Eldritch Horror is the game that keeps making me insane each and every time I play it. Then again, that is kind of the point of the game. The expansions released so far have been a blast, and early next year, we’ll be able to go to The Dreamlands.
The Dreamlands is a vast, alternate dimension that can be entered through dreams, similar to astral projection. Experienced dreamers are among the most powerful inhabitants of the Dreamlands and may become its permanent residents after their physical deaths.
The Dreamlands are apparently divided into four regions:
- The West contains the Steps of Deeper Slumber (descended via the “Cavern of Flame”) and the Enchanted Woods by which many enter the Dreamlands. Other points of interest include the port of Dylath-Leen, one of the Dreamlands’ largest cities; the town of Ulthar “where no man may kill a cat,” the coastal jungle city of Hlanith, and the desert trading capital Illarnek. Here lies the fabled Land of Mnar, whose gray stones are etched with signs and where rise the ruins of the great Sarnath.
- The South, home of the isle of Oriab and the areas known as the Fantastic Realms (described in “The White Ship”).
- The East, home of Celephaïs, a city dreamt into being by its monarch Kuranes, greatest of all recorded dreamers, and the dangerous Forbidden Lands.
- The North, location of the feared Plateau of Leng, home of man-eating spiders and the satyr-like “Men of Leng”.
Other locales include the Underworld, a subterranean region underneath the Dreamlands inhabited by various monsters; the Moon, accessible via a ship and inhabited by toad-like “moon-beasts” allied with Nyarlathotep; and Kadath, a huge castle atop a mountain and the domain of the “Great Ones”, the gods of Earth’s Dreamland.
The Dreamlands is a new side board, where players will find two new Ancient Ones: Altach-Nacha the Dreamweaver, who seeks to merge reality and the Dreamlands, and Hypnos, the Lord of Sleep, whose whispers drive sleepers mad.
The Dreamlands expansion is scheduled to arrive in the first quarter of 2017, with an SRP of $49.95.
