I had a dream

[Malk]

So this morning I had the oddest dream. There was this newly created world, and it was encased in darkness. The mother goddess who created the world stood above it, and held an oaken rod in her hands. She let it drop, and it began to fall down to the earth. Before it could fall to the earth, a flying creature of darkness swooped out of the swirling black and ate the rod. The mother goddess tried again, this time she held out a rod made of birch. She released the birch rod, and it fell to the earth, and where it landed, a magnificent birch tree grew. A great light began to flow from the tree, and the world was lit with the essance of the mother goddess.

This dream was very powerfull, and it has inspired me to run a mini campaign on www.playbyweb.com. I have a few ideas, for one, it felt like in the dream that the oaken rod would have brought light to more than just the world but im not entirely sure what that means. I get a very celtic, almost fey feeling about the dream and I would like to bring that into any game that i run based upon it. What do you guys think, would you play in a campaign based upon that vision, what idea would you have running such a game, what do you think of the dream itself.

 

[Kyramus]

If I were to run a game from this dream.

I would say that Mother Nature wanted to give the world paradise, instead it was stolen. Mother nature needs to give life to the world and sent the rod of birch. Instead of immortality, all living things have to go through birth, puberty, old age, death and rebirth.

What does this mean? The one from darkness that ate the rod became Mother nature's anti-thesis. Destruction and decay made immortal. The world is going to be a contest between the two to see who would end up reshaping the world in their image.

Seelie Fey vs Unseelie Fey
Elf vs Drow
Dwarf vs Duergar
Human vs Human
Might limit pc races and the rest are monsters.
Using anything animal like to be celestial creatures, and undead and oozes and such to be fiendish creatures.

This dream has a lot of potential for a great campaign setting.

 

[Malk]

Indeed it does, i was wowed when i awoke to remember essentialy the entire dream. Some very good ideas you have there, equating light with life and darkness with death. I cant wait to see what else the board can throw together.

 

[Kyramus]

There are other ways of equating the dream.

It could be that the Oak was suppose to give all that lives some sort of wisdom, now instead of wisdom, birch gave them intelligence but not the path of right or wrong.

Kinda like giving someone a sword, it's two edged cause it could be used to defend someone, or used to murder someone. Not essentially what the Mother Nature wanted to begin with, but wisdom was stolen.

Now if we assume that the dark creature stole wisdom. Would the dark creature then become very wise? Would it be the beginnings of an organized darkness? Maybe the creature started the progeny that ended up with the lawful baatezu?

 

[Conaill]

In a parallel universe, the Darkness failed to intercept the oaken rod, and a stately oak tree grew, giving rise to our own world. Having been born from oak, our is a much denser, heavier, more serious, "grainier" world than the birch world. In contrast, that one is associated with lightness, smoothness, flexibility, and change. But it is also one threatened by ancient darke forces, because the Darkness won the first round in the battle of Good versus Evil.

In other words, the oak world is our own reality, the birch world is the fantasy reality in which we play D&D. No idea how you would use any of this in-game, but that's what the dream conjured up for me...

 

[Malk]

you knwo, whatever game i decide to run, or even if i decide not to, I am glad that I had this dream if only for the chance to imagine what if.

 

[der_kluge]

I say, lay off the crack pipe, man.

Seriously, interesting. Not sure what it means from a dream perspective.

The idea of shadows/darkness fighting nature is kind of an unusual one, though.

You could make paladins into druids in such a world, I would think.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

...

The idea of shadows/darkness fighting nature is kind of an unusual one, though.

...

It's only an unusual idea to us Westerners who follow religions that tended to equate Nature & Darkness. In some cultures, Nature = Good. That lines up pretty well with Nature vs. Darkness.

I would think the world created by this dream would be heavily influenced by Native American and Celtic concepts. Some Australian Aboriginal ideas might fit, as well.

A nice theme might be darkness and undeath disrupting the natural cycle of life->death->life.

 

[SuperFlyTNT]

One time I had a dream after a weekend of AD&D that we built and manufactured dragons at my work... this was the coolest dream ever.

 

[Malk]

this was the coolest dream ever.

I think that the coolest fantasy inspired dream that I've ever had involved me being an Asha'man and having a one power duel with Mazrim Taim...that rocked.