Purple Duck was one of the first publishers to take advantage of Goodman Games' license, and to date, Daniel Bishop is probably the most fecund 3rd-party writer for DCC, and one of the best. I thought you should know that, 'cause I'll be sorting all of his work, and I don't like to repeat myself, it robs me time from reading.
The booksellers asked me to tell you, dear reader, that this is plagued with SPOILERS.
This adventure, or "Adventure locale" as Purple duck calls them, takes place in the dream lands. It is called a "locale" because it's circumscribed to a place, the palace of Somnos, the dreaming god. And the hook is as easy as it's effective: the PCs are dreaming, and they all are invited to join Somnos' ball. If they get to him, they know that he'll be able to grant them a wish.
As you may imagine, things can be a little different in the dream lands. To start with, Somnos' mansion is full of dream analogues of the PCs, and depending on the mask they wear, their attitude and effects on the PCs can be completely different. This is both entertaining and evocative. There are some rules there concerning what happens to the analogues when PCs move around that seemed a bit confusing, but it's a small thing.
To follow with, the PCs won't get much time to visit the palace; there's a "time limit" that hinges on the way the PCs move around the mansion. The "physical" representation of this is the sound of a chime; when it happens 12 times, the PCs awake and the visit is over... for the time being. Yes, this is a recurrent dream, and it can be completed or attempted another time at a later occasion. Nice mechanic, easy and convenient.
Inside the mansion, they'll find a series of rooms full of oddities that manage to evoke a dreaming imagery, I can assure you that. Here Bishop makes good use of Lovecraft's legacy, in particular from his dreamlands stories, with some "easter eggs" concerning characters and details from said stories. The rooms pose puzzles or hide traps, and are basically in the PCs' way to get to the place where Somnos lies. And careful what you wish, it may become true... or make Somnos blast you out of existence.
And yes, Somnos can become a PC patron. And seeing how you humans love sleeping, I'm sure that he's a very popular patron indeed...
Illos (cover and interior) are by Scott Ackerman. His style is very personal, and I really think that it fits perfectly the mood. Ackerman's work is distorted, wavy, with clean black lines.
Dreams and dream-quests are a common theme in fantasy literature, but I don't think they're used well enough. This adventure manages to do that.
This a King Conan (4 out of 4 ) adventure. The Appendix-o'-meter almost exploded.
You can find it here.
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