Dreamsmith Plans (Patreon)

Nigh on a hundred and eleven years ago, there was a most terrible war. The monsters from beyond our borders broke through, snuffed the tower sized candles of Last Light and its sisters and gripped the lands in an unyielding darkness. Living Nightmares stalked the forests and streets. The Deep Dreamers became gateways for greater Nightmares and their twisted creations scar the land still. 

But their rule was not to last. The Light Knights set out from distant lands, their leader just a concerned toymaker frightened for his grand-daughter's future, and built an army of brave heroes to face the Nightmares.

That was a hundred and eleven years ago and while they succeeded, the marks of the Nightmares remain. Phobias lurk in the dark shadows of the world and some Deep Dreamers remain trapped in the black hearts of their creations.

But life goes on and there is much to be thankful of, eh? The great brass city of Howl stands tall and triumphant above the sea, a symbol of modern ingenuity and industry! It's clockwork men keep the cogs of the city running smooth as ever and its said a lad or lass can find their fortune there even wi'out a lookin' glass!

Or there's the Inkk and all the great Publishing Houses that squat upon its shores, churning out penny dreadfuls, storybooks, novellas, novels, guides, manuals, and more at a rate that'd put the fear in any typewriter!

Course, time ain't be too kind on the once noble Lunderville, or should I say Underville as its oft called ever since that army of Urchins took over its rooftops and chimneys and declared themselves top dog.

Come to think of it, the Publishing Houses ain't too great these days neither seein as so many fancy themselves Spinners and everyone knows them new Flipbooks is better than readin'.

In fact, even Howl ain't done too well since that Disaster Artist blew up the Counterwise Cog and left the whole Lower Districts in disarray and discontent.

Sure enough Wrongfooter, you picked a bad time to come through to our world but hey, maybe you'll be the one to fix it. Or, more likely, you'll at least give the crows a good meal.

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Dreamsmith, as I hope the little intro above highlights, is a strange world that while full of humour and happiness does have danger and darkness woven into its very fabric. 

While Dreams can be made real, so too can Nightmares. 

My plans for this is to develop the setting and release information each month about characters, Nightmares, towns and cities, abilities, history, and other stuff as it comes up. The journey to release is going to be a winding and meandering one with a playable version quite a long way out but I hope the stuff I release each month will be interesting enough for you to stick around and read.

As I mentioned in the poll, this setting is actually the same as the world I made for my novel Ava and the Dreamsmith (which is still very much a work in progress) but if enough people are interested, I'll put up a link to my not-even-first draft which is around 75 pages :)

I'll be writing about the setting as a purely agnostic setting at first but I may end up including rules of my own design or porting it to Troika! which seems like a fun and easy system.

First Steps

The first step is to get a map made up so that I can easily highlight places and areas which means I get to draw up a map and then commission an actual artist to make it look good. From there I'll be using Legend Keeper to create a wiki/ atlas that you Patrons will able to access, which should make it easier to find content as I can link articles, nest town maps on the atlas, and do all sorts of other useful things.

After I've got the map made up, I'll look into writing up information about the key classes that players can choose from and maybe even getting some art commissioned for them as well.

End Goal

The goal, of course, is to get Dreamsmith in print eventually. Nice big book with a map, just like I've always wanted (:

But I'll talk more about that as we get closer to it.

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An excerpt from Ava and the Dreamsmith to get an idea of the nice things in the world as well:

A sleepy looking pug wandered out from under her seat with a leather bound tome in its teeth. Unaware of her it took the book to an empty space on the shelf, crudely dog eared a page and pushed it into place. It turned, saw her, blinked twice, then looked confused. It panicked, running back and forth between the shelves. Ava laughed to herself. It found the book it was looking for, a chewed red book with the title Guard Dog Training Manual. It pawed through the pages, stopped at a dog eared chapter and read, huffing with fright. It flicked the page, checked the diagram then turned its attention to Ava.

“Bark!” She didn’t move. It pawed to another page, read, huffed, looked at Ava.

“Growl.” She was unfazed. Panic took hold. Desperately it pawed to another page. It huffed deeply and ran to alert the homeowner to the intrusion.

“It’s alright Bartemis. She’s a guest.” Elias laughed.