Once again, I'm sharing a public post from my Patreon about the development of Dream-Quest, for the benefit of those who are interested in this ongoing project.
Once again, I'm sharing a public post from my Patreon about the development of Dream-Quest, for the benefit of those who are interested in this ongoing project.
The GM will still need to make maps, I think, so that players (if not their PCs) can "get back" even to places that can't be gotten back too.
ReplyDeleteI think you could do somnolent cartography by archetypical anchors, possibly (since it would be contemporary) using Jungian archetypes. Instead of physical geography you could map them by psychic function - The Shadow, the Anima, the Hero, etc. - scenery can change as much as you like - the characters will recognize (or fail to recognize) the persistence of sleep-memory.
Alternatively, you could use a completely non-Euclidean map without any coordinates or directions, where topological relationships and transitions occur: a forest always precedes confrontation, a hallway always reveals something....something like that.
I could also see a mnemonic dream palace as the superstructure of the entire world, where from the DreamMaster's side of things, the geography looks like a normal dungeon, but the descriptors to the players are completely unrelated in setting. (The DM sees a hallway to a fountain room, but the players see an open cloud expanse and all have tacos for heads. They successfully navigate (from the DM perspective) to the fountain and wash their hands. The players are told that flea-bitten wombats have fled the cloudscape, leaving them refreshed.)
I could also see mapping from symbolic coordinates, like time of night, emotional intensity, color palette, or specific symbols (mirrors, birds, water.) This allows for backtracking through dreams, by reconstructing the symbolic conditions that led to them.
Nested dreams could also be mapped fractally.
I really think you should map it. It could be really fun.
I think a bit of ayahuasca might be useful….
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