The purpose of this review is to compare the current (fourth) edition of Chaosium's "Dreamlands" supliment with the preceding (third) edition.
The third edition contains an introduction to the Dreamlands (A part of H.P. Lovecraft's Mythos created by the dreams of men and other things...), advice for the Keeper(GM) on how to get the players into and out of the Dreamlands, as well as advice on how to create a dream-like atmosphere.
Following this are sections dealing with the places, spells, creatures and characters of the dreamlands. The book concludes with six adventures, ranging from the introductory "To Sleep, Perchance to Dream", which with a bit of expansion by the GM could serve to show the players the major sights of the Dreamlands, to the hallucinatory "The Land of Lost Dreams" which takes the players to the darkest reaches of the Dreamlands, Fantastic Realms in a bid to save a friends soul.
After the adventures comes a series of handouts including several maps, two of which deserve special notice, the first is a map of the city of Celephais, it provides the GM with the location of the major features of the city, while allowing him to add details of his own creation. This is what I look for in a gaming map.
The second is the map of the Dreamlands, it's only flaw is that the middle portion of the map goes down the crack between the two pages it is printed on. On it's western edge, is piece of advice I completely agree with, it says:
"-The Blank Lands-"
"This map is incomplete and intentionally so. The Dreamlands stories traverse only a small fraction of the immensity of dream. Each Keeper should feel free to fill the map with cities, kingdoms, islands or empires. Let your imagination run free!"
The fourth edition, entitled, "The Complete Dreamlands" is virtually a core rule book in its own right and is greatly expanded from the previous edition, 186 pages verses 123 pages, this extra material comes from two sources, previous Call of Cuthulhu adventures and the Dreamlands "Heroic Fantasy" stories of Brian Lumley.
This edition is divided into three sections, "Background", "Adventures" and "Appendices".
The Background section which makes up the bulk of the book, begins with an overview, and advice on how to create the right atmosphere.
This material is essentially the same as the beginning of the third edition, but does make one significant change, in the third edition, entry to the Dreamlands was dependant on the sum of a players Sanity and Mythos scores being greater than 75, in the fourth if the sum total of the players technical(science) skills is greater than 300, they do not believe in the Dreamlands and cannot enter.
This material is followed by an essay based on "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kaddath" which provides an excellent overview of the locations of the Dreamlands. However this section also the first minus, several items of information regarding individuals/kingdoms are only contained here, unless the GM reads this section, then some later information does not make sense.
The essay is followed by the gazetteer, which has been divided into sections, a small map at the start of the gazetteer shows the GM which pages cover which part of the Dreamlands. The gazatteer concludes with a copy of the Dreamlands map, there have been several major changes to the map, with some towns and one river removed, other towns have moved, regions renamed and one kingdom removed (Sarrub, a region which exists in Dreamlands space) and a new fantastic realm (Ennon) added. Some descriptions have changed, mostly as a result of the inclusion the Lumley material. Sadly the advice to, "Let your imagination run free!", has also been removed.
The gazatteer is followed by sections describing characters, creatures/races and gods of the dreamlands respectivly. This material is derived from previous Dreamlands adventures and fiction.
The final portion of the background material is the Dreamlands Grimoire, in which is featured artifacts, tomes and spells that only exist in the Dreamlands.
The adventures section consists of two adventures, both from previous editions of the Dreamlands suppliment. "Lemon Sails", set entirely within the Dreamlands, involves the PC's in a quest to find the last Sarrubians. "Pickmans Student", set partly in the real world and partly in the Dreamlands is a quest to stop a Great Old One (evil godlike being) from manfesting in the real world, an event that marks beginning of the end of time. There are however no introductory scenarios like "To Sleep, Perchance to Dream", this makes it difficult for a GM to introduce the Dreamlands into an existing campaign.
The appendices deal with how to create a Dreamlands character, a bibliography of stories and gaming material used to prepare the book, which reveals the somewhat depressing fact that most of the gaming material is in fact out of print, and a chronology of the Dreamlands stories based on the events within them.
While I feel that the amount of detail does outweigh the disadvantages, I do feel that there some changes, I would like to see in any future edition. Firstly, more city maps in the manner of the Celephais map, showing major features while allowing the GM the freedom to design his own areas. Secondly the book needs an introductory adventure, like the ones in the Core Rule Book.
In conclusion I will recommend this to Call of Cuthulhu GM's, but only if they are willing to write their own scenarios, as there is a complete lack of other scenarios, with the exception of "The Dreaming Stone".
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