I know this is likely just me being pedantic with the release of the GMG, but I found something super contradictory with previously established lore:
Created and sustained by the collective dreams of sleeping mortals, the Dreamlands (also called the Dimension of Dreams)...
Compare that with what's previously been said about the dimension (most explicitly in Planar Adventures [pg. 213]) where it states that the Dreamlands is a stable section of the Dimension of Dreams that arose from the dreamscapes of primordial dreamers.
So which is it?
Can they both be true? Couldn't people refer to the Dreamlands as the Dimension of Dreams, with the Dreamlands being a particular part of the Dimension that the educated understands as being something more specific.
I always thought they were the same. Also, since we're on the subject, something I keep forgetting to ask: if dreaming creatures project themselves into the Dimension Of Dreams/Dreamlands, I would assume that means their soul or whatever does some sort of planar travel. Does this mean you can't have dreams in a place where such a thing doesn't work, such as in the area of a dimensional lock or a dead magic zone?
I always figured the dimension of dreams included the dreamlands (stable, somewhat permanent, and not shaped by current dreamers any longer), the dreaming sea (made up of dreams happening at the time).
So, the blurb is just a bit off, but to the average traveler it would appear that dreamlands are synonymous with the dimension of dreams.
It's a change with PF2 afaik. There were a few subtle things like that in the GMG.
Creative Director
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It's mostly us focusing more on the Dreamlands as the primary place where adventures can take place, where PCs can visit as a group, and where monsters and things and lore can come from. My original push a decade ago was to handle it this way, but Occult Adventures took it in a different direction. While interesting, the way that book handled the Dimension of Dreams didn't really enable it as a place that things could come from or where adventures could happen, since dreamscapes were so fluid and morphable and temporary and varied that they didn't really work well as a firm foundation for us to build things upon..
Those dreamscapes still exist, but the focus of the content we'll actually be producing is going to be based on a dimension of dreams that is stable enough that it won't change completely the instant we publish a book about it.
Planar Adventures was the first course correction for this, and now that we've switched editions, it's the new norm.
Think of the Dimension of Dreams as being the Dreamlands as a stable core, with the infinite number of potential dreamscapes as "orbiting" the dreamlands.
The entire thing is called the Dimension of Dreams OR the Dreamlands.
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Creative Director
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I always thought they were the same. Also, since we're on the subject, something I keep forgetting to ask: if dreaming creatures project themselves into the Dimension Of Dreams/Dreamlands, I would assume that means their soul or whatever does some sort of planar travel. Does this mean you can't have dreams in a place where such a thing doesn't work, such as in the area of a dimensional lock or a dead magic zone?
If you're in a dreamscape, you can certainly dream that you're dreaming.
If you're in the Dreamlands (or a similar stable realm in the dimension) you can still fall asleep, and while sleeping you can create a dreamscape.
Dimensional lock blocks planar travel, but not dimensional travel. If it blocked dimensional travel, not only would you not be able to dream, but you wouldn't be able to do ANYTHING since it would also lock things like distance and time.
Dead magic zones just block magic from being cast or from being accessed. They don't block things that are created by magic or supernatural. If a dead magic zone couldn't exist in the dreamlands, then it would stand to reason that a dead magic zone couldn't exist anywhere except MAYBE on the Material Plane.
It's mostly us focusing more on the Dreamlands as the primary place where adventures can take place, where PCs can visit as a group, and where monsters and things and lore can come from. My original push a decade ago was to handle it this way, but Occult Adventures took it in a different direction. While interesting, the way that book handled the Dimension of Dreams didn't really enable it as a place that things could come from or where adventures could happen, since dreamscapes were so fluid and morphable and temporary and varied that they didn't really work well as a firm foundation for us to build things upon..
Those dreamscapes still exist, but the focus of the content we'll actually be producing is going to be based on a dimension of dreams that is stable enough that it won't change completely the instant we publish a book about it.
Planar Adventures was the first course correction for this, and now that we've switched editions, it's the new norm.
Think of the Dimension of Dreams as being the Dreamlands as a stable core, with the infinite number of potential dreamscapes as "orbiting" the dreamlands.
The entire thing is called the Dimension of Dreams OR the Dreamlands.
I kinda get that, but I'm just a bit hung up on referring to the Dimension of Dreams as the Dreamlands and vice versa when I thought they were two different things. I'm mostly just curious about the exact nomenclature, because thus far I've been referring to the stable core as Dreamlands (the thing is based off of Lovecraft's work) and the entire thing (Dreamlands and various dreamscapes) as the Dimension of Dreams, but you said that the terms are basically interchangeable, so I guess my question is summed up to this: If the entire dimension is the Dreamlands (or the Dimension of Dreams, depending on what you want to call it), then what's the name of the dimension's stable "core" that's based off of Lovecraft's work?
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Creative Director
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I kinda get that, but I'm just a bit hung up on referring to the Dimension of Dreams as the Dreamlands and vice versa when I thought they were two different things. I'm mostly just curious about the exact nomenclature, because thus far I've been referring to the stable core as Dreamlands (the thing is based off of Lovecraft's work) and the entire thing (Dreamlands and various dreamscapes) as the Dimension of Dreams, but you said that the terms are basically interchangeable, so I guess my question is summed up to this: If the entire dimension is the Dreamlands (or the Dimension of Dreams, depending on what you want to call it), then what's the name of the dimension's stable "core" that's based off of Lovecraft's work?
The name of the dimension's stable "core" that's based off Lovecraft's work is the Dreamlands as well.
Certainly doesn't seem weirder than all the places where the name of a country or state is taken from the name of the most prominent city. There are over a dozen examples in the States alone and many more beyond. Naming a general region after its most significant feature seems actually pretty common in human history, so calling the entire Dimension, 'the Dreamlands' when technically that name refers most accurately to the core region of Dream and not precisely to the seafoam of dreamscapes around it doesn't seem contradictory. Or at least no more so than any place where humans can't quite agree on what the proper name of a thing is and keep giving it additional titles.
... Unless I've somehow gone barmy and got turned around in here.