{"id":9330,"date":"2024-08-24T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-24T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9330"},"modified":"2024-08-07T15:44:38","modified_gmt":"2024-08-07T19:44:38","slug":"the-dream-shrine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9330","title":{"rendered":"The Dream Shrine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Brad Kerr
Swordlords Publishing
OSE
Levels 1-3<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
You wake up in a bed on a bamboo platform on the back of a 300′ tall woolly mammoth. Pink sky and orange desert surround you. Elephant-shaped balloons drift lazily out of a hole in the mammoth’s back. Enter the Dream Shrine, master its challenges, escape with your life. Just hang on to your teeth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 24 page adventure details ten locations in a small portion of the demiplane of dreams. It\u2019s relatable, weird, and could probably be tossed in to any game where \u201cdreamland\u201d makes sense. I\u2019m as surprised as anyone else that a dream adventure is decent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not a big fan of dream adventures. There\u2019s some kind of a \u201cyou can do anything!\u201d nonsense that is generally combined with a \u201cit was a dream!\u201d lack of consequences. And, then, it\u2019s usually some bullshit excuse to just visit a cloud castle or something like that. I don\u2019t know how many dream adventures I\u2019ve reviewed so far, but I AM pretty sure that almost every one of them sucked hard. But, against all of this trauma, I will put my faith in Brad Kerr, who is most definitely Not An Idiot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is stated for OSE but the setting and encounters could be, I think, appropriate for almost any RPG. You want to XFiles in to the land of dream? It\u2019s chill. You could use this. Cthulhu now? Champions? No problem. If it at all makes sense to insert some knid of dream adventure then you can probably use this one. As that statement would imply, the environment here is more of a neutral groud than fantasy RPG< and, is built from the stuff of YOUR dreams, gentle reader. Our wanderer table has someone at desk taking a test who has not studied for it, or being naked and embarrassed in front of the party. There\u2019s a clown here. It\u2019s like the Wacky land from the old Loony Toons. And, one of the main antagonists is the Tooth Gobbler, who wants to steal your teeth. The settings, likewise, are generally those from dreams you\u2019ve had. A home familiar to you, a crypt, a weirdly long liminal hallway. The appeal here, in the creatures and the locations, is that of things that are relatable to the players, as dreamers. I don\u2019t know how long people been dreaming about loosing teeth, but I suspect it\u2019s not a modern phenomenon. And it\u2019s this pulling from the real world that makes this a pretty good universal supplement. Of course, that assumes you can accept and get past some of the anachronistic elements of a modern living room, and such.  And I hope you can, because this pulling from the \u201creal\u201d world of dreams for ideas and encounters is so much more effective than any of those other dreamland adventures I\u2019ve encountered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Writing here, imagery and the like, is pretty good. \u201cTucked among endless rows of fog dappled firs\u201d or \u201can exhausted middle-aged clown on a wooden stool nursing a cigarette.\u201d Come on man, that\u2019s great right there! How can you not imagine either of those for all their worth given those descriptions. They are the EXACT tropes for each of them. \u201cEndlessly rolling hills; a modest house stands in harsh, late afternoon sunshine. A freestanding door looms in the yard.\u201d Harsh later afternoon sun. There\u2019s a man who can relate to trying to have a cigar on a south facing balcony at 4pm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the interactivity here is fine. There are some traditional encounters, or things that could be traditional encounters, but there can also be a puzzle aspect to some of them. A HUGE mouth on a wall, chomping teeth, a room visible beyond it \u2026 how do you get past it? Brad offers little in the way of advice, letting the party and DM work it out on their own. With, perhaps, a tid biit thrown in here or there. \u201cIf your house doesn\u2019t have a basement then put in a tradorr under a rug. \u201c Short, giving you advice, without becoming mechanistic in its implementation. That\u2019s what I\u2019m looking for. \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s also some decent crossover here. \u201cIn the cardboard box: 100 tiny elephants minding their own business.\u201d I can get in to some trouble with that! Or a jack in the box \u2026 that steals teeth! Or, giant legs in a rom, walking through it, getting their attention being a possible way to save your life, but, \u201c Imagine a beetle trying to announce its presence from the floor of a busy bus depot.\u201d That\u2019s perfect imagery! It brings home exactly the situation in question that the party is facing! And Brad has the ability to do this time and again. He\u2019s put in a myriad of things to help the party navigate this land, if only they can figure out a clever use for them. And I\u2019m not just talking 100 tony elephants <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the end is a lady, imprisoned, the demi-god of night wishes. She\u2019ll give you some stat bumps! Oh, and, also, freeing her results ins some GREAT shit going on after the adventure is over. Like ,300 foot tall mammoth walking around the land accidentally stomping on shit. And beggars riding fine stallions. And the lawful gods getting REALLY pissed you freed her after they locked her up. Those are all REAL sweet consequences for your actions. A little window dressing, a little springboard. And an absolute indication that you\u2019ve had an impact on the game world, ala Rients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $10 at DriveThru. The preview is thirteen pages and shows a handful of rooms, but it more than enough to get a hang for the descriptions and the interactivity, and the overall dreamland vibe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/487721\/the-dream-shrine?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Brad KerrSwordlords PublishingOSELevels 1-3 You wake up in a bed on a bamboo platform on the back of a 300′ tall woolly mammoth. Pink sky and orange desert surround you. Elephant-shaped balloons drift lazily out of a hole in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,15,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-level-2","category-no-regerts","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/dream.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9331,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330\/revisions\/9331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}