundred or so years, Mortimer has made his home
Arrive with a caravan
of trade goods and gifts in Lhosk due to its convenient location and access to various trade
from Inquanok and begin
routes. In that time he has cemented a relationship with the town,
trading it for profit—
COMFORTABLE becoming known as one of the foremost authorities in magic. Every-
one knows him, and he has an encyclopedic knowledge of people,
Arrive in a Black Galley
and refuse to part with it— places and relationships in Lhosk.
POOR
Arrive in a Black Galley and Stephan Mortimer

sell it cheap—WEALTHY
Married to His Darling; age unknown
Arrive in a Black Galley and STR 22 CON 19 SIZ 9 INT 17 POW 18
sell it at a high price—RICH
Sell a Black Galley after Damage Bonus: +1D4
damaging the docks on
Skills: Accounting 22%, Alchemy 81%, Astronomy 58%, Bargain
arrival—one wealth rank
lower 90%, Biology 14%, Chemistry 77%, Climb 99%, Dodge 45%, Fast
Talk 44%, Jump 51%, Law 41%, Medicine 23%, Occult 86%, Per-
If the Dreamers damage
the docks on arrival in a suade 90%, Pharmacy 51%. Languages: German (Own) 50%, English
Black Galley and refuse to
25%, Morga 75%, Pross 91%, Skand 90%, Talunen 90%.
sell the galley to pay for it,
they’re not only Poor, they Attacks: Punch 80%, damage 1D3+db
also owe a massive amount
“Darling” biting and flailing 65%, damage 1D8
to cover the repairs. If
they can’t sell a treasure Spells: Bloat, Cascades of Florin, Deflection, Halt of Eanora, Spiral
to cover it—see page 155—
of Suth, Sundering Hurler, Wither Limb.
they face imprisonment or
enslavement. We’ll leave Sanity Loss: 1/1D6 to see “Darling”
the details of that difficulty
to the Keeper.
154
Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Unique
Treasures
The Dreamers may have
gathered a number of
unique treasures in their
journeys. Each is rated in
value—Modest, Impressive,
or Astonishing.
An Astonishing treasure
generally trades for five or
six Impressive treasures;
an Impressive treasure
generally trades for five or
six Modest treasures.
Standards
Mortimer’s Darling of Living
Selling a treasure allows
Mortimer is connected permanently to an other-worldly entity he
the Dreamers to live at a
calls “Darling,” concealed beneath his robes. This creature looks like certain level of wealth and
comfort for a while. If they
a horrific hybrid between octopus, lamprey and bird. It is wrapped
are already at that level or
around his midsection and connected to his intestinal tract, a hitch- greater, selling the treasure
does not improve it further.
hiker that attached itself during one of Mortimer’s extra-dimensional
travels. Mortimer found that it granted him immortality and preter- MODEST TREASURE:
Comfortable for a month
natural strength. Soon he ceased attempting to disconnect it.
With “Darling” attached, Mortimer does not eat or excrete. He IMPRESSIVE TREASURE:
Wealthy for a month or
does not age and he heals 1D6 HP per round until dead. Darling also
Comfortable for six months
makes Mortimer much, much stronger than he appears. If Mortimer
ASTONISHING TREASURE:
dies, so does Darling, and vice versa. For this reason only one set of
Rich for a month, Wealthy
stats is given for the hybrid creature Mortimer has become. for six months, or
Comfortable for three years
But there is a price. Every month, Mortimer must inject a human
host with Darling’s offspring, “his babies.” Failing to do so wears his If the Dreamers pay for
damage to the docks, it
body down as the stress of supporting multiple creatures eats away
requires the equivalent of
at it. He has always succeeded in spreading his seed when the time one Astonishing treasure
with a Bargain roll, two if
came, usually drugging a sailor in an ale house, performing the ritual
the Bargain roll fails, three
and then releasing him in a stupor on the docks the next day. if the Bargain roll is a 96-00,
or one Impressive treasure if
Mortimer is clever, long-lived and eager to maintain his status in
the Bargain roll is a special
Lhosk. He will do nothing to expose his secret to the Dreamers. If his success.
secret is exposed, he will kill to protect it.
155
What Mortimer Knows

Buying a Clever Dreamers will search out the drug which brought them
Treasure to the Dreamlands, bywandine. Such inquiries in Lhosk bring them
The Dreamers can attempt
to Mortimer. Mortimer has heard of the drug bywandine before, and
to buy treasures in Lhosk
rather than trading treasure recalls hearing of its mixture and creation in both the land of dreams
for treasure. This always
and on Earth in Leng. It is a specially mixed compound based on
takes a Bargain roll. If that
fails, the seller changes his opium.
or her mind for whatever
Mortimer also knows the Men in Leng are not what they seem, but
reason and refuses to sell. If
it succeeds, the Dreamers’ he does not readily admit this until the players reveal such knowledge
standard of living suffers for
themselves. If this secret is shared, Mortimer explains the history of
a while.
the Men from Leng, their secret (that they are not human at all, but
Modest: Drop from
simply masquerade as humans), and that they are building a dark
Comfortable to Poor for one
month; no “cost” beyond temple in the city of Lhosk to their lord, the Father of Knives, Nyar-
the Bargain roll for Wealthy
lathotep. Mortimer also reveals that it is well known in town that
or Rich Dreamers.
Emen-Tha, the council member, has been dealing with the satyrs. If
Impressive: Drop from
asked, Mortimer can direct the players to the Ebony Temple, but he
Wealthy to Comfortable
for one month, or from warns against going there.
Comfortable to Poor for six
Mortimer can mix bywandine for an excessive cost (a chest of gold
months; no “cost” beyond
the Bargain roll for Rich or gems, or a single blood gem—something of Astonishing value
Dreamers.
according to the guidelines on page 155), but those imbibing it find it
Astonishing: Drop from does nothing to return them to Earth. Its effects here are different.
Rich to Wealthy for one
month; from Wealthy to
Comfortable for six months; Bywandine’s Effects in the Dreamlands
or from Comfortable to
Bywandine is even more dangerous in the Dreamlands than on
Poor permanently.
Earth, as it propels users further into the Dreamlands. Those imbib-
ing it feel the world recede around them, as it did before their trans-
portation to the land of Dreams. They notice a strange distortion in
their sense of sight. Their peripheral vision slowly disappears, mak-
ing anywhere they look seem like a dim tunnel that gets smaller and
smaller. The effect is much like slowly falling down a well.
The tunnel closes suddenly, shutting out all sight and leaving the
Dreamers in the void, lost in empty space. With the euphorics of the
drug at work, the fall feels delightful, leaving them giddy. Then as
suddenly as it disappeared, the world returns.
156
Chapter Nine: Lhosk
The “Dream Within a Dream”

Suddenly each Dreamer is awakened by falling onto a rough stone Treasures and
floor. Each is alone on a giant stone balustrade of some enormous Their Value
The Dreamers might have
castle. (Each character who smokes bywandine has the same expe-
brought these treasures all
rience, but separately.) Above, the huge, squawking shape of an the way from Sarkomand.
enormous, hideous, birdlike thing whirls away. Those who have seen
One Blood Gem (page 39):
a Shantak before recognize it; those who have not lose 0/1D8 SAN. Astonishing.
The castle is so vast, so huge, it dwarfs the largest amphitheaters
Scroll of Endless Rhyme
ever seen on Earth. The night sky stretches out from the huge stones (page 38): Modest.
as far up, away, and down as the eye can see. Inside, torches more
Sword of Kamas-Tha (page
than ten feet tall light the passages, and the air is rich with the smells 40): Modest in its own
right; Impressive if sold to
of palm oil, rosemary and ginger.
someone who knows to give
Wandering the halls the Dreamer sees bizarre sights. Incredible it to the family for a reward.
architecture seems to shift and change as it is looked at. (Cost: 0/1D4
Enchanted Saber (page 41):
SAN.) Statues of huge, perfectly formed humans loom: men and Impressive.
women with sharp features and long earlobes hung with loose fitting
Astrolabe (page 41): Modest;
robes, each holding a twin-pronged golden spear. Pools of golden liq- if its curse comes out the
buyer will seek revenge.
uid bubble, smelling more delicious than can be imagined and tasting
even better; drinking the liquid immediately restores all HP in both Silver Chalice (page 41):
Impressive.
this dreaming body and the higher dreaming body.
After a time, when it seems sure that no one else is in the castle, Moon-beast Spear (page 42):
Modest.
a voice stops the Dreamer in his or her tracks. The voice is dark
and rich and full of humor. It belongs to an ebony-skinned giant of Moon-beast Chart (page 42):
Impressive.
perfect proportions, garbed in the dress of ancient Egypt, who seems
to step out of nowhere or from just out of the Dreamer’s glance: Box of Keim (page 43):
Impressive if no applications
“And so, you traveller in two worlds, you have found yourself before me, the
have been used; Modest
first traveller and last. What brings you to the abode of the gods?” otherwise.
He bids the Dreamer speak. He answers questions as follows:
1) Who Are You?

He claims he is no one of consequence. If pushed, he says he is
merely a messenger for the residents of this magnificent palace. If
further pushed, he claims that the Dreamer already knows who he
is, whether they wish to admit it or not. “Your journey is the result of
my identity.” He will say no more.
157
2) What Is This Place?

Coins of the It is the Palace of the Old Gods. The creatures who made this
Realms world and many others dwelt here for many eons until their recent
Do your players thrive on
departure. It is not his place to say where they went, though he
knowing how many coins
they spend and what kind? knows—he is after all a messenger.
Here’s a rough guide to
value.
3) How Do I Return to Earth?
A copper piece allows one
The magic that brought the Dreamers to the land of Dreams was
Dreamer to live at Poor
quality for one day without exceptional in its power and permanence. Return to Earth is pos-
working.
sible, but only through the physical portals found in the wilds of the
A silver piece allows one land of Dreams. There is, however, one other method that might
Dreamer to live Poor for a
take the Dreamer home. The speaker can take the Dreamer there.
month, Comfortable for a
week, or Wealthy for a day Is the Dreamer interested? With a Luck roll the Dreamer realizes
without working.
the speaker is suppressing great mirth. (See “The Journey” on page
A gold piece allows one 159.)
Dreamer to live Poor for
two years, Comfortable
for six months, Wealthy 4) Who Are the Men From Leng?
for a month, or Rich for
Misguided zealots. Their worship of something greater than them-
a week without working.
A treasure of Impressive selves is admirable, as distorted as it might be. The Dreamer should
value might sell for one
avoid them; they are of no more concern than that.
gold piece.
Dreaming 5) How Do I Defeat Mr. Lao?

Up Riches Lao exists in both worlds simultaneously. He has made associa-
The Dreamers can attempt
tions with many forces in many worlds, but now he has trespassed on
to change their lifestyle
with Directed Dreaming. the territory of the gods. The death of his body in the waking world
(See page 24.) Improving
or in the world of Dreams will bring about the eventual destruction
their standard of living by
one rank for a month costs of the other. In the world of Dreams, Lao is called Sa’n Seith and is a
+1 Notch and calls for a
satyr like the Men from Leng.
POW x 5% roll. Improving
their standard of living by
two ranks for a month, or
6) Are You Nyarlathotep?
by one rank permanently,
costs +5 Notches and calls He will not admit this directly, even if asked outright. He says only
for a POW x 2% roll.
that he has many names and many identities, for his purpose requires
him to travel to many worlds, places, and times.
7) Can You Take Me to Earth?

If the Dreamer makes a Luck roll he or she sees the being sup-
158
Chapter Nine: Lhosk
press mirth. Yes, he says, he can take the Dreamer back to Earth, but
the journey is far. He holds out his hand. Those taking it are most The Final Peril
“There were, in such
likely doomed. (See “The Journey” for details.) Those who refuse
voyages, incalculable local
notice a ripple of distaste move across the ebony features. “It is no dangers; as well as that
shocking final peril which
matter of mine,” he says with a shrug.
gibbers unmentionably
outside the ordered
The Journey universe, where no dreams
reach; that last amorphous
If the Dreamer is foolish enough to accept the Black Pharaoh’s blight of nethermost
confusion which
offer of travel back to Earth, he or she is escorted to a nearby bal-
blasphemes and bubbles at
ustrade and suddenly thrust upon the back of a Shantak by a huge the centre of all infinity—
the boundless daemon
ebony hand. (Cost: 1/1D8 SAN.) The Shantak wheels away up into
sultan Azathoth, whose
the night sky at incredible speed. The world vanishes below, leav- name no lips dare speak
aloud, and who gnaws
ing only the inky blackness of space; and yet the Dreamer can still
hungrily in inconceivable,
breathe. A second huge Shantak flies alongside, and on its back is the unlighted chambers beyond
time amidst the muffled,
Black Pharaoh, whose face is full of reverent joy.
maddening beating of
“The price of such a journey is steep, my friend, and you are most brave. We vile drums and the thin,
monotonous whine of
shall find Earth, but not before we circle the court and drop a curtsy to my lord,
accursed flutes; to which
the Demon Sultan, and his court. Then to Earth! If you can still recognize it detestable pounding
and piping dance slowly,
as your home.”
awkwardly, and absurdly
The Shantak birds seem to accelerate through nebulae and galax- the gigantic Ultimate
gods, the blind, voiceless,
ies, further and further into space until the character’s entire line of
tenebrous, mindless Other
sight is a band of white cutting the expanse of the universe in two. In gods whose soul and
messenger is the crawling
the center of this band is a boiling red and white flame which seems
chaos Nyarlathotep.”
to dance and shake, something the size of a sun or a million suns.
H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-
The only method of escape at this point, if you think of it as
escape, is to leap hopelessly into the void off the back of the Shantak.
A Dreamer attempting this must make a Luck roll. With a roll of
01-10 the Dreamer wakes suddenly in the Dreamlands where he or
she took the bywandine, panting but otherwise unharmed. The Dream-
er’s last coherent sight was the face of the Black Pharaoh grinning
from the back of the Shantak. Then, nothing.
A Dreamer who fails the Luck roll after leaping from the Shantak
plummets into the void, lost forever.
A Dreamer who remains on the back of the Shantak soon comes
to the court of Azathoth, the Demon Sultan, a vast bubbling mass of
energy at the center of the universe, about which everything spins.
159
Horrific beings of inconceivable size dance and flail with hundreds of

Buying from limbs and play a dirge through enormous alien pipes. The music, the
Ballud’s motion, the vastness and the ultimate, essential, fundamental reality
Ballud’s is laden with
of the situation are terrifying beyond all belief. Cost: 1D10/1D100
weapons, armor and
travel equipment. If the SAN.
Dreamers are known to be
associated with the Black
Galley, Ballud sells to them Waking
personally. She attempts to
Waking is sudden. Those who dodge the Black Pharaoh’s advanc-
upsell them to the best and
most beautiful equipment, es, or who still have SAN after encountering Azathoth, wake sud-
armor and weapons in
denly in the Dreamlands where they imbibed the bywandine. Those
exchange for treasures
from the Black Galley. who leap into the void or go permanently mad in Azathoth’s court are
gone forever, leaving only an empty pile of clothes behind.
Clever Dreamers who can
manage a Bargain or a
group Luck roll find their
entire party outfitted with
everything they need for
something as simple as one
Ballud’s Outfitters
Located just off the first plaza in the city, near the docks, Ballud’s
of the moon-beast charts
or a few of the double- Outfitters is known far and wide. Once it was a few houses and small
pronged spears of the Men
buildings. Now it is a walled city block with two large buildings and
from Leng (i.e., something
of Impressive value for the walled-off sections, each containing a different speciality of goods—
whole party, or something
livestock, plants, trade goods and more.
of Modest value to equip
one Dreamer; see page Its owner is a slight woman named Ballud, who is well known as
155).
a fair trader with great wealth in coin and gems. Every sort of trade
good can be bought from Ballud or one of her twenty employees. The
facility is packed from dawn until dusk with customers eager to trade
goods from recently landed ships or to stock up on provisions.
Ballud’s is the largest trade area in town outside the Red Bazaar,
and is almost seen as a rival to the bazaar itself. It maintains an
uneasy truce with the bazaar by paying a heavy tariff on trades,
enforced by a detachment of city guards who watch over transac-
tions. Still, nearly monthly cries for its dissolution are common.
Ballud sometimes extends favors to those who might be of some
advantage in the future. The moment she learns the Dreamers are
from a Black Galley, she hounds them about it relentlessly: where
they obtained it, what was inside it, whether it is for sale, and more.
Ballud is a terrible enemy to have. Asking anyone reveals that she
holds grudges fiercely. If the Dreamers fail to keep even an implied
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
agreement, she contacts Emen-Tha, well known as an associate of the

turbaned men from abroad. She informs him of everything she knows Maps
Clever Dreamers might
of the Dreamers and might even help draw them into a trap.
seek maps to plot their
future course through the
Ballud of Trei dangerous Dreamlands.
Ballud possesses a
Full of Bargains—and Hatred If Wronged, age 50 collection of maps that are
renowned throughout the
civilized world. In one of
DEX 10 APP 10 EDU 19 SAN 85 HP 7 the buildings a dusty room
holds many shelves laden
Damage Bonus: None
with ship’s logs, parchment
Skills: Accounting 71%, Art 25%, Bargain 93%, Conceal 33%, Fast maps, charts and more.
Talk 42%, Law 20%, Persuade 45%, Spot Hidden 51%. Languages:
Ballud handles the buying
Talunen (Own) 95%, English 44%. and selling of such things
herself, as many of the
Attacks: None.
maps are hundreds
of years old and are
extremely valuable. One
Ballud is a tiny woman, built like a bird, with frailness that implies
map she says might be of
she has never done work in her life. Her white hair is pulled back particular interest to the
Dreamers—a map which
into complex interwoven patterns and held in place by an opulent
specifically shows the exits
pin, usually made in some type of fish. Her clothes are not of Lhoski- from the Dreamlands to
the waking world. If the
an style. Instead she wears clothing like an out-of-town worker,
Dreamers seek such a map
short-kneed trousers and a heavy cotton shirt. Her eyes are clear and without Ballud’s help, they
need a group Luck roll to
clever.
find it.
Ballud was born in a small trade town called Trei, one of the
To buy that map, a
dozens spread out past Lhosk on the Cerenarian Sea. She was drawn
Dreamer must make a
early to the big city. Her knack with numbers and ability to write, a Bargain roll when facing
Ballud. Its cost is a trade
gift from a grandfather who was a book scribe, led her to a job in a
of Astonishing value if
warehouse on the docks. From there, her ascension was only a matter the Bargain roll fails.
(The blood rubies of the
of time.
satyrs are well known to
Thirty years later she owns the largest mercantile in Lhosk. Her be associated with the
Black Galleys. Ballud wants
establishment is even said to be in direct competition with the Red
one.) If Bargain succeeds,
Bazaar itself—though the relationship is much more complex than Ballud parts with the map
for three treasures of
that.
Impressive value instead.
Ballud is known for her up-front trading style, her friendly (See page 155.)
demeanor on the streets, and a black temper which comes out when
she is wronged in any matter involving money.
Ballud is eager to find all she can of the Dreamers, these strangers
from the Black Galley (if the characters did indeed arrive that way).
161
She plies her trade to unlock secrets or trade items from those who
come from the Black Ships. The cost of a Black Galley itself, she
confesses, is far beyond her means; instead she focuses on items such
as blood gems, weaponry, Keim or anything else “alien.”
If the Dreamers make the mistake of wronging her, they will find
her a bitter, clever and resourceful enemy who will do her best to
make sure they consistently land flat-footed in the port of Lhosk.
Room and Board

Many “hospitality houses” exist in Lhosk. The largest, “The Eye
of the Needle” can comfortably house over fifty people. The smallest,
“The Sow’s Ear,” can host no more than three at a time.
Various other inns are home to actors, musicians and entertainers,
and each maintains a small staff that comes and goes, paying its way
through performances.
Many private citizens of Lhosk make ends meet by renting out
individual rooms to travelers. This service usually includes a single
meal and a walking tour of the city nearby. These houses are very
selective of their clientele, however. Lhoskians are an extremely pri-
vate people who dislike intrusions into their personal lives. A list of
available homes can be found at the Council Spire in the Red Bazaar.
The Eye of the Needle

The Eye of the Needle is the port’s premiere hospitality house. It
is a sprawling building of three stories and more than eighty rooms,
constructed of cheap cement, wood beams and love. It is clear that
the building has stood for some time, and it leans and sprawls like the
drunken sailors who often call it home. The doorways are uneven, the
roofs sag, and windows hang at strange angles, but the overall feeling
is of a well-tended home. The many people who occupy it love it as if
it was indeed their own home.
The owner is a man named Bestul, known as Blind Bestul due to
his ailment. His face is covered from the nose upwards with a cloth to
conceal the horrific burns that cost Bestul his sight many years ago in
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
a shipboard fire.
It is a well-known story how Bestul landed in port with his injury,
but with the help of an odd associate bought the building that would
become The Eye of the Needle. He bought it with a single, huge,
blood-red gem.
Bestul has been an old man for as long as any in the area have
known him. His cousins, aunts, uncles and their children live in the
basement of the Eye of the Needle and run the building for Bestul,
their patriarch.
Bestul is encyclopedic in his knowledge of voices. And once a per-
son defaults on a bill, equally encyclopedic in marking him or her for
a thief. He is gruff and unforgiving, but he holds a soft spot for those
down on their luck in port. He is known to give soup and a kind ear
to those that turn up in port without a copper to their name.
The Trade Family Tha is well known to Bestul, and their word is
more than enough to secure permanent, unquestioned residency at
the Eye of the Needle.
Bestul is a frail old man with short, white hair. A cloth wrapping
conceals an obvious deformity covering the top half of his face.
Beneath the cloth are a series of long-healed third-degree burns. His
ruined eyes are completely blind.
Bestul was a native of Celephais and a sailor for many years before
his luck took a turn for the worse and he was confronted by the evil
of the Men from Leng. What happened to him is a secret that he
holds dear.
“Blind” Bestul
Survivor of Many Horrors, age 66
Skills: Bargain 95%, Cthulhu Mythos 4%, Fast Talk 95%, Persuade
30%. Languages: Talunen (Own) 95%, English 34%, Oeuth 3%,
Skand 55%.
Attacks: None.
163
Bestul’s Secret
Bestul is an escapee from the Men from Leng like the player char-
acters. Sailing from Celephais many years ago, his ship the Wild Rose
was set upon by a Black Galley, attacked and boarded in the dead of
night. As the Men from Leng boiled over the decks with their magi-
cal weaponry, Bestul’s crew faltered. Clever and desperate, Bestul
smashed casks of potent spirits and sent them rolling across the deck
of the Wild Rose and onto the deck of the Black Galley. By smashing a
lantern on deck he set both ships ablaze.
Bestul charged onto the Black Galley with sword in hand, but
was struck by falling, burning timbers from his own ship. He spilled
down the staircase of the Black Galley into the darkness below,
unconscious, burned and blinded. When he woke, he was alone
except for the rowing horrors below on the otherwise untouched
Black Galley. The Men from Leng and his crew alike had died in
the skirmish, and the Wild Rose had sunk. Blind and terrified, Bestul
spent two weeks exploring his new ship and attempting to find port.
Sheer luck brought Bestul to the southern shore of the Cerenarian
Sea, not far from Ilek-Vad. The Black Galley struck and beached,
and by some miracle was not overturned and sunk. Instead Bestul
found himself wandering an empty tract of land, surrounded by
wilderness.
By then, the resourceful captain had recovered some of his senses,
and in his weeks of exploration on the ship had discovered some of
the weaponry, charts and magic of the moon-beasts. He had also
found two gems of inordinate size, some horrible substance the beast
men called food, and some fresh water.
Once again, luck shined on him. Bestul came upon a stranger on
the beach, a traveler from the far west, a white-eyed and golden-
skinned creature, tall and thin, named Tal. Tal sought only to help
other beings. The two struck up a wary friendship, and with Tal’s
assistance Bestul dodged attempts by the Men from Leng to recap-
ture or kill him. Tal encouraged Bestul to divest himself of the
treasures found on the ship, before they corrupted him. But Bestul,
feeling this was his only prize recovered from the ruins of his life,
resisted. Tal, very wise, refused to force the issue. For a long time,
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Tal and Bestul travelled the Dreamlands, with Tal teaching Bestul
some of the secrets of peace and happiness from his own realm. The Mark
In time, Bestul’s treasures from the Black Galley led the Men from of Ados
This small necklace is made
Leng to him, and in Celephais Tal perished defending him from them.
of a perfectly flowing
Bestul divested himself of all the items he found on the ship. Remov- copper metal. The chain
has no links, yet moves as
ing them from his life brought happiness and peace just as Tal had
if it does. A single small
said. In Lhosk, Bestul purchased the Eye of the Needle (and much object hangs from it,
difficult to see. Anyone
more) with his last possession from the raid, a single, flawed but
focusing on it find himself
giant ruby. or herself drifting in
fascination, losing minutes
Dreamers sharing their true story of escape from Sarkomand and
in an attempt to puzzle
the Men from Leng find an ally in Bestul. He has many contacts in out the intricacies of the
emblem; this costs 0/1 SAN.
Lhosk and occasionally sits on the council. He knows and despises
Emen-Tha and fears for the life of Maras-Tha. He is well aware If used for meditation, the
Mark allows the wearer to
that the Men from Leng are the residents of the Ebony Temple, and
enter a trance state easily.
knows that Emen-Tha is their agent. If the Dreamers make a group It also aids in spell casting,
granting an additional
Luck roll, Bestul shares his own story with them in turn and imparts
1D20 Magic Points, once
a token given to him by Tal—the Mark of Ados. per week, with a successful
POW x 1% roll.
The Men from

When confronted with
the direct presence of
evil (it’s up to the Keeper
Leng In Lhosk
what counts as “evil”), the
Mark vibrates on the neck
of the wearer, shaking
Since their secret deal was struck with Emen-Tha and their temple more and more as the evil
approaches. Likewise, the
was completed, the strange men who pilot the Black Galleys have
Mark seems to physically
been a far more common sight in Lhosk. On any large street there is grow as evil approaches,
but never seems to weigh
a chance of spying at least one of them hurrying about. Locals seem
more. Evil creatures
uneasy with their presence but attempt to ignore them. confronted with the Mark
must roll POW x 2% roll
Once, the black sailors (as the locals call them) were a rarity and
or cover their eyes, losing
were hesitant to be seen in public during the day, but now they wan- a round of action. Beyond
that it does not affect such
der with impunity, and even seem to have claimed a neighborhood in
beings.
the religious district around their Ebony Temple.
Their coin is good and their dealings seem to be limited to money
changing hands, but locals have little good to say about them.
The moment the characters land in Lhosk in a Black Galley, or
become known to Emen-Tha, they become the target of the Men
from Leng.
165
The Dreamers would be best served to avoid the Men from Leng,
but players often attempt crazy things. This section is a contingency
to deal with oddities. For example, Dreamers might approach the
Men from Leng to speak with them in the streets, or even worse,
walk straight up to the Ebony Temple and knock on the door.
Or, more clever players might attempt to hit the Men from Leng
where it hurts, revealing to the city what they truly are.
Conversing with the Men from Leng

Dreamers that approach Men from Leng on the streets of Lhosk
during the day find themselves face to face with absolute hatred.
The Men bark commands in their language (any who speaks Oeuth
understand they are shouting orders to “stay back”) and slowly
become more and more agitated until they beat a hasty retreat.
During the day and in the open, they will not risk an attack unless
directly assaulted.
Approaching the Temple

Dreamers foolish enough to approach the Ebony Temple during
the day must make a group Luck roll. On a success, a huge, drunk
man hails them as “friends!” and, clutching them, does his best to
turn them from their destination. Those who struggle find them-
selves in a fight that causes no damage. The man playfully slaps back
punches, and even manages to disarm those who use greater force.
Those who make a Spot Hidden roll notice a tattoo of a stylized eye
on the man’s inner wrist.
Those who turn with him find warnings whispered in a sober voice
in between drunken shouts of revelry. Once the group is clear of the
area he warns that the temple is no place for a human to be found.
The man refuses to identify himself. After touching his wrist to his
forehead, runs off into the crowd.
If the Dreamers find themselves at the block-like structure after
all, see “The Ebony Temple” on page 175.
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Revealing the Men

from Leng
The most compelling option might be the hardest for the players to
arrive at: exposing the secret of the Men from Leng. The Men from
Leng travel and trade in Lhosk only because their disguise allows
them to do so. All locals (except the few involved in the conspiracy)
believe the Lengians to be odd men from some distant land, not
inhuman satyrs that worship Nyarlathotep. The Ebony Temple and
the Black Galley traders operate within this secret. Without it, their
plans in the port city would completely unravel.
Capturing a Satyr
Capturing a lone Man from Leng is a difficult prospect, as they
almost always travel in packs of at least three. The Dreamers must
shadow the Men from Leng for 1D8 hours and make TWO group
Luck rolls before one of the Men breaks off from the others. Every
hour allows the Men from Leng a single Spot Hidden roll of 35% to
spot them, unless EVERY Dreamer in pursuit succeeds at a Hide
roll. If the spies are noticed the Men from Leng retreat again.
Attacking a lone Man from Leng must be handled delicately. With
any sign of conflict a still-conscious Man from Leng will shriek an
inhuman warning, bringing 1D3+1 other Men from Leng running
to his aid. If the characters continue to fight and not flee, the satyrs
engage in open combat in the streets.
Any strike that reduces the Man from Leng to 2 Hit Points or
fewer renders him unconscious. In addition, any Grapple attack that
is aimed specifically at silencing the target (at half chance) manages
to cover the creature’s mouth before it can shout for help.
A captured Man from Leng will of course burden the player
characters. Unless they have a cart, carrying him requires a Strength
roll against the captive’s Size on the Resistance Table. For every five
minutes that they are in the open with the unconscious or restrained
Man from Leng, the Dreamers must make a group Luck roll. Failure
indicates the group is approached by 1D6+1 city guards who want
167
to know what is going on. They insist on setting the abductee free
unless a Dreamer succeeds at both a Fast Talk roll to get them to lis-
ten and a Persuade roll to convince them of the need for the capture.
If the Dreamers reveal the truth of the satyr, see “Revealing the Men
from Leng to the City Guard,” page 169.
Burning a Satyr
This is one of the simplest methods to reveal the horrors beneath
the robes of the Men from Leng. Throwing a lantern, lamp or torch
at one of the satyrs with a successful Throw roll is all that is needed.
When struck, the creature ignites, going into a frenzy of pain and
fear, suffering 1D8 Hit Points damage per turn until dead or extin-
guished. If the creature is allowed to burn until dead, the group must
make a Luck roll. If this fails, the corpse is burned to a crisp—so
much that its “deformities” are not recognizable. Otherwise the hor-
rific proportions of its body are clearly visible. The Men from Leng
will not attempt to recover a corpse.
Satyrs merely injured and extinguished in this manner will be
completely exhausted, unable to act or resist, and can be paraded
nearly anywhere while they hiss and spit in their odd language. If the
characters remain on the street, every ten minutes they must make
a group Luck roll must be made. If the characters succeed, they
encounter 1D6+1 city guards who want to question them. If they fail,
they encounter 1D8+1 Men from Leng ready to do battle to free their
compatriot or else follow the Dreamers while one of their number
fetches 1D8+1 more.
The Guard or the Public?

Captured Men from Leng or their corpses become very valuable
in Lhosk indeed. If the characters come into possession of a corpse,
the Men from Leng attempt to sway the situation through politics
(through Emen-Tha). If the group comes into possession of a live
satyr, the Men from Leng pursue and attack as described earlier.
Dreamers can reveal the satyrs to the city guard or the public.
Each offers a different risk.
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Revealing the Men from

Leng to the City Guard
Dreamers dragging a satyr (or a satyr corpse) to the city guard
must make a group Luck roll. Those failing find themselves face-to-
face with a guard loyal to Emen-Tha. Making an Idea or Psychology
roll allows the character to notice the shift in the demeanor of the
guard. Unless the Dreamers beat a hasty retreat the guard gathers
1D10 other guards loyal to Emen-Tha.
If the characters make the group Luck roll, they approach a city
guard untouched by the corruption which Emen-Tha is spreading.
Just such an individual is presented here.
Tulare-Mas
Honorable and Intelligent City Guard of the Red Council, age 34
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Skills: Bargain 81%, Cthulhu Mythos 6%, Fast Talk 62%, Law 55%,
Persuade 71%, Ride 44%, Sailing 30%, Spot Hidden 40%, Swim
50%. Languages: Talunen (Own) 90%, Cum’teha 20% English 75%,
Skand 40%, Pross 33%.
Attacks: Saber 41%, damage 1D8+1+db
Fighting knife 55%, damage 1D4+2+db
Tulare-Mas is a big, widely built man with a deep brow, rich

brown-red hair and a nose that has been broken more than once. He
is missing several teeth, something quite visible due to his propensity
for smiling all the time. The heavy scars on his hands and all over
his body make it clear that he has been in many brawls and that he
knows his way around a sword. Still, he manages to project a general
air of good will, and his eyes are filled with concern for those in need.
Tulare-Mas was born to Yavan-Mas, a trader who once ran a
fishmongery at the Red Bazaar. Tulare grew up on the docks, and by
his sixteenth birthday was well known as a hooligan with a promising
future in crime. If not for Kamas-Tha, his career in crime might have
been quite prolific. Instead, brought before the council for some petty
169
offense, Tulare was dressed down by Kamas-Tha—humiliated, really.

Finally his mother Yavan was brought in, and once more Tulare was
humiliated as his mother wept. Kamas ended his speech explaining
that people like Tulare were a drain on society and that they fed on
the income of people like his own mother.
Tulare swore to never disappoint his mother again. Soon after, he
joined the city guard as an apprentice and rose through the ranks
rapidly. Today he is a captain and oversees the docks. Those who
know the area know to stay out of his way. At the docks, Tulare-Mas
is the undisputed law.
Tulare-Mas is certain that Kamas-Tha was “removed” by his
crooked brother, Emen-Tha. Tulare has great insights into Emen-
Tha’s illegal endeavors in Lhosk, and a great and lasting respect for
Kamas-Tha, the man who changed his life for the better. He has no
proof but has been collecting information on Emen-Tha’s relationship
to the strange men from the Black Galleys.
Revealing the Men from Leng to the Public

Simply revealing the corpse or a still-living but injured Man from
Leng to the public of Lhosk is dangerous. There is already a deep
undercurrent of distrust surrounding the odd men who trade in the
Black Galleys, and few have overlooked the fact that Emen-Tha has
allied himself with their powerful interests (or that such an alliance
has made it possible for them to construct their odd temple in the
now-ruined religious quarter).
Revealing the inhuman nature of a Man from Leng, living or not,
in public unleashes hell on the city. Riots sparked by fear and fury
kill hundreds if not thousands in fire and battles with the city guard.
The Keeper should warn the Dreamers that tensions in the city mean
the proposition carries risks of irreversible harm.
Once it begins, the city will begin to rip itself to pieces in a general
revolt that takes 1D6+2 days to put down. During this time, mobs
roam the streets, as will cadres of the city guard, attacking anyone
they encounter as “looters”.
It all begins with an angry mob surrounding the Dreamers and the
Man from Leng as the creature is revealed. Indignant shouts begin,
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
then fights. First the crowd turns on the city guards that show up
to suppress the mob, and then they turn on one another. If the Man
from Leng was alive during the revelation it will soon be killed as
the crowd violently pushes past the player characters and seizes the
beast, who is then beaten, burned, doused in hot pitch and assaulted
from all sides. Within minutes the creature is dead, and then the
body becomes a trophy, carried on a gaff by three men and paraded
through the streets with shouts of “Those of the Black Galleys are
monsters!” If the revelation is of a corpse, the crowd sweeps it up in a
similar manner and marches it about as their banner. “Emen-Tha serves
the monsters!” they cry.
Dreamers foolish enough to interject themselves between the
crowd and the beast find themselves the targets of the crowd’s ire.
Each turn of confused confrontation causes 1D4-1 HP damage on a
successful Luck roll, or 1D8+1 on a failed Luck roll. Returning such
an attack is useless as there are dozens of targets. There is no way to
protect oneself without disengaging from the crowd entirely. Those
that flee do so easily. They are not the focus of the hatred.
This violence spreads and soon escalates to fires, looting and
anarchy. Player characters wandering the streets see the beaten and
171
burned corpses of Men from Leng caught in the open and killed by
mobs. People run about armed with blunt weapons carrying looted
items. Cadres of city guards attack any they find wandering the
streets. Buildings are reduced to ashes. An hour after the inciting
event, Lhosk is lost in complete madness.
A large group of the city guards loyal to Emen-Tha protect the
Tha estate, leaving the city to burn, while other powerful interests in
the city such as Bestul and Ballud gather mobs of their own to resist
the crowd’s assault. These areas are impenetrable, with well-armed
groups of guards using bows and spears to kill anyone who comes
within forty feet. (Those who dare to approach suffer 1D10+2 HP
damage.)
The worst conflict occurs at the Ebony Temple. Surrounded on all
sides by hundreds of enraged natives of Lhosk, the Men from Leng
struggle to hold them off and protect the holy site. A few cowardly
satyrs attempt to use the tunnels to escape but find the city impass-
able for those of their kind. They are killed one-by-one by the mobs
as they try to make it to the Black Galleys.
By the morning of the second day of conflict, the Ebony Temple
has been coated in pitch and set aflame. As the smoke pours through
the temple, down it, through the tunnels beneath it, and up again
from a hundred hidden entrances throughout the neighborhood, the
hidden tunnels are revealed. Individual satyrs, overcome with smoke
and flame, stumble from the doors only to be cut down by spears,
stones and arrows. Soon, a pile of alien bodies are stacked in the
center of the square out front.
By the evening of the second day, the Ebony Temple is a gutted
husk with nothing living left in it. All the Men from Leng have been
expunged and killed, the statue to Nyarlathotep has been overturned
and defiled, and the holy items scattered and destroyed.
Though the locals will not board the Black Galleys (superstition
prevents them from doing so), they shoot with longbows anyone who
pokes a head up from below deck, and then set about bombarding the
ship with buckets of flaming pitch. These uneven, burning ships are
cut free of their moorings and set to drift with dead crew dotting their
deck.
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Having caused so much death and sorrow costs each Dreamer

1/1D6 SAN. But in just a few actions, the characters have ruined
Nyarlathotep’s foothold in Lhosk.
Ambush, Three
Different Kinds
Dreamers foolish enough to venture out after dark after any
encounter with the Men from Leng find themselves shadowed by the
inhuman beasts at all hours. The Men from Leng are skilled stalkers
and work best at night. They are difficult to spot (the Sneak roll of
the Man from Leng must fail and then a Spot Hidden roll must be
made) and are capable of using magic to make great leaps, crossing
the thin, winding streets via rooftops and leaping human-impassable
walls.
The Lengians are incredibly evil and will do their best to lure the
Dreamers into a dark alley where they can be ambushed, knocked
unconscious, and dragged off to the Ebony Temple for sacrifice to
their dark god. (See “The Ebony Temple” for the fate of such unfor-
tunates.) They are not above taking hostages, using innocents, or
luring victims through greed, lust or worse.
The Monkey
A monkey rushes out of an alleyway, snatches a small possession
from a Dreamer, and flees back into the alley. Those making a Spot
Hidden roll notice a thin, silver chain around the neck of the monkey
that snakes back into the darkness.
Dreamers rushing into the alley after the monkey find themselves
surrounded by eight Men from Leng who rapidly close in. Using
bludgeons, the beasts attempt to beat all characters present into
submission. They kill if necessary, but do their best to bring as many
characters as possible back alive to the Ebony Temple.
173
The Young Boy

A young boy approaches the most susceptible-looking member
of the party when he or she is apart from the group, and begs the
Dreamer to follow. The boy is young, malnourished and small for
his age; that he could be a threat should never enter into the player’s
mind. The boy claims to have knowledge of Earth, and insists that he
can show the Dreamer a gateway back to the waking world and that
he knows of a place where the character might buy “the most potent
of opium”.
The boy leads the Dreamer by the hand through the twisting
maze of streets of Lhosk. If the Dreamer knows the location of the
Ebony Temple he or she may make an Idea roll to realize they are
not far from it. If the Dreamer fails two Idea rolls, he or she realizes
the subterfuge only when the boy runs off in a courtyard on a street
with boarded doors and windows. The boy disappears into one of the
doors, which slams shut and audibly locks.
Eight Men from Leng close in from all directions, one holding a
large sack hung with strong hasps and belts. They attempt to beat
and subdue the Dreamer without killing him or her, if possible. The
hogtied Dreamer is then dragged off to the Ebony Temple.
The Whorehouse
The Dreamers are accosted by a group of whores from the Brazen
Fantail, a small whorehouse on the waterfront. Whores of both sexes
engulf them in charm, compliments and advances. The whores insist
that since the Dreamers appear to be such powerful traders, any ser-
vices this one time are free of charge. They insist that they are eager
to make a good “first impression.”
Dreamers foolish enough to enter the Brazen Fantail find it a
deathtrap filled with a dozen Men from Leng all eager to subdue the
characters. Escaping the house requires surviving two combat rounds
of attacks without being killed or restrained.
Those captured will be hogtied and gagged and rushed off to the
Ebony Temple.
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Sample Men from Leng

#1 12 9 13 12 13 +1D4 11
#2 14 7 11 14 13 +1D4 9
#3 9 13 11 12 13 — 12
#4 18 5 13 10 11 +1D4 9
#5 14 11 11 11 11 +1D4 11
#6 13 10 10 10 10 — 10
#7 12 12 12 8 10 — 12
#8 8 11 12 10 9 — 12
#9 6 10 11 16 9 — 11
#10 12 10 14 11 9 +1D4 12
#11 5 6 14 4 8 — 10
#12 9 9 9 8 6 — 9
Skills In Common: Jump 65%, Listen 35%, Sneak 35%, Spot Hid-
den 50%, Track 49%. Languages: Oeuth (Own) 60%, English 12%,
Talunen 30%.
Attacks: Bludgeon 51%, damage 1D4+db
Sword 40%, damage 1D8+1+db
Sanity Loss: 0/1D6–1 SAN
The Ebony Temple

The Ebony Temple is a huge, jutting, tooth-like structure made
of otherworldly black rock without windows, breached only by a
single door. It appeared after a brief period of frenzied construction
by foreign work crews nearly a year before the Dreamers arrive in
Lhosk. Built by the Men from Leng with the assistance of Emen-Tha,
this temple to Nyarlathotep is avoided by all in Lhosk. No one in the
town knows who or what is worshipped there, but various and con-
voluted rumors persist. Strange scents and sounds are often smelled
and heard even blocks away.
Since its construction, the once-prosperous district around it has
fallen into ruin, and its street has been slowly abandoned. The ugly,
block-like church is now the only inhabited building on that street.
It has more and more attracted unruly folk, and murders and dis-
appearances have increased exponentially. The streets around the
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temple are filled with seedy criminals, darkened drug dens and the
glutted shops of slavers. Fights are common, as is the sight of uncon-
scious or dead bodies in the street. Even the city watch seems to
avoid it. (In fact, they have been bribed to do so by Emen-Tha, so the
Men from Leng can operate with impunity).
Locals are wary and dislike talking of the Men from Leng and
their machinations. In fact a group Luck roll must be made, or the
questioners are reported to the Men from Leng by human agents.
Those managing to pry information out of locals learn (or confirm)
only that it is simply called The Ebony Temple and is known to be
frequented by the strange, slant-eyed, turbaned traders who ride in
the Black Galleys. The Men from Leng stay in the temple when in
town, never venturing out except to do business, tend to their ships,
or execute their evil plans. Only thanks to the power of Emen-Tha
did they obtain the permit to build the temple in the first place. That
same power maintains the temple’s security by glossing over incidents
and complaints from the public before they reach the council. Now
that the money has secured the isolation of the district from the city
watch, fewer complaints than ever reach the council.
It is widely believed that no one from town worships there, only
foreigners. But with a special success at Persuade or a Luck roll, the
witness says Emen-Tha visits the temple; with an ordinary success it’s
clear the witness is hiding something important. Emen-Tha has been
seen coming and going from the temple at odd hours, always with a
bevy of guards. Thanks to rumors like this, he is held suspect in the
disappearance of his brother.
Spying On the Temple

Dreamers who attempt to spy on the temple must use caution as
many of the low-lifes in the area are in the pay of the Men from Leng.
Each day spent observing the temple requires a group Luck roll. A
failure means the group has been noticed by one of the agents of the
Men from Leng. Soon after, 1D8+1 satyrs are dispatched to ambush
the group (see “Ambush, Three Different Kinds,” page 173).
Few people are seen coming or going from the only apparent
entrance to the temple. Occasionally, and usually at night, a few of
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
the Men from Leng can be seen entering the doors carrying bur-
lap sacks filled with goods, but few seem to leave. If the Dreamers
observe for more than a day and make an Idea roll, they determine
that no one seems to leave.
The Temple Exterior

The surface of the Ebony Temple is seemingly carved from blunt
blocks of a cool, luminous, black stone shot with sparkles, eddies
and waves of grey-white minerals. The rock is not readily identifi-
able with a Geology roll. The stones, though flowing and uneven, are
fitted together so cleverly that it takes a Spot Hidden roll to find the
seams. It seems to be a single enormous rock that was cut into even
blocks, transported and then re-fit back together.
All Climb rolls to move up the surface of the rock are cut in half.
Those managing to move to the top of the temple find a vaulted roof
with no entrance or even smoke holes. Attempting to enter the temple
anywhere except the door is fruitless (and, by necessity, loud), and
will no doubt draw attention from guards in the interior.
The Door and the Main Chamber

The huge wooden door to the temple is barred from the inside.
Forcing it open means rolling combined STR against STR 60 on the
Resistance Table, but no more than three Dreamers can press against
it at a time. (Unless they bring a battering ram, perhaps, but that will
draw a great deal of attention.) The door will not burn. Each attempt
to move, open or affect the door calls for a group Luck roll. On a fail-
ure, 1D10 Men from Leng come to the door to see what the commo-
tion is. On a success, the meddling goes unnoticed for the moment.
Knocking on the door with the ornate brass door knocker—it is
shaped like the leering face of a satyr—brings the Men from Leng to
the door instantly.
If the Dreamers attract the Men from Leng, it will no doubt esca-
late to combat quickly. Just as with an ambush, such a confrontation
will most likely end with the characters overwhelmed and captured.
Listening at the door requires a group Luck roll or a Listen roll.
On a success, the characters hear a rhythmic chanting from inside, as
177
well as distant screams. If the roll fails, nothing is heard.

Inside the doorway a corridor is guarded by a small group of
Lengians.
A giant, solid iron crossbeam can be thrown easily across the door,
due to the vast amount of terrible-smelling grease spread over it.
Past a blood-red velvet sash is the temple’s main chamber. This
huge, circular room, with an arching ceiling overhead, is built around
a vast, bronze statue of Nyarlathotep in its monstrous form. (Cost:
0/1 SAN.) There are no seats in the room, only a weird radiating
pattern of “positions” marked out in waves from the center, each
showing what looks like a stylized pair of hooves set in tiles at fixed
intervals. These positions show the locations for worshippers to
stand; Men from Leng do not sit.
A Dreamer approaching the statue who makes a Luck or Spot
Hidden roll notices a rush of air, as if from a passage underneath.
Gaining Access Below

It is easy enough to learn that the statue covers an entrance that
leads below ground, but gaining access to it is another thing entirely.
The door below is hidden amidst the various swirls and curls of a
horrific tentacle that wraps around the bronze statue of Nyarlathotep
near the base of its body.
Those making an Idea roll can easily determine the approximate
location of the entrance; only one portion of the statue seems bulky
enough and is connected to the floor to allow passage below. On the
base of the statue are three small finger-size holes. On a successful
Cthulhu Mythos roll, a Dreamer realizes that their placement hints at
a certain gesture associated with Nyarlathotep. If one makes that ges-
ture and inserts the fingers in those holes, a mechanical door opens,
revealing a winding stone staircase that leads downwards. A stinking,
tepid breeze wafts up, rich with garbage and worse.
If no one can make this Cthulhu Mythos roll, let the characters
attempt a halved Idea roll to recognize the same gesture in the hands
of the horrific statue itself. Each failure has a 10% chance of draw-
ing 1D10 Men from Leng from below due to the players making too
much noise.
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The Warrens Below the Temple

The stairs lead down to a snug series of claustrophobic warrens
which stink of death and refuse. There are no light sources below the
temple (the Men from Leng can see in the dark), and characters will
be forced to find some method of illumination to move further than a
few feet down the stairs. The tunnels split, branch and wrap around
one another in looping patterns which soon feel much bigger than the
temple itself. They occasionally open on to small lopsided and curved
rooms, some choked with garbage such as ruined clothing, rotting
food, and bones, and others coated in water that smells of human
waste. Other areas are obviously under construction, and are piled
with worked rock, pick axes and odd tools that seem ill-fitted for
human hands.
The Men from Leng have dug thousands of yards of tunnels, some
as long as a mile at a run, under the temple and beyond. The entire
district is criss-crossed by them. Through these tunnels the Men from
Leng leave the temple, kidnap victims for their sacrifices and gener-
ally sneak about. The exits to these tunnels are rotted, crudely made
T-beam ladders that rise up to concealed exits, usually in some dead-
end alleyway or abandoned building.
Maps of the trackless warrens of the Men from Leng are beyond
the scope of this book. Instead of tracking the Dreamers’ specific
location on a map, the Keeper can describe their findings and
encounters more or less at random, depending on their luck, care,
and skill. Every so often, roll for a possible encounter with Men from
Leng and roll for a location that the Dreamers have stumbled upon.
Pace
First, ask the Dreamers whether they are being slow and stealthy
or are hurrying despite the noise. Either way they run across some-
thing new about every 50 yards in the tunnels, though measuring
distance and time in this loathsome catacomb is a fool’s errand.
If they are being stealthy, roll for a location and an encounter
once every 2D6 minutes. If they encounter Men from Leng, they can
attempt a group Sneak roll to conceal their light source and them-
selves and avoid the encounter.
179
If they are hurrying, roll for a location and an encounter about

The Eye of once every minute. If the hurrying Dreamers are already being pur-
Nodens in sued by a band of Men from Leng, however, they can make a group
the Temple DEX x 5 roll to elude them.
Dreamers who possess the
Eye of Nodens can operate
much more effectively Encounters
inside the temple. They
Each time there’s a possible encounter, the Dreamers must make a
feel more confident and
capable in the temple and group Luck roll. If it fails, they come across 1D4 Men from Leng in a
the tunnels beneath it.
chamber or intersection. Unless the Dreamers hide from them, these
Opening the passageway
below for a character creatures immediately loose a gibbering, hooting alarm which echoes
bearing the Eye is as simple
through the tunnels. From then on, the Dreamers are on the run.
as touching the statue.
Whether they’re hurrying or stealthy, they must make a group Luck
In the temple and tunnels
roll every minute or encounter another 1D4 Men from Leng. (Men
they always attack first,
in addition to whatever from Leng are the only encounters in the warrens. No other Dream-
other powers they bring
lands creatures survive here.)
to bear using the Eye. If
they are surprised by an
enemy, the first attack on
them is always ineffective.
Locations
(All other rolls are handled At a new location, roll 1D6 to see what it is.
normally.)
1) Prison pits (but only after the Dreamers have found at least
five other locations; otherwise treat this as a roll of 2)
2) Chamber littered with refuse and debris
3) Chamber slick with waste
4) Chamber still under construction
5) Ladder up to an exit hidden in an alley or empty building
6) Steps up into the temple
Searching
The Dreamers can attempt to find a particular location in the
warrens—a specific exit into the city, the path to the prison pits, or
perhaps the steps up into the temple—but it won’t be easy. From
wherever they happen to be, it will take 1D6 Navigation rolls to
find their goal. Only one Dreamer can roll Navigation. The Keeper
should keep the total number needed a secret, and the Keeper ought
to make the Navigation rolls in secret, too. (If the Dreamers think
to mark the tunnels from time to time with chalk or paint, they get
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
a +10% bonus to the Navigation rolls; but the Men from Leng may
notice, so there’s also a –10% penalty to group Luck rolls to avoid
encounters.) If a Navigation roll succeeds, they follow the correct
course. A special success counts as two successes. If it fails, they fol-
low the wrong tunnels for a while and risk getting lost; add one to the
number of successes needed. If it fumbles, add two. They must roll
for locations and encounters with each Navigation attempt.
The Prison Pits

At the center of the warren is a single large room with a low ceil-
ing. Its uneven stone floor is pocked by human-sized holes ten feet
deep. Two Men from Leng always stand guard here, even if an alarm
has sounded.
The holes contain prisoners waiting for execution during the ritu-
als to Nyarlathotep. Most prisoners are malnourished, half-mad, and
covered in their own filth, but a few are sane and are willing to fight
if released. Fighting in the area requires a DEX x 5% roll for each
failed attack roll. If the DEX roll fails the character tumbles into one
of the unseen pits below, suffering 1D6 HP damage.
Replacements from Earth

The prison pits beneath the Ebony Temple contain thieves, repro-
bates, and several natives of waking Earth. The refugees from Earth
wish to return there; every prisoner is desperate to escape the temple.
They can become valuable members of the Dreamers’ group and
perhaps replace fallen comrades. See Appendix B for their names and
attributes.
The Men from Leng at the Temple

The Men from Leng who haunt the temple mostly come and go
from the Black Galleys as they arrive in port. The temple is the one
place in town they can behave normally, removing their robes and
turbans, standing in the manner that is natural to them, and eating
and drinking the horrible substances they find delectable.
Most spend their time below the temple in the warrens, preferring
those claustrophobic, hunched environs to the open area above. They
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
speak in their own guttural, barking tongue and are as cruel and
violent to one another as they are to their prisoners, of which there is
always an ample supply.
Four of the satyrs are permanent residents of the temple, chosen
due to their occult knowledge or high POW. These priests lead
the rituals, tend to the prisoners, and organize the activities of the
temple. Each priest is marked by a purple turban and a ceremonial
dagger in the shape of the bloody tongue of Nyarlathotep.
The Ritual to Nyarlathotep

The rituals to Nyarlathotep occur once a month on the full moon.
All the Men from Leng, including the door guards and prison pit
guards, as well as the crews of any Black Galley in port, are involved.
The hunched men arrive in small groups over the period of a few
hours before dark; noticing that something is going on from outside
doesn’t even require a Spot Hidden roll. By the time the moon rises,
forty or more Men from Leng can be found inside, gathered around
the statue.
A victim is pulled from the pits below, gagged and bound and
dragged upstairs. The victim is tied to recessed pegs in front of the
giant Nyarlathotep statue and the chanting begins, led by the priests.
Usually this lasts six to eight hours, culminating in the disembowel-
ment of the victim with hooked knives and then the handing out and
eating of viscera by the assembled group.
On special occasions, the statue seems to move (cost: 1/1D4 SAN).
If that happens the priests become more active, removing the still-
living victim’s eyes and taunting the victim from time to time with
small wounds to draw out screams of pain and terror. (Cost to watch:
0/1 SAN.) On special occasions such torture lasts for days.
On extremely rare occasions, just as the victim dies, the statue
speaks in a deep, booming voice. It seems to be in the native language
of each who hears it. The statement has specific meaning to each who
hears it, and seems to foretell the future. If the Dreamers somehow
witness the end of such a ritual, they hear the voice intone: THERE IS
NO REST AT THE GATE. (Cost: 1/1D4 SAN.)
183
The Trade Family Tha

This is one of the original trade families of Lhosk, responsible in
ancient times for the formation of the council and the Red Bazaar.
Before the modern era, the Tha family was composed mostly of sail-
ing traders, who by necessity were quite adept in the arts of battle.
These skills have never been lost; to the contrary, they have been
more and more deeply engrained in each passing generation.
The Tha family is known for humility, however, and is a favorite
of traders in the Bazaar. Each member is treated with the utmost
respect due to their connections and their obsession with hard work
and the art of sailing. Unlike many trade families they have never
lost sight of the needs of the everyday man, a most valuable skill in
politics.
The Tha house sits on the outside of town, on the water. It is a
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
sprawling place with over four dozen rooms and five small guest
cottages. Over fifty people live there, including the immediate family,
distant relations, the cleaning staff, and guards.
Since Emen-Tha took the Council seat things have changed
drastically. The family is now talked of in hushed tones. It is thought
by the general public that Kamas-Tha’s disappearance was a bit too
convenient for his rival Emen-Tha, and Emen’s odd association with
the Ebony Temple in town has not gone unnoticed.
Allegiances
Nearly three years ago, two Black Galleys boarded Kamas-Tha’s
ship shortly after its departure from Lhosk. His brother, Emen-Tha,
had made a deal with Sa’n Seith. In exchange for the removal of his
brother, and gaining his seat on the Council, Emen-Tha would ensure
permission to build a temple to Nyarlathotep in the religious quarter
of Lhosk.
Kamas-Tha’s sword was the key. It had to vanish along with
Kamas-Tha. Without the sword and ceremonies that surrounded it,
passage of the council title from father to son would be risky. Instead
the title would revert to the next oldest brother, Emen-Tha. Kamas-
Tha and his men were tortured and murdered for their souls by the
moon-beasts. Seith destroyed some of their personal effects and scat-
tered others in the rubble of Sarkomand.
Although his machinations worked perfectly, Emen-Tha is terrified
that Maras-Tha will find out about the plot, and Seith often uses this
fact as a lever for bargaining. To gain his father’s council seat, Maras-
Tha needs only the sword. Emen-Tha will do anything he can to stop
this.
Intrigues
The trade family Tha comes to prominence in this campaign only
if the Dreamers found and kept the sword of Kamas-Tha, or if they
arrived in Lhosk in a Black Galley.
In the first case, it quickly becomes evident that the uncle did
away with his brother in a bid for power. The entire city suspects
it. Emen-Tha’s dealing with the satyrs and their Black Galleys, as
185
well as the construction of the Ebony Temple—all still current in

town gossip—should be enough to point the characters in the correct
direction.
In the second case, when the players arrive in the Black Galley,
the trail leads backwards to the family Tha through Emen-Tha’s asso-
ciation with the Men from Leng who pilot the Black Galleys. Once
the turbaned foreigners land on the trail of the characters, Emen-Tha
and his guards are not far behind. From there, the characters can
discover Maras-Tha and his plight and become involved.
Emen-Tha and His Cronies

Emen-Tha is incredibly powerful in Lhosk. He has consolidated
his power through means that were less than legal or honorable, with
the aid of the minions of Nyarlathotep. Recently, he has begun in
secret to worship Nyarlathotep himself.
To the Council and to his nephew Maras-Tha, Emen-Tha plays
the role of a kind leader. He is eager to help, to prevent troubles and
disputes from cropping up again and again, to fix things—until the
issue involves something he or his allies want to occur. Then he is a
bitter and secretive enemy. Hamlet’s observation that “one may smile,
and smile, and be a villain” fits Emen-Tha perfectly.
Emen-Tha’s influence has infected most of the Council of Lhosk.
Many there owe him favors and significant amounts of money thanks
to his freedom with the blood gems given by his allies). Some are
implicated in crimes along with him. Many in the council know full
well of the influence of the pilots of the Black Galleys on local poli-
tics. Very few wish to do anything more than keep their heads down.
Emen-Tha has likewise gained control of the city guard through
corruption of many of its men and their captains.
Emen-Tha’s greatest fear is exposure: exposure of the Men in
Black for what he knows them to be, inhuman monsters; and expo-
sure of their (and his) worship of Nyarlathotep. The public would
not stand for such things. He believes that if he could not flee town,
he would be strung up from his neck on the lighthouse along with his
inhuman compatriots.
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Emen-Tha
Leader of the Red Council of Lhosk, the Smiling Villain, age 41
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Cthulhu Mythos 6%, Fast Talk 62%, Law 60%, Persuade 71%, Ride
44%, Sailing 30%, Sea Navigation 15%, Spot Hidden 40%, Swim
50%. Languages: Talunen (Own) 90%, Cum’teha 20%, English 75%,
Pross 33%, Skand 40%.
Attacks: Saber 41%, 1D8+1+db
Fighting Knife 55%, 1D4+2+db
Emen-Tha is two people, really. In private he is a ruthless, dark

soul, bent on the destruction of his enemies. In public he is a smiling
everyman, eager to press palms, hand out coins and attend to the
plight of the working people.
His silver hair, blue eyes and wide smile make him a popular sight
in the streets, and his solid build gives him the appearance of a sailor.
This is a look he cultivates carefully. Those who serve him know him
to be vain and overly concerned with his dress and appearance.
Emen-Tha has lived since childhood in secret jealousy of his older
brother Kamas-Tha, and later of his nephew Maras-Tha. Before his
luck brought him into contact with one of the strange men from the
Black Galleys, Emen never considered doing anything about it. Since
that first meeting, however, he has ordered the murder of his brother
and has assisted the creatures he now knows to be inhuman in the
murder and sacrifice of dozens of citizens. Today, with the assistance
of the black-robed sailors, he is unopposed as leader of the Red
Council.
The years since the bargain was struck have cost him. Emen-
Tha is a changed man. Though his ability to hide his true intentions
remains his primary skill, some who know him well have noticed a
carefully-concealed weariness.
187
Emen-Tha’s life is a balancing act: appeasing his new god, Nyar-

lathotep; keeping the Men from Leng sated with blood; and keeping
the truth from the council and his nephew. A conflict is building
within him. Though he had planned to kill his nephew before he
came of age, the thought gnaws at him that perhaps he has made a
mistake from which he cannot recover.
Emen-Tha’s Personal Guard

These violent ex-criminals all pay allegiance to Emen-Tha alone.
He saved each of them from jail time or banishment. They are eager
to please their master and are not above getting their hands dirty.
Many are skilled killers who will not hesitate to spill more blood.
They wear a special variant of the city guards’ outfits; a Spot
Hidden roll notices the differences in the gold epaulets. Locals know
them on sight and avoid them. The city guards hate them but do
nothing to interfere.
Emen-Tha’s Guards
#1 17 12 16 8 17 +1D6 14
#2 9 8 15 10 15 — 12
#3 9 14 13 14 15 — 14
#4 17 8 10 4 14 +1D4 9
#5 18 3 11 15 14 +1D4 7
#6 6 12 8 15 14 — 10
#7 15 15 17 15 12 +1D4 16
#8 9 11 14 7 10 — 13
#9 9 12 8 6 6 — 10
#10 13 10 12 17 6 +1D4 11
Skills In Common: Dodge (DEX x 2) + 10%, Law 25%, Listen 50%,

Spot Hidden 61%. Languages: Talunen (Own) 80%, English 50%.
Attacks: Short sword 35%, 1D6+1+db
Knife 50%, 1D4+2+db
Halberd 40%, 1D10+1+db
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Interviewing Emen-Tha
The fate of Dreamers foolish enough to seek or accept an audience
with Emen-Tha depends on what the treacherous uncle knows about
them. He is constantly surrounded by four of his guards.
1) Emen-Tha Knows Nothing of Them: If the characters man-
age, somehow, to ply their way into an audience with the head of the
Lhoskian council under some pretense, he is civil but hurried, eager
to end the interview. The moment he discovers they know something
more of the incident with his brother, the Black Galleys, or the true
nature of the satyrs, however, he grows incredibly friendly and
invites them to a great banquet as his guests.
2) Emen-Tha Knows They Have the Sword of Kamas-Tha:
Emen-Tha will be an incredibly courteous host, inviting the characters
to stay and dine with him.
3) If They Arrived in a Black Galley: Emen-Tha will feign eager-
ness to bid on the Black Galley himself, if it has not yet been sold.
Either way he invites them to stay and dine with him.
The Banquet
Under one of many pretenses, the Dreamers might find themselves
at a banquet arranged by Emen-Tha. It is a sumptuous feast, intri-
cately presented, and above all private. It is held in a remote out-
building on the Tha estate, in an open-air portico covered by dark
red curtains.
As guests, the Dreamers sit on soft pillows around a low table. At
every door a guard stands with a halberd. Emen-Tha is charming and
talkative as course after course is served. In truth, if the characters
have made it this far, they are in great danger. Emen-Tha has set a
plan in motion.
The food and wine are drugged. Within the first hour of the feast,
each Dreamer must make a CON x 2% roll. Those failing fall asleep
at the table, which draws seemingly good-natured jokes from Emen-
Tha. Worse, drugged Dreamers who stay awake must roll INTx1 or
fail to care. They are overwhelmed by a feeling of floating enjoyment.
Once the Dreamers are asleep or are too full of bliss to resist,
189
they are bundled into sacks and dragged across town to the Ebony
Temple. They wake in the darkness and filth of the prison pits. (See
“The Prison Pits” on page 181.)
Characters who fake eating and drinking must roll Sneak, Per-
suade, Fast Talk, or DEX x 2% to do so convincingly. If they fail,
or if any refuse, Emen-Tha threatens the lives of their unconscious
companions unless the rest down their wine. While they drink,
Emen-Tha in his arrogance speaks truthfully to these clever Dream-
ers about his plot and the need to silence them.
Those who attempt to escape must fight Emen-Tha’s guards. Any
who abandon their unconscious friends to what is surely a hideous
fate lose 1/1D4 SAN. If they escape—especially if they kill Emen-
Tha—they are marked as murderers in the city and are hunted
tirelessly unless they publicly prove the true nature of the Men from
Leng and Emen-Tha’s partnership with them.
Maras-Tha, the Heir

of House Tha
Maras-Tha is the young son of Kamas-Tha, the former leader who
was dispatched on the high seas through the treachery of his brother
Emen-Tha. Maras, for his part, has no idea of his uncle’s motives or
actions. He sees Emen as a benefactor, the last family member he has,
and above all as his mentor. It will be difficult for the youth to believe
his uncle was behind his father’s disappearance, but Dreamers that
can prove such a thing win a valuable ally.
Emen believes it is still too dangerous to do away with Maras. Too
many questions are still being asked about his brother’s disappear-
ance at sea three years ago; an accident befalling Maras would seem
too . . . neat. Emen has decided to wait until a later date to dispatch
the youth—probably in a foreign land, so details on the death will be
hard to come by. For now, the uncle dotes upon the nephew, lavish-
ing him with gifts and attention, and Maras, unskilled in the ways of
treachery, thinks the world of him.
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Maras-Tha
Son of Kamas-Tha and Heir to the Council, age 17
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Skills: Astronomy 38%, Bargain 51%, Climb 63%, Hide 26%,
Law 47%, Land Navigation 59%, Persuade 58%, Sailing 61%, Sea
Navigation 81%, Spot Hidden 59%, Swim 68%. Languages: Talunen
(Own) 60%, Cum’teha 12%, English 44%, Pross 18%, Skand 21%.
Attacks: Saber 41%, 1D8+1+db
Fighting Knife 55%, 1D4+2+db
Maras is a youth bursting with energy and craving adventure.

Tanned, tall and powerful, he is quite a ladies’ man, often sporting
the company of several women at once. He is an avid fan of Earthly
games, his favorite being rugby. He is an exceptional sportsman.
Well-liked by all except those who are jealous, Maras is a bit naive
and credulous. He often overextends his good will rather than believ-
ing that someone is lying.
Maras has led a near perfect life, despite the tragic loss of his
father. He has had everything he has ever wanted, but unlike other
council children he has not lost sight of what is important. This is due
to the teachings of Kamas-Tha. Maras adores his missing father. He
talks of him often and prominently displays keepsakes and memen-
toes from his father’s council chambers. Maras hopes to fulfill his
father’s dream by some day taking a council seat. But the only way
he sees this happening is if his father returns to eventually pass the
seat along to him after all, or his uncle dies.
191
Interviewing Maras-Tha
The guards rebuff anyone seeking an interview by directly
approaching the front gate of the Tha house, unless money or Kamas’
sword is offered as persuasion.
If enough money is offered (equivalent to an Impressive treasure
with a Bargain roll or an Astonishing one otherwise; see page 155),
a direct interview with Maras-Tha may be possible. If his father’s
weapon is presented, an interview is certain.
But first the Dreamers must make a group Luck roll. If it fails, the
Dreamers are intercepted first by Emen-Tha’s personal guards, one
per Dreamer, pretending to help. After being led through a com-
plex maze of back streets to an apparent meeting with Maras-Tha,
the Dreamers find themselves at the Ebony Temple (see page 175),
where a band of 2D4+2 Men from Leng attempt to take them captive
and put them in the prison pits. If this ambush succeeds, the guards
take the sword of Kamas-Tha to Emen-Tha, who breaks it and drops
it into the depths of the sea.
If the Dreamers present his father’s sword to Maras-Tha, they
are officially recognized as members of house Tha. Maras swears to
help the characters whenever called upon with anything in his power,
until death.
Sneaking Inside
Every lavish estate in Lhosk is well guarded, and the house of Tha
is no exception. Each Dreamer hoping to gain entry to the estate
must make a Climb roll and two rolls of Sneak or DEX x 2%, which-
ever is better. Success at all three indicates the Dreamer climbs the
gate and finds egress into the main house.
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Chapter Nine: Lhosk
Failure means coming face-to-face with one of Emen-Tha’s ruffi-

ans, who quickly raises the alarm, blowing on a whistle which draws
1D8 other guards. The guards attempt to bring the Dreamers to heel
with nonlethal force; but the moment any guard loses 5 or more hit
points, their attacks turn deadly and they go for the kill.
Dreamers who gain access to the house during the evening can
easily find Maras-Tha’s room. Maras-Tha will be ready to fight and
raise the alarm for his uncle’s guards, expecting some sort of kidnap-
ping plot. Dreamers must make a Fast Talk roll to calm him or pres-
ent some proof of their intentions, such as his father’s sword or proof
of the satyrs’ true nature.
Finding Maras-Tha on the Street

Maras-Tha often leaves home to visit friends, participate in rough
sports at one of the parks, or to simply walk the bazaar and greet
people. In such times he almost always waves off his uncle’s personal
guard, and simply carries his own saber for protection. He feels he
has little to fear from “his people,” and he is correct—even the lowest
criminal knows and respects Maras-Tha and none would harm him.
Locating the youth is easy enough; he cuts a swath through the
busy market simply with his presence, as people rush up to shake
his hand, pat him on the back or greet him with a smile. Dreamers
can easily approach Maras under theses circumstances; but if they
publicly present their intentions, or evidence of foul play (or most
especially his father’s sword), they must make a group Luck roll.
Failure indicates that word makes it swiftly back to Emen-Tha. If it
succeeds, the youth rushes them off into a bar for a private chat.
193
The Trade Family Bahaot

The Family Bahaot, originally from Baharna, has lived in Lhosk
for two centuries. It is a minor but powerful family that controls
much of the fur trade that moves through port. Many years ago the
Bahaots sold a deformed son into slavery. It is possible that the crea-
ture that son has become, called the Collector, is with the Dreamers
when they reach Lhosk.
The Bahaot estate lies north of Lhosk on a small hill. It is sur-
rounded by high turreted walls built in the Baharnian manner, which
looks out of place and odd in Lhosk. Lhoskians know the family is
from elsewhere and keep to themselves. Marriages are made between
the family and other families in Baharna, with brides and grooms
being brought in from abroad. No one in the family has ever mixed
with Lhosk through marriage. To Dreamers from Earth, the Bahaot
family appear Asiatic, unlike the usually Mediterranean-seeming
natives of Lhosk.
The family is composed of nine sisters, their mother and an
extremely elderly and frail father who is near death. For the last ten
years, the mother has run the family and has groomed the oldest sis-
ter to take over the family trade when the father dies. They are dire,
humorless people more concerned with appearance than anything
else. They are fast to take insult and are extremely proactive in their
response to threats.
The Collector in Lhosk

As he walks the streets of Lhosk, the Collector recalls more and
more about Lhosk, his family, their home, their trade and more. But
he is not foolish enough to attempt contact with them. In fact, in
town, the Collector covers his face goes out of his way not to interact
with anyone directly, for fear of alerting his family to his presence.
Each time he is seen, the Dreamers must make a group Luck roll. If
they fail, his deformities have been recognized and the Bahaot family
is informed of his arrival.
194
Chapter Nine: Lhosk
If pressed or threatened, the Collector admits to his family’s

prominence, but urges the Dreamers not to attempt to contact them.
However, since the Collector is always acting in a cowardly manner,
some might misread this as yet another ploy to stymie them.
Meeting the Family

Dreamers approaching the compound are met by cloaked guards
covered from head to toe in stifling black garb which reveals only
their Asiatic eyes. They are armed with long, curved, bronze swords.
If the Dreamers present a good case for meeting the family, ten
guards escort them inside. The family keeps dozens of guards on the
compound at all times.
All ten healthy members of the family sit out in a grand receiving
room covered in opulence. Fine food waits on the table. They all sit
in the same position, legs folded beneath them on satin pillows, faces
blank of emotion. A seat is laid out for each of the Dreamers, but not
for the Collector.
Talk is terse and to the point, but always exceptionally and arti-
ficially polite. Only the mother, Zavan, speaks. She and her family
never look at or directly acknowledge the Collector. He does not
move or engage in conversation. He fears the swords of the guards.
1) If the Dreamers Threaten the Reputation of the Family: The
mother responds by telling a long and boring parable about a boy
who threatens a blind giant by altering his voice to pretend to be
much bigger than he is. Eventually, the boy is smashed and eaten by
the giant when his duplicity is discovered. She says nothing else. The
interview is over.
2) If the Dreamers Attempt to Reconcile the Family: The
mother refuses to acknowledge she ever had a son. She asks if there
is any other business. If not, they characters are escorted out.
3) If the Dreamers Attempt to Extort the Family: The mother
throws a large bag to the ground at the feet of the Dreamers. It
clangs as it hits the tiles. “Never return to this city,” she says, and the
Dreamers are escorted out. In the bag are lead slugs cut in the rough
shape of coins and a dead snake with its head cut off. If the Dreamers
pursue the Bahaots further, we leave the details to the Keeper.
195
Arrival in
Ilek-Vad
Chapter Ten
ILEK-VAD - GLASS TURRETS AND DUSK -
Dreamers can arrive at Ilek-
THE WORLD IS DARK AND THE PEOPLE ARE SAD
Vad in three ways:
1) In a Black Galley “Until the steeples of his city clanked and sprang
Dreamers arriving in a
In an unburgherly apocalypse.
Black Galley will be an
odd sight, as those ships The doctor used his handkerchief and sighed.”
and the satyrs who pilot
—Wallace Stevens, “The Doctor of Geneva”
them never set foot in the
realm of the King of Dusk.
Such strangers will be met
on the docks by an armed
Ilek-Vad
contingent of the king’s
men. (See “A Black Galley
in Ilek-Vad” on page 197.)
Ilek-Vad on the Cerenarian Sea is a vast, beautiful city of minarets
2) From the and turrets, built upon and around the glassy labyrinths of the non-
Underworld human Gnorri—an underwater, tentacled race similar to mermen of
The Dreamers might crawl
from the earth, escorted by Earthly tales. The city has an odd local “reality.” As one approaches
Madaeker to the surface. it, the sun seems to settle into a position of eternal, red sunset which
They arrive on the outskirts
of the city without highlights the water and glass buildings of the city in the most
incident. Their comings and magnificent light. Full night falls only very rarely and very briefly.
goings remain their own
and they may enter the city Stranger still, those who call the city home fail to notice this oddities.
as unknown visitors. (See Only foreigners seem to sleep at all. The locals remain awake with
“Fellow Travelers” on page
198.) the sun in an ever-present now.
The city is ruled by the human dreamer Randolph Carter, who
3) In a Stolen comes from his citadel at the top of the city only once a year to sit
Pirate Ship
The Merhadeen pirates within the beautiful temple at Kiran at the edge of the city. The locals
are known and hated in say it is he who wills the city to be so, and who shapes and drives
the sunset city. Dreamers
arriving in a stolen the world in the surrounding area through his mind alone. All revere
pirate ship will be taken him, although none have clearly seen his face. They call him “King of
prisoner by the king’s
men and taken before the Sunset” or “King of Dusk” and always touch their hands to their
the Magistrate. (See “The lips when talking of him.
Magistrate and the Court”
on page 203.) Ilek-Vad is a city of perpetual sunset. Like a living painting the
streets are filled with rich shadows and beautiful red and yellow
highlights, and the sort of folk you might find in such a painting—
sad, withdrawn, furtive. The bearded and finny Gnorri ply their
strange trades in the sea-filled glass tunnels which intersect the city.
196
Chapter Ten: Ilek-Vad
A Black Galley A New King

“It is rumoured in Ulthar,
In Ilek-Vad beyond the River Skai,

that a new king reigns on
the opal throne of Ilek-
It is likely the Dreamers will arrive in Ilek-Vad by Black Galley. If
Vad, that fabulous town
so, first they notice the ever-present dusk. This sets in a day or two of turrets atop the hollow
cliffs of glass overlooking
before reaching the port. The characters’ perceptions begin to shift
the twilight sea wherein
as well. Dreamers who make an Idea roll notice that nobody in the the bearded and finny
Gnorri build their singular
endless dusk sleeps or eats in a normal manner.
labyrinths, and I believe I
Finally, they are met by a line of Gnorri warriors who flank the know how to interpret this
rumour. ”
ship and lead it into port, leading the way with bronze tridents. At
port they are herded into a narrow bay, which sits beneath the silhou- H.P. Lovecraft, “The Silver
Key”
ette of a city on the mountains above. Inside the mouth of the bay is
a maze of winding glass corridors which can barely fit the girth of the
galley. Some magic seems to draw the ship to an isolated dock sur-
rounded by rock and glass.
On the glass pier wait two dozen men, all clad in bright colors.
A dozen are armed; the rest seem to be clarks or agents of the law.
When the gang-plank is lowered, the oldest man present, Master
Brugh, ambassador, unfurls a scroll and reads it aloud.
“It is decreed by the King of the Sunset that you are to be made most wel-
come in the Place of Turrets, of the Glass-Maze, of the Thousand Feasts, of the
Waking Dream, Ilek-Vad, that most excellent city. You are humbly invited to
dine with our most illustrious king six hours hence, in his citadel atop the city
facing the sea which brought you to us. You are welcome here, as are all from
Earth.”
The old man bows uncomfortably, and the armed men salute by
tipping their halberds. It is here that Master Brugh, ambassador,
introduces himself, and hands the Dreamers the scroll. The scroll is a
fanciful affair of carefully cut lamb-skin, covered in wax stamps and
marks and the scrawled signature of the king. (Any Dreamer mak-
ing a Spot Hidden roll reads the scrawl—in English—as “Randolph
Carter.” Those who fail can discern only the “R” and the “C.”)
The Dreamers may leave the ship and are left, as are all in Ilek-
Vad, to their own devices. Only outright violence will bring a violent
response or arrest.
197
Those searching for lodging are directed to Dreary House (see

Subtle Changes “The House Dreary” on page 202). Those who wish to treat with the
king are directed to the Palace of Dusk (see page 210).
change to allow players a
• The percussive or
The Twilight Guards
Dreamers arriving in Ilek-Vad in a method other than the sea find
melodious sound of a
song echoing from a the entrances to the city pass through thick, green-black walls. Upon
nearby glassy steeple.
closer examination the walls reveal themselves to be composed of a
• The shape of a crown on resilient crystal much like amber. The blocks are cut magnificently to
the head of a Gnorri
form patterns and pentacles across vast spaces. When seen by some-
staring for a moment
from the water inside a one making an Idea roll the patterns appear to show the visage of a
glass tunnel.
rather plain-looking man (cost: 0/1 SAN). This illusion is persistent;
• The texture of the scroll once seen it cannot be unseen. The eyes of the man seem to follow the
from the King of Dusk.
Dreamers as they move.
• The direction in which The gates and portcullis, which are crystalline like the walls that
the red sun hangs in
surround them, are open, though the way is blocked by city guards.
the sky.
As the Dreamers approach, they find the guards gathered around a
dice game beneath the portcullis, all clad in elaborate, colorful garb
and armed with ceremonial-looking halberds. A cat sleeps nearby
atop a barrel of salted fish, sated. The twilight falls in through the
opening, casting rainbows of reflections through the air. The entire
scene feels so completely like a dream—even for the Dreamlands!—
that the Dreamers have a hard time focusing unless they make Sanity
rolls. Those who fail stand and goggle until someone rouses them.
The guards themselves are ridiculously over-dressed in garb of
ceremony, but this does not seem to bother their game, which goes on
and on. This game is so involving that the guards don’t seem to notice
the Dreamers approaching. Instead they exchange a witty, repetitive
banter punctuated by occasional shouts over who has won and who
has lost. Dreamers observing the game for any length of time realize
it is an endless loop, with money being won and lost in a seamless
roundabout. The guards won’t notice this even if it is brought to their
attention.
Dreamers who wish to do so may simply pass by the men, walk-
ing carefully around them, and enter the city unmolested. But those
198
rousing anyone with a hail or shout find themselves in a conversation

with the guards.
The guards seem disinterested in defending the city. They do their
best to wave the characters in, weapons and all, claiming if asked that
the visitors pose no threat to the King of Dusk, whose will remakes
the world. If the Dreamers claim no knowledge of such a king, the
men laugh and go back to their game, gesturing one last time to the
opening in the wall which leads to Ilek-Vad’s winding streets.
Those insisting upon speaking further on any subject find them-
selves speaking to Macero Dun, Captain of the Twilight Guards. It is
only then that real answers are forthcoming.
1) Who Is the King of Dusk?

The King of Dusk is the ruler of Ilek-Vad, and the one who made
the city as it is today, an ever-present reality of satiation, of the
moment after a good meal, a long day, in the twilight before a peace-
ful rest. All who live here for any length of time find themselves in
such a state of perfect now. This is due to the dream of the king, who
remakes the world in the image of his mind.
The king lives in the highest tower in the center of the city, sur-
rounded by the houses of the magistrates and priests. The tower is
empty save for the king, and he never leaves it except for once a year,
when he walks covered in robes to the temple of Kiran. The priests
say that the king was a man of Earth, once.
2) What Trade Is Plied in Ilek-Vad?

The power of the dream is all that is here, and anything that
comes besides it is simply an accident of that dream. Few ships come
through the city, as their captains fear the lasting effects of the dream
on their men, who become lazy and content when they set foot on the
shore. Some trade comes from Lhosk, but only by experienced crews
who know the secret of the dream and how to resist its pull. Ilek-Vad
produces nothing but contentment.
3) Are There Passages to Earth Nearby?

Macero does not know, though Dreamers who make Spot Hid-
199
den rolls observe that the cat’s ears perk up at this statement. Lhosk,
Using Arram In Macero confides, understands much more of the machinations of
the Campaign Earth than do the people of Ilek-Vad.
Arram can be a great
resource. The cat has
seen much and knows 4) Do the Men from Leng Trade Here?
many secret places and
Macero’s face darkens. No, those in communion with the Nyar-
ways. Whether and how
he decides to assist the lathotep are not permitted to pass within the city walls. The Black
Dreamers remains up to
Galleys are not welcomed. Nyarlathotep is a god in direct opposition
the Keeper. Here are some
suggestions. to the King of Dusk. If the Dreamers have fled from the Men from
Leng, they will find no place safer than Ilek-Vad.
1) Randolph Carter
Orders Him to Assist
the Dreamers
Dreamers that win the
favor of the King of Dusk
Arram, Cat Apostate
may have Arram assigned This fat Maine Coon cat sleeps and watches on top of a barrel
to their service by the of salted fish, from which it occasionally retrieves a fresh morsel
kind king. Arram will serve
without any consideration through a gap in the top. The guards do not seem to mind. All cats
for himself, and will even are welcome in Ilek-Vad and they appear always fat, sated and happy
give his life to help the
characters in their quest. when seen in the streets.
(See “Randolph Carter, Any Dreamer approaching Arram is met by the creature’s inquisi-
the King of Dusk” on page
205.) tive gaze. One who attempts true communication with the creature
must make a POW x 3% roll. If it succeeds, the Dreamer “hears” the
2) Arram Breaks cat speak very clearly in his or her head. One who fails the roll but
His Oath to Help comes close (within 5 points) can catch snippets of thought from the
the Dreamers
This requires some cat. Those who fail completely see only a cat, though one that seems
roleplaying to work out, far smarter than any cat seen in the waking world. All cats “speak” in
but a storyline might be
spun where the cat hopes such a manner, it turns out, but only those Earthlings in communion
to escape the twilight city with the world of Dreams can understand their speech clearly.
and see the rest of the
world. The cat’s curiosity Dreamers who achieve communion with the cat learn his name is
and the magical pull of Arram. He is an outcast from his people and sleeps at the gate as a
the city might be set at
odds, and the Dreamers guard of sorts for his master, the King of Dusk. He sleeps here, he
might be the inciting event claims, because the minions of Nyarlathotep can hold no form or
necessary to move him
forward. illusion that cats cannot see through. He will not speak of the crimes
which brought him into the service of the King of Dusk, but will,
if treated with respect, assist the characters. Despite his status as a
criminal among cats, he is a loyal sort.
If the characters bypass the guard gate, Arram, full of curiosity,
200
follows them in the manner of cats. To detect this ‘tail’ the Dreamers
(Continued.)
must make a Spot Hidden roll and Arram must fail his Hide or Sneak
roll. 3) Arram Knows the
Dreamers are Marked
by Nyarlathotep
Arram and Hopes to
Cat Apostate, age 8 Redeem Himself
STR 2 CON 6 SIZ 1 INT 13 POW 14 The cat recognizes those
cursed, like himself, by
DEX 30 Move 10 SAN 70 HP 4 Nyarlathotep. Hoping
Damage Bonus: –1D6 to insult the dark lord,
he seeks to assist the
Skills: Climb 71%, Dodge 89%, Fast Talk 41%, Hide 81%, Naviga- characters in their escape.
tion 36%, Persuade 50%, Sneak 90%, Spot Hidden 90%, Track 40%. By foiling the machinations
of Nyarlathotep, Arram
Attacks: Bite 30%, 1D4+db seeks to redeem his status
Claw 40%, 1D3+db among his people.
Rip 80%, 2D3+db (only if two claw attacks succeed in a row)

Spells: Able to leap through space to other worlds.
Arram is a Maine Coon, an American long-hair breed. His fur is

predominantly black but he has a white chin and stomach. The skin
above his left eye is scarred and hairless from some long-ago injury.
Arram is a cat cast out from his people. Once he was a great scout
but his curiosity got the better of him. During a skirmish on the
moon (the cats of the Dreamlands often journey there) he crossed
into the forbidden precincts travelled by the terrible moon-beasts and
witnessed their evil rituals to Nyarlathotep.
Arram, considered tainted by the madness he witnessed, was
banished from his clan and sent to wander the Dreamlands. In truth,
Arram remained of sound mind, but there is no crime greater to the
cat people than crossing the threshold of a temple to the Dark One.
Some time later Arram arrived at Ilek-Vad and found there a like
mind, one who had also witnessed the horrors of Nyarlathotep and
turned back: Randolph Carter, the King of Dusk. Arram swore fealty
to his new lord and set off to serve him, acting as a guardian against
Nyarlathotep’s disguises and agents. Arram’s great goals are to serve
Randolph Carter and to redeem himself to his fellow cats.
201
The House Dreary

This slouching house is built in a manner reminiscent of the Ger-
man medieval style with wooden crossbeams, white walls and tiled
roofs. A sign with a pair of gold-embossed eyes hangs over the door,
which never shuts properly. Instead it creaks, slightly open all the
time. A panoply of failed and washed-up dreamers man the street-
side café seating out front. Each face and form immediately denotes
profession and disposition: a ship’s pilot, a beggar, a one-man band,
a priest. They all drink a thick, golden liquid from cracked, leaded
glass containers. It is the only drink served in town. It has no name.
Inside, the bar is always dark and empty, fixed eternally between
mid-day and night, and behind the bar is Polis Dreary, for whom
the house is named. He is somewhat more coherent than the other
denizens of the dusk world, having to deal with people from outside
the city walls on a regular basis. Dreamers looking for lodging find
themselves placed in fine, large rooms in the confusing maze of the
Dreary House. Money changes hands but few can remember the
exact details, only that the amount was a pittance and the price
seemed fair.
Polis Dreary
Master of House Dreary, age 50
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Skills: Accounting 12%, Bargain 22%, Fast Talk 52%, Oratory 35%,
Persuade 35%. Languages: Pross (Own) 60%, English 20%.
Attacks: Thrown Tankard, 25%, 1D3+db.
Polis is a tall, hunched man, built like a mountain with deep-set

green eyes and thinning black hair that grows long on the sides but is
falling out on top. He always wears a cotton shirt and a red brocade
vest with gold piping. His face is set in an eternal calmness that is
difficult to read.
Polis does not clearly recall a time before the King of Dusk, but
202
knows that such a time did exist. He is content to do his job. When-
ever he finds himself thinking about the past, and the time before, he
recalls the smiling face of a woman who is gone from his life now, and
thinks perhaps the coming of the king was a blessing.
Like all in Ilek-Vad, Polis wants for nothing, and therefore has no
goals—or at least no goals that can be understood by those not under
the power of the King of Dusk. He simply exists and will remain in
this state indefinitely.
The Magistrate
and the Court
Dreamers unfortunate enough to arrive in a stolen pirate vessel are
led to the docks in a similar manner to “A Black Galley In Ilek-Vad”
(page 197) but they are met at the docks by an overwhelming force
of city guards, armed to the teeth. The Merhadeen pirates are a com-
mon threat to those hoping to find port in Ilek-Vad, and their associa-
tion with Nyarlathotep is well known.
The guards order the Dreamers off the ship, calling them scoun-
drels and pirates. Protests are ignored. Foolish Dreamers hoping to
fight their way off should be discouraged with 1D6 HP damage from
prodding halberds. There really is no clear route of escape, and the
weapons of the city guards have a long reach. Captured Dreamers
are clamped in irons and moved through the winding streets of the
city toward a huge tower at its center. Locals emerge from the tiny
cramped buildings to line the street and spit at them.
They pass through a portcullised entrance to an inner keep and are
dragged down cobblestone streets to a white marble building which
looks like some sort of government house. They are dragged down
steps behind it and up a long hallway lit by oil lamps, and are thrown
into a small, low-ceilinged cell laid with damp straw. The characters
spend some time in a dank cell below the enormous tower. Those
making Listen rolls overhear the words “Magistrate Plumb” and
“King of Dusk” several times as the voices of the guards echo up the
corridor.
203
After a long while their cell is opened and the Dreamers are
dragged upstairs by another route. The guards throw them into
a docket, a wooden box overseen by a parapet on which perches
the fattest man they have ever seen. This is Magistrate Plumb. He
spews at the characters a series of charges ranging from blasphemy
to piracy to kidnapping and murder. Any attempts by the Dreamers
to speak during the reading of the charges are shouted down by a
throng of locals that overlook the docket.
After this, the Dreamers are given opportunity to speak. Those
who stand up and speak must roll Oratory or INT x 2%. A character
who exhibits any falsehood during this speech is again shouted down.
Telling the truth and making the roll causes the crowd to pause and
murmur thoughtfully.
Plumb is a humorless tyrant. No matter how the Dreamers por-
tray themselves, Plumb finally launches into a tirade about their
crimes and the punishment in Ilek-Vad for those crimes: death by
gibbet. Shouts of glee follow this, and rotten fruit and vegetables are
launched at the characters. The Dreamers are dragged to their feet,
and just as the scene begins to descend into absolute chaos, silence
suddenly fills the air.
The King Appears

The doors to the court burst open and reveal a figure in an ebony
cloak with gold trim. The cloak’s hood hangs over his face, hiding
his features. Everyone in the room freezes. A palpable feeling of fear
passes through the crowd. Magistrate Plumb burbles some sort of
apology, but it is lost in a fearful choke. The fat man throws himself
to the floor, and everyone in the room follows. They leave only the
Dreamers and the new figure standing. If the characters drop, the
cloaked figure steps forward, into the Docket, and helps one up.
The figure hands the Dreamers a sealed scroll (identical to the
scroll in “A Black Galley In Ilek-Vad,” page 197). The figure’s hand
is well-manicured (with a Spot Hidden roll a Dreamer spies a silver
and gold mark between the thumb and forefinger). The figure draws
back and exits before anyone can engage him. If the Dreamers move
after him, they get the dreamlike feeling that the figure, though it is
204
moving slowly, is rushing away at high speed. The figure says noth-
ing and responds to no actions. Attacks fail to hit or even be noticed.
The door shuts, leaving the room in stunned silence. It is long min-
utes before anyone reacts. Finally Magistrate Plumb leaps to his feet,
puts on an uncomfortable smile, steps forward and cordially invites
the characters to stay at his home. He is so completely and perfectly
self-abasing that it is difficult not to pity him (though some Dreamers
may take this moment to exact some petty revenge).
Randolph Carter,
The King of Dusk
The dreamer known as the King of Dusk, who rules Ilek-Vad, is
what remains of the human once called Randolph Carter. Born in
1873 in Boston, Carter was an antiquarian and student of Miska-
tonic University. For the past decade he has persisted wholly in the
Dreamlands, where his thoughts, wishes and dreams shape the world
in and around the secretive port of Ilek-Vad. Using magic unknown
to most dreamers, Carter’s mind controls local space and time in the
manner of a god.
To say Carter has had an eventful life is to understate his accom-
plishments and adventures. He encountered ghouls and their ilk
(in Lovecraft’s “The Statement of Randolph Carter”); then he met
an unknown beast haunting a 17th-century cemetery (in “The
Unnameable”). He plied the Dreamlands in search of the lost city
of his dreams (The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath), only to be told
by Nyarlathotep that it was merely a figment of boyhood memory.
Finally, after locating a mystical key to unlock the Dreamlands and
undertaking innumerable other adventures (“The Silver Key” and
“Through the Gates of the Silver Key”), Carter found his way to the
lost city at last—Ilek Vad.
Time is strange in the Dreamlands. In the waking world, Carter’s
adventures carry him through the year 1932. Yet here he is; nearly
100 years of dreamtime have passed since he took the throne. To the
people of Ilek-Vad it feels as if he has always ruled as the King of
205
Dusk, thanks to the persistent feeling of dreaminess which permeates

the twilight city. His influence and power are absolute, but he per-
sists largely as an often unseen and unfelt influence. He is seen only
once a year, when he makes his way from the citadel in the center of
town to the temple of Kiran on the edge of the sea to meditate.
Unsurprisingly, having found the city of his boyhood dreams and
unlocked the secrets of the cosmos at the foot of ’Umr at-Tawil, Cart-
er still strives for more. His prayers and supplication at the temple
of Kiran are attempts to undergo further exploration and transfor-
mation within the dimensions in the realm of dream. Carter hopes
to unlock the secrets of the Old Gods, and once they are located, to
further probe the deepest mysteries of time, reality and existence.
But all is not what it seems to Carter or the residents of Ilek-Vad.
His enemy, Nyarlathotep, has not forgotten the wily human who
thwarted him. The Crawling Chaos works steadily to reduce Carter’s
will, and the city with him, to nothing in a pique of revenge. When
those in the town rest, Carter is borne on wings of the Shantak to
the hidden palace of Nyarlathotep. There he is fed a drug which lulls
him, removes his memories, and leaves him endlessly searching for
meaning.
Without this interference, long ago Carter would have transcended
this reality for another, deeper dream. Instead he remains trapped in
Ilek-Vad, confused and somber, searching for the secret, certain that
it must arrive soon. In truth, he is slowly slipping away into a repeat-
ing internal dreamworld where he may work his will but finds no
meaning in it.
206
The King’s Interaction with Ilek-Vad

All who live in Ilek-Vad hold their king in perfect, unflappable
esteem. They bless, praise and speak about him often, using honorari-
ums, titles and flowery speech. All locals “feel” his presence and guid-
ing hand in local events and are convinced of a personal and private
connection with him (though none will say precisely why). To them
he is a guardian, god and father-figure. They will give their lives to
defend him or his honor.
Carter is usually seen only twice a year. On the New Year, the
King of Dusk opens the giant doors of his citadel and marches down
the winding streets to the Temple of Kiran at the sea’s edge. Or at
least, this figure seems to be the king. No one in the city knows pre-
cisely what the king looks like. The figure which appears shows no
identifying marks and instead is clothed in a large, all-covering ebony
cloak with gold trim.
This procession draws all from the city out of the stupor of their
dream to line his path. People throw roses and offerings in the street
as the king passes. Some shout questions or compliments but the
figure never answers or stops. No one has ever attempted to stop
the figure or interrupt it. It always marches down the streets to the
temple at the edge of the sea.
This temple, like the citadel, remains empty unless the king is
there. He has no servants, no guards, no pets, nothing living in either
place save himself. It seems he does not eat, drink, change his dress
or fear for his safety. (In fact he does none of these things, except
for drinking the pazu; see page 209). The temple is a simple place of
worship, a single round room with windows that overlook the sea,
consecrated for no deity in particular.
At the temple of Kiran, the king supplicates himself to some higher
power (no one in the city knows who or what he worships) for a
time: sometimes hours, sometimes weeks. The common thought is
that the king “fights off” evil influence from the outside world by his
prayers, and that the longer he spends praying the more evil he is
“defeating”.
When this ritual is done, the king returns to his citadel to wait
another year; or so most think.
207
The Temple of Kiran

Before Carter assumed control of the city, the temple of Kiran was
one of many time-ravaged, small, forgotten temples on the waterfront
of Ilek-Vad. Upon their death, the names of the priests who lived and
worshipped there were etched on the stony walls, leaving a count of
two hundred and twenty six priests. The count of time since the first
priest erected the temple can never be known, but rough estimate
makes it 10,000 years, at least. Only in the last hundred or so years
has the stewardship faltered.
For a time before the coming of the King of Dusk, the temple
remained empty, without a clear owner. It remained unoccupied by
others out of a deep superstition of the unknown being worshipped
there. The religion was secretive—only the priest and his disciple
knew what power resided there. When the last priest died before
drawing in a disciple, the religion failed. Years passed, then decades.
The temple’s stones sagged. The doors collapsed. Animals took to
its rafters. And then one day, as dawn rose upon Ilek-Vad for the last
time before an eternal dusk, the temple was restored. The doors were
cleanly affixed, the animals and rot gone. It was made new.
The light poured through the single window which opened on the
sun, and the doors opened to reveal the man in the ebony robes, the
King of Dusk. This is how Randolph Carter arrived in Ilek-Vad. All
who saw this recall it, and Carter’s ascension to the citadel in the
center of the city to assume the vacant throne of Ilek-Vad.
Today, the temple has become a focus of worship and obsession to
the locals. When the King of Dusk is not present, the locals can be
found loitering in small groups, offering tribute to the king through
flowers, trinkets and food on its doorstep. None dare to pass the
doors.
To Randolph Carter, the temple is a mystery that consumes him. It
is there, in the light of dawn, that he found his way into the Dream-
lands, somehow forgoing the normal methods of entry. It is there he
returns once a year looking for guidance on how to best serve his
city. One day, he emphatically believes, he will be transported from
there to a deeper dream, unlocking a newer, more spectacular world
beyond.
208
The King on His Own

Randolph Carter is the most powerful human dreamer in the his- The Lost City
“All golden and lovely
tory of Earth. His adventures span vast areas of space and time in
it blazed in the sunset,
many dimensions, but since his return to the Dreamlands years ago with walls, temples,
colonnades and arched
he has been isolated in Ilek-Vad. To Carter this seems natural. His
bridges of veined marble,
mind has turned inwards, focusing on unravelling the world of the silver-basined fountains of
prismatic spray in broad
Dreamlands just as he unravelled the reality of Earth before it. This
squares and perfumed
struggle requires supreme will, focus and thought, and so the king gardens, and wide streets
marching between delicate
remains alone at almost all times. But the puzzle refuses to resolve
trees and blossom-laden
itself. He feels he has completed the proper exercises and has under- urns and ivory statues in
gleaming rows; while on
stood the correct concepts, but no resolution has arrived.
steep northward slopes
This isolation, which began as a way to focus his inward energies, climbed tiers of red roofs
and old peaked gables
has been used by his enemy as a way into his powerful mind. Borne
harbouring little lanes of
from the top of his tower one twilight on powerful wings just days grassy cobbles. It was a
fever of the gods, a fanfare
after assuming the throne in Ilek-Vad, Carter was brought to the
of supernal trumpets and a
court of Nyarlathotep. clash of immortal cymbals.”
Carter was infected with the poison known as the pazu by Nyarla-
thotep himself. This drug has slowly sapped his will and focus. Soon Quest of Unknown Kadath
it may turn him into a formless, thoughtless shade that does nothing
more than go through the motions of abasement and worship as it
controls the city of Ilek-Vad. The city will follow him down to such a
fate, gradually becoming a blight of nightmare permanently imprint-
ed on the fabric of the world of dreams.
Today, Carter is so confused that he drinks the pazu on his own,
with no prompting, as an addict might drink laudanum to drive him-
self into a waking stupor. He does not recall what pazu is or precisely
where it came from, only that is for him alone, and it must be imbibed
to give his mind peace.
He rouses from his stupor only very occasionally now. The Dream-
ers’ arrival may be his last chance to rouse himself from Nyarla-
thotep’s noose before it is too late.
209
The King’s Struggle

The Trickery of Carter’s focus on the puzzle of the reality of the Dreamlands,
Nyarlathotep and how to transcend it, has engulfed him. He is distracted, distant,
“Only to taunt had
sometimes confused—though none in the town know this, having
Nyarlathotep marked out
the way to safety and the failed to interact with him for at any length of time. He still rules and
marvellous sunset city;
forces his vast will on the town to make it as it is, but his will is fad-
only to mock had that
black messenger revealed ing. The town and people slowly change with it, though his power is
the secret of these truant
still so strong that none notice.
gods whose steps he
could so easily lead back His true struggle comes from the poison pazu. This golden liquid,
at will. For madness and
found in the palace of the Old Gods, brings euphoria and lack of
the void’s wild vengeance
are Nyarlathotep’s only focus. To humans, even humans as powerful as Carter, it is a narcotic
gifts to the presumptuous;
beyond control. The feeling of comfort and contentment that the
and frantick though the
rider strove to turn his poison inflicts on the mind is especially damaging to those who quest
disgusting steed, that
for inner knowledge. The poison saps the mind of memory and resis-
leering, tittering Shantak
coursed on impetuous tance, so the King of Dusk does not recall his visits to the table of his
and relentless, flapping
most hated enemy. Instead, he recalls only odd dreams of a golden
its great slippery wings in
malignant joy and headed glowing orb during his fitful periods of “sleep.”
for those unhallowed
pits whither no dreams
The Palace of Dusk

reach; that last amorphous
blight of nether-most
confusion where bubbles
and blasphemes at infinity’s This huge palace at the center of Ilek-Vad is hauntingly beautiful.
centre the mindless
Built of black and gray stone, with gold filagree and porcelain tiles, it
daemon-sultan Azathoth,
whose name no lips dare stretches up to monstrous heights to a gold domed roof. The grounds
speak aloud.”
of the palace are empty but are always verdant and overgrown with
H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream- summer flowers, despite the perpetual twilight. A maze of gardens
winds from the wall surrounding the grounds to the huge double
doors of the palace. No one is ever seen in these gardens except for
the occasional fat and lazy cat, asleep on a piece of masonry or on
a mat of perfect grass. If woken, the cat skitters off into the brush,
disappearing.
Gates block every entry but nothing is ever locked. The giant
doors to the structure swing wide, silently, with a single push.
Inside the Palace of Dusk the Dreamers find well-maintained,
well-lit and lavish rooms. Those who separate from the group are in
danger of losing their way in the dream-like corridors, which range
far outside of what architecture and physics say they should be.
210
Rooms upon rooms, each representing a wish or memory of Ran-

dolph Carter, go on and on throughout the winding passages.
A Dreamer who goes alone must make a Sanity roll to find their
way back to the group or to the front door. Those who fail lose no
SAN but find themselves in ever more bizarre rooms: a clockwork
museum filled with automata, an abandoned stage and theater filled
with human-sized puppets, a room with a pool of liquid that instantly
turns to porcelain anything living dropped into it.
Dreamers who stick together find themselves drawn to the sound
of music—a phonograph playing behind a parlor door. (The song
is “The Japanese Sandman” by Paul Whiteman.) Inside the parlor
the Dreamers find Randolph Carter, looking wholly mundane in a
smoking jacket, standing next to a phonograph on a table. The room
appears completely conventional, down to the Sears rug.
“Come in, my friends,” Carter intones, smiling wanly. “You may
lay down all cares at the door.”
Meeting the King of Dusk

The King of Dusk is something more than the Randolph Carter
who crossed the Dreamlands long ago to confront the old gods on
Kadath. Since then Carter found the Silver Key. With it he met Umr
at-Tawil, the strange cosmic being that is either one facet of the mind
of Yog-Sothoth or the archetypal progenitor of Randolph Carter’s
own many identities throughout time and space—or, somehow, both.
(See Lovecraft’s “Through the Gates of the Silver Key.”)
At that time Carter lacked the crucial knowledge he needed to
control the Silver Key and his mind came unhinged in time. He spent
aeons in the body of one of his past selves, an utterly alien being from
Yaddith. In that shared body he journeyed far across the cosmos to
claim a scroll that held the knowledge he needed to use the Silver
Key as he meant all along—to leave his body behind and return his
mind to the land of dreams.
Randolph Carter now has powers over dream far beyond anything
the player characters have seen. Everything in Ilek-Vad, including
every building, serves Carter’s every whim. Doors open before him,
lights appear and extinguish as he comes and goes, and he wants
211
for nothing. Food, water, clothing and his every desire is perfect
and readily at hand, as if it simply materialized from his mind. Any
request of the Dreamers, from the simplest to the most outrageous,
is met in seconds. Though Carter avoids creating something out of
nothing in direct observation of the characters, he will if they ask it:
He provides a short demonstration where the room shifts in colors,
styles and location. The window to the twilight city is replaced by
a Tuscany sun, a bristling pine-filled wilderness, or the drying red
canals of some dead planet. His power is breathtaking.
Carter is friendly eager to speak with those who have news of
Earth. He probes the political conditions of the world, and news of
the Middle East in particular. How fare Egypt and Arabia? Are there
new leaders to speak of, any revolutions? He seems confused if the
Dreamers offer no news of such upheavals. He expected Nyarla-
thotep to emerge there as a leader under his own name by now.
Carter serves drinks and food of Earth, and listens intently to the
Dreamers’ story if they wish to share it with him. He is, he assures
them, the only one of this world who truly will understand them.
During the long conversation to come, Carter himself drinks a
golden drink from an emerald decanter. He does not offer it to the
Dreamers. If pressed, he refuses and laughs, saying, “This drink is far
too potent for uninitiated guests.”
If they threaten him, his countenance is not one of anger but
confusion. Within seconds the offending party learns that Randolph
Carter, the King of Dusk, is beyond such matters. Swords pass
harmlessly through him, blows fail to land, and magic dwindles and
collapses in on itself, leaving Carter perfect and unruffled. “My dear,
dear friends,” he says, “where has this conversation found itself?” He
forgives such “slights” with the wave of a hand. “I am your ally here,
and you might trust me as you trust yourself.”
Carter’s power is greater than one that affects only the world;
he can paralyze, manipulate and even seize control of the Dream-
ers themselves, operating them like puppets. But he resists doing so
unless the fight turns back upon the group. If Dreamers attack one
another, Carter seizes them all, and once their attention is secured he
lectures them on how to behave in front of a king.
212
Things Man Was Not Meant to Know

The Dreamers can converse with Carter for long hours while he ’Umr at-Tawil
“The archetypes, throbbed
serves them any wine and food they wish. He drinks only the golden
the waves, are the people
liquor which he keeps for himself. of the ultimate abyss—
formless, ineffable, and
Time seems to stretch beyond measure, with the clock ever
guessed at only by rare
approaching but never striking midnight. Carter tells the Dreamers dreamers on the low-
dimensioned worlds. Chief
of his many adventures in the Dreamlands: his boyhood escapes to
among such was this
the land of dreams; his dream-quest for unknown Kadath to reclaim informing BEING itself
. . . which indeed was
the golden city of his younger dreams; his confrontations with Nyar-
Carter’s own archetype.
lathotep; his delving into the secrets beyond the veil of worlds; his The glutless zeal of Carter
and all his forbears for
waking travel to wild Yaddith and back; and much more.
forbidden cosmic secrets
How much detail he gives is up to the player-character Dreamers. was a natural result
of derivation from the
They can learn much from Randolph Carter. Perhaps too much.
SUPREME ARCHETYPE.
Dream-Quest: First Carter gives a brief summary of his dream- On every world all great
wizards, all great thinkers,
quest—his alliances with ghouls and with cats, his escape from the
all great artists, are facets
terrible gugs, his journey to the slopes of Kadath, and his escape from of IT.
the wrath of jealous Nyarlathotep. Each Dreamer gains +1% Cthulhu
“Almost stunned with
Mythos and loses 1 SAN. awe, and with a kind of
terrifying delight, Randolph
Now ask each player whether the Dreamer wants to keep hearing
Carter’s consciousness
Carter’s long tale. Those that want to turn their attention elsewhere did homage to that
transcendent ENTITY from
while Carter continues must roll POW x 5. But if any of them ask
which it was derived.”
him to stop now and give them only the most cursory of summations
H.P. Lovecraft with E.
of what remains, Carter obliges them.
Hoffman Price, “Through
Trickery: If he continues, those Dreamers that failed to distract the Gates of the Silver Key”
themselves, and those that chose to keep attending, learn more. He
gives depth and detail to his adventures on his dream-quest, and
describes Nyarlathotep’s claim that the golden city of his visions
never be more than the amalgamation of fading memories of his
boyhood homeland—a claim that stuck with him after he awakened
and caused him to turn from dreams altogether for many years. The
listeners gain another +2% Cthulhu Mythos and lose 1/1D2 SAN.
Each must choose again: Try to turn away (again it requires a POW
x 5 roll), beg him to stop, or continue to absorb Carter’s tale.
The Trap: If he keeps going, next they hear details of Carter’s con-
frontation with Nyarlathotep. They learn of Nyarlathotep’s attempt
to bring him to the awful throne of the daemon sultan Azathoth at
213
the heart of all realities. And they learn of the aid Carter received
The Flight from mysterious Nodens, who shouted in triumph at the frustration
of Randolph of the Crawling Chaos. The listeners gain +3% Cthulhu Mythos and
Carter lose 1/1D3 SAN, and must choose again: try to turn away, beg him to
“Off that vast hippocephalic
stop, or keep on.
abomination leaped the
doomed and desperate The Silver Key: Next Carter describes the Silver Key, the artifact
dreamer, and down
that he learned could open the way to the land of Dreams after he
through endless voids of
sentient blackness he fell. thought he had lost access to it forever. He describes Dream as the
Aeons reeled, universes
one way that a human being can forge for himself true meaning in
died and were born again,
stars became nebulae and life, the sort of meaning that is ultimately absent from the sterile
nebulae became stars,
faiths and sciences of the waking world. Of course, he observes, the
and still Randolph Carter
fell through those endless player characters have no doubt felt this for themselves. Perhaps,
voids of sentient blackness.
he speculates, that is why Nyarlathotep attempts to thwart them
“Then in the slow creeping and attempted to thwart Carter himself. The power of human dream
course of eternity the
seems to baffle, balk and enrage the Crawling Chaos. The listeners
utmost cycle of the cosmos
churned itself into another gain +5% Cthulhu Mythos, lose 1/1D6 SAN, and must choose again:
futile completion, and all
try to turn away, beg him to stop, or keep listening.
things became again as
they were unreckoned The Prolonged of Life: Then Carter describes some of what
kalpas before. Matter and
happened when he used the Silver Key. His encounter with ’Umr
light were born anew as
space once had known at-Tawil and the slumbering Ancient Ones that guard the boundaries
them; and comets, suns
between worlds. His realization that he—and each of the Dreamers,
and worlds sprang flaming
into life, though nothing too!—has countless other selves scattered throughout time and space
survived to tell that they
that reincarnate in strange ways again and again. How he mistakenly
had been and gone, been
and gone, always and came to share the body of one of his past selves, a hideous alien from
always, back to no first
bhole-eaten Yaddith. And the aeons he spent in that alien body jour-
beginning.
neying back to Earth, where he at last found the scroll that would
“And there was a
allow him to master the Silver Key and return to the Dreamlands.
firmament again, and a
wind, and a glare of purple The listeners gain +8% Cthulhu Mythos and lost 2/1D8+1 SAN.
light in the eyes of the
Once more they must choose to either attempt to turn away, or to beg
falling dreamer. There were
gods and presences and him to stop, or to hear yet more wisdom.
wills; beauty and evil, and
The Key and the Gate: If they still heed him, Carter shares the
the shrieking of noxious
night robbed of its prey. revelation that ’Umr at-Tawil is in fact a facet of Yog-Sothoth—the
For through the unknown
cosmic being that is somehow linked to all of time and space and yet
ultimate cycle had lived a
thought and a vision of a barred from taking shape in some times and spaces—and yet is also
dreamer’s boyhood, and
somehow the ultimate progenitor or source of Randolph Carter’s
own infinity of selves! Why, think of it! That may link Carter at
214
some essential level to the Elder Things which bred shoggoths and
now there were remade a
mankind alike, and which some witch-cults sought—perhaps to the waking world and an old
cherished city to body and
Serpent Men of Valusia who crafted such mighty spells—to Great
to justify these things.
Cthulhu sleeping fitfully in his crypt under the waves, whose stirrings Out of the void S’ngac the
violet gas had pointed the
drive artists and psychics mad—even to hideous, hateful Tsathoggua
way, and archaic Nodens
of black N’kai—and it may link all of those to each of the Dreamers, was bellowing his guidance
from unhinted deeps.
too! His listeners gain +13% Cthulhu Mythos and lose 2D6 SAN as
their spinning minds correlate all these cosmic truths. “Stars swelled to dawns,
and dawns burst into
At that point, or at any point when a Dreamer begs him to stop,
fountains of gold, carmine,
or when any Dreamer goes temporarily or indefinitely insane, Carter and purple, and still the
dreamer fell. Cries rent the
stops his hypnotic tale.
aether as ribbons of light
“Too much knowledge gained too quickly,” he says, “can harm beat back the fiends from
outside. And hoary Nodens
even the stoutest mind.”
raised a howl of triumph
when Nyarlathotep, close
on his quarry, stopped
baffled by a glare that
seared his formless
hunting-horrors to grey
dust. Randolph Carter had
indeed descended at last
the wide marmoreal flights
to his marvellous city, for
he was come again to the
fair New England world
that had wrought him.”

215
The King’s New Quest

Randolph Carter has undertaken quest after impossible quest to
attain the city of his dreams. But the quests themselves revealed still
deeper mysteries and left him hungering to understand the mean-
ing of realities that even he could not dream up. Now a new quest
consumes him.
However much or little the Dreamers let Carter tell them of his
cosmic adventures, he eagerly goes on to describe his current “stud-
ies.” He says he once believed the deepest secret of all was access to
this very mystical plane—the Land of Dreams, where a human mind
can shape its own reality and meaning out of the chaos of existence.
Now, he understands that this too is only an illusion. There is another
plane of reality even deeper than this.
It is this problem that he has set his mystical intellect to unravel.
That is the purpose of Ilek-Vad. Carter’s isolation and the melancholy
of the town offer his mind a unique perspective to pursue his manipu-
lations of time and space. He hopes to become one with the mind
that, he believes, created the world of Dream: Nodens, the Lord of
the Abyss, the creator of Outside and In, the Watcher—Nodens who
once aided Carter against the schemes of the Crawling Chaos.
Carter speaks of reordering the cosmos itself so that it reveals a
conscious mind, like turning the tumblers in a lock. He speaks of
opening portals “beyond the veil of the world of dreams” and sliding
through them, turning them in on themselves to reveal other realms
and existences.
It should become clear that Carter is operating on a much more
complex level than the Dreamers can comprehend. He persists in
such explanations though they seem to make no sense. Ancient
Nodens, he claims, made all that they see, and works even now to
maintain all, without entering these worlds himself except in the most
dire circumstances.
Carter warns the Dreamers that they are somehow entangled in
the plans of Nyarlathotep. The Dark Man’s interest in the Dreamers
is as clear as a stamp upon their foreheads. That entity, the “Man of
the West,” is pure malevolence, and somehow the Dreamers’ travel to
the land of Dreams is part of its immeasurable and baffling schemes.
216
They must be vigilant for subterfuge, tricks, and double-dealing.

Many creatures are in service to Nyarlathotep and they will try to
stop the Dreamers from returning to the waking world.
Why Nyarlathotep has selected them, Carter does not know, but
he has long noticed the attention of the Dark Man shifting away from
the land of Dreams. This is due in no small part, he believes, to his
and others’ struggles against Nyarlathotep in dream. Now the Crawl-
ing Chaos moves more in the waking world of Earth.
This, however, has not calmed Carter; it has made him even more
guarded and suspicious. The waking realm is now forever beyond his
grasp. He has become a creature of dreams, although soon, he hopes,
he will become something much more.
Carter says that returning the Dreamers to Earth is of primary
importance. He says the nearest way to Earth is in the Enchanted
Forest, and offers to outfit the Dreamers for travel there. But he
insists that they stay with him a while, first. Their arrival has shifted
his mood, and this shift has offered him deeper insights into the prob-
lems he hopes to unravel.
“A day or two more, I insist. Perhaps it is what I have needed all
along.”
Asleep In the
Palace of Dusk
One of the few places characters might recall sleeping in Ilek-Vad
is the Palace of Dusk. Here, guests can manipulate the world in
limited ways, altering the change that Randolph Carter has worked
upon the town at large, allowing themselves to feel hunger, thirst, and
the need for sleep.
The Dreamers find themselves each in a huge, ornate room of per-
fect appearance, with an endless supply of all needed things. Bureaus
open on perfect sets of armor, boots and gear, each sized exactly for
the character. Wardrobes are filled with perfect analogues of Earthly
suits. Food and drink are laid at the door with a slight knock. Those
opening the door find their food upon a gold tray, though the party
217
delivering it is never seen.

Eventually the Dreamers become drowsy and, finding their bed-
clothes, are drawn to the bed. There, perhaps for the first time in the
land of Dreams, they sleep.
The Nightly Travel

The Dreamers are woken by a gong. The sound is so sudden and
pervasive that at first it is unclear if it was real or a dream within
their dream. But a moment later it occurs again. A timed beat of a
deep, resounding gong plays out, over and over, rousing the group.
It is an easy enough matter to assemble in the hallway. There the
Dreamers discover that they cannot speak.
Their voices are simply gone. No talking. No shouting. No
screams. The Keeper should strictly enforce this. No speech. Those
clever enough to attempt to write find their handwriting a mess of
gibberish that seems to rearrange itself each time it is viewed. No
communication beyond hand signals is possible. There is only the
beat of the gong, and the darkened palace.
Dreamers who explore the palace discover several things.
It is night outside. For the first time since their arrival in Ilek-Vad,
a huge moon hangs in the sky and the city sleeps. Second, tiny shad-
ows can be seen—some near and some far—leaping from the world
and into the night sky. Any Dreamer who makes a Spot Hidden roll
sees that these are the shadows of cats, leaping into the air and disap-
pearing into the void. (Cost: 0/1 SAN.)
The gong continues even outside. It seems to fill the whole world,
timed like a metronome. Soon the Dreamers hear the beat of enor-
mous wings and hear the distant, inhuman shrieks of some great
beast. The time of the Shantaks has come.
The Couriers
The beasts first appear as small dots descending from the moon.
Even at vast distances their shrieks and the beat of their wings can be
heard. They have been dispatched by Nyarlathotep to collect anyone
in the Palace of Dusk, as they do whenever the pazu overcomes the
king. Usually the king is alone. Tonight their task means collecting
218
the Dreamers as well. They are stupid creatures.

A Shantak arrives for each Dreamer, growing larger and larger, Shantak-Birds
“Winged and whirring,
and finally swarming the palace like a flock of birds fluttering about a
those forms grew larger
light pole. Each Shantak is bigger than an elephant with a head like a each moment, and
the traveller knew his
horse. Their wings are so vast that when they beat upon the air they
stumbling was at an end.
can knock a nearby man to the ground with each gust. That makes They were not any birds
or bats known elsewhere
any attempt to flee a near impossibility when the creature is close—
on earth or in dreamland,
escape requires rolling a special success with Dodge. for they were larger than
elephants and had heads
Dreamers who rush to find the king in the upper regions of the
like a horse’s. Carter knew
palace arrive just in time to see the roof torn off by talons the size of that they must be the
Shantak-birds of ill rumour,
a truck. Instead of collapsing, the structure floats off in chunks, like
and wondered no more
wood underwater swept downstream. (Cost: 1/1D4 SAN.) A Dream- what evil guardians and
nameless sentinels made
er making a Spot Hidden roll spies Randolph Carter clutched in the
men avoid the boreal rock
claws of the giant Shantak as it rises into the air. desert.
A moment later another Shantak rips its way into the palace in
“It was hard work
pursuit of the Dreamers. Pieces of the structure float away into space ascending, for the Shantak-
bird has scales instead of
with no ill effects. Those attempting to flee are snatched up by the
feathers, and those scales
relentless creatures, pulled off their feet one by one and thrust into are very slippery.”
the night air, heading for the dark side of the moon.
A Dreamer foolish enough to inflict more than 9 points damage Quest of Unknown Kadath
on a Shantak is dropped. The Dreamer has one of the most exhila-
rating minutes of his or her life plummeting through space towards
the ground far below. When the Dreamer hits, he or she wakes in
the palace of Ilek-Vad, in the dusk, suffering 1/1D8 SAN loss. The
Dreamer’s hair has gone completely white. Such Dreamers find their
compatriots beds’ empty, and the king is nowhere to be found.
The Shantaks
Steeds of Nyarlathotep
DEX 10 Move 6/30 flying HP 32
Damage Bonus: +4D6.
Attacks: Bite 55%, 2D6+2.
Armor: 9 points of tough hide.
Sanity Loss: 0/1D6
219
The Tower of
Nyarlathotep
After a timeless flight through black space the Shantaks swoop
low over the glowing surface of the moon, clutching the Dreamers
in their talons. The gong continues to ring out. The pocked lunar
surface sweeps by at incredible speed as the Shantaks accelerate
towards the dark side. Dreamers who succeed at Spot Hidden spy
swarms of creatures moving on the surface below. What these beasts
are cannot be discerned.
When the Shantaks cross to the dark side of the moon, the Dream-
ers spy vast fires lit in mystical patterns below. Soon they see a mile-
high crystal tower lit by starlight. There the Shantaks drop them and
Randolph Carter roughly on a vast parapet the size of a city block.
The tower is simple in shape but filagreed and carved to insane
precision with millions of rectilinear patters. Letters and symbols
draw the eye. The crystal surface seems to collect and redirect light,
providing a ghostly and perfect illumination. But if the Dreamers
gaze through the surface, this clarity is replaced by a milky pearles-
cence so the interior cannot be spied. Four huge doorways open to
the inside of the tower, which must be the size of an Earthly arena.
The gong continues to ring out.
As the giant birds fly off, Randolph Carter stumbles to his feet and
begins to walk into the tower. His face is that of a man in a happy
reverie, his eyes heavy-lidded and lost, a dim smile on his face. His
sleeping mind is under the control of Nyarlathotep. When he is on
the moon, his will is not his own.
The Dreamers, opium addicts on the waking world, may find
Carter’s happy, useless delirium unpleasantly familiar.
Inside the tower they find a giant throne room. The pale crystal
darkens like a blood clot, resolving itself in a deep red throne of
crystal upon a dais. On the dais, next to the throne, a huge, muscular,
dark-skinned man smashes a crystal gong at intervals with a hammer.
It is Nyarlathotep himself. Dreamers may recognize him from an
earlier encounter.
220
Each time the hammer falls on the gong, the gong turns blood-red
and shatters, scattering pieces into the night air where they float and
vanish. The gong reforms before each new stroke.
If the Dreamers thought to enter stealthily, they are lucky—they
don’t even need to succeed at Hide or Sneak rolls. Nyarlathotep is
supremely confident in his position here and fears nothing. He is not
looking for intruders. Those clever enough to stay out of sight, or
to circle around behind the throne, go undiscovered while the Dark
Man gloats over the King of Dusk.
Each beat of the gong brings the King of Dusk closer. When he
stands at the dais, he stops, and Nyarlathotep places the hammer on
a metal tray next to the throne. He picks up a small emerald decanter
filled with golden liquid and moves back to the king.
“My dear friend Mr. Carter,” the Dark Man intones in a rich voice,
“welcome once again to my dream—and your nightmare.”
The Pazu
If the Dreamers wait and watch, they see Nyarlathotep feed
Randolph Carter the golden liquid, the pazu. They will recall seeing a
similar liquid in the Palace of Dusk earlier. Carter drinks greedily as
Nyarlathotep, towering more than two feet taller, coos and comforts
him, smiling the whole time. After Carter takes several drinks, Nyar-
lathotep places the decanter down next to the hammer, reclines in his
throne, and questions Carter in an alien language.
Isolated Earthly words can be heard from time to time: New York,
London, Cairo, Nairobi, Shanghai.
More clearly, the Dreamers hear the pharaoh ask whether Carter
has mastered “the play.” Only when Carter says he has does the Dark
One give him another thirsty sip of pazu. Nyarlathotep tells Carter
that the time is upon them and he must perform his part perfectly.
A Dreamer foolish enough to imbibe the pazu may do so without
discovery. Others observing someone who drinks the liquid simply
see the Dreamer smile and then fade, finally disappearing in a burst
of light. (Cost to witness: 0/1 SAN.) The drinker is effectively dead.
It is clear to all who observe this that the drug is not an escape but a
death, either slow or very fast.
221
Confrontation
Dreamers who confront Nyarlathotep had better have a good
idea what they are doing. They are facing the Crawling Chaos in his
palace, on his throne, at the height of his power, and he is not to be
trifled with. Until Carter is somehow woken, the Dreamers remain
unable to speak.
Once he sees them, Nyarlathotep welcomes the Dreamers and
speaks much like he did in “The Dream Within a Dream” on page
157. A Dreamer who makes a a Psychology roll (or an Idea roll at 1/5
chance) detects that Nyarlathotep is in fact fearful of their presence,
both surprised and disturbed, though hiding it well. He takes the
characters on twisting paths of logic, neither confirming or denying
that they are part of his plans, all the while puffing up his chest in an
effort to appear omniscient.
222
Dreamers who attempt to directly assault him find themselves held

in place by an invisible force. The Void
“Kuranes did not know
Their options are limited.
where Kadath was, or the
marvellous sunset city; but
1) Waking the King of Dusk he did know that the Great
Ones were very dangerous
Waking Randolph Carter is a difficult task as the pazu is a power- creatures to seek out, and
that the Other Gods had
ful drug. Any attempt to wake him fails, and only rouses the Dark
strange ways of protecting
Man’s anger, unless the Dreamers use the Eye of Nodens or smash them from impertinent
curiosity. He had learned
the tower itself.
much of the Other Gods
in distant parts of space,
2) Smashing the Tower of Crystal especially in that region
where form does not exist,
Clever Dreamers who saw the effect of the hammer on the crystal and coloured gases study
the innermost secrets.
gong might contrive a plan to strike the tower itself with the weapon.
The violet gas S’ngac had
They need strike only once to cause the tower to fracture and soon told him terrible things
of the crawling chaos
collapse as a blood-red blight of cracks spreads from the point of
Nyarlathotep, and had
impact. This rouses the King of Dusk, who confronts Nyarlathotep. warned him never to
approach the central void
where the daemon sultan
3) Using the Eye of Nodens Azathoth gnaws hungrily
in the dark.”
Any Dreamer who met the mysterious stranger in the Nameless
Rock and was marked with the Eye of Nodens (page 56) is filled with H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-
certainty that he or she can wake the King of Dusk simply by touch-
ing him. Doing so instantly wakes Randolph Carter, who does battle
with Nyarlathotep.
4) Crying Out to Nodens

Dreamers who listened to Randolph Carter in the Palace of Dusk
may recall his speech about Nodens, whom he called the Creator.
Dreamers that cry out for Nodens to protect his servant (Carter), or
who verbally prostrate themselves to Nodens while at the throne of
the Crawling Chaos, have a POW x 3% chance of rousing Nodens
and drawing him to them. Such a plea is the only thing which the
characters may say aloud while Carter sleeps.
223
The Dreamers Carter Confronts

in Battle
Once Randolph Carter
begins to battle
Nyarlathotep
Nyarlathotep, particularly If the King of Dusk is roused, he comes around slowly, and Nyar-
brave or mad Dreamers may
lathotep’s face fills with misery and fear. The Dark Man girds himself
wish to join in.
for battle, summoning a spear and two giant Shantak birds who stand
Even attemping to join the
beside the throne to defend him. He will not retreat from his own
battle calls for a Sanity roll.
If it FAILS, the Dreamer can stronghold.
join the fray. If it succeeds,
In the land of Dreams, Carter is not cowed by Nyarlathotep. He
the Dreamer is quite
sensibly too cowed to face and Nyarlathotep trade barbs in an alien language and finally do
Nyarlathotep’s wrath.
battle. They fling bolts of enormous power at one another, which
If a Dreamer joins in, the fill the air with ozone and light, melting holes in the crystal Palace.
player must decide how
Nyarlathotep seems unable to land attacks on Carter, who, woken,
much effort to put into the
assault. The Dreamer can seems refilled with vitality. He laughs and with a wave of his hand
attack with a POW x 5 roll,
remakes a giant Shantak into a pile of floundering fish. With the
but then can defend against
any possible counterattack swing of another hand he smashes Nyarlathotep with bolts of energy
with only POW x 1. Or the
which seem to unzip the world around them. With a gesture, Carter
Dreamer can attack with
POW x 4 and defend with opens a portal to Ilek-Vad and urges the Dreamers through.
POW x 2; or attack and
Those that leap through find themselves back in the palace, fol-
defend alike with POW
x 3; or attack at POW x 2 lowed a moment later by Randolph Carter. The portal closes behind
and defend at POW x 4;
them and leaves Nyarlathotep behind.
or attack at POW x 1 and
defend at POW x 5.
(Continued.)
Nodens Appears
If the Dreamers call on Nodens while at Nyarlathotep’s throne—it
takes a shout, not a thought or a whisper—they are swept back by an
explosion of light and sound. A giant form, in the shape of a hulking
man but nothing more than a shadow, stands between Carter, the
Dreamers and Nyarlathotep. Carter throws himself to the ground in
abasement.
The great shadowy being booms at Nyarlathotep: “What interloper
stands before the watcher who oversaw the creation of all things?”
Each syllable shakes the tower. (Cost: 0/1D10 SAN.)
A look of abject misery and defeat crosses the features of the
Crawling Chaos. Then he locks eyes with the Dreamers in a look
224
filled with absolute, black hate.

The Dreamer’s attack
“You!” Nyarlathotep shouts at the characters. “Even if you escape, can take whatever shape
the player describes. If
you shall know no rest! My servants will hunt you to the end of
the attack succeeds, it
this world, and the next!” A personal threat from such a being costs staggers Nyarlathotep—the
Keeper must factor that
0/1D6 SAN. We leave it to the Keeper to decide what shape, if any,
into the description of
capricious Nyarlathotep’s threat takes later in the campaign. Nyarlathotep’s defeat. But it
draws a blast of annihilating
The shadow of Nodens shouts, “SILENCE,” and Nyarlathotep
energy from the Crawling
explodes into a spray of tentacles and eyes that burn into into a pure Chaos in consequence, or
perhaps a manifestation
white light. Then even the light vanishes. Nyarlathotep, at least in
of clawing horrors or
this form and place, is no more. poisonous vipers. The
Dreamer must make a POW
In an instant the Dreamers and Carter are back in the Palace of
defense roll to resist. If that
Dusk. fails, the Dreamer takes
1D20 damage (no armor
protects against it) and loses
Escape to Ilek-Vad
1/1D6 SAN. Nyarlathotep
gives a failed attack no
more than a hateful sneer.
Dreamers who wake again in Ilek-Vad find Carter awake and of
A Dreamer who successfully
a different countenance than when they first met. Ilek-Vad itself,
attacks Nyarlathotep and
though still sedate with contentment, is of a lighter mood. The survives the reprisal gains
1D10 SAN upon returning
Dreamers, Carter claims, have saved him from the poison of the pazu
safe to Ilek-Vad.
and the secret plans of Nyarlathotep, which would have eventually
twisted his mind and brought ruin down upon the twilight town.
They are heroes of the first order and his saviors.
He holds in even more reverence and awe those that effected a
direct appearance of Nodens. Long has Carter tried to stir the Cre-
ator from his throne outside of all.
Without the pollution of the pazu, Carter is certain he will be able
to achieve communion with that being soon.
The heroes of Ilek-Vad are sent on their way to where they must
go, the Enchanted Wood. The King of Dusk gives them anything
they desire that he can make reality, along with his best and fondest
wishes.
225
. . . But If They Fail?

If the Dreamers fail to rescue Randolph Carter from the treachery
of Nyarlathotep, they return to Ilek-Vad to find it changed. If they
never left the palace, they awaken no longer there but in the city, and
they are seized by an unhappy certainty that something has changed
for the worse for their inaction. If they went to the moon but Nyar-
lathotep had his way with Carter uninterrupted, the Crawling Chaos
eventually catches them and sends them back to the sunset city amid
the fading echoes of his mocking laughter.
During the day, the city is abandoned. The streets wind and loop
in a manner which makes getting lost very easy. The architecture
seems different, Victorian even, with gas lamps and other modern
oddities not normally found in the Dreamlands. No residents can be
found during the day, though remnants of their passage can be found.
It seems the population fled some impending disaster, leaving food on
tables, money on shop counters and doors ajar.
Directed Dreaming is utterly useless. Even Dreamers who had
great influence on the Dreamlands before find themselves powerless
now in Ilek-Vad.
The gates of the palace remain closed and impenetrable. The spire
of the tower has changed to a pearly white with gold filagree. There
is no way inside the palace grounds, except on the night of the full
moon.
In the place that Ilek-Vad has become, every night is the night of
the full moon.
If the Dreamers pay close attention to the moon, or if one of them
makes an Astronomy roll, they see that the face of the moon has
changed. From here they see what is ordinarily its dark side.
When the moon rises, party-guests appear in a procession from the
otherwise abandoned houses of the city. They wear velvet finery and
elaborate porcelain masks showing emotionless faces. They dance
through the streets and enter the palace.
Inside, the Dreamers find a lavish ball. All wait for the huge clock
to strike midnight, drinking and laughing and dancing as the hours
spin on. Conversation is idle and meaningless.
226
Finally, at midnight, Randolph Carter enters. Or so it appears at

first glance. The being is tall and thin and robed in gold, and it wears
a perfect mask of Carter’s face, sculpted in porcelain.
The figure draws the attention of the crowd by standing at the top
of the staircase. The clock strikes midnight. The party-goers shout
to unmask. All in the room remove their masks except for the figure
at the top of the stairs. The figure says, its porcelain lips moving, “I
wear no mask.”
The party-goers cry out in alarm—not in surprise but in despair.
“No mask? No mask!” they cry, and “The king! He wears the Yellow
Sign!” and “The King in Yellow!”
Any Dreamer with Occult or any Art skill at 50% or better rec-
ognizes elements of the infamous play The King In Yellow, which
consumed so many sensitive souls before it was banned and driven
underground at the turn of the century. To those with Occult or Art
between 25% and 49% there’s something dreadfully familiar about it,
but they don’t remember the details unless they make a roll.
Any Dreamer who makes a Cthulhu Mythos roll knows that the
play somehow taps into an alien reality that changes and warps the
concrete reality of Earth as easily as a madman’s thoughts—or a
dreamer’s nightmare.
The Dreamers may flee, if they wish.
For Ilek-Vad, the clock strikes midnight forever.
227
Chapter Eleven
SARNATH - EMPTY STREETS - THE DOOM -
A TURQUOISE MONSTER MOVING ROUND
“As if, in the presence of the sea,

We dried our nets and mended sail
And talked of never-ending things”
—Wallace Stevens, “Continual Conversation With a Silent Man”
Departing the
Underworld
As the Dreamers prepare to leave the Underworld (see page 104),
those clever enough to ask the ghoul Madaeker about their surround-
ings discover he knows a bit of the surface in this area. His knowl-
edge is limited (and somewhat wrong) and mostly learned through
his brief contact with other ghouls. Still, it is better than nothing.
Madaeker says he cannot leave the Underworld, but that he has
heard that above the Peaks of Thok are the ruins of a great human
city called Sarnath, and that it has been abandoned for thousands
of years. The ghouls speak of Sarnath in hushed tones and refuse to
elaborate what caused its destruction, whether an invading army,
plague or something more sinister.
After this Madaeker says no more, except to bid the characters
depart as quickly as possible; every moment beneath the earth is
another chance for them to fall under the curse of the Underworld.
The ghoul himself cannot leave. He suffers the horrific curse of the
Underworld already and would perish in the light.
Wise Dreamers will find leaving Madaeker behind bittersweet.
The ghoul has indeed kept his word and more, struggling and per-
haps almost dying to bring the characters through to daylight on the
other side.
228
Chapter Eleven: Sarnath
The Upper World Subtle Changes

The Dreamers emerge into a bright, foggy land, dotted with
uneven boulders, green moss and the smell of water. The area seems change to allow players a
deserted and is silent save for the lonesome cries of marsh birds.
As the Dreamers’ eyes adjust, the banks of fog part. A plain of old,
• The tempo of a distant
uneven cobblestones dotted with unhealthy gray grass leads down
drip-drip-drip of water
to a lake, which is edged by the ruins of an ancient city. The city is on stone.
hardly that, mostly nothing more than standing stones a foot or two
• The smell and taste
high made of greenish rock, scattered by time and weather. of the unwholesome
green water of the
As the Dreamers approach the lake they find themselves in a large,
lake.
bowl-shaped valley. It is clear this was once a city of significant size,
• The thickness and smell
long ago destroyed; huge stone towers were toppled and spread along
of fog.
the ground so that nothing more than rubble remains. It appears
• The symbols worn by
as if the place were put to dynamite, leaving only crushed rocks in
the Green Priests or the
its wake. The scale of the destruction is so that the entire valley is guards of the Ilnarek
road.
nothing but stone fragments covered by unhealthy grass and small,
evil-looking trees.
The Nameless Lake

The pulverized remains of the city descend a slope to the Name-
less Lake, a large freshwater lake with no streams entering or exiting
it. The last half-mile to the lake is a marshy bog springing up in the
collapsed ruins of what once were docks and areas of commerce. The
footing here is treacherous and muddy. Any Dreamer walking all the
way to the lake must make a Luck roll or suffer 1 HP damage (and
perhaps reduced movement for a few hours) from a twisted ankle.
Those who arrive at the lake can spy across it in the distance a
larger, grey stone shape. It is the granite spike of Alkurion, though
the Dreamers will likely not know this. The water is clear but green-
ish. It is potable but makes those that consume it slightly ill.
Greenish-tinged fog rolls across the lake from the north and seems
to coat the entire valley in a green haze, making visibility vary from
moment to moment. The cry of marsh birds can be heard but none
can be seen, and nothing seems to move in the water.
229
The Idol
In the midst of the ruins near the lake stands a huge, roughly-hewn
idol of soapy green stone: a giant water-lizard with ingots of gold for
eyes and a fan of giant blue-green gems along its neck. It stands on
four legs, raising its head as if it has heard something, looking to the
lake. Inhuman, unrecognizable writing is etched on its base. (If the
Collector is present, he cannot read it.)
The idol has been festooned with fresh lilies, still-smoldering
incense, the gutted remains of dogs and recent sprays of blood.
It seems completely out of place, sitting as it does amidst grey
grass and a cracked landscape. It is untouched by the elements or
time, immaculate save for the blood of offerings.
A Dreamer touching the statue receives a disturbing sensation like
a deep and subtle shaking of the body by some unseen force, as if the
statue were a tuning fork imparting its vibration by touch. (Cost: 0/1
SAN.)
The Offering
The Dreamers hear distant weeping cries from the lake. Nearly
fifty feet out in the water the head and arms of a man can be spied,
just barely. The man is lashed to a crude cross, which apparently is
sunk into the marshy land and has been overrun by the tide. It is
unclear if the lake connects to a larger body of water, but in a few
more minutes, if the tide continues, the man will drown.
The man’s face is turned to face the statue but he is far enough
out that he spies the Dreamers even if they don’t approach the statue
proper. He shouts in Talunen but switches to English if he hears
them speak that tongue. Whether they understand him or not, he is
clearly pleading for rescue. If they wait and let him drown it will cost
each Dreamer 0/1D4 SAN.
Rescuing him requires a Swim roll. If it succeeds the Dreamers
bring him to shore safely. Each Dreamer who fails the Swim roll
must make a CON x 5 roll or suffer 1D3 damage from inhaling a
mouthful of green water before they get back to shore.
230
The man is bald, bearded and covered in tattoos and markings.

His name is Uvan Go. He is small and sickly and looks about fifty
years old. He was captured and dragged here from the city of Ilarnek
against his will by priests in green robes, who trussed him up this
morning at the foot of the lake. They said nothing to him and he
claims to have no idea why out of all the residents of Ilarnek—quite a
metropolis—he was chosen as the victim.
Uvan knows the horrific story of Sarnath, as do all residents of
Mnar, and he is very aware of where he is and what day it is. If
pressed, and he feels like the Dreamers are taking too long to leave,
he offers the abbreviated story of the Doom of Sarnath, all the while
urging the characters to leave the area before nightfall.
231
Uvan Go
Thief and Unlucky Descendent of Sarnath, age 50
Damage Bonus: None.
Skills: Bargain 43%, Climb 55%, Conceal 71%, Fast Talk 44%, Hide
70%, Sneak 54%, Spot Hidden 60%. Languages: Ulet (Own) 60%,
English 35%, Talunen 33%.
Attacks: Dagger 55%
Uvan is a short, tattooed, sickly-looking man getting on in years.

His head is carefully scraped clean of hair, and his luxurious, grey-
ing brown beard is carefully tied with braids and ornamented with
cheap costume jewels. He wears little more than a loincloth and worn
leather bracers. Careful examination of his wrists and ankles reveal
years of scarring from shackles. He has no shoes or possessions.
He speaks Ulet, English, Talunen and can swear in Pross.
Uvan is a cutthroat and thief from Ilarnek with the unfortunate
luck to be of the bloodline of Taran-Ish, the priest consumed by the
horrors of Bokrug and the beings of Ib a millennium before. Every
year on this date the Green Priests of Ilarnek use magic to locate an
heir to Taran-Ish, and they deposit him as an offering at the Name-
less Lake to be consumed by Bokrug and its servants to appease the
cycle.
Uvan has no idea he has such relations. He is usually focused on
either theft or serving time in prison. In his heyday he was a scrappy
young troublemaker robbing people in the Plaza of Snakes. Now
he is a clever old criminal more concerned with petty crimes. Or at
least he was, until he was set upon by the silent Green Priests on the
Street of Colored Smoke in Ilarnek. What they would want to do
with him, he had no idea.
Uvan is very familiar with the generalities of the situation: the
Doom that came to Sarnath in ancient times and its return on the
yearly anniversary. That anniversary is today. He is smart enough to
be terrified and look for escape. He is desperate to escape Sarnath
before nightfall, before the Doom returns.
232
The Doom Sarnath and Ib

“Not far from the gray city
Long ago, Sarnath was a vast city of more than 50 million human
of lb did the wandering
inhabitants. These people first came down the river Ai. Discover- tribes lay the first stones of
Sarnath, and at the beings
ing another, inhuman race inhabiting the area, the beings of Ib, the
of lb they marveled greatly.
newcomers put them to the sword and settled the land for their own. But with their marveling
was mixed hate, for they
The beings of Ib were a rubbery, inhuman bug-eyed amphibian
thought it not meet that
race that had no speech, known to have descended from the moon in beings of such aspect
should walk about the
a gray mist thousands of years before the first man set foot in Mnar.
world of men at dusk. Nor
Still, they were benign, neither trading nor engaging in conflict with did they like the strange
sculptures upon the gray
humans, instead keeping to their revels and secret plans. Their only
monoliths of Ib, for why
crime was ugliness, and their possession of a prime freshwater lake those sculptures lingered so
late in the world, even until
which the humans coveted.
the coming men, none can
The beings of Ib worshipped their god Bokrug, the water liz- tell; unless it was because
the land of Mnar is very
ard. Their god did not assist them when the humans burned and
still, and remote from most
destroyed them, toppling their city and erasing their buildings with other lands, both of waking
and of dream.
an industry and power the beings of Ib could not counter. The
humans killed every member of that inhuman race and captured the “As the men of Sarnath
beheld more of the beings
idol of their god.
of lb their hate grew, and it
This green, roughly hewed statue was set in the temple of Sarnath was not less because they
found the beings weak, and
to be the centerpiece of celebrations of victory over the Ibians. But
soft as jelly to the touch of
that night something horrific occurred. Strange glowing lights were stones and arrows. So one
day the young warriors, the
seen over the lake, and in the morning the high priest was found slain
slingers and the spearmen
in the temple, having marked the temple with the symbol for DOOM and the bowmen, marched
against lb and slew all
in his own blood.
the inhabitants thereof,
Worse yet, the huge statue of the lizard god had vanished. pushing the queer bodies
into the lake with long
For the next ten centuries, Sarnath soared in size and beauty,
spears, because they did
becoming the largest and most opulent city in Mnar. It was a center not wish to touch them.”
of trade and learning, and a vast priesthood and class of sages rose
H.P. Lovecraft, “The Doom
up in a huge temple district. Thousands came from all over to see that Came to Sarnath”
the beauty and amazing architecture of the city and to trade with the
caravans which converged there.
On the thousandth anniversary of the destruction of the beings
of Ib, doom struck Sarnath. During the yearly celebration of the
destruction of Ib, heavy mists rolled into the city and the people
became maddened with fear. Many fled, reporting sightings of the
233
long-dead beings of Ib as they danced and cavorted through the mist

covered streets, silently reveling in communion with their god.
A single night was all that was required to scour the world clean
of Sarnath and all who refused to flee. Those who returned found not
the greatest city of the known world but a marshy ruin of smashed
stones and gray grass. In the midst of the destruction sat the rough-
hewn statue of Bokrug, the water-lizard, its revenge realized at last.
The statue was moved nearby to the high temple of Ilarnek, where
dark rites were enacted to it to prevent further retribution against
man. Yet even this appeasement is not complete.
Every year on the anniversary of the destruction of Ib, strange
lights fill the lake. Ghostly, silent, rubbery beings dance in the long-
vanished streets, and the statue of the water-lizard god returns to the
ruins of Sarnath. Tonight, the night the Dreamers arrive in the ruins,
is that anniversary.
The Green Priests’ Plan

Since the discovery of the statue of Bokrug in the ruins of Sarnath
thousands of years ago, the Green Priests of the Onyx Temple of
Ilarnek have taken the task of containing, appeasing and controlling
the spirit of the water-lizard god. They carried the huge statue back
to Ilarnek, encased it in the Onyx Temple at the highest point of the
city, and surrounded it with wards, sigils and countersigns to prevent
Sarnath’s Doom from turning its power on Ilarnek, home to Sar-
nath’s descendants.
Every year, however, as the anniversary of the destruction of
Sarnath approaches, disturbances rock the temple. Shuddering
earthquakes violently shake the area surrounding the statue. All who
feel such disturbances know that Bokrug is waking and will soon be
hungry.
Luckily, the true source of Bokrug’s obsession seems to be Sar-
nath. On the anniversary, the statue transports itself to the ruins of
Sarnath. It presides over the ghostly lights and the spectacle of the
immaterial beings of Ib as they cavort and dance silently around the
lake. The next day it rematerializes in the Onyx temple, where it
234
sleeps again for a year.

Long ago, it was discovered that favor seemed to fall on the city
of Ilarnek when the blood of Sarnath was spilled there on the anni-
versary of the Doom. Those of Sarnathian descent were kidnapped
and sacrificed on the statue of Bokrug in exchange for a good crop,
healthy livestock and good trade. There was never any shortage of
heirs; the survivors of the Doom bred in great numbers in Ilarnek.
This practice persisted for nearly 800 years but it was bloody and
difficult and did not agree with their religion.
An even more potent formula was struck upon nearly two hundred
years ago. Using magic, the Green Priests managed to locate the
descendants of Taran-Ish, the priest who presided over the statue of
Bokrug a millennium before. Finding such a descendant was difficult,
and often took most of the year, but it make the sacrifice more effec-
tive. The sacrifice was bound on the shore of the Nameless Lake,
which would rise as the Doom returned. This type of sacrifice seemed
to please Bokrug greatly, and in the last two hundred years Ilarnek
has thrived like never before.
Uvan Go is the latest in a chain of offerings to the spirit of Bokrug
and the monstrous ghosts of the beings of Ib.
The Green Priests Attack

The five Green Priests who brought Uvan Go to Sarnath have
made camp on a hill in the mountains outside of the ruins. There they
burn what little wood they can find and watch the valley below. They
plan to stay until the morning and then return to Ilarnek. However,
to be certain nothing goes wrong, they are keeping a close eye on
their prisoner.
They see it if the Dreamers free Uvan Go. If the Dreamers and Go
seem to be making progress out of the valley, the priests step in to
prevent the prisoner’s escape, even if they must risk their own lives
to do so. To the Green Priests, the threat of Bokrug and the curse
of Sarnath is a very real thing. Their entire religion is predicated
on protecting their city from it. They are selfless zealots capable of
nearly any action to ensure that Uvan Go remains alive and within
235
the ruins of Sarnath until the coming of the Doom. Their magic
The Green points are enhanced by recent sacrifices and rituals.
Priests’ Spells If the Green Priests feel Uvan Go is under physical threat of harm
Black Box: Costs 24 magic
or death—that is, it seems the Dreamers or some threat not related
points and 1D8 SAN, and
takes three rounds. Two to the Doom might injure or kill the thief—they descend from their
or more magicians may
mountain overlook and attack.
combine MP to cast it, but
each must know the spell The first round of the encounter, at a distance of 30 feet, two of the
and each suffers the SAN
priests begin to cast the spell Stupefying Blast on the two Dream-
loss. This horrific magical
effect manifests as a ers with the greatest SIZ. This takes two rounds. In the first of the
floating cloud of monstrous
two rounds of that incantation, two other priests cast White Webs of
faces, brimstone and blue-
white magical power. It Soren to immobilize Uvan Go and anyone threatening them. The last
engulfs a single target and
priest defends his compatriots with his staff. If more than one priest
completely obscures the
victim from sight. It melts is killed, all remaining priests retreat and cast Black Box, targeting
and mutates the victim
the most dangerous Dreamers with the horrific effects of the spell.
to terrifying effect. The
victim’s INT and POW If the priests manage to immobilize the whole group, they bind
remain unchanged, but all
them all to leave them for the Doom. If the characters manage to
other stats are affected.
Roll 2D6 for STR, CON, SIZ, overcome the priests without killing them all, they can easily learn
DEX and APP. On each, if
from them the whole story of the Doom and Uvan Go. The priests
the result is even this 2D6
is added to the stat; if it fight to the death to keep Uvan Go alive, bound and in Sarnath for
is odd, it is subtracted. If
the Doom at nightfall.
any stat except APP goes
below 1, the target dies.
If the target survives, his
or her body is horrifically
The Green Priests
changed, with blights,
No. Str Con Siz Pow Dex DB MP HP
malformations and buboes
covering every available #1 16 6 11 13 17 +1D4 15 9
area of flesh. The victim #2 18 14 12 9 14 +1D4 21 13
becomes an unrecognizable
#3 8 6 12 9 14 — 12 9
monster. This effect is
permanent. #4 15 6 8 10 4 — 12 7
#5 10 9 13 12 3 — 32 11
(Continued.)
Skills in Common: Dodge (DEX x 2) + 10%, Hide 35%. Languages:
Ulet (Own) 55%, English 30%.
Attacks: Staff 41%, 1D8+db
Spells: Black Box, Stupefying Blast, White Web of Soren
236
Dealing With Uvan Go Stupefying Blast: Costs 16

magic points and 1D6 SAN
and takes two rounds to
Pulling the sickly man from the water is a chore. Once rescued, cast. A chaotic blast of
he chokes, coughs and sputters on the ground. This soon turns to blue and green energy is
sent up to 30 feet towards
wailing and shaking and crying. Anyone making a Spot Hidden roll the target, who must
or a Psychology roll spots the shackle marks on his arms and legs or successfully resist the
caster’s magic points on
notices him concealing them. the Resistance Table or be
Uvan is surrounded, and plans to use subterfuge and treachery to struck deaf, blind, mute,
and numb. Each hour after
either get the Dreamers to help him from the area or to steal enough being struck, the victim
from them to escape on his own. In his current state, with no boots can try to roll POW x 3%
or less. After succeeding
and little clothing, no food and no weapon, he will likely perish or be thrice in a row, the victim
killed before too long outside the ruins anyway. is cured.
He is wracked with dread. The story of Sarnath is not some vague, White Web of Soren: Costs
supernatural tale—it is a factual account of an actual event. Everyone 4 magic points per strand,
and 1D6 SAN and 1 round
in the Dreamlands who knows of Sarnath and the Doom that befell per strand of web. The
it are quite certain of its reality. Uvan is no different. As nightfall spell shoots a white ribbon
which wraps around a
approaches he becomes more and more frantic, searching for any way target up to 30 feet away.
out, like a rat caught in a trap. Each strand has 1D10
STR, cumulative. When
If confronted about the scars on his arms and legs he tells the this total exceeds the
Dreamers that the priests who bound him were rough and that he has target’s SIZ, the target is
immobilized and falls to
been wrongfully held captive a long time. (In fact he was held only the ground. The target may
for two nights. The marks are from prison sentences.) If challenged attempt to free himself
or herself each round
for his false emotions, he sobers and explains the Doom, frantically by resisting the strands’
looking to accelerate his escape from the area before nightfall. cumulative STR with his or
her STR on the Resistance
Table.
Attempting to Leave
Simply leaving Sarnath proves much harder than can be imagined,
especially with Uvan Go in tow. In fact, as long as the thief and
descendant of the priest of Sarnath is with the group or shadowing
the group, the Dreamers cannot leave. On a road that appears to lead
straight out of the ruins a greenish fog falls. After a while it becomes
clear the Dreamers and Uvan Go are walking deeper into the ruins
and toward the statue of Bokrug, not away. While crossing the lake
they swim or paddle through the fog only to land on the very shore
they tried to leave behind.
237
Worse yet, if they free Uvan Go—even if they refuse to let him
join them—he follows and must be physically restrained, knocked
unconscious or killed to keep him from tagging along.
Leaving Uvan Go Behind

This sounds simple but is not. Once the thief is freed from his
crucifix, he refuses to be separated from the Dreamers without the
group resorting to violence. Even then, he will shadow them and
attempt to follow them out of the area. The characters’ options are
outlined below.
If the Dreamers do manage to leave without Uvan Go in their
party or pursuing, movement outside the immediate area before
nightfall is sufficient to avoid the Doom. Most Dreamers will find
it hard to abandon such a pathetic figure to the power that seems to
grow as night falls, but self-preservation is a powerful sentiment.
Killing Uvan Go
Uvan Go is pathetic and difficult but is not a direct threat except
under the most isolated circumstances. Murdering him in cold blood
is possible only if a Dreamer fails a Sanity roll. Dreamers who suc-
ceed at the Sanity roll cannot bring themselves to attack him or allow
him to be killed. If they attack him despite succeeding at the Sanity
roll they lose 1/1D10 SAN for killing him or 1/1D4 if he runs away.
If Go is attacked while mobile, allow the thief a Dodge roll to
avoid the attack. If the thief survives, from that point on he will keep
his distance, and if pursued he falls back and shadows the Dreamers,
staying out of sight. They locate him only if they make a Spot Hidden
roll and Uvan Go fails a Sneak roll.
If the characters bind Go, it is likely that the Green Priests—fear-
ful of their offering being slain before the appointed time—will
attempt to save him by attacking the characters. The priests attack in
force armed with staves and magic. (See “The Green Priests Attack”
on page 235.)
238
Eluding Uvan Go
Eluding Uvan Go is unlikely. The thief is extremely clever and
watchful—he did not survive the Plaza of Snakes by being unob-
servant—and as desperate as he is, will easily outpace a group on
foot. Even if the Dreamers attempt to flee at high speed, Uvan Go
shadows the group, hoping to sneak in and rob them when they make
camp.
The Dreamers must roll Spot Hidden and Uvan Go must fail a
Sneak roll for them to locate him. Even then, the thief runs for cover
to start the whole shadowing attempt over again. Dreamers hoping to
run the thief down must beat his CON with theirs on the Resistance
Table. If Go wins, he outruns the pursuers and begins to shadow the
group again. If the Dreamers win, Go collapses, exhausted from the
pursuit.
Binding Uvan Go
Once Uvan Go is freed from his crucifix, he is extremely difficult
to truss up again. The Dreamers would need to either overpower him
or knock him unconscious to tie him up once more. If they attempt it,
they must make a group Luck roll. If this fails, Go can make a Dodge
roll against the attack.
If the thief’s Dodge roll succeeds, he flees the area and shadows
the group. (See “Eluding Uvan Go” for more details.) If he fails, the
attacks land normally. Once he is knocked unconscious, of course, it
is easy to bind Go up once more.
To grapple Uvan Go and bind him while he’s awake, the Dreamers
must make three Grapple rolls in a row. If they do, Go is held down
and may be bound. If the Dreamers fail at two Grapple attacks in a
row, Uvan Go struggles free and runs off.
Once tied up, if not silenced, Go swears and shouts at the Dream-
ers. If they ever intimate that they may kill him, Go begins to shriek,
repeating their threats. This draws the Green Priests down from their
mountain overlook to “save” their offering. (See “The Green Priests
Attack,” page 235.)
239
Walking Out North

If the Dreamers walk out of the ruins of Sarnath without Uvan
Go, the Green Priests do not interfere with them.
A worn track heads north. It becomes a broken cobblestone road.
As the land rises and levels out it becomes a finely maintained road of
newly placed stones with signs marking the distance to Ilarnek.
After a dozen or so miles, the Dreamers spy small, wooden guard
houses overlooking the road from nearby hills. The guards in these
hill forts wear the green sashes of Ilarnek and watch the path to Sar-
nath. The guards are affable and will share a fire with the Dreamers
and answer basic questions. Most speak some sort of English.
They are interested to hear what the characters saw or did in Sar-
nath, but in truth they don’t care to know too much. Most likely have
seen ghostly manifestations of the Doom in years before. For the
moment they feel safe enough, though. The road is relatively secure
and free from incursions by threatening wildlife and bandits.
If the Dreamers hope to find more civilized areas, the guards point
to Ilarnek. After ten days of walking along the road to the north the
characters will arrive at the grand, ancient city. In Ilarnek they can
find peace and safety—as long as the Doom does not descend. If the
Dreamers killed Uvan Go, the earth quakes and Bokrug descends
to avenge his people once again. Be sure to have priests in Ilarnek
lament that the untimely death of Uvan Go has doomed them all. If
the Dreamers escape, that knowledge costs them 1D6+1/1D20 SAN.
From Ilarnek the Dreamers might find transport by ship to Ilek-Vad
(page 196), Inquanok (page 114) or Lhosk (page 143).
Across the Nameless Lake

Crossing the Nameless Lake requires some fortitude or a vehicle.
Clever Dreamers might forge a primitive float from the rotted trees
found along the edges of the lake with a Boating or Sailing roll. Or
they might attempt to swim the distance. That needs two Swim rolls
or the swimmer suffers 1D4 HP damage from choking and must
begin again.
The lake itself is safe enough. Nothing lives within it and the
waters are relatively still, but it is cold and has an oily, ill taste. Suc-
240
cessfully crossing the water brings the Dreamers, cold and wet, to a
series of low hills to the south. From this vantage point, the spires of
Akurion near the ruins of Sarnath are the only signs of habitation.
The only way out of the valley is further up into the hills. Away
from Sarnath the land becomes more verdant and treacherous. The
Dreamers must travel great distances back and forth to avoid dead-
falls and huge clumps of stinging nettles.
Soon, the Dreamers come to the place where the hills drop off
to the south and fall into a great, open plain of nothing. The view is
disconcerting. The trees and grasses fade below them as the hills
descend and lead out into a vast, open plain broken only by the
distant grey horizon. It is a formless plain of dust, not quite a desert,
with no trees, structures or visible landmarks.
Wise Dreamers should be filled with dread. Any NPCs urge the
party to turn back.
Dreamers foolish enough to continue south find days and days of
emptiness—they spy not a single living thing. As they move further
south, the sun becomes an odd, wan, indistinct shape in the sky, and
the moon at night seems to loom larger and larger.
Finally, the Dreamers come upon a crack in the ground, the first
natural landmark spied since the hills. The further south they go, the
more cracks they spy, and these cracks seem to intertwine to form
larger, cube-shaped sections of land the size of towns. Each tilts
slightly, as if they were slammed together by some huge force, like
children’s blocks hastily shoved together. At last, at the most terrible
distance from civilized lands, when the Dreamers have been tread-
ing on the cobblestones of the world, they come to the edge of the
Dreamlands themselves.
There, they can goggle over the edge of the world. At the south-
ernmost extent the building-blocks of the world have dropped away
in an uneven zig-zag of cubes, which simply end at the blankness of
the void. (Cost: 1/1D10 SAN.) Here, at night the moon seems to fill
the sky, while by day the sun is nothing but an oblong blue-white
speck. Dreamers who turn back north find themselves at Sarnath in
no time. Those who explore over the edge of the world plummet into
the abyss and are lost forever.
241
Doom
“Then, close to the hour of
Manifestations
midnight, all the bronze
gates of Sarnath burst
open and emptied forth
of the Doom
Those trapped in the loop of “leaving” are subject to any manner of
a frenzied throng that
blackened the plain, so mystical manifestations. As darkness falls a green miasma of fog rises
that all the visiting princes
and these manifestations grow in power and appearance until they
and travelers fled away
in fright. For on the faces rise up and begin to consume the party one by one. It is important for
of this throng was writ a
the Keeper to construct a clear narrative here of the group wandering
madness born of horror
unendurable, and on their through the fog and occasionally being separated and frightened by
tongues were words so
visions.
terrible that no hearer
paused for proof. Men
whose eyes were wild
with fear shrieked aloud
Becoming Separated
of the sight within the Dreamers not remaining with their group are likely to become lost.
king’s banquet-hall, where
Every time a character sets off to complete some task alone in the
through the windows
were seen no longer the mist, he or she must make a Luck roll. Failure indicates the character
forms of Nargis-Hei and
is lost in the smoke, unable to locate the other Dreamers. If it suc-
his nobles and slaves, but
a horde of indescribable ceeds, the lone character finds the group again after a few minutes of
green voiceless things with
frantic searching and shouting.
bulging eyes, pouting,
flabby lips, and curious Uvan Go, for his part, clutches at the strongest Dreamer and
ears; things which danced
refuses to let go. He constantly urges the group forward, and to
horribly, bearing in their
paws golden platters set remain together, and openly states his fear of things in the mist.
with rubies and diamonds
and containing uncouth
flames. And the princes and The Ghostly Procession
travelers, as they fled from
The Dreamers are overtaken by a seeping green-gray mist which
the doomed city of Sarnath
on horses and camels and seems to subsume them and obscure sight. All Spot Hidden rolls are
elephants, looked again
halved. Soon, they begin to hear distant sounds. Those making Listen
upon the mist-begetting
lake and saw the gray rolls recognize the beat of a drum and the clatter of tambourines.
rock Akurion was quite
Soon shadows appear in the fog, dancing and moving in line, but
submerged.”
never clearly seen, marching off into the smoke. No matter how the
H.P. Lovecraft, “The Doom
characters pursue, they cannot overtake this procession, though it
that Came to Sarnath”
can be clearly heard. (Cost: 0/1 SAN.)
The shadows cavort and shout in an alien language, but as the
procession winds along they begin to shout in unison a word that
Uvan Go at least understands: “BOKRUG! BOKRUG!” This chant
rises in madness until it reaches a deafening crescendo, and then sud-
242
denly stops mid-word. The shadows, too, instantly vanish. (Cost: 0/1
SAN.)
Those searching the mist who make (halved) Spot Hidden rolls
come upon the remnants of the procession: discarded masks, sticks
of incense (still warm), confetti and a black liquid which seems to be
blood. No people can be seen.
The Beings of Ib
This manifestation only occurs to a separated party member. As
the lone Dreamer wanders in the mist, seeking the group, he or she
hears the squelching footsteps of something large and wet. With a
Listen roll the Dreamer can tell this creature, whatever it is, walks on
two legs.
Soon, the smell arrives, the dank and rich odor of something rot-
ting in a lake. The footprints continue to shadow the dreamer’s own,
and if the character shouts (either to their group or as a warning) he
or she hears a low moaning croak in response.
This croaking voice begins to sound out more and more often,
building into a ululation that finally can be discerned as laughter.
(Cost: 0/1 SAN.) The wet sound of slapping feet rushes toward the
243
Dreamer. If the Dreamer turns to run, he or she comes face-to-face

with an aquatic horror. The being from Ib has huge, blank eyes, wide
fish-lips, gills and scaly gelatinous skin. It clutches the shoulders of
the Dreamer and croaks in his or her face, emitting the foulest stench
the character has ever experienced. (Cost: 1/1D8 SAN.) Then the
being flaps off into the mist again.
The Dreamer must make a CON x 2% roll or fall to the ground
retching. As he or she recovers, the rest of the group stumbles across
the Dreamer, but the being from Ib cannot be found. If the appear-
ance of the creature is related to Uvan Go, the hardened criminal
breaks down weeping, shouting, over and over, “The doom! The
doom!”
If the lost Dreamer makes the CON x 2% roll, he or she can attack
the being from Ib. It moves more slowly than a human and can be
destroyed without too much trouble. The other Dreamers find the
missing one afterward.
A Being from Ib
Flapping squelcher
DEX 10 Move 7/8 swimming HP 12
Damage Bonus: none.
Attacks: Paws (two attacks) 40%, 1D4
Armor: None.
Sanity Loss: 0/1D6
Bokrug
This happens only to an isolated Dreamer. Something huge shifts
in the fog. With a Listen roll the Dreamer hears the crunch and clat-
ter of rocks and the sound of something like canvas pulled across a
stone floor. The ground shakes and the dreamer stumbles.
Something heavy and enormous moves towards the Dreamer. Fear
begins to build, leaving the Dreamer breathless and ready to run. A
smell gathers and becomes overwhelming, a musty stench of some-
thing long dead but still ripe. (Cost: 0/1 SAN.) The character must
make a Luck roll or be overcome by the need to flee, to be anywhere
244
but here. The sounds become more and more frequent, as does the
power of the earthquake.
The Dreamer is drawn to a globe of white glowing in the mist. As
the Dreamer approaches, it appears to be an opalescent stone the size
of a shield, embedded in rough rock. It glows with an unnatural blue-
white light. If the Dreamer touches it, a smaller, darker circle spins
into view on the stone and focuses on the Dreamer, and it takes only a
moment for the character to realize that it is an eye. (Cost: 1/1D6
SAN.)
By the time the character realizes the truth, that he or she is on
monstrous Bokrug, it is too late. The creature shifts, sending the
Dreamer flailing into the fog, falling down the beast and off to the
ground (1D4+1 HP damage). The white eyes rise up to an incredible
height, focused on the Dreamer, and then rushes down as if going in
for the kill (1/1D4 SAN).
The killing blow never comes. Bokrug is gone. The character is left
in the silent fog, looking for his or her compatriots.
245
The Consumption
of Uvan Go
A gathering terror engulfs the group if they are unfortunate
enough to still be in the company of Uvan Go when the last rays of
sunlight disappear from the valley of Sarnath. Sounds slowly fill the
air: chanting, a relentless drumbeat, exploding fireworks, and the
fevered shouts of worshippers in an odd language. Finally, horrifi-
cally, Uvan Go is struck and paralyzed by some force, and a ghost
world falls in around the characters. (Cost: 1/1D4 SAN.)
The Dreamers are surrounded by a magical shadow of Sarnath as
it once was, overlapping the ruins at their feet, restoring the city to its
former glory. Ghosts dance in the streets, cavorting outside the trans-
parent outlines of a vast and ornate temple to celebrate their long-ago
destruction of Ib and its beings. These ghost citizens smile and laugh
but do not react to the characters. Instead they walk straight through
them. (Cost: 0/1 SAN.)
Uvan Go, foaming at the mouth, begins to shake, and then begins
to change. He transforms into a ghost-like image of his lost ances-
tor Taran-Ish, the high priest of ancient Sarnath, and then seems
to fall in step with the other ghostly inhabitants of the city. (Cost:
1/1D4 SAN.) He wears the illusion of Taran-Ish’s form like a spectral
blanket, but those looking closely with a Spot Hidden roll can see
Uvan Go trapped in this illusion, his eyes wide, pleading and full of
consciousness. (Cost: 0/1 SAN.)
Pulling Uvan Go from this pre-described course is not possible.
Attempts to stop him or block his way cause the character interfer-
ing with his path to be flung backwards as if struck by a STR 60
hand, suffering 1D8+1D4 HP damage. The only thing which can
interrupt the chain of events moving forward past this point is killing
Uvan Go. Doing so dooms Ilarnek to the wrath of Bokrug. Realizing
afterward that by killing Uvan Go they have killed Ilarnek itself costs
1D6+1/1D20 SAN.
Playing out the illusion, Uvan Go/Taran-Ish enters the temple and
within it finds the actual statue of Bokrug, not a ghostly illusion. The
246
“priest” considers the idol. He stands before it for a long time. He

stands until his head cocks to one side, his mouth goes slack and his
ghost eyes widen.
Finally, he pulls a ghost knife from his belt and his face, cracked
with an odd smile, tilts to one side. Uvan Go/Taran-Ish slides the
ghost knife into his own stomach, upward into the depths of his
chest. The transparent blade cuts the real flesh, and real blood wells
out. (Cost: 1/1D4 SAN.) He crumples to the ground and the illusions
vanish as the blood pours from the wound. Uvan Go dies in seconds,
leaving the Dreamers in the sudden darkness of the ruins of Sarnath,
devoid of anything living save themselves. Even the statue of Bokrug
is gone. The cycle of the Doom has spun once more, and Ilarnek and
the descendants of Sarnath remain safe for one more year.
247
Chapter Twelve
THE ENCHANTED WOOD - ULTHAR - THE ZOOGS -
OF THE TWO DREAMS, NIGHT AND DAY
“You dweller in the dark cabin,

Rise, since rising will not waken,
And hail, cry hail, cry hail.”
—Wallace Stevens, “Hymn from a Watermelon Pavilion”
Dreamers searching for a gate to the waking world will find many
who know of such a passage. But none exist in civilized realms
except the gate in the Enchanted Wood, located near the town of
Ulthar on the River Skai. Most who are asked know where this city
lies and will gladly direct travelers there.
Ulthar and What Is

Known of the Gate
It is well known that the Enchanted Wood contains a gate to the
waking world of Earth. The city of Ulthar, a peaceful place occupied
by traders and farmers on the River Skai, is the nearest and larg-
est settlement to the Enchanted Wood. This place is crawling with
Earthly dreamers, those who find their way to the Dreamlands every
night and who remain for only a few hours, days or weeks before
disappearing back to the “real world.” Everyone in the city is quite
used to people from Earth and their customs, beliefs and languages.
The city is a cluster of winding red and white houses, bulging with
upper stories that follow winding streets. It is picturesque, peaceful
and beautiful, built around the single huge stone edifice of a temple
to the Elder Ones, which sits upon the hill in the center of the city,
covered in ivy.
The main law of the city is this: None may kill a cat. These intel-
ligent creatures converse with humans if they care to, and live off
the good graces of the locals, who consider them both good luck and
248
Chapter Twelve: Ulthar and the Enchanted Wood
a deterrent to evil magics. Because of the law, the city is covered in

cats. The second law, more recent, forbids drinking alcohol anywhere Subtle Changes
in Ulthar. Locals are quick to inform visitors of the rules.
Off to the northeast, down the river Skai, the rolling vast green of change to allow players a
the Enchanted Wood is visible from nearly every eastern part of the
city.
• The favorite meal served
Locals believe there is a gate to Earth in the Enchanted Wood,
by natives of Ulthar.
and that dreamers emerge from the woods and walk to the city. But
• The color of the vines
beyond that they know very little. It slowly becomes evident that no
that coat the temple of
one in Ulthar has seen a gate—not even the dreamers from Earth! the Elder Ones.
They have simply surmised, over the years, that since dreamers from
• The shape of the
Earth emerge from the woods, a gate must be there. sign that marks the
burgomaster’s office.
The locals also share the inconvenient fact that no one can enter
the Enchanted Wood. Those who enter find themselves turned about • The flavor of the drink
that Ultharians have
by magic and emerge as they came, completely confused. Those who
adopted since they
have stood at the threshold of the forest have seen the comings and abandoned liquor.
goings of the Zoogs. These tiny, evil creatures haunt the woods and
are a threat in the area surrounding the forest. Inquiries into breach-
ing the barrier have been, at best, spotty.
When dreamers “return” to Earth, more often than not they simply
dematerialize while asleep in Ulthar or its surroundings, vanishing in
a wisp of smoke. Such a sight is not at all unusual. None re-enter the
wood or have any cause to do so.
Settling into Ulthar

Arrival in Ulthar is easy. There are no guards, no walls and no
security to speak of. People wander in and out through the fields
of wheat that grow around the city, and simply walk in, often with
locals offering a hearty “Hello!” or “Good morning!” or cats swarm-
ing visitors and rubbing up against their feet.
Often the streets are packed with dreamers, all clothed in identical
linens and each wearing the same waterskin and small pack, as if it
were a uniform. Some streets are clogged with dreamers of every race
and from every country on Earth, who wander with grins of their
faces through the beautiful city. At night the city is silent except for
249
the quiet patter of cats’ paws. Dreamers often vanish the night after
Menes’ Prayer they arrive. Still others remain for days or weeks of local time, sleep-
“On the third morning
ing in the fields, in barns or in spare rooms, living off the good will of
of the wanderers’ stay
in Ulthar, Menes could the locals. The locals think nothing of this. It is the way of the city.
not find his kitten; and
Player characters hoping to settle into Ulthar find ready accom-
as he sobbed aloud in
the market-place certain modations simply by asking. There are no taverns or inns to speak of,
villagers told him of the
and money does not change hands for such things in Ulthar. With the
old man and his wife,
and of sounds heard in elasticity of the dream, there is always room and food enough for all.
the night. And when he
heard these things his
Finding and Questioning

sobbing gave place to
meditation, and finally to
prayer. He stretched out
Fellow Dreamers
his arms toward the sun
and prayed in a tongue no
villager could understand;
though indeed the villagers Dreamers from Earth are a common sight in Ulthar. They are
did not try very hard to
completely recognizable, due mostly to the look of awestruck wonder
understand, since their
attention was mostly on their faces and their similar dress. Their smiles and laughter are
taken up by the sky and
without care, unlike the more work-a-day residents of the city, who
the odd shapes the clouds
were assuming. It was very glance at them with occasional bemusement as they pass.
peculiar, but as the little
Travelers from Earth are cared for by the good graces of the
boy uttered his petition
there seemed to form locals—such is one of the laws of Ulthar. Dreamers are fed, clothed
overhead the shadowy,
as needed, and even outfitted for adventure in the world beyond, if
nebulous figures of exotic
things; of hybrid creatures they wish. Ulthar has long been a trade capital due to the huge influx
crowned with horn-flanked
of people. The people of Earth draw many foreigners to trade and set
disks. Nature is full of such
illusions to impress the up shop in such a bustling city. The dreamers themselves are a tourist
imaginative.”
attraction.
H.P. Lovecraft, “The Cats of The player characters can easily find a pliable traveler from Earth
Ulthar”
on the winding streets of Ulthar and question him or her. However,
these people are difficult to manage, wistful and distracted by their
new surroundings. Getting one to sit still and answer questions
proves extremely hard.
Where did you come from?

The Dreamer woke in the Enchanted Wood, in a copse of trees,
alone, fully clothed, near the largest and oldest tree they had ever
seen. Some dreamers report being woken by whispering, and being
frightened by small, glowing yellow eyes in the underbrush. Some
250
report being drawn away from danger by a lone cat who called to
them. Others followed the light out of the Enchanted Wood. All
arrived in the daytime.
How did you arrive in the Dreamlands?

The dreamer does not know. Each woke beneath the huge, old
tree. They do not recall their method of entry. Their memories of
Earth are spotty—like trying to recall a dream—though they know
they are not from this place. They can recall their cities of origin,
their names, their professions, and little else except the vaguest
outlines of their lives.
What did you see in the Enchanted Wood?

Besides the yellow eyes and the whispering, nothing but an unoc-
cupied forest of verdant green, covered in mushrooms, fungus and
rich plants. Upon emerging from the wood, the first sight in the
distance is beautiful Ulthar on the hill. There are small villages along
the way, but their locals all sent the Dreamers towards the city.
The Burgomaster Kranon

The leader of the city is the aged and wise Burgomaster Kranon,
who makes his office at the base of the temple to the Elder Ones.
The office is a rickety wooden structure built in the fashion of the
city, with little concern for physics. It hangs improbably forward as
if it drunk. There are no guards, lieutenants or clerks, only Kranon
behind a huge desk carved from a single piece of golden wood. On
the desk, blue-black books bulge with thick pages, stuffed with notes
and pictures, scrolls and writs. His pen is carved from ivory and
appears to be a lizard and cat intertwined in combat. The tip of the
cat’s claw is the ink hold.
Visitors find themselves at the mercy of Kranon’s booming voice.
He seems to run things in Ulthar. Name? Place of birth? Age? He rails
off a litany of questions, writing each answer down in his huge,
blue-black book. Once these essentials are done, Kranon, pleased,
becomes more pliable.
251
It is his job, he says, to mediate disputes within the city and to see
to the needs of dreamers that exceed the provenance of the locals. He
is burgomaster for life, having been appointed nearly eighty years
before—though he looks no more than sixty himself—by the Keeper
of Dreams.
Kranon can explain the rules of the city, the source of the dream-
ers, the rules about killing cats, the ban on alcohol, the danger of the
Zoogs to those near the Enchanted Wood, and function of the Keeper
of Dreams. (See page 254.)
Kranon takes particular interest in the Dreamers and their story.
He seems to know immediately when a character is being truthful or
evasive, and those who tell the absolute truth find the Burgomaster
a valuable ally. He confirms the connection between the Men from
Leng and the dark lord Nyarlathotep; and that long before, such
creatures were banished from Ulthar and surrounding areas by a
powerful magical curse by an unknown god. (The same curse ban-
ished the creatures of the Underworld forever to the depths.) No
Men from Leng may cross the borders of the city proper.
Kranon advises the characters to outfit themselves and seek the
Keeper of Dreams—for if there is a story more deserving of his favor,
Kranon has not heard it. Once they find the Keeper of Dreams they
can continue on with whatever gift he might grant them.
Kranon the Burgomaster of Ulthar

Public Servant of the Mystical City, age 112
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Conceal 33%, Credit Rating 99% (within Ulthar), Cthulhu Mythos
3%, Fast Talk 55%, History (Ulthar) 96%, Law 80%, Navigate
(Ulthar and Environs) 99%, Persuade 25%. Languages: Talunen
(Own) 85%, English 40%.
Attacks: None.
Abilities: Due to the nature of his employment, Kranon is granted
many special powers within the city limits of Ulthar. He knows
252
nearly everything there is to know about the city, including the

names of all its inhabitants and whether someone within Ulthar is
being truthful or lying.
Items: The Key to Ulthar. This magical item is only usable by Kra-
non. It can open any door within the city of Ulthar, and can grant
Kranon instant passage between any two doors within the city. He is
not at all shy about using this power to impress.
Kranon is a huge man, built more sideways than vertically, and his
blue eyes glitter from beneath his bushy silver eyebrows. He wears a
spade beard of blond, though more and more the silver creeps in, and
has a solid set of yellow teeth like a picket.
He wears a red and white cassock along with a leather jerkin, and
an inordinate amount of bronze jewelry. (This is traditional, a gift
from city elders on a yearly basis, and indicates his great age). His
hat is shaped in a T and hangs on his head in a manner which sug-
gests it is always about to fall off.
Kranon was born in Ulthar 112 years ago to two farmers on the
edge of the Enchanted Wood. In childhood he had many dealings
with the tiny, terrifying creatures known as the Zoogs, who once
wandered far beyond the edge of the woods.
In his twenty-fifth year, Kranon took up residence in Ulthar,
becoming a clark at the temple. He served for many years and
became a just and well-liked politician. He met the Keeper of Dreams
in his 32nd year and was granted a key to the ramshackle cottage at
the base of the temple of the Old Ones. Inside he found the garments
of the burgomaster, and realized his greatest wish had been fulfilled.
Since then he has served the city, and the spirit which guards it, loy-
ally.
Kranon is concerned only with performing the functions of his job
and title. He will do anything, even give his life, to fulfill that goal.
253
The Keeper of Dreams

All locals know of the Keeper of Dreams. This person is a secretive
magician known to haunt isolated areas of the city, who offers people
a magical trinket which grants their deepest desires. Few can articu-
late how they know the Keeper of Dreams exists, or where, only that
such knowledge is certain. It is more than a local legend; it is inher-
ent and magical knowledge.
Those searching for something in Ulthar (like say, a way to get
into the Enchanted Wood), particularly those from Earth, are direct-
ed to search the city for the Keeper of Dreams. The locals can’t say
how to find the Keeper, but say that those who deserve such a reward
will always find it.
The Keeper of Dreams is in fact a spiritual force that takes human
form and haunts the streets of Ulthar, magically assisting those in
true need. In the last decade or so, the Keeper of Dreams has hid-
den in the open as a plaintive drunk who sleeps in the gutters of the
streets of the city, overlooked. Clothed in rags, clutching an empty
bottle, he fades into the background for those not paying careful
attention. Many simply step over him in their search for the power,
never thinking it is under their feet.
Dreamers who search for the Keeper of Dreams find nothing but
dead ends, empty rooms and people who have no idea who or what
the creature might be. Those paying careful attention may notice that
this particular drunk is the only one in the city. There are no others,
and with alcohol banned there are no ready spirits to be found. The
Dreamers might find the rosy-cheeked drunk who always reeks of
wine strange.
Waking the Keeper of Dreams reveals the drunk to actually be
a sober, witty, wry soul. So, you have found me. His demeanor is one
of immense power and responsibility. His charm, intelligence and
impression of power make it clear he is something much greater than
a common drunkard.
254
Attacks against him are useless. They lead only to the attacker
looking foolish.
The Keeper of Dreams knows that the Dreamers seek a portal
back to Earth, and possibly a restoration of their Earthly forms, and
that they seek revenge there on Mr. Lao. He grants them a trinket:
a small diamond set in the ellipse of an eye, a blue-white stone that
twinkles even in absolute darkness.
This is the key to the Wood. With it, you can cross the threshold. It will not
protect you from what haunts that space, however, and it is only of use at night.
Fear the things that move in the dark. They have allies from beyond this world.
With that, the Keeper of Dreams tips his hat and walks away.
Watchful Dreamers see him transform into a small boy, pulling along
a wooden toy duck, before he turns a corner and is gone. (Cost: 0/1
SAN.)
255
Drawing Them to the

Keeper of Dreams
Often, getting players to follow leads is like, if you’ll excuse the
expression, herding cats. Here are some suggestions to keep them
engaged in the search for the elusive Keeper of Dreams. Burgomaster
Kranon is a strong ally in this cause, but there are other methods.
The Cats: The cats of Ulthar are legendary, known far and wide for
their wisdom and humor. The cats’ magic might reveal the Dreamers’
special origins. From that point on, the cats can become allies, offer-
ing hints, leading the Dreamers places and generally assisting in the
search for the Keeper of Dreams. The cats can also reinforce the fact
that the Keeper of Dreams is indeed a real thing. If Arram was intro-
duced in Ilek-Vad, he may be used here to great effect. Of course, if
he accompanied the Dreamers his quest to return to his people might
play out here to good effect. (See “Arram, Cat Apostate,” page 200.)
Reveal the Keeper But Require a Test: Dreamers that simply fail to
search might find themselves face-to-face with the Keeper of Dreams
anyway, but he may require a test of will before awarding their deep-
est wish.
The Keeper of Dreams sends them to an isolated clearing at the
edge of the Enchanted Forest to recover a single flower called the
Kalixys, which grows in a cursed spot. He gives the Dreamers a map
and says that only access to that small portion of the Enchanted
Wood is permitted. Those who stray from the path will be lost
forever. (See “The Stone Door to the Underworld” on page 259.) If
the Dreamers return with the flower, they are granted the mystical
trinket by the Keeper of Dreams.
Lead Them By the Nose: Sometimes it just comes down to making
the players feel clever even if they are failing to be clever. Repeatedly
and subtly peppering the conversation with references to the drunk-
ard and the lack of alcohol in the city, along with the fact that the
Keeper of Dreams is indeed a real force in Ulthar, should eventually
do it.
256
The Enchanted Wood

This enormous forest is obviously magical in nature. It is vast, roll-
ing over hills to the northeast of Ulthar, bordered by mountains on
one end and by the River Skai on the other. The areas surrounding it
are populated with sleepy farms and villages, each little more than a
simple crossroads at a mill or a large barn.
The locals here are much less friendly than in Ulthar, and the
influence of the Zoogs—who sometimes travel outside the forest at
night—is clear. The simple farmers are fraught with superstition,
eager to identify visitors and see them out. They lack even the basic
reflex of hospitality. They are used to newcomers wandering out of
the woods, and will try to direct the Dreamers to Ulthar. They are
not at all used to anyone moving toward the forest, and assume such
individuals are up to magic or mischief.
Approaching the woods, the farms fall into disrepair, leading final-
ly to rolling fields of high green grass that rises to waist height. The
257
trees of the Enchanted Wood are like a wall. There are no outliers,
simply a clear line of great trunks whose canopy completely envelops
in darkness what is underneath. It is beautiful and intimidating.
Dreamers attempting to enter the Enchanted Wood without the
trinket from the Keeper or Dreams or his map to the Stone Door
find themselves turned around by some subtle but inextricable force.
Within fifty feet of walking in they find themselves emerging from
the forest at the same point they entered. This power is impossible to
counteract with logic, markings, string, maps or any other method.
Even magical means such as teleportation and Directed Dreaming
seem unable to break the effect of the enchantment.
If they find and wait at the point just before they become turned
around they can stand there indefinitely. The trees are huge and
close together, broken up occasionally by paths and clearings lit by
glowing mushrooms. Dreamers making Listen or Spot Hidden rolls
can detect the Zoogs. These creatures hover at the periphery of the
light, watching the Dreamers with interest. They make no attempt to
interfere until the Dreamers enter deeper into the Enchanted Wood.
(See “The Haunt of the Zoogs” on page 261.)
Occasionally, and only during the day, a new dreamer from Earth
can be found wandering out from the perimeter of the forest. The
newcomer is inevitably alone, clothed in a basic linen garment, car-
rying a waterskin, a pack filled with leavened bread, and a walking
stick. He or she is friendly and talkative but remembers little of what
happened between slumbering on Earth and arriving in the woods.
If asked about the items, the newcomers tend to laugh and then
look confused, as if the answer was obvious but suddenly forgotten.
On a group Luck roll, the newcomer might utter, “The . . . man . . .
gave them to me.” If this line of questioning is pursued, the rest is a
complete blank. All dreamers questioned say they are to go to the city
of Ulthar, and seem to know where it is, though how and why they
know this they cannot say.
Player characters that enter the Enchanted Wood with the trinket
from the Keeper of Dreams are not hindered as they walk deeper
into the forest. But they may find exploring the Enchanted Wood a
dangerous proposition.
258
The Stone Door to

the Underworld
Those sent on a quest by the Keeper of Dreams can follow his
map, as it clearly marks a path from the River Skai into the Enchant-
ed Wood. If they follow this path and do not deviate, they travel
safely through the Enchanted Wood without succumbing to the mys-
tical protection of the forest that turns uninvited travelers around.
The path winds through a stunted portion of the Enchanted Wood,
where the trees seem sickly, covered in blight and overcome with fun-
gus. The floor of the path is covered in small animal bones, discarded
armor and weapons (long since gone to the elements) and fresh
tracks which appear to be rat-like. Those who roll Listen or Spot
Hidden detect tiny creatures watching their progress and whispering
to one another in the darkness—the Zoogs. If the Keeper wants the
Zoogs to feature as a threat in this portion of the adventure, please
see “The Haunt of the Zoogs” on page 261.
Sickly ivy drapes the tree trunks and closes off the forest interior
in a screen. Dreamers may dig through this underbrush to look
deeper into the forest off the path. Those that do are met with a
magical sight. Through the screen of ivy, perhaps forty yards into
the forest underneath the canopy of trees, is a stone table. At that
table are three of the most beautiful creatures any of the Dream-
ers has ever seen. (Their sex matches the sexual proclivities of the
individual character seeing them.) These beings, bathed in a spectral
light, laugh and sing and drink wine. They do not acknowledge any
attempt at communication and continue their festivities no matter the
ruckus made.
Dreamers foolish enough to enter the underbrush vanish into
darkness and are never seen again.
Those who stick to the path find the clearing as it is marked on the
map. The clearing is very large, bordered by more healthy trees to
the north. A stone door hung with a giant iron loop is embedded in
the earth in the center of the clearing, and the grass around it is rot-
ted and dead, covered in fungus, weeds and unwholesome grey grass.
259
As the Dreamers near the stone

trap door, a stench begins to fill
their nostrils. Within fifty feet of
the stone door, the clearing reeks
of rotted meat and worse smells,
like wild animal dung and wet fur.
The tracks die off here. The clear-
ing is silent.
Dreamers who survived the
climb up the Tower of Koth in the
Gug City must make a SAN roll
upon seeing the trap door. Those
that fail are overcome with terror
and lose 1 SAN as they realize the
door in the center of the clearing
is the door that was blocked at the
peak of the Tower of Koth—the
place where they almost died—
which means the horrific city of
Gugs lies right beneath them.
Growing on top of the stone
door, from earth which surrounds
the iron loop, is a lone, beautiful,
thin flower. It rises more than two
feet and is lit by a spectral light.
This is the Kalixys, the flower
desired by the Keeper of Dreams.
Characters who simply rush up,
however, are in for a surprise.
The first Dreamer to come near
the door must make a Spot Hid-
den roll. Those that succeed spy
a crack in the ground beneath the
stone door, and within the shadow
two giant red eyes watching.
(Cost: 0/1D4 SAN.) The Gug has
260
wedged itself at the door, waiting for prey.

Coming near the door calls for a Luck roll. If it succeeds, the Gug
lashes out but cannot reach the character, and the huge arm smashes
around on the grass looking for prey (0/1D8 SAN), while smoking
foully from the ill effects of the Curse of the Underworld.
If the Luck roll fails, the Gug gets a claw attack roll. If it hits and
the target fails to Dodge, the Dreamer is grabbed and dragged slug-
gishly toward the crack. The Dreamers have three rounds to beat the
Gug’s STR in a resistance contest or inflict 10 HP damage to its claw
(past armor) before the caught Dreamer is dragged out of sight. If
they successfully resist or inflict 10 points damage, the claw releases
the Dreamer—but then the other claw on the same arm pushes out
and attacks! If the Dreamers avoid this one or inflict 10 damage to it,
the Gug’s arm retreats underground.
If a Dreamer is pulled underground the rest of the group gets to
hear him or her ripped to pieces and eaten alive. (Cost: 0/1D6 SAN.)
The Gug does not return.
The Gug Fisherman

Waiting Beneath the Stone Door for a Tasty Catch
Damage Bonus: +6D6
Attacks: Bite 60%, 1D10
Two claws 40%, 4D6
Armor: 8 points of matted hair, tough skin and cartilage.
Sanity Loss: 0/1D8
The Haunt of the Zoogs

The Zoogs are small, rodent-like creatures imbued with high intel-
ligence and powerful magical energy. Their faces appear mouse-like,
except their glowing eyes are large and bulbous. A Zoog’s muzzle
ends in a spray of multi-colored tentacles which seem to shift and
change as emotions play across the intelligent face.
The Zoogs are small and harmless in limited numbers. However, in
261
groups they are powerful, magical beings. They have a dark relation-
Zoog Spells ship with the moon and the creatures which inhabit it, such as the
Living X: Costs 8 Magic
moon-beasts, and through them, their dark lord Nyarlathotep. The
Points and 1D6 SAN and
takes 2 rounds to cast. Zoogs serve no entity in particular. They serve power.
This is a slight variation
Since the Dreamers’ escape from Sarkomand, the forces of Nyar-
on the usual version of
this spell powered by the lathotep have been searching the Dreamlands to capture or kill them.
Black Pharaoh himself;
The Zoogs have been contacted by the forces of the moon and have
any Dreamer who makes a
Listen roll distinctly hears agreed to search for the Dreamers. It’s been clear for some time the
the name “Nyarlathotep” as
Dreamers were attempting to find a portal back to Earth, such as the
part of the incantation. A
glistening pink, crystalline one that sits in the most Zoog-infested location in the Dreamlands,
shaft of energy shoots up
the Enchanted Wood.
to 30 yards at a target, who
must resist the caster’s Zoogs are cowardly and rely on their small size and stealth to steer
POW or be instantly
clear of direct confrontation with such enormous creatures as the
immobilized in an upright,
spread-eagled position. Dreamers. They do, however, reveal themselves if they believe the
The target can attempt to
Dreamers are disabled, unconscious, or otherwise secured. When
escape once per round by
rolling STR x 1%. Zoogs appear, they always arrive in groups of 2D6 or more, but
they immediately abandon any Zoog caught by a human. They are
Woeful Itch: Costs 4 Magic
Points and takes 1 round to untrustworthy creatures, each with its own individual agenda.
cast. A cloud of glittering
motes float to the target
who falls into a frenzy of An Average Zoog
scratching and tearing to
Tiny, Clever Mercenary for the Moon
halt the maddening itch.
The target is absolutely STR 3 CON 7 SIZ 2 INT 13 POW 11
incapacitated until he or
DEX 20 Move 8 HP 5
she rolls CON x 5%. The
target can try once per Damage Bonus: –1D6
round.
Skills: Climb 60%, Dodge 50%, Dream Lore 75%, Hide 70%, Sneak
70%, Track 50%. Languages: Zoog (Own) 65%, English 20%.
Attacks: Bite 30%, 1D4+db
Knife 25%, 1D6+db
Dart 20%, 1D6+half db
Spells: A leader of the Zoogs has POW 17 and knows the spells Liv-
ing X and Woeful Itch.
Armor: None.
Sanity Loss: 0/1D3
262
The Machinations
of the Zoogs
Those who enter the Enchanted Wood in search of an
exit to the waking world find their progress hampered by
the Zoogs. Direct confrontation is not their style. Instead
they use their magics to confuse and forestall the Dream-
ers and keep them from progressing deeper into the forest,
all the while summoning their allies, the moon-beasts.
One or all three of these “traps” can be flung at the
Dreamers, building in intensity towards nightfall. The
moon-beasts cannot appear during the day, but once night
falls the Dreamers find themselves confronted by a moon-
beast hunting party, in the Enchanted Woods, at night. A
terrifying proposition.
The Reflection
The Dreamers are drawn to a glowing pool of still water
by what sounds like distant city traffic. Each who looks in
the pool must roll POW x 2%. Those who succeed see a
black puddle with no reflection in it at all, glowing at its
edges, like a puddle of paint—dull and flat.
Those who fail the roll see the reflection of a New
York street, as if seen in a puddle on the street itself. In
the reflection, the Dreamer appears as his or her normal
Earthly self, but the Earthly body mimics all the move-
ments of its Dreamlands counterpart. Skyscrapers can
be seen in the background, as well as the tops of cars and
trolleys as they rush by. Other people pass, paying no
attention to the person staring into the puddle. Through
the reflection all the noises of a busy New York street can
be heard but they remain muffled and indistinct.
Dreamers that failed the roll are certain that they are
seeing the real New York in the reflection of the puddle,
and that entering the puddle will return them home. They
263
will do everything in their power to crawl into it. If the group is split
The Zoogs between seeing the illusion and those not seeing it, physical violence
“Out they swarmed,
or grappling will be necessary to prevent affected Dreamers from
from hidden burrow and
honeycombed tree, till the entering the puddle.
whole dim-litten region
Those not under the illusion see those affected by it crawl down
was alive with them. Some
of the wilder ones brushed into the black puddle, which comes to life and engulfs them. It covers
Carter unpleasantly,
every inch of skin, mouth and body, until they appear to be covered
and one even nipped
loathsomely at his ear; in a thin rubbery liquid. The puddle is big enough to engulf all the
but these lawless spirits
Dreamers. Witnessing someone being engulfed costs 1D4 SAN.
were soon restrained by
their elders. The Council Touching the liquid once you have resisted its magic poses no threat,
of Sages, recognizing the
but once engulfed the victim is beyond the help of companions.
visitor, offered a gourd
of fermented sap from a An engulfed Dreamer does not exactly struggle, but rolls lazily
haunted tree unlike the
on the ground, suffering one point of CON damage per minute. A
others, which had grown
from a seed dropt down Dreamer who reaches 1 CON collapses and the liquid peels away,
by someone on the moon;
leaving the victim unconscious and helpless on the forest floor. The
and as Carter drank it
ceremoniously a very victim cannot be roused. Dragging the character along is exhausting.
strange colloquy began.”
Only a Dreamer with STR in excess of the victim’s SIZ can do it.
H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream- Two characters may be required to carry a third.
In the engulfed character’s mind, he or she is in New York city.
The illusion is complete and perfect. No other Dreamers are around,
no matter how many of them “entered” at the same time—each
illusionary New York is separate. Those in the illusion may explore
their surroundings normally, though people in “New York” do not
engage with them. Passersby wave them off, covering their eyes with
theirs hat and walking away or just running in the other direction.
A Dreamer who looks for his or her reflection in a window or mir-
ror sees only his or her own normal face and form, nothing unusual
about it.
Otherwise the illusion is absolute. The victim can travel anywhere
in this perfectly imagined “New York.” Those with enough prescience
can travel to Mr. Lao’s restaurant in 1D10+5 minutes. They may even
explore it. The Tongs ignore them, turn away, or pretend they are
not there. Attacking someone in this vision is pointless. The fist or
weapon simply bounces off and the target walks away, unharmed. No
damage can be done.
The magic in the “pool” is powerful, and the Peach Blossom is a
264
perfect recreation of the actual location. It is so powerful that small

physical changes carry over to the real world. All details are there.
All books, items, locations and doors work perfectly, and the char-
acter has free rein within it. Clever characters might open a window
latch to allow themselves access to a private office in the future. Or
they might unload Mr. Lao’s automatic pistol or move his books.
Fires cannot be started; matches can be struck but the flame does not
catch and spread. Locating a phial of iodine or opium extract and
dumping it in a cup of tea in Mr. Lao’s room is an interesting pros-
pect, and remains up to the Keeper to mediate. Adjust Mr. Lao’s final
appearance in the campaign accordingly.
Each minute in the illusion, a Dreamer may make a POW x 1%
roll. If it succeeds the Dreamer wakes struggling in the puddle
of goo, which drops freely away, leaving the victim coughing and
sputtering. The effects of the CON drain remain. Those with CON
reduced below 3 make all skill and attribute tests at half chance. Half
the lost CON points lost are regained with one night’s rest, and the
rest with one more day of rest. Unfortunately, rest is not likely.
When night falls, the moon-beast hunting party arrives (see page
268).
Berries and Bodies

The Dreamers come upon several beautiful beings—apparently
adult humans of both sexes—unconscious in a meadow, covered in
giant, phosphorescent mushrooms. These beings are naked and lie
inert on the ground, eyes closed. Anyone seeing them is overcome
by an urge to rush to their assistance—each Dreamer must make an
Idea roll to stop and look around first.
Dreamers who stopped and who roll Spot Hidden see that the
beings have red on their hands and their mouth, and that reddish-
blue berries are scattered on the ground near their hands and heads.
The bushes around them are fragrant with a pungent yet alluring
sweet smell of ripe fruit.
Anyone touching a berry—or even the liquid from a berry—is
overcome with dizziness. The Dreamer must roll CON to resist a poi-
son of POT 15. If the roll fails, the Dreamer collapses into a stupor
265
on the grass, unconscious for 2D20 hours. See “The Reflection” for
the difficulties of moving an unconscious Dreamer about.
Those attempting to lift one of the beautiful beings find, to their
horror, that they rip and tear and pull apart like overripe fruit. The
bodies are mushrooms, grown and shaped in perfect mimicry of
unconscious human beings. A set of bones, long eaten free of flesh, lie
beneath them. (Cost: 1/1D6 SAN.)
The Silver Prison

The Dreamers see a bright light through the trees in the distance.
This light grows in intensity, rushing towards the characters sudden-
ly, no matter which direction they run or where they attempt to hide.
They soon see that it is a wall of silver cystal. It moves with bizarre
implacability, sliding smoothly across the ground and simply passing
through things too large for it to avoid. It moves so fast that it covers
a distance from the furthest visible point to the ground just before the
characters in seconds. It does all of this silently.
Dreamers facing away see the same thing approaching from all
directions. With a huge clang like a bell, the silver prison slams shut
on all sides in a shape like a malformed crystal. Its various facets
match the directions the characters were facing, and the direction
directly opposite, and connections between, and floor and ceiling.
(Cost: 1/1D4 SAN.) The ringing lasts for long minutes, very gradu-
ally becoming a hum, and then a barely audible after-sound which
hovers at the edge of hearing. Any time anything metal touches the
walls of the prison, a similar noise is heard, in proportion to the force
of the blow.
The entire prison suddenly shifts and then begins to move dramati-
cally, as if subjected to an earthquake. In between bouts of shaking
and tilting, the prison is still. Dreamers who fail to lie down on the
floor to avoid being flung about suffer 1 HP damage.
Through the walls, the world is a distorted mess of swimming
colors. Dreamers struggling to see clearly through the glass may do
so on a successful Spot Hidden roll. What they see is terrible. Some-
thing huge holds them and a giant yellow eye considers them from
266
outside the prison. (Cost: 1/1D6 SAN.) This is a Zoog. With magic,
the Zoogs have shrunken and trapped the Dreamers in a silver crys-
tal prison, an object no bigger than a grape. They plan to hand them
off to the moon-beasts at nightfall.
Clever Dreamers will explore the limits of the prison as the light
outside drifts from sunlight towards dusk. They soon note the odd
acoustics of the room, and those thinking on their feet will realize
that metal reacts strangely with the crystal. Every strike on the walls
of the crystal with a metal object causes an intense ringing noise.
Strikes with nonmetal objects or fists cause a duller sound. Striking
the same place twice causes that noise to rise. They can roll for dam-
age, though there’s no apparent harm. However, the noise is dreadful.
With each blow, every Dreamer must make a Listen roll. If it suc-
ceeds, the Dreamer suffers 1 HP damage or loses 1 SAN, player’s
choice. If the Listen roll fails, there’s no penalty beyond teeth-gritting
annoyance.
If the Dreamers inflict 100 HP damage on the crystal (metal weap-
ons inflict full damage; a non-metal object does minimum possible
damage), the prison shatters, dropping the group to the forest floor in
the middle of a startled group of 2D6 tiny Zoogs.
Any Dreamer can seize a Zoog with any unarmed attack roll as
the others scatter into the dark. The Zoogs speak many tongues,
including those of humans, and attempt to reason with their erstwhile
prisoners. Zoogs taken as tiny hostages will do anything to keep
themselves alive, including betraying their compatriots and leading
the Dreamers straight to the gate to Earth. A Zoog hostage should be
seen as an opportunity for exposition—they can explain all the traps
and the calling of the moon-beasts, and they can help the Dreamers
avoid the moon-beasts; and they are so tiny that they can be dis-
patched with the squeeze of a hand.
267
The Moon-Beast
Hunting Party
The moment night falls, a blue-white light arcs across the sky like
a shooting star. It drops into the Enchanted Wood with an explosion
that knocks the Dreamers from their feet. It is impossible to tell how
far away it fell, only that it was in the woods and was strong enough
to cause an earthquake.
The moon-beast hunting party has arrived. Silence fills the woods,
followed by an inhuman, glottal baying of some huge creature. This
is the Aok, the moon-beasts’ hunting animal. Two powerful moon-
beasts have brought it from the dark side of the moon to fulfill the
wishes of Nyarlathotep.
Dreamers holding a Zoog find it chattering to them in English. It
tells them that the moon-beasts have arrived and will find and drag
the characters back to the dark side of the moon. The Zoog points
with its tiny hand in the direction of the gate to Earth. It begs them
to run, for it knows the moon-beasts will show it no mercy.
Dreamers without the help of a captive Zoog can only flee the
sounds. Once the pursuit begins, it does not stop until the characters
are captured or they find the Steps of Deeper Slumber.
The Keeper should create a fun, terrifying pursuit. Consider how
much time the Dreamers lost to the traps of the Zoogs. If each trap
was effective, they lost hours, they are far from safety when the
moon-beasts arrive, and the pursuit is long, exhausting and risky.
If they overcame the traps quickly, they are nearer safety when the
moon-beasts arrive and their chances of escape are better.
Hunted!
Use this system if you prefer to give some dice-rolling suspense
to the chase. Play through the first stage of the pursuit with each
Dreamer making a DEX resistance roll against the Aok’s DEX as
they dodge past trees and vines. Each Dreamer who fails falls behind.
The Aok can make one limb attack against each Dreamer who fell
behind. If it hits, the Aok can attempt an engulf attack as well. At the
268
end of each round of combat with the Aok, there’s a 50% chance each
that the moon-beast hunter and priest catch up. Dreamers who aren’t Moon-Beast
engulfed or disabled can flee again. Spells
Living X: Costs 8 Magic
The Dreamers may be subject to further attacks. Think back on
Points and 1D6 SAN and
each of the three Zoog traps. Did the traps stymie the Dreamers or takes 2 rounds to cast.
This is a slight variation
did they get through them quickly? If one of the traps stymied them,
on the usual version of
each must make a STR x 5% roll to push past briars and brambles. If this spell powered by the
Black Pharaoh himself;
it fails the Dreamer either takes 1D6 damage from thorns and dead-
any Dreamer who makes a
falls or suffers another attack from the Aok. Listen roll distinctly hears
the name “Nyarlathotep” as
If two Zoog traps stymied the Dreamers, they must make CON x
part of the incantation. A
5% rolls to avoid exhaustion. If it fails, again they suffer attack by the glistening pink, crystalline
shaft of energy shoots up
Aok and the moon-beasts.
to 30 yards at a target, who
If all three Zoog traps stymied them, the Dreamers must find their must resist the caster’s
POW or be instantly
way swiftly through the darkness. Here’s how it works. At the outset
immobilized in an upright,
of the chase they can pick a leader to make one Navigation roll for spread-eagled position.
The target can attempt to
the group, or individual Dreamers can make their own Navigation
escape once per round by
rolls. Each Dreamer who fails the roll (or was following a leader who rolling STR x 1%.
failed) is overtaken by the Aok for a final time just before the end.
Moon-Beast Priest
Thing 1
DEX 7 Move 7 HP 17
Damage Bonus: +1D6
Attacks: None (it uses spells instead)
Armor: None, although the moon-beast takes the minimum possible
damage from impaling weapons.
Spells: Living X.
Sanity Loss: 0/1D8
269
Moon-Beast Hunter
Thing 2
DEX 7 Move 7 HP 20
Damage Bonus: +2D6
Attacks: Spear 41%, damage 1D8+1+db.
Armor: None, although the moon-beast takes the minimum possible
damage from impaling weapons.
Sanity Loss: 0/1D8
The Aok
The Moon’s Predator
DEX 10 Move 8 HP 27
Damage Bonus: +3D6
Attacks: Limb 30%, 1D6+1+db
Engulf 70%, 1D10
Once it strikes a victim with a limb, the Aok can make an engulf roll to con-
sume the target and then spit him or her out, covered in a disgusting sausage-
like skin that’s thin but seems impossible to break. The victim is trapped until
he or she rolls STR x 1% or has assistance from outside.
Armor: 4 points of bone, rotting flesh and goo; it takes minimum
damage from impaling weapons
Sanity Loss: 1D6/1D10
The Aok is a giant thing that appears to be a random mass of

limbs, fleshy webs and red-white bones shoved together haphazardly.
It looks like the remains from a slaughterhouse for giants, glued
together while it was rotting and somehow brought back to horrible,
stumbling life. It reorients, moves and shambles in any direction,
without any apparent sense organs or even a head. This beast follows
the guttural commands of the moon-beasts with a fierce tenacity. It
fears nothing.
270
The Steps of
Deeper Slumber
As the Dreamers stumble through the forest they find themselves
suddenly at the base of a giant tree. It is so large and overwhelming
that the characters find themselves frozen, even if they are pursued
by the creatures from the moon. A door opens from the recesses
of the tree, sliding on smooth, perfect hinges. A yellow-white light
glows from within.
Keepers who have built up a chase to this point should have it
build to crescendo now. Dreamers with any shred of self-preserva-
tion will stumble into the perfect, yellow-white doorway from the
nighttime wood.
Those that enter find themselves stumbling down an uneven spiral
staircase that crosses first through a tree and then into dirt and stone.
If the Dreamers stop, the stairs continue moving for them, twirling
and rocking, shifting beneath their feet. The staircase above them
bends and crumbles, collapsing, leaving no exit except to continue
down.
The Dreamers can barely keep up with the collapse. Finally, hor-
rifically, the first Dreamer finds himself or herself at the bottom of
the stairs, where the last step hangs out over a horribly vast, black,
empty space. A moment later the other Dreamers smash into the first
from behind and the whole structure collapses, flinging all of them
into the void.
271
Chapter Thirteen
Awakening - Closing the Circle - Rationalists,
wearing square hats, Think, in square rooms
“When my dream was near the moon,

The white folds of its gown
Filled with yellow light.”
—Wallace Stevens, “Six Significant Landscapes”
Awakening
The fall goes on for a long time, until the Dreamers find them-
selves overcome by a terrible drowsiness which feels more like
drowning than falling asleep. Their minds are hurled through space
like a ball thrown into the absolute black. They can only recall a flash
of light not unlike a spray of stars against black velvet—when they
wake behind a new set of eyes, back on Earth.
The Catatonics
The bodies in which the characters wake are, once again, com-
pletely different. Their Dreamlands forms have been discarded and
they have woken in the bodies of the nearest “empty vessels” found
by the power that sent them here—a group of catatonic patients at
the Broadbent Asylum in Folk, New York. Just as with their trans-
formation when they entered the Dreamlands, their skills and mental
stats remain intact.
When the characters wake in these new bodies each must make a
Sanity roll or lose 1 SAN. Until the character becomes comfortable
with his or her new form, this roll must be made each time this new
fact of life is confronted—noticing increased or decreased physical
strength, noticing differences in height or weight, or viewing a reflec-
tion in a mirror or pool of water. This continues until the Sanity roll
succeeds three times in a row.
272
Chapter Thirteen: Awakening
Players can roll new attributes or the Keeper can assign their new
forms from the following table. Gender is the same as their original
Earthly bodies. Age is 15 + (3D6x1D3).
Description Str Con Siz Dex App DB HP

Male, age 39, with arms 10 13 13 13 5 – 13
covered in burn scars
Female, age 28, with 8 14 9 10 17 – 12
white hair
Male, age 45, with a 10 4 13 6 3 — 9
hacking cough
Male, age 29, no 6 14 17 18 14 — 16
distinguishing marks
Female, age 24, with 5 18 13 8 3 – 16
razor scars on the face
Male, age 48, no 13 14 14 11 12 1D4 14
Male, age 22, no 16 16 13 7 16 1D4 15
in the Asylum
Characters wake in a cavernous, tile-lined place lit by natural light
from high, small windows. It reeks of ammonia, urine and filth. The
quiet sounds of rats can be heard, somewhere beneath, on the floor.
Each character lies in a filthy bed, unrestrained, in a large room like a
school gym.
Each character has a rubber feeding tube running into his or her
nose down into the stomach, connected to a nearly empty bottle that
hangs from an IV pole next to the bed. Characters that failed the
Sanity rolls after waking in new bodies begin to gag and choke and
must make another Sanity roll, losing another 0/1, as they pull the
tubes out.
When they overcome their disorientation they can see more than
two dozen beds, each with a slowly breathing corpse-like form—and
the other characters in their new bodies, who have also woken in a
similar state of confusion. An Idea roll (or Medicine, Psychology or
Psychoanalysis) indicates the characters are in some sort of asylum.
Luckily, the catatonics are largely left alone. They don’t move or
273
speak, so they are fed and hydrated by tube and left in the big room
(the guards call it the “Vegetable Garden”), only to be moved about
once or twice a week by orderlies. They are considered a non-threat,
and it will come as a great shock to see a group of these patients up
and around. The door to the rest of the asylum is unlocked and unat-
tended.
Escape!
The doors open on a plain hallway covered in green tile. The hos-
pital is dirty but is superior in almost all ways to most 1920s asylums.
The Broadbent Asylum is progressive. At the end of the hallway
Brian Curly, the only orderly on duty in this wing, sits at a small desk
reading a newspaper. It’s the New York Eagle out of Manhattan.
274
Curly will be overwhelmed to see any catatonics conscious, much

less a group of them. After several minutes of awkward conversation
where Curly holds a wooden baton in a threatening manner to keep
the characters back, he attempts to get on the phone hanging on the
wall to alert the asylum managers. Characters do not want this to hap-
pen. If he does manage to make a call, in 1D8 minutes four orderlies
armed with baseball bats and axe-handles show up to “subdue” the
patients. The players must defeat these orderlies in combat to escape.
Otherwise they are subdued, drugged and locked up in rubber
rooms. What happens next is up to the devious Keeper.
The characters have arrived on a Sunday morning. No matter how
long they seemed to spend in the Dreamlands, the newspaper’s date
says it’s only two weeks after they left.
By subduing Curly they can gain access to his “office,” which is
a shared locker room, with unsecured lockers filled with orderlies’
clothing and personal effects. Characters should have little difficulty
securing ill-fitting clothing and shoes. In Curly’s locker a Ford car
key hangs on a hook.
The exit to the outside is clearly marked, and opens on a large
parking lot. There is only a single car there, a Model T roadster,
and it happens to belong to Brian Curly. The rest of the asylum is a
large brick building next door. The area where the characters awoke
appears to be a smaller, more modern addition. If the characters are
decisive and clever in subduing Curly, they can hop in the car and
drive off to New York City with little difficulty. The police will even-
tually start looking for them but that will take hours to begin.
Brian Curly
Confused Orderly, age 25
Damage Bonus: +1D6
Skills: Climb 45%, Drive Auto 35%, First Aid 40%, Hide 19%,
Listen 35%, Pharmacy 11%. Languages: English 35%.
Attacks: Baton 65%, damage 1D6+db
Grapple 50%, damage special
275
Brian Curly is a big man with large hands, a pot belly, a small
head, and beady little green eyes that look perpetually confused. His
hair is shaved to a point in the center of his forehead and his pink
scalp is visible beneath. His teeth are an uneven grey due to his habit
of smoking whenever he gets the chance.
Curly landed employment at the Broadbent Asylum just six
months ago and is now certain he has found his ideal job. He is paid
a hefty (to him) sum to sit and watch the “vegetables,” who never do
anything except occasionally thrash in their beds and shit themselves.
The Orderlies
#1 17 9 17 11 18 17 +1D6 13
#2 13 13 15 13 5 8 +1D4 14
#3 9 10 14 12 11 7 — 12
#4 16 12 15 15 16 7 +1D4 14
Skills in Common: Dodge (DEX x 2) + 10%, Spot Hidden 60%.
Languages: English 40%.
Attacks: Axe handle or baseball bat 40%, damage 1D8+db
276
By Foot and Rail

Those failing to secure a vehicle at the asylum have a bit of a walk
ahead of them. The town of Folk is about three miles away, visible in
the dark as a spray of lights to the east. The rest of the horizon is only
telephone poles, low grass, trees and some cultivated fields, without
any visible structures. Characters heading away from Folk automati-
cally encounter the police.
If they walk along the road and are not clothed normally (for
example, if they’re wearing bloodstained sheets or asylum uniforms),
they must make 1D4–1 group Luck rolls in the walk to Folk. If any
of these rolls fail, the police have been alerted and a cruiser shows
up with two officers to subdue the patients. The cruiser arrives with
siren blaring, allowing the characters a chance to flee.
If they run they can either scatter or stay as a group. Those
remaining in a group must make four group Luck rolls. Each failure
brings them face to face with the police. If they succeed they lose
their pursuers.
If they scatter each character must make a single Luck roll. Those
that succeed elude capture. Those that fail must face the police.
Folk City Police Officers

#1 16 12 15 14 8 14 +1D4 14
#2 18 13 13 16 15 7 +1D4 13
Skills in Common: Dodge (DEX x 2) + 10%, Drive Auto 50%, Law
35%, Listen 50%, Spot Hidden 61%. Languages: English 50%.
Attacks: Nightstick 45%, damage 1D6+db
Revolver 35%, damage 1D10
Shotgun 40%, damage 4D6
Once the characters make it clear of the police (or fail to encounter
them) they must make it through Folk itself. Clever characters will
sneak to the train station, but they might try to steal a car instead.
277
Those walking the streets of Folk in broad daylight (particularly

Cured or in odd garb) soon draw the local police—first a single officer but his
Cursed whistle summons half a dozen others within a few rounds.
Even beyond their new
New York City is only two and a half hours away by train or
bodies, the Investigators
may have been changed automobile.
forever by their time in
Make the boarding of the train or a driving shootout the climax
the Dreamlands. What
shape that change takes of the scene. If anyone has been injured or killed in the characters’
depends on the degree
escape from the Broadbent Asylum, within the hour a bulletin has
of a Dreamer’s influence
over the Dreamlands and been issued of violent escaped inmates along with arrest warrants for
whether the Dreamer went
all the characters. Every hour the characters are not completely hid-
indefinitely insane there.
den and unmoving, they must make a group Luck roll or face a police
First consider the amount
encounter.
of influence that each
character wielded in the
Dreamlands over the
course of the campaign.
This is a subjective measure
so it’s entirely up to
Finding Mr. Lao
Lao can always be found in his office in the back of the Peach
the Keeper. As a rule of
thumb, a character who Blossom Restaurant, contemplating his magic and his double in the
frequently succeeded with
Dreamlands. He never leaves the safety of the office. Those observ-
Directed Dreaming or who
effected changes among ing the restaurant from outside never see him come or go. He can
the peoples or cultures of
occasionally be spied through the tiny back window, backlit by
the Dreamlands had high
influence. Others probably flickering candle light. (Shooting at him through the inconvenient
had low influence.
window has only 1/10 the usual chance to hit, and it will bring the
Also consider whether entire crew of Tongs down on the attacker in seconds.)
that character suffers
The problem is not finding Lao but getting into the Peach Blos-
from a new indefinite
insanity gained during the som undetected. The Tongs will not allow anyone inside without the
campaign.
express permission of Mr. Lao. They quickly escalate such an issue to
(Continued.) a full-fledged gun battle. The local police are paid very well to turn a
blind eye.
The best chance is to wait until the middle of the night to mount an
assault on the Peach Blossom. Those who are not properly prepared
will find the battle far outside the scope of their usual heroics. There
is a huge difference between overpowering a single orderly and kill-
ing a dozen bloodthirsty Tong assassins—and the characters have no
Directed Dreaming to make their lives easier here. See the Tong stats
on page 14.
278
Closing the Circle High influence and no

new indefinite insanity:
The character learned to
If the characters gain access to the Peach Blossom’s office they find
find meaning in dreams
Lao there waiting, smiling his Cheshire cat smile. It is likely members which translates into
a more meaningful
of the group have been injured, killed, or lost to insanity during their
waking life. Remove the
adventures since they were last here. Lao is serene and content with indefinite insanity of opium
addiction.
his fate. He does not struggle, beg, retreat or attempt subterfuge.
“I mistook you for mere dabblers in the circles of power. I see, High influence and suffers
a new indefinite insanity:
now, I was mistaken. Do with me as you wish.”
The character learned that
If asked, he freely admits that the characters’ original bodies meaning can be found only
in dreams, never in waking
disintegrated forever when they took the flawed bywandine drug in his
life. The character keeps
office two weeks ago. Confirming that they are stuck in these foreign opium addiction as an
indefinite insanity but may
bodies forever costs 0/1D10 SAN.
replace another indefinite
Murdering Lao is as easy as pulling a trigger. They are of course insanity with addiction to
the Dreamlands.
free to take his tomes and learn their spells. The blind eye of the
police extends to Lao’s death just like his crimes. Lao himself does Low influence and no new
indefinite insanity: The
not fear death, as his body in the Dreamlands will live on. Who can
character has found dreams
say whether the monstrous Sa’n Seith will find a way to gain his as powerful as any drug.
He or she may choose to
revenge on the characters on Earth? Such adventures are for another
replace addiction to opium
campaign. with addiction to the
Dreamlands.
Madaeker’s Promise
Low influence and suffers
a new indefinite insanity:
The character learned that
If the curse of the Ghouls’ Bargain was placed on the group (see in dreams and waking life
alike there is no meaning
“The Ghoul Trader” on page 73), it strikes the moment the group sets
to be found. The character
foot in New York City proper. keeps opium addiction and
must replace one other
The obligation, it gradually turns out, is this: The characters will
indefinite insanity with
be mystically drawn to the near-mummified remains of Mina Daeker, depression.
dead for 300 years, which they must first exhume and then consume.
Mina was Madaeker’s cousin, his true love. She died of consump-
tion before the darker realities of the ghouls overtook Michael
Daeker and dragged him to the Dreamlands.
Mina’s grave is contained within the Gravesend Cemetery, in
Gravesend, Brooklyn. Every day the characters hear ghostly voices
urging them to find it (though the voices do not say anything about
what they must do after that). Every day they fail to obey they each
279
lose 0/1D4 SAN. Those that “give in” suffer no such loss as long as
they are actively attempting to locate the remains. Even those some-
how detained during this period do not suffer SAN loss from it as
long as they are trying to obey. Until the task is performed by at least
one character, the suffering continues for all.
Characters need no instruction on where to go or what to do. The
concepts appear whole in their mind. The characters know where
they are going, how to get there, and what name they are looking for
on the marker. The moment they find the marker, they know they
must dig up the coffin.
The Gravesend Cemetery is very old, one of the first built in New
Amsterdam by the Dutch settlers. It is split down the middle. One
side is filled with graves marked by Italian and Irish names, the other
with uneven aged stones marked almost exclusively by Dutch names.
Mina’s marker is on the Dutch side. Hours of frantic digging
brings up an ornate wooden box untouched by rot. No other souls
come near enough to disturb the characters at this work. Pulling the
lid, the characters are met by the waft of an aged and almost depleted
stench. To their horror, the characters find it enticing. (Cost: 0/1
SAN.)
The body within is wasted down to a jerky-like consistency, eyes
gone, teeth clenched, still dressed in the rotted linen of a white dress
somehow somewhat preserved across the centuries. Any character
who wishes to pull back now must make a Sanity roll. If it succeeds,
the character loses 1D3 SAN and pulls away. If it fails the character
immediately begins eating the remains, which breaks to bits under
their fingers and teeth with sickening rapidity.
Within the hour, the body is consumed and the madness leaves
the characters. All present, whether they partook or not, lose 1/1D6
SAN. The Ghoul’s Bargain is complete. Madaeker is satiated and the
hunger leaves them.
Some players may worry whether this meal is enough to turn them
into ghouls. Let them. We leave the answer up to the Keeper.
280
Nyarlathotep’s Defeat
and What Comes After
Those who escape the Dreamlands and destroy Mr. Lao have
defied the Crawling Chaos himself, achieving the ultimate victory.
For some reason, Nyarlathotep’s dark and unimaginable plans
involved keeping the characters in the Dreamlands. Their escape is
an affront to the will of the Old Ones. The capricious god will not let
this audacity go unavenged.
What, exactly, will be the method of the Dark God’s revenge?
Well, the year is 1925, and Nyarlathotep’s agents on Earth have
begun to move, hoping to open a gate and release an especially dire
form of the Crawling Chaos onto an unsuspecting world. See Chao-
sium’s most excellent Masks of Nyarlathotep for details.
How easy would it be to involve the player characters in such
world-spanning adventures? Very, very easy, I should say.
281
Appendix A
New Spells
“Out of the window,

I saw how the planets gathered
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.”
—Wallace Stevens, “Domination of Black”
In the Dreamlands, the concept of magic is on par with our wak-

ing conception of science. It is a fact of the world, not at all strange.
It is always, however, dangerous. There is a sense of mystical balance
in the Dreamlands; that is to say, changing an outcome one place for
the better transforms another outcome somewhere else for the worse.
The use of magic is therefore almost always a last resort.
As with any work created and passed down over the ages, spells
vary by name, exact instructions and details. The vast and deep his-
tory of the Dreamlands, which far outstrips that of Earth, makes this
variation of spell and effect even greater than those found in Earthly
tomes and scrolls. Cruel Keepers might make spells incorrectly
inscribed, causing odd or even dangerous effects.
Create Bywandine: There are two versions of this spell, both of

which create a potent opium-based drug mixed with other, bizarre
chemicals. Both versions are prohibitively expensive and take time,
solitude and a deep knowledge of botany and chemistry.
The first “recipe” found in the main text of Reflections Upon the
Other World is a mixture which transports an imbiber from Earth to
the land of dreams impermanently. For ease of understanding, we
shall call this lesser bywandine. Each batch of lesser bywandine requires
one full pound of opium and various other tinctures, rare plants
and chemicals which all together cost 1D6 x $500. The character
must make a Botany or Chemistry roll as well as a Pharmacy roll. If
the Botany or Chemistry roll fails, the batch seems fine, but when
smoked it inflicts 1D8 HP damage and poisons the imbiber with
282
Appendix A: New Spells
horrific visions costing 1D4 SAN. If the Pharmacy roll is failed, the
batch is destroyed and is useless. The process takes 3D4 hours.
Imbibing properly-created lesser bywandine causes the character to
drift off into a sleep so deep he or she cannot be roused (in fact, the
physical body can be attacked and killed without it waking). During
this period of stupor, the character is transported to the Dreamlands,
where his or her dream form may act normally for 1D20x2 days of
“dream time”. This time differs on the other side of the veil of dreams,
with only 1D8 hours passing on Earth.
The second “recipe,” near the end of the manuscript, is an odd
deviation from the already bizarre mixture. This new recipe creates
what we shall call greater bywandine. The creation is identical, as
above, but once the mixture is complete a complex spell must be cast
upon each dose, costing 1D8 magic points and taking 1D4 hours per
dose.
Greater bywandine is irreversible. It transports a character’s mind
to the Dreamlands permanently, leaving the Earthly body behind.
In the Dreamlands, the mind enters the first “empty vessel” it can
find (this process is guided by the spellcaster during the creation of
the drug) and permanently occupies it. Death of this new body is
“permanent death,” while the character’s former Earthly form is left
behind as an empty vessel, incapable of independent action.
Only characters of significant POW can be transported in this
manner. A character with POW of 10 or less must roll POW x 2% or
be lost forever in the transfer, never arriving on the other side as his
or her spirit dissipates in the ether. This same fate awaits someone
who is transported to the Dreamlands without an appropriate “empty
vessel” to occupy.
If the Chemistry or Botany roll is failed while creating greater
bywandine, the batch is improperly mixed. It will still send the imbiber
to the Dreamlands, but the physical body left behind disintegrates
completely and is gone forever.
With either lesser bywandine or greater bywandine, the spellcaster
can discern whether it’s a true or faulty mix with a Pharmacy roll and
meditation, requiring one hour per dose.
283
Endless Rhyme: This spell costs 24 magic points and 1D6 SAN,
and takes one round to cast. The caster whispers a secret phrase in
the ear of a single victim, who must make a POW x 1% roll. If that
fails, the victim loses 1D6 SAN and begins babbling an endless, sing-
song rhyme in a deep, disturbing voice.
Anyone except the caster who hears this first target must make a
POW x 2% roll. (Subjects who are not human, who are deaf, or who
have somehow closed off their ears are immune.) If it fails, they too
lose 1D6 SAN and begin chanting in the same manner, all in unison.
A look of terror and confusion is clear on all victims’ faces. (Cost: 0/1
SAN.) This spreads out like a disease, sometimes infecting hundreds
at once.
The victims can attempt to break this enchantment once per hour
with a successful Sanity roll. Each hour that this fails causes the
victim to continue the rhyme and costs another 1D6 SAN. Once the
effect breaks, the subject collapses, exhausted for 1D20 hours before
they can act normally again.
Eye of True Sight: This spell costs 4 magic points and 1 SAN, and
takes one round to cast. The caster must chant the four secret names
of Nodens, Lord of the Abyss. Upon the utterance of the last name,
the caster must clap his or her hands together as hard as possible, just
in front of his or her face. Reflex causes the eyes to close. When the
eyes open again, the caster can see through any magical illusion and
spot those with malicious intent towards the caster as if they were lit
from underneath by a huge spotlight. This effect lasts for 50 breaths,
or about 15 rounds. No one else can see this effect.
This detection of magical illusion also shows the subject in its true
form. The caster suffers normal SAN loss from seeing a formerly
camouflaged monster.
The detection of illicit intent is only a yes/no indicator of whether a
subject means to harm or steal from the caster.
The Flutes of Nar-Haal: This spell creates an enchanted pan flute.

It costs 1D20 magic points and 1D6 SAN, and the caster must per-
manently invest 1 POW point into the flute to empower it.
284
Once created, the flute can be used at the cost of 1D4 magic points
and 1 SAN. Any human hearing the flute must make a POW x 2%
roll or be immediately calmed for 1D20 minutes regardless of any
previous emotions. All conflict vanishes from the hearer’s mind.
For example, if a listener attempting to rob a party heard the flute
and failed the POW roll, he or she would immediately cease the
attack. The robber might still feel animosity towards the victim, but
would not attack again for 1D20 minutes.
The flute also works on beings related or equivalent to humans—
the Men from Leng, ghouls, Tcho-Tcho, and so on. It does not work
on truly alien monstrosities such as the moon-beasts or the Aok.
Whether a particular creature is susceptible is up to the Keeper.
The magic flute has an even greater effect on animals. An animal
must make a POWx1 roll or be strangely calmed for 1D4 days.
Ghoul’s Bargain: This spell requires the target to agree to perform

some act for the caster. It works even if the target doesn’t know what
the act may be, as long as the caster knows what’s desired—it must
be clear and specific in the caster’s mind—and the target has agreed
to perform it. Once the bargain is struck it may not be altered or can-
celled. The only restriction is that the caster cannot require the target
to injure or kill himself or herself. It costs 10 magic points and takes
two rounds, but one casting can affect a group of up to 10 targets.
As soon as the target has the capacity to fulfill the bargain with
only the work of a day or two, the target begins hearing ghostly
voices that guide the way, step by small step. Every day the target
fails to attempt to obey, he or she loses 0/1D4 SAN. Those that “give
in” suffer no such loss as long as they are actively attempting to fulfill
the bargain—even if outside forces detain them and keep them from
doing it. Until the task is performed by at least one character who
made the deal, the suffering continues for all.
The Mark of Mordiggian: This is a tattoo of a stylized eye worn by

humans and the more human-like creatures that haunt the Under-
world, mostly ghouls. It marks a servant of Mordiggian, the god of
death and decay, the patron god of the ghouls. To inscribe the mark
285
on a target, the caster must draw his or her own blood and cut the
symbol into the target’s skin with a nail or tooth. The blood is applied
in the wound over a period of three days, until the wound forms a
scar in the shape of an eye. The caster spends 6 magic points each
day. At the end, caster and target each must sacrifice 1 POW.
Once the Mark is in place, it grants several abilities:
• The ability to exist indefinitely in the Underworld without food
or water, without any negative physical or psychological effects.
• The ability to subsist on rotten flesh as if it were normal food.
• The ability to speak Morga and to understand it.
• Heightened senses (+20% to Spot Hidden and Listen) in dark-
ness only.
• The ability to interact with ghouls without fear of unwonted
attack. No ghoul will willingly violate the Mark except in self-
defense. All who have the Mark can automatically recognize another
with the Mark, even if it is not visible.
The Measure of the Soul: This spell costs 1D4 magic points, takes
two turns and costs 1 SAN. It requires a picture of the target if the
target is not present. A single gesture (looping the thumb and fore-
finger into a circle) is necessary. The target is looked at through this
loop, and during this glance the caster knows how “powerful” the tar-
get is; that is, how much POW the target possesses. Once the hand is
dropped, the effect ends. No one else can see the effect. A caster may
use this on himself or herself. Mr. Lao uses this spell to great effect in
gauging potential victims for transport to the Dreamlands.
Morhalas’ Gate: This spell creates a magical “escape hatch” which

the caster may access at any time. This spell takes 1D4 months and
the caster must spend one magic point per day. (If a day goes by
without spending at least one magic point, the enchantment is broken
and all invested magic points are lost.) These points must be invested
in a single object known to the caster (a door, a piece of cobblestone,
etc.) which then becomes the focus of the escape hatch.
Once the investment is complete, the caster can draw (with chalk
or by tracing an outline in dirt, for example) a shape of the enchanted
286
object at any location in the world and spend 1 POW point perma-
nently to open a gate back to the focus. The gate lasts 1D10 minutes.
It can transport anything that fits through the portal at no further
cost. If the focus object is destroyed, the gate shuts and cannot be
created again.
Transcendental Mind: This spell costs 1D8 magic points and 1D4
SAN, and only lasts as long as the character’s physical body is undis-
turbed. It takes two rounds to cast. It works in both the Dreamlands
and on Earth. Upon casting, the character’s mind leaves its body and
may move freely around the world at the pace of a slow walk. It may
enter and pass through an opening of any size (but not something
that is hermetically sealed).
This mind-form cannot hear, speak, touch or manipulate, only see.
The world is like a silent movie, and unless the character can read
lips the use of this spell for spying is limited. But it can be useful for
scouting.
If the caster’s physical form is disturbed in any way, the character
is returned to it, instantly, despite the distance. If the caster’s physical
form is killed in one blow (say, by a gunshot), the mind-form remains
trapped in this state forever, and suffers 1D100 SAN loss.
Word of Doubt: This spell costs 1D10+2 magic points, costs 1D4
SAN, and takes a round to cast. When successful, the caster can
point at a single target and make whatever that target says next
appear to all present to be an obvious falsehood. This only works for
one statement from a single subject per casting. No matter how obvi-
ously true the affected statement may be (“we are standing on the
Earth”), the disbelief will be instant, pervasive and permanent for as
long as the caster remains present. No counterargument can convince
those who heard the statement that it is true.
Once the caster leaves, the spell effect vanishes instantly, leaving
its victims confused and certain that some magical effect had been
cast upon them.
287
Appendix B
Prisoners in the Pits of the Ebony Temple
Jesper Anderson
Ready for Adventure, age 43
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Skills: Anthropology 11%, Art (Singing) 25%, Chemistry 35%,
Climb 44%, Diving 61%, Drive Auto 65%, Electrical Repair 20%,
Listen 65%, Locksmith 51%, Mechanical Repair 50%, Operate
Heavy Machinery 32%, Spot Hidden 60%, Swim 75%. Languages:
Swedish (Own) 105%, English 56%, French 45%, Latin 35%, Span-
ish 21%.
Knife 55%
Sword 22%
Anderson is a big, muscular, bald Swede with a trimmed beard,

sloping shoulders and green eyes. Coming from a family of some
means, he trained from an early age to be an avid hunter, explorer
and linguist. He served as a diver in the Great War. These obsessions,
along with his predisposition for travel, brought him to the attention
of the Men from Leng’s servants on Earth.
Anderson was diving for treasure in a wreck off the coast of Malta
when he found an ancient bronze crown. Little did he know this item
had been used in pre-Roman times to transport worshippers of Nyar-
lathotep to Sarkomand. He innocently placed the crown on his head,
and that was enough to fling him bodily to the Dreamlands.
In Sarkomand, Anderson was lucky to be captured by Men from
Leng instead of less wholesome creatures. They threw him aboard a
Black Galley and took him to Lhosk as fodder for the Ebony Temple.
Anderson is certain he is not on Earth. As with all things in life,
he is ready to seize the opportunity to escape and set off on a new
adventure.
288
Appendix B: Prisoners of the Ebony Temple
David Forsey, Ph.D.

Confused Mechanical Engineer, age 55
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Skills: Astronomy 25%, Bargain 12%, Biology 15%, Chemistry 44%,
Drive Auto 35%, Electrical Repair 56%, Law 20%, Library Use 50%,
Locksmith 25%, Mechanical Repair 51%, Natural History 30%,
Navigation 31%, Physics 33%. Languages: English (Own) 105%.
Dr. Forsey is a tall, thin man with thinning grey hair, small round
glasses with bronze rims, and an easy smile. After a fortnight in the
prison pit he will seize any opportunity for escape.
Dr. Forsey, who lives on one of the islands off the coast of British
Columbia, found himself embroiled in a scheme of Nyarlathotep. In
the summer of 1922 he was working on a fuel compression device,
designed to spray high-pressure liquid into an ignition chamber. Dr.
Forsey’s experiments with the internal combustion engine were well
known, and when a mysterious benefactor from China offered Forsey
a huge sum to continue his research under very specific requirements
Forsey jumped at the chance. For several years the money flowed
and the research, which Forsey eventually realized had to do with
rocketry, continued apace.
Forsey completed his work only two weeks ago, and detected a
note of falsity in the transaction only when he was ambushed by
foreigners on a remote road near his house. He was forcibly injected
with some sort of narcotic. When he woke, he found himself in this
odd prison, interacting only with ferocious faces that occasionally
floated by the top of the hole he found himself in.
As far as Forsey knows, he is still on Earth; he suspects it’s China
although he doesn’t recognize his captors’ language. Once the truth
of the Dreamlands is revealed to him, he will enter full scientific
mode, eager to puzzle out the “realities” of his situation. Still, he will
be eager to get home to his family on Earth, and will readily join any
group whose stated goal is to escape the Dreamlands.
289
Glen Ivey
Lost Gadgeteer, age 40
Damage Bonus: none
Skills: Anthropology 16%, Art (Sculpture) 19%, Biology 20%,
Chemistry 25%, Conceal 31%, Craft (Machinery) 65%, Drive Auto
35%, Electrical Repair 40%, Listen 59%, Locksmith 81%, Mechani-
cal Repair 64%, Operate Heavy Machine 44%, Physics 22%, Spot
Hidden 40%. Languages: English (Own) 90%.
Ivey is a stocky, studious man with short cropped brown hair and
a bald spot. He tends to dress in workshop clothes—dungarees, sus-
penders, button-down shirts—and his hands are often stained with
grease.
Ivey lived and worked in Emeryville, a sleepy, rural suburb of San
Francisco, as a mechanical jack-of-all-trades. He began by repair-
ing bicycles in his shed, then motor vehicles, and finally any man-
ner of mechanical device. He was well known in the area as a man
who could fix almost anything. This brought him to the attention of
servants of the Men from Leng.
A device in their employ, used to spy the soul-strength in a human,
had seized up due to exposure to sea air, and required mechanical
attention. The men, swarthy foreigners, brought the device to Ivey
in the hopes he could undo the rust that had set in the joints of the
oddly-shaped device. He did. With the device working again, the
men discerned the power of his spirit. They subdued him, injected
him with a powerful mix of bywandine, and transported him to the
Ebony Temple.
Ivey has no idea where he is, and will believe he is in California
until confronted by the undeniable fact that he is elsewhere. Even then,
he will remain baffled as to the new realities of the “world”.
290
Appendix B: Prisoners of the Ebony Temple
Ilias Mastrogiorgos
Terrified Journalist, age 35
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Skills: Art (Writing) 52%, Drive Auto 45%, Fast Talk 40%, First Aid
35%, History 51%, Library Use 65%, Photography 60%. Languages:
Greek (Own) 60%, English 51%.
Attacks: All at base
Mastrogiorgos is a average-sized man with green eyes, high cheek-

bones, a Roman nose and short black hair, balding in front. He is a
reporter for a Greek newspaper who recently was following a ring
of thieves and smugglers stealing Greece’s ancient history brick by
brick. The group, called the Silver Keys, was known to have raided
unguarded ruins and to have destroyed the Temple to Artemis at
Agia. Mastrogiorgos’ doggedness got the better of him. His predic-
tion of the group’s next strike proved both accurate and disastrous.
He was captured by the thieves, held at gunpoint, and subjected to
“tests” by the Silver Keys’ hirsute leader. The men, whose national-
ity Mastrogiorgos could not recognize, talked in a bizarre language.
Then they beat him unconscious.
Mastrogiorgos woke to find himself facing the reconstructed
columns thought destroyed in the Temple of Artemis, reassembled in
an abandoned warehouse. Within the pillars was the most amazing
thing he had ever seen, a skein of light like a blue-white mirror which
wobbled and shook as people moved in the room. He was dragged to
it and unceremoniously thrown through.
On the far side, in the dark, he was beaten some more and hurled
to the bottom of a pit, where he has subsisted for days on noisome
scraps that his captors throw down to him. He has no idea where he
is, and guesses he is still in Greece until exposed to the bizarre truth
of the Dreamlands.
291
Adam Reeder
Open-Minded Publisher, age 45
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Skills: Archaeology 16%, Handgun 35%, History 95%, Library Use
85%, Occult 65%, Persuade 90%, Psychology 35%. Languages: Eng-
lish (Own) 85%, French 56%.
Reeder is a nondescript man with glasses, fair hair greying at the

temples, blue eyes, a slight paunch and a knowing smirk. He dresses
like a rogue librarian: tweed suits, knitted ties and leather shoes
which match his belt.
Reeder fell in with the wrong sort in London and he knew it. His
failing publishing concern had bounced checks across the globe, and
his publications’ dwindling circulation was finally beginning to take
a toll on his bank account. He did as many do and turned away from
the darkness in his life to look for something new.
Reeder had longed for escape and one day, unceremoniously,
it arrived. Smoking of the weed the Afghans called bywandine was
miraculous. It erased the terror in his life in a single puff. Reeder
drifted off on a cloud of bywandine—and woke to a vicious beating
at the hands of men in turbans in some dark place. Where he was,
he had no clue, but shortly after waking he found himself in a pit in
the dark, spat and pissed upon by his evil captors. More and more,
Reeder is certain they are not human at all but some sort of demon.
Reeder’s early obsession with the occult has kept his mind open
to nearly any possibility. He alone of the group of new people from
Earth will be prepared to handle the truth of the situation.
292
Index
Ados, Mark of, The 165 Darling 155 Graal the Old 80, 82-88
Agat the Corpulent 150-152 David Forsey, Ph.D. 289 Greased Chute 44, 47, 72
Anderson, Jesper 6, 288 Dead Pilgrims, The 132-134 Great Old Ones, The 12, 52, 281
Aok, The 268, 269, 270 Dem 124-125, 127, 130, 132, 139, 140 Great Ones, The See Elder Gods
Arram, Cat Apostate 200-201, 256 Directed Dreaming 23, 243, 32, 50, 59, 74, Green Priests of Ilarnek 229, 232, 234-
Astrolabe, The 41, 157 105, 143, 158, 198, 226, 229, 249, 258, 236, 238-239
Avat of Hombur 124, 125, 127, 130, 132, 278 Gug City, The 75, 77, 79, 80, 85, 97-101,
139 Docks of Ilek-Vad, The 196-197, 203 260
Azathoth 159, 160, 213, 223 Docks of Inquanok, The 117 Gug Fisherman 261
Babies, The 111-113 Docks of Lhosk, The 143, 145-146, 148- Gugs 75, 77, 79, 80, 85, 92, 96-101, 260-
Ballud of Trei 160-162, 172 149, 151-152, 154-155, 160-161, 169-170 261
Ballud’s Outfitters 160 Docks of Sarkomand, The 33, 37, 40-42, “H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands” 21
Bandits of the Red Earth, The 60, 61 47 Hazards of Sea Travel 50
Beings of Ib 232-235, 243, 246 Doom of Sarnath, The 231-238, 240, 242, Healing See Injury, Sickness and Death
Bestul 162-165, 172 244, 246 House Dreary, The 198, 202
Bestul’s Secret 164 Double-Pronged Spears, The 42, 157, 160 Hovel, Collector’s, The 38-39, 40
Bholes 83, 84, 214 Drax of Hombur 119-121, 123-125, 140 Ilarnek 48, 231, 232, 234, 235, 240, 246,
Black Box (spell) 236 “Dream Within a Dream” 157, 223 247
Black Galley 42, 47, 50, 146, 148-152, 154, “Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, The” Ilek-Vad 27, 37, 41, 47, 48, 104, 164, 196-
160, 162, 164-165, 167, 183, 185, 189, 12, 117, 159, 205, 209, 210, 213, 215, 219, 210, 216, 225, 226-227, 240, 256
196, 288 223, 264 Illusions on the Underground Sea 86
Black Pharaoh See Nyarlathotep Eating and Drinking in the Underworld Inganok See Inquanok
“Blind” Bestul See Bestul 80, 104 Injury, Sickness and Death 25
Blood Gems 11, 31, 38, 39, 147, 156, 162, Ebony Temple, The 148, 152, 156, 165-177, Inquanok 27, 43, 47, 48, 53, 104, 105-107,
165, 186 172, 173-183, 185, 190, 192 113-125, 138, 139-142, 147, 151, 154, 240
Bokrug 232-235, 237, 240, 242, 244, 246 Elder Gods (or Great Ones), The 80, 95, “Instruction of Tlane, The” 17, 19
“Book of Keys and Gates, The” 119, 120, 99, 116, 118, 139, 140, 157, 158, 206, 210, Ivey, Glen 6, 290
122, 140, 141 211, 223, 248, 249, 251, 253 Ivu the Corrupt 132-135
Brian Curly 274-276 Elder Ones, The See Elder Gods Kadath 10, 211, 213
Broadbent Asylum 272-276 Elder Sign, The 157 Kamas-Tha 40, 146, 148, 157, 169, 170,
Bronze Wheel Circus 65-66 Elder Things 215 185, 187, 189, 190, 191, 192
Burgomaster Kranon 251-252, 256 Emen-Tha 146, 148, 156, 161, 165, 168, Keeper of Dreams 252, 254-256, 258, 260
Bywandine 10, 17, 18, 20, 156, 159, 160, 169, 170, 175, 176, 185, 186-190, 192, 193 Keim 36, 43, 157, 162
279, 282-283, 290, 292 Enchanted Saber 41, 157 Key to Ulthar, The 253
Bywandine’s Effects in the Dreamlands Enchanted Wood (or Forest), The 48, 81, Key and the Gate, The 214
156 99, 217, 225, 248-252, 254, 256-271 King in Yellow, The 227
Carter, Randolph 196, 197, 200, 201, 205, Encounters in the West 126-131 King of Dusk See Randolph Carter
207-217, 220-227 Endless Rhyme See Spells King of Sunset See Randolph Carter
Catatonics, The 272 Eye of Nodens, The 56, 57, 180, 223 Koth, Sign (or Symbol) of 99, 100
Celephais 10, 18, 163, 165 Eye of the Needle, The 144, 162, 163, 165 Koth, Tower of 75, 81, 89, 99, 100, 101,
Central Conflict, The 12 Eye of True Sight See Spells 260
Cerenarian Sea 37, 48, 54, 143, 161, 164, Finding Port 50 Languages 27
196 Flutes of Nar-Haal, The See Spells Lao, Mr. 10-17, 19, 20, 37, 139, 158, 255,
Cloudbeast 41, 51 Food and Shelter 59, 152 264-265, 278, 279, 285
Collector, The 32-39, 43, 44, 45, 47, 50, Forest of Monoliths, The 75, 80, 94, 95, Leng, Spiders of 47, 111-113, 116, 126, 138
73, 74, 80, 88, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 96 Lengian Hunt, The 109
118, 123, 139, 142, 147, 194, 195, 230 Gak 48 Lhosk 10, 27, 35, 37, 40, 41, 43, 47, 48, 68,
Council of Traders, The (Lhosk) 144, 145, Gate Dire, The 125, 140 104, 117, 142, 143-156, 161-177, 184-195,
146, 148, 165, 169, 176, 184, 185, 186, Gate of Crystal, The 120, 122-124, 132, 136 199, 240, 288
187, 189, 191 Ghasts 79, 89, 91, 93, 99 Lhosk Guards 147
Council Spire, The 147, 162 Ghostly Procession, The 242 Living X See Spells
Crawling Chaos See Nyarlathotep Ghoul Trader, The See Madaeker Locating Civilization 70
Create Bywandine (spell) See Spells Ghouls 73, 77, 84, 88, 228 Ivar, Lord of Imel 68-70
Cthulhu 215 Giant Stair, The 94, 100 Lord of the Abyss See Nodens
Cthulhu Mythos (skill) 11, 17, 19, 137, 163, Gifted But Damaged 10 Lurker in the Pit 52, 53, 55, 56, 57
169, 178, 187, 213, 214, 252 Gnorri 47, 196, 197, 198 Macero Dun 199-200
Daeker, Michael See Madaeker Goblins 63-65, 72 Madaeker 72, 73, 74, 77-84, 87-98, 100-
Dark Man See Nyarlathotep Golden Sun, The 105, 113-115, 117, 120 104, 140, 196, 228, 280
293
Madaeker’s Promise 74, 77, 78, 79, 103, Other Ways Into the Dark 72 Spiders See Leng, Spiders of
279 Palace of Dusk 198, 210, 217, 218, 221, 223, “Statement of Randolph Carter, The”
Magistrate Plumb 203-205 225, 226 205
Man of the West See Nyarlathotep Pale Beasts 85 Steps of Deeper Slumber, The 268, 271
Manticore, The 108-109, 111, 140 Par of Sonya-Nil 67 Stone Door to the Underworld, The 259-
Maps Pazu 207, 209, 210, 218, 221, 225 261
—The Dreamlands 48 Peach Blossom Restaurant, The 14-20, Stupefying Blast See Spells
—Lhosk 144 39, 264, 278 Sword of Kamas-Tha, The 40, 146, 157,
—Peach Blossom restaurant 15 Peaks of Thok, The 102, 104, 228 185, 189, 192
—Sarkomand 33 Pit and the Prisoner, The 55 Talunen 27, 34, 35, 40, 54, 61, 66, 69, 134,
—The Underworld 75 Plateau of Leng 37, 105-112, 116, 117, 120- 144, 151, 154, 161, 163, 169, 175, 187, 188,
Maras-Tha 146, 165, 185, 186, 187, 190-193 132, 135, 141 191, 230, 232, 252
Master Brugh 197 Plaza of the Lions, The 30, 43 Taran-Ish 232, 235, 246
Mastrogiorgos, Ilias 7, 291 Polis Dreary 202 Temple of Kiran, The 196, 199, 206, 207
Measure of the Soul, The See Spells Prison Pits, The 181 Ten Thousand Steps, The 44, 72, 73, 77,
Men from Leng 10, 12, 19, 20, 27, 30, 32, Prolonged of Life, The See ’Umr-at-Tawil 78, 79, 88
34-38, 41-45, 52, 72, 73, 78, 79, 106, Pross 21, 151, 154, 169, 187, 191, 202, 232 Threats and Travelers 59
109, 110, 117, 130, 138, 146-148, 152, 156, Red Bazaar, The See The Grand Bazaar “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” 12,
158, 160, 163, 164, 165-183, 186, 188, Red Council, The See Council of Traders 205, 211, 213
192, 200, 252, 285, 288, 290 Reeder, Adam 292 Titan, The 126
Serpent Men 215 Reflections Upon the Other World 17, Tongs, The 10, 13-16, 264, 278
Merhadeen Pirates, The 52-57, 196, 203 282 Tower of Nyarlathotep, The 220-225
Michael Daeker See Madaeker Replacements from Earth 88, 181, 288- Trade Council See Council of Traders
Mina 74, 279 292 Trade Family Bahaot, The 35, 147, 194-
Mnar 231, 233 Ritual to Nyarlathotep, The 183 195
Moon, The 11, 31, 32, 42, 48, 52, 56, 84, River Skai 197, 248, 257 Trade Family Tha, The 40, 144, 146, 148,
87, 117, 183, 201, 218-225, 233, 241, 262, Sa’n Seith 10, 12, 17, 19, 158, 185, 279 157, 163, 165, 169-170, 184-193
264, 268, 271, Sages of the Round Street, The 117, 118, Transcendental Mind See Spells
Moon-Beast Charts, The 42-43, 50, 160, 119, 123, 139, 140 Travel Time 50
164 Sarkomand 11-12, 16, 17, 19, 22, 28, 29, Tsing 13
Moon-Beast Hunting Party, The 268 30-46, 48, 50, 52, 72, 82, 83, 105, 106, Tulare-Mas 169-170
Moon-Beast Priest 56, 57, 269 107, 109, 123, 130, 139, 157, 165, 185, Ulet 27, 232, 236
Moon-beasts 30, 42, 43, 45, 46, 50, 56, 262, 288 Ulthar 48, 142, 197, 248-256
57, 265, 268-270 Sarnath 48, 104, 228-247 ’Umr at-Tawil 206, 211, 213, 214
Moon-beast spears See Double-Pronged Sea of Bones, The 95-98 Undead, The 127
Spears Sealed Gate, The 101 Underground Sea, The 75, 80, 81, 83-87
Morga 27, 77, 101, 154 Selling the Black Galley 149, 154 Underworld, The 27, 30, 32, 35, 36, 43-45,
Morhalas’ Gate See Spells Sen Saot See The Collector 47, 52, 72-104, 140, 147, 196, 228, 252,
Mortimer, Stephan 153-156 Seraj 52-56 259, 261
Mortimer’s Sundry Potions and Chemicals Servant of the Dark Man 62 Unique Treasures 155
144, 153-156 Shantaks 157, 159, 206, 210, 219, 224 Uvan Go 230-232, 235-240, 242, 244,
Mother of the Western Road, The 113 Shoggoths 157 246-247
Motivating the Players 73 Silver Chalice, The 41, 157 Valley of Onyx 48, 119, 120, 121
Movement in the Wild 58 Silver Key, The 205, 211, 214 Valusia 215
Nameless Lake, The 229, 235, 240 “Silver Key, The” 197, 205 Vaults of Zin, The 43, 75, 80, 88-94
Nameless Rock, The 48 Silver Keys, The 291 Vienna 154
“Necronomicon, The” 11 Silver Prison, The 266 Voonith 37
New Amsterdam 73, 74, 77, 103, 280 Slavers, The 72, 130, 140 Wamp Lair, The 33, 37, 39-41
New Bodies 9, 28, 29, 272, 273, 278 Speaking in the Realm of the Gugs 96 Wamp, The 40
New York 8, 14, 39, 74, 221, 263-264, 272, Specters 129 Wealth Levels 152-158
274, 275, 278, 279 Spells Western Machine, The 48, 135, 137-139
“New York Eagle, The” 274 —Create Bywandine 17, 282 Western Plateau, The 48, 117, 122, 125-132
Nightgaunts 77, 81, 102 —Endless Rhyme 19, 38, 157, 283 Western Road, The 48, 106-113
Nodens 56, 101, 102, 214, 216, 223, 224- —Eye of True Sight 19, 284 White Web of Soren See Spells
225, 284 —Flutes of Nar-Haal, The 19, 284 “Wild Rose, The” 164
Notches See Directed Dreaming —Ghoul’s Bargain 77, 279-280, 285 Woeful Itch See Spells
Nyarlathotep 12, 42, 52, 53, 55, 56, 62, 63, —Living X 56, 236, 262, 269 Word of Doubt See Spells
157-160, 167, 172, 175, 178, 181, 183, 185, —Mark of Mordiggian 77, 285 Yog-Sothoth 211, 214
186, 200, 201, 203, 205, 206, 209, 210, —Measure of the Soul, The 17, 286 Yveddes 119, 120, 123, 124, 125, 139, 140
213, 214, 216-226, 252, 262, 268, 269, —Morhalas’ Gate 19, 286 Zoogs 249, 252, 257, 259, 261-267, 268
281, 289 —Stupefying Blast 236, 237
Ohmon 65-67 —Transcendental Mind 17, 287
Old Ones See Elder Gods —White Web of Soren 236, 237
Onyx City, The See Inquanok —Woeful Itch 262
Oracle of the Western Machine, The 48 —Word of Doubt 19, 287
294

Call of Cthulhu - Dreamlands - The Sense of The Sleight-Of-Hand Man

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Call of Cthulhu - Dreamlands - The Sense of The Sleight-Of-Hand Man

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The Sense

A Call of Cthulhu Campaign

Written and Illustrated by Dennis Detwiller

Take the Oath

Adam Neal Dalton Granja

Lukulius Pwmiller74 Frank Troise

“Profound poetry of the poor and of the dead,

The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man is a campaign set in the Dream-

know they will be playing in the Dreamlands.

Gifted But An Overview

He has yet to perfect the process. Mixed properly, it causes the

The Central Conflict

“Beauty is momentary in the mind—

The Tongs’ threats have gone unanswered, the Dreamers’ debts

Skills: Dodge (DEX x 2) + 10%, Hide 35%. Languages: Mandarin

The Peach Blossom

The Tongs—Lao’s servants—control the block, Delancey Street,

The Secrets of Lao’s Texts

Mr. Lao’s Office time to study Lao’s books

In English. +2% Cthulhu Mythos. –1/1D4+2 SAN. Study time: 5

in 1899. Smyth managed to proselytize several members of the press

The Instruction of Tlane

“The abilities of those beyond, the Gods we consider immeasurable and

In Oeuth. +4% Cthulhu Mythos. –1/1D6 SAN. Study Time: 10

“It was not from the vast ventriloquism

Previous Call of Cthulhu game supplements have done their best to

Life in the Dreamlands is unusual. Though the basics of existence

Perception and Direction

When the players

Languages Skill Checks

“A dirty house in a gutted world,

Key to the Map

4 3. The Black Galleys

What the Collector

• They are not on Earth,

1) Where are we? How do we get back?

2) What will happen to the other Humans?

3) Where can we get supplies or weapons?

4) Where can we find a ship?

5) What is the nearest safe town?

6) Where is Leng? Do you know Mr. Lao?

7) Where did you learn English?

Treasures in The Hovel

The Wamp Lair Earth Artifacts

To further this lead, if the

The Black Galleys

they are horribly and finally electrocuted. Many moon-beasts perish

The Plaza of the Lions The moon-beast charts

No. Str Con Siz Dex Pow DB HP

The Ten Thousand Steps

The Greased Chute

“Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped

Method and Direction

From Sarkomand, the Dreamers either flee into the Underworld,

Into the Underworld

The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man provides every manner of

Hazards of Sea Travel

Two options for seaborne encounters are offered below to make

The Merhadeen Pirates

Seraj, obviously mad, is a huge, muscular Inquanok man with pale

Converted to worship of Nyarlathotep in his childhood, Seraj was

The Merhadeen Pirates

The Nameless Rock