Structure of the Nightmare Dimension
Part One: Entering the Nightmare Dimension: physical changes
There are two ways of entering the Nightmare dimension. The first is to travel to the Astral Plane, then find a gate that conducts to the Nightmare Dimension. Gates from the Astral Plane always reach one of the four Nightmare Elemental Regions, so the process is nearly fatal each time, if a creature is not appropriately equipped and prepared. But the more common is to use one of the dimensional ripples that opens at random times in specific locations of Mystara- one of these locations is the underground area of the Five Shires.
When entering the Fifth Dimension, a creature suffers a deal of physical and chemical changes. For the first thing, the four basic Elements of the Prime shift to the four Nightmare Elements, that are described below. This change reflects itself in the appearance of the body. During the few seconds when the beings is passing from the Prime to the Fifth Dimension, it experiences a painful torsion of the body, a sensation similar to that of being torn in every single muscle and bone of the body, like being torn inside out. Once a being has entered the Fifth Dimension, the pain immediately ceases, but leaves the creature in a state of physical confusion, with a feeling of inadequacy of the organs to the needs of the body. This is caused by the change in dimensional structure of the creature, that must re-adequate itself to the dimensions of his body. After an amount of time (that varies from three to eight-twelve hours, mostly depending on the size of the creature- highly magical creatures use less time, because they exist more in the Fourth dimension than their non magical counterparts, and thus require a less time to adapt their bodies to that dimension). Of all the organs, the one that will adapt in the longer amount of time is the capacity to speak, while the first are the legs. To a First Dimension creature, more exactly, the change is a complete inversion of the perceptions and functions of the body. Walking forward in fact becomes a retreat, and talking normally in a common language gives way only to an incomprehensible blubber: a creature must abandon all its concepts of space and its sensible experiences to be able to walk, talk and act, whatever the situation. Speaking in game terms, it means that a creature is reduced to half its scores of strength, dexterity and constitution (and lose all the eventual mastery in weapons), regaining one point in each of them for every day spent in the Fifth Dimension.
Apparently the bodily aspect won't change, but its colour does: blue becomes yellow, green becomes red, black becomes white, while grey and brown remain approximately the same, and vice versa. As an example, a human adventurer with black hair and blue eyes would appear like a dark greenish humanoid with albino hair and light orange eyes; if he wears a blue cloak, it would appear to be a sickly yellow one. This implies that the creature views itself and all the other Primes with a terror not lesser than that naturally Fifth dimensional creatures would produce (and are calculated like those regarding Horror Checks). A Horror Check must be immediately done when a creature reaches the Nightmare Dimension and can feel and see the changes to its body (normally it won't take long…).
Basing on this colour theory, it is easy to understand what the illumination is like in the Dimension: all sources of light gives a DARK colour to everything (see also 'Blackflame'). Creatures of this dimension usually see in the dark, but 'adapted' First dimensional creatures will still see in the light, so they will normally act (probably unknowingly) during the 'night' cycle of the Fifth Dimension…drawing upon themselves the attention of nocturne predators and of many evil sentient beings…
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