Andreas Rönnqvist

The Mind Unveiled

DreamscapeSa

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Author: Andreas RönnqvistEditor: Jeremy Smith

Proofreaders: Derek M. Koch, Patrick SeymourDesign / Layout: Jeremy Smith

Interior Illustrations: Levi Hinton, V. ShaneCover Illustration: John Milner

Special Thanks: Playtesting team

This edition of The Mind Unveiled: Dreamscape is produced under version 1.0a, 5.0, and/or draft versions of the Open Game License and the System Reference Document by permission of Wizards of the Coast. Subsequent versions of this product will incorporate later versions of the license and document.

Designation of Product Identity: The following items are hereby designated as Product Identity in accordance with Section 1(e) of the Open Game License, version 1.0a: Any and all Dreamscarred Press logos and identifying marks and trade dress, such as all Dreamscarred Press product and product line names including but not limited to The Mind Unveiled, Untapped Potential: New Horizons in Psionics, any specific characters, monsters, creatures and places; proper names and names of places, artifacts, characters, countries, specific creatures, geographic locations, gods, historic events, organizations, and abilities; any and all stories, storylines, histories, plots, thematic elements, and dialogue; and all artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, illustrations, maps, and cartography, likenesses, poses, logos, or graphic designs, except such elements that already appear in final or draft versions of the d20 System Reference Document or as Open Game Content below and are already open by virtue of appearing there. The above Product Identity is not Open Game Content.Open Game Content: The entirety of this work with the exception of the above-mentioned Product Identity is designated as Open Game Content.

Some portions of this book which are Open Game Content originate from the System Reference Document and are ©1999, 2000, and 2001 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. The remainder of the Open Game Content portions of this book are hereby added to Open Game Content and if so used, should bear the COPYRIGHT NOTICE “The Mind Unveiled: Dreamscape” ©2007 Andreas Rönnqvist, Jeremy Smith. This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction, re-transmission, or unauthorized use of the artwork or non-Open Game Content herein is prohibited without express written permission from this book’s authors, except for purposes of review or use of Open Game Content consistent with the Open Game License. The original purchaser may print or photocopy copies for his or her own personal use only.

This document is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, places, or events is purely coincidental.

Some images contained within copyright John Milner or V. Shane and are used with permission.

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THE BIRTH OF THE DREAMSCAPEAll intelligent creatures have the potential to

awaken latent psychic powers; but for a time, this power went unnoticed and untouched, laying hidden deep within the subconscious of all creatures. After centuries, these subconscious minds pooled together and became a repository for the enormous latent psychic energies, including dreams and nightmares.

When the Dreamscape formed many thousand of years ago, it sprang into being from the combined subconscious thoughts of mortal creatures. As the pooled subconscious minds had once been, the Dreamscape became the home of the dreams and nightmares of all creatures. When they slept, their subconsciousness took over and formed a bridge between the mortal world and the Dreamscape, creating a personal dreamcircle where they creature reigned supreme. There they could experience anything their minds could conceive, for the Dreamscape was as mutable as their own thoughts.

As the mortals began to expand and learned to control their dreams, they filled them with people, creatures, and even supernatural beings; but as the dreamers left their personal dreamcircles, the creatures formed from their desires would slowly dissolve and disappear. Some creatures, who were called back into existence by recurring dreams, became sentient and realized that their existence depended on the dreamers, so they sought a way to escape these dreamcircles and the fickle nature of dreams. These creatures were known as qael.

THE FIRST OF THE QAELThe first qael to truly escape and become

free were the Tash qael, creatures whose beginning is shrouded in mystery. What is known is that they realized that by struggling against the wishes of the dreamers, they

could siphon away the dreamer’s mental energy as the dreamer’s imaginations tried to enforce their subconscious will upon the dreamcircle. This psychic energy allowed the qael to retain their form and mind between dreams, and even invade dreamcircles where they hadn’t been formed.

These first invasions by the Tash qael caused intense fear in the dreamers, giving off waves of mental energy. The Tash qael exulted in the power they received and soon began to change, absorbing the fears and terrors of the dreamers they haunted. Thus were the first night terrors born. It was not long after that the Tash qael began carving their own kingdoms from the Dreamscape.

The Tash Qael view themselves as rulers of the Dreamscape

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At first, the Tash qael were aggressive to all creatures, seeing the dreams of mortals as hunting grounds and other Tash as competitors. Soon, however, alliances were born, as Tash discovered that by joining together, they were more likely to succeed in combat. The Tash qael gathered under different banners, each sect claiming a different area for hunting grounds. For some time, the Tash qael were the undisputed masters of the Dreamscape, slowly turning it into a haunting realm where their terrors touched the minds of all creatures.

Over time, some of the Tash qael rose above their brethren, learning how to absorb not only the fears and terrors of their victims, but also their innermost desires and lusts. These few Tash continued their original transformation, melding the unspeakably horrendous with the unimaginably beautiful and, for the first time, realized that their power allowed them to make mortals’ wildest dreams come true.

Using this newfound understanding and their almost angelic forms, the Tash qael appeared before the dreamers, offering them power over their own dreams. What these dreamers did not know when accepting these seemingly benign gifts was that they were twisted by the qaelic essence coursing through them and when they slept and dreamed, the Tash qael who first began the transformation were able to assume complete control of their form. The Tash were also able to draw on the soul essence of these servants, allowing them to increase their power and strength in the Dreamscape. Throughout the ages, this relationship between a qaelic ‘benefactor’ and a group of servants has led to the rise of numerous cults led by the tainted dreamers called qaelans.

But the dominion of the mighty Tash qael caused unforeseen effects, as terrorized dreamers lost their grip on reality and became stranded in the Dreamscape. These lost dreamers began fighting back, using their insanity as a weapon against the Tash qael. These dreamers took their battles to the dreamcircles that the Tash qael had used as feeding grounds, unknowingly fighting for those mortals who still languished in endless nightmares.

Thus were the Shar qael born, lost dreamers touched by a divine insanity. The Shar qael battled the Tash in unpredictable ways, sometimes allying together to strike down a certain alliance of Tash qael, sometimes charging in alone. But as time went by, the Tash qael realized they were losing

the war due to the unpredictability of the Shar, and if they were to survive, had to draw the Shar into more controlled battles. The Tash used their mastery of the Dreamscape to slowly diminish the dreamcircles, using the ‘stuff’ of the dreamcircles to build their own monasteries and fortresses at the center of the Dreamscape. This pushed the dreamcircles away from the center and as the war raged on, the center became solidified. This region of the Dreamscape became known as the qaelic Realms, areas untouched by mortal dreams and locked in an eternal war between the Tash and the Shar qael.

As a strange balance settled into the Dreamscape, those caught between the battles of nightmares and lost dreamers still fought to escape their short lives in a temporary dreamcircle. A few of these found their escape not by breaking free like their Tash and Shar brethren, but rather by following the dreamers back into the material realm. Occasionally, one of these Ma’at qael manages to escape the Dreamscape, often into the dreams of a newborn or unborn baby, either taking them over completely or infusing themselves into the very soul and flesh of the newborn. The fallen dreams walk in both worlds, slipping in and out of the Dreamscape, calling themselves the Dreamscarred. Some are born fully qael, the newborn soul completely taken over, while others retain their mind and souls but

PSIONICS AS DREAM MAGICFor those who wish to implement the idea

of psionics as dream magic or dream control (oneiromancy), we suggest the following changes be implemented. The psion is renamed to the waking dreamer - one who is both within his dream and within the waking world at the same time, forcing them to overlap. The wilder becomes the nightmare ridden - one who unleashes his inner fears and connection to the qael in a surge of powerful emotions, and the psychic warrior becomes the dream knight, a true warrior of the beyond, transforming himself as if in a mutable dream.

All powers simply become manifestations of the personal dream of that individual, and manifesting is the channeling of power from the Dreamscape and the manifester’s personal dreamcircle into the material plane.

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keep a sliver of the nightmares deep inside of them.

Recently, a new creature has begun roaming the Dreamscape in the form of the dreamcircle avatars, dreamers who have suffered such intense physical or mental trauma that they withdraw to their dreamcircles permanently. These creatures have shut off their contact with the Material world, living entirely in their dreamcircles. Over time, their comatose bodies atrophy and die, leaving them to reign supreme in their own fantasy where they feel safe. However, some of these dreamcircle avatars become more and more monstrous as they are unable to fully escape whatever trauma forced them there. They try to expand the borders of their fantasyland, stranding other dreamers inside their own dreamcircle instead of their personal one, and creating small dramas directed by their slowly declining mental state. To the Tash qael, these dreamcircle avatars are often prime victims, holding onto intense psychic energy to rule their realm. Their terror becomes even greater as a Tash qael enters their once private dreamcircle to wreak havoc the dreamcircle avatar is unable to stop. As the terror mounts and the dreamcircle begins to collapse, the Tash move in for the kill, devouring the dreamcircle avatar and consuming its essence. GEOGRAPHY OF THE DREAMSCAPE

In the center of the plane there is the Darkest Dream, a void which travellers describe as a thick black fog that roils back and forth over the lands. The qaelic Realms encircle this central nave of power and are ruled by the Tash qael. These realms, being continental in size, show off a bewildering array of terrain and geographical features. Lush jungles sit next to arctic tundras or scorching deserts; rivers flow backwards, and it might rain blood one day and diamonds the next. Each area has the terrain and features which most pleases its current Tash lord and, when their moods change, so does the land. On these lands, you can find lesser qael hunting, resting, and fighting in what seems to be an endless training to hone their abilities.

Outside the qaelic Realms is the Sea of Dreams, the roiling chaos of potential which is the dreamstuff. Generally, this is no different than a normal sea, except that from the sea itself will spontaneously spring islands and small continents - the

dreamcircles of the mortal dreamers that are formed from rapidly solidifying dreamstuff. Sea literally becomes land as someone falls asleep and travels to the Dreamscape. Here their personal dramas and dreams play out in an endless dance until the Tash come hunting - some swoop down from the sky as dreaded dragons, others come on insanely shaped ships to raid as if they were emotional pirates. Here and there you find permanent islands, the homes of the dreamcircle avatars and often you can find other islands forming around these permanent areas.

Why this happens is unknown. Perhaps the stability offered by the dreamcircle avatar makes it easier for the dreamstuff to solidify. Or perhaps it is the wish of the avatars to find either slaves or company that draws these dreamers closer to them.

At the very ends of the Dreamscape, the roiling chaos of the Sea of Dreams becomes so volatile that its froth turns into a white mist. Travellers claim that when skirting this mist, you can travel from one side of the Dreamscape to the other; others claim that the plane itself is a globe, and that this white mist is the opposite of the black fog of the Darkest Dream, a ‘positive pole’ to its negative. A few powerful Tash have a different theory, one which they keep closely guarded amongst themselves - that the mist empties into a tunnel which goes through the globe of their plane, emptying all of the potential and psychic energy directly into the maw of the Darkest Dream. This is how the most powerful of the qael feed, devouring not individual memories or emotions, but every emotion and memory ever formed within the Dreamscape itself. If these qael hold the truth to the Dreamscape and the white mists, then the entire plane is essentially nothing but an enormous buffet for some sleeping godmind.

THE OLDEST OF DREAMSBut there is something beyond the qaelic Realms,

an ancient dreamcircle which has never been broken; a dark well in the absolute center of the Dreamscape. None have penetrated this darkness, but at times, things slip out of it. Sometimes, they are shards of this darkness, at other times they are sentient beings weaving a path from this Inmost Circle into the qaelic Realms. Some speculate this Inmost Circle is the first dream, or perhaps

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the remaining dream of some ancient power that no longer exists. Others say it is the subconscious darkness or shadow within us all, having pooled for millennia and creating a dreamcircle without a dreamer. The dreams that escape from the Inmost Circle are often avoided by other qael as they are both powerful and mysterious, earning them the name of Aeni qael, the darkest dreams.

THE DREAMCIRCLE When a sentient creature (someone with an In-

telligence of 3 or more) sleeps, their subconscious has an easier time connecting to the Dreamscape. When forming this connection, the subconscious transforms part of the Dreamscape’s normally mal-leable matter into a dreamcircle. The dreamcircles first helped people communicate with their sub-conscious, since the conscious mind remembered fragments from the dreamcircle allowing the two sides of the psyche to maintain both an important balance and exchange information. With the com-ing of the Tash qael, the first nightmares were born and the dreamcircles stopped being the private do-minion of a single subconscious mind and became open to the insidious manipulation of others. THE AWAKENING

There is a phenomenon known as an awakening, when an individual’s conscious mind and subcon-scious mind mesh, granting the individual a wak-ing connection to the Dreamscape. Those with the Lucid Dreaming feat are always considered to have had an awakening.

For most, the awakening feels like dreaming, but takes place while awake and in the real world. The dreamers perceive the whispers of others’ thoughts, see glimpses of the future, see objects animate and move, walls breathe, and feel a loss of self and a deep connection between people and places. Most of those who awaken in this way also activate a latent psionic ability, which flares to life, allowing the awakened to perform feats which they only believed could be made real in their dreams. Some say that this awakening allows those afflicted to “dream reality” and affect it as if it was nothing more than their dreamcircle, mutable and open to the interpretations of the awakened.

This connection made between the subconscious

mind and the conscious mind is also the fuel for qaelic and phrenic feats, since the connection allows mortals to draw on a vastly increased source of power, gaining new ways to affect the world around them or to enhance the knowledge and power they already have. For some, it is the event which takes them down the path of a certain prestige class like the awakened dreamer.

SLEEPING AND DREAMING Generally, creatures without the Lucid Dreaming

feat cannot control what happens in their dreamcircle and often do not care. The dreamer’s subconscious mind takes over, partially living out a different side of the psyche, partially working through ideas, concepts and events with which it is intrigued. At times, it even has to defend the dreamcircle from intrusive Tash qael invasions, causing nightmares for the sleeping person. Normally, the Tash qael are content with the psychic energy they can siphon from the fear and anguish of a sleeper in the throes of a nightmare. At times, the invasion can become real enough to actually threaten the individual’s life, at which point the subconscious mind can force the conscious mind to the fore of the dreamcircle. During one of these encounters, the subconscious can take on other aspects of the individual, or even those of friends and allies, to help defend the dreamcircle from predators.

As strange as it may seem, normal nightmares do not interrupt an individual’s sleep enough to disturb their ability to regain psychic or sorcerous energy, heal, or recuperate from other conditions. If the dreams become invasive (as when someone casts nightmare on an individual, or a true Tash qael attacks the dreamcircle), this interrupts the sleeping enough to demand another two hours at least from the resting character to receive the same benefits as normal. Should the dreamcircle become invaded then this may cause the dreamer real damage as his conscious mind and the psychic connection between the dreamcircle and his sleeping body is intensified. All damage taken in the dreamcircle transfers to the sleeping body, as do almost all other effects. Spells cast, powers manifested and the likes drain their respective resources from the dreaming person, but material possessions are not consumed. Experienced dreamwarriors always keep some way of healing themselves near to use in a potential

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dreamcircle battleground, while some have learned how to shape dreamstuff to create healing potions out of nothing while in the dreamcircle.

Note though that it is only when the subconscious mind draws the conscious one into the dreamcircle that these effects have a real material correspondent, even though some prestige classes bridge this gulf and utilize the dreamcircle and dreamstuff in different ways, or even use it as a respite for healing. But there is one final danger in the Dreamscape, possibly hailing to the Inmost Circle and the dark dreams which sometimes trickle out of that infinite well of shadows. It is the dream plagues, strange diseases which infect the mind and could potentially kill anyone, this dangerous affliction does not need the previously mentioned connection, because it can infect anyone who dreams.

QAEL AND THE NAMELESS FEARSome scholars claim that the constant

reproduction of the nameless fear, detailed in full in Untapped Potential: New Horizons in Psionics, is itself a disease, an effect of the Inmost Circle, the darkest of dreams. This disease ripples through the Dreamscape, infecting the psionic energy of sleepers with the seed that will become a larval nameless. The foul nightmares known as the nameless fear are not true qaels as might be believed, but rather they are the primal state from which the qaelic creatures developed. Sometimes, the larva grow more powerful and even become self-aware, at which point they become dire nightmares. As far as the Tash themselves know, the dire nightmares are their lesser cousins, still fettered by the need to constantly feed. While the Tash qael can feed off terror and emotions, dire nightmares are not so lucky or, perhaps, not as smart as to try to find new sources for the psychic energy they crave to continue their existence.

Although few Tash speak of it, their race does not propagate or procreate in any ‘normal’ way, even for outsiders. Where humanoids mate and bear offspring, outsiders are often formed as full

beings from some inner core of power, coming into existence when there is a need or when there is simply room for a new creature. The different varieties of qael are a little different: the Tash are few in between, but new Tash are formed from the dire nightmares of the nameless. The Shar qael are created from intense psychic trauma, drawing upon the surrounding Dreamscape to fuel their transformation, while the Ma’at do not need any special form of energy to come into being. Instead, the Ma’at latch onto a humanoid as it is being born. The only qael who are created in a manner similar to how outsiders are formed are the Aeni qael, the servants of the darkest dream. These are foul beasts without intelligence, consumed by the need to hunt and kill, to devour, and to spread the horror that is the darkest dream. TRUTH OR INSANITY?

There are those who believe that all of reality is but a ruse, who see complicated conspiracies and plots where others see randomness and unpredictability. For these scholars, the Inmost Circle is a sentient being, a permanent thought whose Aeni name is imprinted on the minds of all dreamers. For them, it is not a primal dream but an ancient being akin to the godminds who controls its own dimensional plane and seeks to invade all others. In these insane conspiracies, the Tash are the generals and lords of the qael who supervise the formation of a stable qaelic Realm to act as the springboard for the consumption of all psychic energy in the Material Plane - an invasion heralded by the infiltration of the dreamscarred into society and the coming of the nameless fear. They whisper of a dreamy island, ejected from the Dreamscape. But they do not see those on the island now in the material world as fleeing prisoners, but as the first of many barges carrying qaelic shock troops. And as these mad conspirators preach their ideas, more and more mortals live through the Awakening, becoming living bridges between the material and the dream.

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Title PageThe Dreamscape The Birth of the DreamscapeThe First of the qaelGeography of the DreamscapeThe Oldest of DreamsThe DreamcircleThe AwakeningSleeping and Dreaming qael and the Nameless FearTruth or Insanity?

Psionics as Dream MagicOPEN GAME LICENSE