Deep Morphean Transmissions
"Hello? Mission control? This is Agent McCormack reporting in. Location... deep dreamscape¸ second layer¸ reflection of East-London dockyards. Requesting urgent support. Entire team pinned in combat with unknown assailants."
"At least [fragment missing] on our position. Seemingly human¸ emerging from the harbour¸ most with fish-like alterations¸ many armed....I don't know¸ give me a [speech inaudible¸ sounds of gunfire]. Good God¸ it's huge! Coming out of the water¸ slithering this way."
"It's [fragment missing]."
"Oh! I hear police sirens in- [wet ripping sounds] Jesus¸ it got Granger¸ his skin came right off... Mucus everywhere¸ guns don't do... oh Jesus Christ¸ it sees me! [inaudible¸ heavy breathing and footsteps] Get me out of here! I can't-"
[Transmission ends in static]
It is easy to assume that what we see in our waking hours comprise the sum total of reality¸ and that the places we visit in dreams are mere phantoms¸ illusions conjured by our sleeping minds and nothing more. But what if that wasn't true? What if the world of our dreams were as real as our waking lives? Indeed¸ what if it were possible to visit these places while still lucid; to project one's mind out of one's body and into the strange vistas that lurk beyond the veil of sleep¸ outside of the physical world? Upon descending into the worlds of dreams and madness¸ what would an intrepid explorer find there? And¸ indeed¸ what would gaze back at them with cold¸ piscine eyes of their own?
In this game¸ your players will find the answers to these questions¸ and more. Taking on the rolls of field-agents of the quasi-official Morpheus Agency¸ they venture into the dreamscape on missions of exploration and espionage. As they progress¸ they'll encounter strange beings¸ glitches in the very fabric of reality¸ and conspiricies that reach across the void between dimensions.
The game's mechanics will be familiar to those already acquainted with old-school gaming¸ but feature a number of adaptations to reflect the surreal nature of exploration of the Dreamscape. Of note:
- Players track their character's heart rate¸ with each dice roll adding to their heart rate. Should their heartbeat become to rapid¸ cardiac arrest will force them to be withdrawn from the dreamscape. Likewise¸ loss of HP in the dreamscape will force withdrawel due to pain¸ rather than resulting in character death.
- Upon being forced out of the dreamscape¸ the stress placed upon the character results in complications going forward; player characters are hard to kill off and instead become permenantly scarred by their experiences.
- XP is earned for uncovering facts & secrets and achieving mission objectives¸ unlocking new ways to explore the Dreamscape as the Agents level up. In this way¸ the game becomes about picking at the various threads of the setting's conspiricies and complications.
- And various other tweaks to familiar formulas in order to streamline play or bring the setting's tone and metaphysics to the forefront.
This book contains guidelines to running the game¸ including a guide to the true nature of reality and a comprehensive list of the various entities that might be encountered seemingly benign agents of the Hypnos Department¸ to the weirdness of reality-glitches and memetic hazards¸ to the vast horror of the Dreaming Leviathan. Also included is a more in-depth guide and commentry on the rules provided in the materials for players.
Also¸ there's some rather lovely full-page illustrations by Scrap Princess.
This book doesn't contain character creation rules¸ and only skims over the basic mechanics. Those are contained