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The Mind Unveiled

Dreamscape

Andreas Rönnqvist

The Mind Unveiled:

Dreamscape

Author: Andreas Rönnqvist

Editor: Jeremy Smith

Proofreaders: Derek M. Koch, Patrick Seymour

Design / Layout: Jeremy Smith

Interior Illustrations: Levi Hinton, V. Shane

Cover 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

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Open Game Content: The entirety of this work with the exception of the above-mentioned Product Identity is designated as Open

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Rönnqvist, Jeremy Smith. This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction,

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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.

Dreamscape

T HE D REAMSCAPE

T HE B IRTH OF THE D REAMSCAPE

All 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.

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.

T HE F IRST OF THE QAEL

The 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

The Tash Qael view themselves as rulers of the Dreamscape

The Mind Unveiled

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

P SIONICS AS D REAM M AGIC

For 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.

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

Dreamscape

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.

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.

G EOGRAPHY OF THE D REAMSCAPE

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

T HE O LDEST OF D REAMS

But 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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