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Chaosium's latest edition of its Dreamlands source book might be titled "The Complete Dreamlands," but I found it lacking and unfinished, despite it's almost two hundred pages.

I'll be up front with you -- I'm not a fan of H. P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands stories. I think HPL's predilection for vagueness of description and his generally purple style (which can be distracting and irritating even in his best stories) take over to the point that the rewards of reading the stories are simply not worth it. The titles give you a good idea of what you're in for -- "The Doom that Came to Sarnath," "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath." Dramatic-sounding, even evocative, sure, but also vague and meaningless.

On the other hand, though, I really like the _idea_ of the Dreamlands: an unfamiliar, exotic world equal parts Arabian Nights, pulp fantasy, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Xanadu, where humanity's unconscious mixes with that of the earth's prehuman races and malevolent extraterrestrials. It's a world filled with cities from your weirdest dreams and haunted by creatures from your darkest nightmares.

"The Complete Dreamlands, 4th Edition" is well-illustrated with an attractive cover painting and glossy world map. There is an unusual (for Chaosium) number of typos which I always find fairly irritating -- another read-through would have picked most of them up, so why are they there (unless they put it out in a hurry to capitalize on the Dreamlands expansion for the Mythos CCG)?

The book divided into two parts. The first (and by far larger) part is dominated by a catalogue of places, people, creatures, gods and magic of the Dreamlands. It's here that you'll find the city of Ilek-Vad, built inside cliffs of translucent glass, and topped with the Palace of Rainbows. You can meet the dignified Cat Patriarch of Celephais, and the world's greatest dreamer, King Kurantes, who overdosed on drugs in the real world, but lives on in a land built of his own dreams and memories. The bestiary describes things like the Cats From Saturn, which are like nightmare Impressionist paintings come to life, and the Great Old One Ghadamon, fed on human brains and living and waiting at the bottom of the Sterile Lake. The grimoire is full of books like the Synarchobiblaron, written in all languages, and spells like Maws of Pandemonium, which causes the victim to sprout gibbering, magic-eating mouths all over his body.

Most of this catalogue is evocative and exotic (though some monsters and gods border on the silly -- especially things like the Tick-Men and Pitch Spiders, and some of the slimy, interchangeable Great Old Ones). What I really would have liked to see, though, is a bit more advice on how to stage and manage all these things. How do the human beings of Ilek-Vad interact with the Cats From Saturn? Do they even know they exist? And in what context would PC's be likely to encounter either?

Near the beginning of the book, there is a two-page section titled "Evoking the Atmosphere of Dreams," which mentions a few excellent, and very creepy, ideas for staging and communicating the weirdness of the Dreamlands. This section is excellent, but it falls short. Why couldn't some of the less interesting monsters and magic have been left out to make more room for ideas and atmosphere? How about going into a bit more depth on how the people of the Dreamworld see things, or more adventure "hooks" for PC's. It's not really clear what role PC's might play in the Dreamworld, except awed tourists, which is _not_ a good idea for a RPG setting (at least one I'd want to run without fear of being lynched by my players). As it stands, "The Complete Dreamlands" is a great list of material for existing Dreamlands campaigns, but this Keeper, at least, has no idea what a Dreamlands campaign might look like.

This lack of depth becomes even more apparent in the adventures section, which makes up the book's second part. There are two adventures; the introduction mentions that previous editions had four others. I don't know if these two are new or if they were selected to be carried over to this edition. If it's the latter, though, that really doesn't say much for the ones that they rejected.

The first adventure is "Lemon Sails." It's supposed to be an introduction to the Dreamlands, but it's probably more likely to turn players off the setting than on. For no convincing reason, the PC's are dragged along on a tour of the Dreamlands without a whole lot for them to do. Eventually the PC's go to another world, learn a secret of dubious utility, see sanity-wracking monsters and leave. The end. It seems more like an unfinished sketch than like something I'd want to throw at my players.

The second adventure, "Pickman's Student" is a bit better, but not a lot. Taking place in the 1920s Waking World as well as the Dreamlands, it follows the basic detective-story pattern of most CoC adventures, going to the Dreamlands for the conclusion. The Dreamlands bit doesn't really fit with the general Dreamlands tone. With its violence, undead, weird fungi and hints of gallows humor, it reads more like a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay adventure than Call of Cthulhu -- and while I'm a big fan of WFRP (which I would recommend to all CoC fans), it makes for a jarring change of tone.

Obviously, my opinion of "The Complete Dreamlands" is mixed. I really like the exotic and surreal aspects of the setting, but I'm not sure that's enough for an RPG, in which the focus has to be on the actions of the PC's. While I'm giving this book an "average" rating to reflect my split opinion, I would recommend it -- and recommend it very highly -- to GM's who feel comfortable with being able to deal with the vagueness and are looking for a list of very strange and very magical places, characters and ideas, either for a Dreamlands campaign, or for any other suitably weird or dark fantasy campaign. I'm sure some of those spells and location will end up in my WFRP and fairie-centered Ars Magica games, and the whole idea of the Dreamlands would fit well into something like Over the Edge or even Pendragon. On the other hand, if, like me, you want an immediately usable exotic campaign setting or CoC addition, you might want to take a good, long look before buying it.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)

The Complete Dreamlands, 4th Edition
Author: Chris Williams, Sandy Petersen, et al. Category: game Company/Publisher: Chaosium Inc. Cost: $21.95 Page count: 186 ISBN: 1-56882-086-0 Capsule Review by Eric Brochu on 01/05/98. Genre tags: none	Chaosium's latest edition of its Dreamlands source book might be titled "The Complete Dreamlands," but I found it lacking and unfinished, despite it's almost two hundred pages. I'll be up front with you -- I'm not a fan of H. P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands stories. I think HPL's predilection for vagueness of description and his generally purple style (which can be distracting and irritating even in his best stories) take over to the point that the rewards of reading the stories are simply not worth it. The titles give you a good idea of what you're in for -- "The Doom that Came to Sarnath," "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath." Dramatic-sounding, even evocative, sure, but also vague and meaningless. On the other hand, though, I really like the _idea_ of the Dreamlands: an unfamiliar, exotic world equal parts Arabian Nights, pulp fantasy, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Xanadu, where humanity's unconscious mixes with that of the earth's prehuman races and malevolent extraterrestrials. It's a world filled with cities from your weirdest dreams and haunted by creatures from your darkest nightmares. "The Complete Dreamlands, 4th Edition" is well-illustrated with an attractive cover painting and glossy world map. There is an unusual (for Chaosium) number of typos which I always find fairly irritating -- another read-through would have picked most of them up, so why are they there (unless they put it out in a hurry to capitalize on the Dreamlands expansion for the Mythos CCG)? The book divided into two parts. The first (and by far larger) part is dominated by a catalogue of places, people, creatures, gods and magic of the Dreamlands. It's here that you'll find the city of Ilek-Vad, built inside cliffs of translucent glass, and topped with the Palace of Rainbows. You can meet the dignified Cat Patriarch of Celephais, and the world's greatest dreamer, King Kurantes, who overdosed on drugs in the real world, but lives on in a land built of his own dreams and memories. The bestiary describes things like the Cats From Saturn, which are like nightmare Impressionist paintings come to life, and the Great Old One Ghadamon, fed on human brains and living and waiting at the bottom of the Sterile Lake. The grimoire is full of books like the Synarchobiblaron, written in all languages, and spells like Maws of Pandemonium, which causes the victim to sprout gibbering, magic-eating mouths all over his body. Most of this catalogue is evocative and exotic (though some monsters and gods border on the silly -- especially things like the Tick-Men and Pitch Spiders, and some of the slimy, interchangeable Great Old Ones). What I really would have liked to see, though, is a bit more advice on how to stage and manage all these things. How do the human beings of Ilek-Vad interact with the Cats From Saturn? Do they even know they exist? And in what context would PC's be likely to encounter either? Near the beginning of the book, there is a two-page section titled "Evoking the Atmosphere of Dreams," which mentions a few excellent, and very creepy, ideas for staging and communicating the weirdness of the Dreamlands. This section is excellent, but it falls short. Why couldn't some of the less interesting monsters and magic have been left out to make more room for ideas and atmosphere? How about going into a bit more depth on how the people of the Dreamworld see things, or more adventure "hooks" for PC's. It's not really clear what role PC's might play in the Dreamworld, except awed tourists, which is _not_ a good idea for a RPG setting (at least one I'd want to run without fear of being lynched by my players). As it stands, "The Complete Dreamlands" is a great list of material for existing Dreamlands campaigns, but this Keeper, at least, has no idea what a Dreamlands campaign might look like. This lack of depth becomes even more apparent in the adventures section, which makes up the book's second part. There are two adventures; the introduction mentions that previous editions had four others. I don't know if these two are new or if they were selected to be carried over to this edition. If it's the latter, though, that really doesn't say much for the ones that they rejected. The first adventure is "Lemon Sails." It's supposed to be an introduction to the Dreamlands, but it's probably more likely to turn players off the setting than on. For no convincing reason, the PC's are dragged along on a tour of the Dreamlands without a whole lot for them to do. Eventually the PC's go to another world, learn a secret of dubious utility, see sanity-wracking monsters and leave. The end. It seems more like an unfinished sketch than like something I'd want to throw at my players. The second adventure, "Pickman's Student" is a bit better, but not a lot. Taking place in the 1920s Waking World as well as the Dreamlands, it follows the basic detective-story pattern of most CoC adventures, going to the Dreamlands for the conclusion. The Dreamlands bit doesn't really fit with the general Dreamlands tone. With its violence, undead, weird fungi and hints of gallows humor, it reads more like a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay adventure than Call of Cthulhu -- and while I'm a big fan of WFRP (which I would recommend to all CoC fans), it makes for a jarring change of tone. Obviously, my opinion of "The Complete Dreamlands" is mixed. I really like the exotic and surreal aspects of the setting, but I'm not sure that's enough for an RPG, in which the focus has to be on the actions of the PC's. While I'm giving this book an "average" rating to reflect my split opinion, I would recommend it -- and recommend it very highly -- to GM's who feel comfortable with being able to deal with the vagueness and are looking for a list of very strange and very magical places, characters and ideas, either for a Dreamlands campaign, or for any other suitably weird or dark fantasy campaign. I'm sure some of those spells and location will end up in my WFRP and fairie-centered Ars Magica games, and the whole idea of the Dreamlands would fit well into something like Over the Edge or even Pendragon. On the other hand, if, like me, you want an immediately usable exotic campaign setting or CoC addition, you might want to take a good, long look before buying it. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 3 (Average)