Steve Hatherley
The Artist's Guild of Reading is proud to present an exhibition of paintings at the Archway Museum of Antiquities. The exhibition includes a number of rare and unusual paintings in a variety of mediums by a selection of artists from the unknown to the master. All paintings are for sale.
Should the investigators visit the exhibition then one painting, The Second Circle, will catch their eye. Painted about ten years ago by an obscure german artist, the picture is quite ordinary. It shows a peaceful beach with waves lapping at the sand. A bird is perched on a rock in the foreground.
The bird is, as any investigator familiar with the Dreamlands will identify, a varchine. These are birds of prey unique to the Dreamlands. What is one doing in this picture?
The artist has evidently painted a picture of the Dreamlands. Such pictures have the ability to be used as Gates through to the Lands. Experienced Dreamers can dream their way straight to the locality pictured.
It is possible that the artist has painted other scenes, other doorways direct to the world beyond sleep. It is also possible, if the artist was a powerful Dreamer, that she is still in the Dreamlands. Somewhere.
1 The picture leads to a mist covered island. Wandering through the mist eventually brings the Dreamers to a stone circle, the Second Circle of the title. This is an exact replica of a megalithic stone circle which can be found somewhere in Europe. The area is a place where the realities between the two world mix, allowing passage at certain times.
2 The artist is quite mad and is kept in a Bavarian asylum. There she paints scenes from her dreams; gugs and ghasts, Ulthar and Celephais, and more. If the investigators track her down in the Dreamlands they find her lucid and sane.
3 The coastline belongs to a deserted island in the Southern Seas. It is a regular stop for the black galleys that trade with Dylath-Leen and Dreamers waiting there are in danger of being captured by the men that crew such vessels. The circle refers to what appears to be either a dormant volcano, or a meteor crater.
Copyright (c) 1990 Steve Hatherley
Steve Hatherley is the creator of Tales of Terror, and has written for both Chaosium and Pagan Publishing. He also has a number of other websites, including www.great-murder-mystery-games.com and www.mylowerbackpain.com.
Steve lives in Yorkshire, England.
Click here to see Steve's other Tales of Terror.