A Land of Dreams and Darkness by Jim Pinto is a role playing game supplement published by Schwalb Entertainment for use with Shadow of the Demon Lord. This is part of theLands in Shadow series that explore parts of the Urth setting.
The supplement is available from DriveThruRPG as a 36 page PDF for $4.99. a softcover print on demand book for $11.99 or both softcover and PDF for $11.99. The PDF is the version reviewed although it was purchased at the reduced price of $4.34 during a sale. Two pages are the front and rear covers, one page is the front matter, one page is the Table of Contents and one page has ads for Nessus, A Land Divided and Grand Duchy.
The supplement starts with a brief overview of Balgrendia, a nation with a very old history populated by backward and superstitious folk. A land infested with wicked faeries and demons released from the Void. The land is bordered by the March Lands, the Patchwork Lands, Low Country and the Confederacy of Nine Cities.
Sorrow and Exile is a history of the land. The Queen of Dreams and Shadows, Nox, after the Hateful Wars with the trolls and her lover Diabolus’ exile to Hell, abandoned the courts of the Faerie Queen and formed the realm of Niflheim in what would become Balgrendia. Nox was not a fan of humanity and when two groups of humans, the Bhal and the Grenn, arrived and started fighting with each other, Nox appeared and forced peace on them.
When the Witch-King Ashrakal and the Men of Gog left the Desolation and defeated the Edene, he sensed the presence of Niflheim as a source of power and attempted an invasion. In order to prevent the Witch-King conquering Niflheim, Nox destroyed the land and much of her own people and the Witch-King’s army at the same time. Following the destruction of Niflheim and the disappearance of Nox who had enforced the peace, the land fell into internal strife once more.
This continued until the king of the Grenn promised his land to the king of the Bhal in exchange for the latter’s daughter’s hand in marriage, uniting the two realms. Shortly afterwards the Empire approached and Balgrendia became an imperial province, but one that was largely ignored due to its location. The current king reformed the land attempting to form new bonds between the Bhals and Grenns, but not to the effect he would have liked. In the present, his twin sons are arguing and are likely to split the land when one inherits the throne.
The Balgrendians describes the peoples of the land, who are still effectively split into Bhals and Grenns. The Borderguard was formed by the king to force the two to work together to protect the land from danger, but with limited success. Balgrendia, even though it is adjacent to Low Country, is still a land of farmers, and art is not welcomed at all. The merchant class, due to various laws, conducts a lot of trade through smuggling, largely to the Confederacy of Nine Cities. The nobles of the land are no better off than the people they rule and wisewomen used to have a prominent role in every village, but recently some villages have turned against these, blaming them for various misfortunes. Druids keep the Old Faith and still enforce a bargain made with Nox.
A Remote and Haunted Land gives an overview of the various points of interest in Balgrendia. The Old Dark Wood is the forest that occupies much of the land and includes the twisted remains of Niflheim. Mountains provide iron and extensive bogs, swamps and fens provide sources of additional danger. Some points of interest in the primary farming region are detailed, as are the land’s three cities.
Factions and Machinations is the current, and future, turmoil being caused by the twin sons of the king, and a statement by a prominent field marshal that she will follow neither, making a three way civil war highly likely.
A Self-Sufficient Land notes that Balgrendia creates what it needs, as its isolation makes this a necessity. This has resulted in the land becoming insular.
Law and Order covers how the king enforces law in the land, primarily through the use of itinerant magistrates who have a fair bit of power and are generally overworked.
Readiness for War is the land’s army. Different to the Borderguard, it is a professional force of well-equipped and trained volunteers.
Old Gods and Small Gods covers religion in the land with a sidebar on Serving the Queen of Dreams and Shadows, for PCs who chose Nox as a patron deity.
Spirits and Monsters is the bestiary, and mentions that several instalments of the Monstrous Pages series, Ghastly Gourmands, Of Fire and Venom, Foulest Reptiles, Odd Monsters, Terrible Beauty, Wee Folk and Malicious Mischief, have further monsters that can be added. In some cases this may only be a single monster from the instalment. The new creatures tend to be spirits or twisted faeries. There is a sidebar on a legendary singular creature, the Goatman.
Adventures in Balgrendia has five short adventure hooks.
Finally, Balgrendian Characters is for characters hailing from the land. Such characters will probably be human; ancestries from Terrible Beauty are possible but will cause problems with locals. There is a new d20 background table as well.
A Land in Dreams and Darkness in Review
The PDF is decently bookmarked with major and minor sections linked; unfortunately some of the major sections are in the wrong locations in the order, which is a detriment to navigation. The Table of Contents is to a similar depth and is also hyperlinked. Navigation is decent, but not as good as it should have been.
The text maintains a single column two colour layout and no errors were noticed. There are a variety of colour illustrations, up to about half a page in size, and these would appear to be custom. Sadly, there is no map of Balgrendia showing where any of the mentioned places are located. This means that the closest thing to a map is the one on the continent of Rûl in the core rulebook, which details nothing bar the approximate location of the nation – not even the locations of forests and mountains. The supplement could have really done with a map, even on a level of the ones seen in other supplements in the Lands in Shadow series. As it is, a GM will have to largely guess where places – including geographic features – are located.
The described geography of the country makes it largely cut off from much of the rest of the continent. Two of the three cities are ports, and are located at pretty much the only places there can be ports on the coast going by the description. Overland, more swamps, fens and a massive forest make passage across other borders difficult, although this apparently doesn’t stop the Patchwork Lands from raiding, or jotuns along the coast. Given Balgrendia’s geographic isolation, this does make it a good place to locate things that a GM wants to be largely inaccessible.
Balgrendia is also an ideal land to use to have adventures based around the darker side of faerie, the Unseelie Court if you will. Even before Niflheim was destroyed, faeries were not friendly to man and since that they have become more unfriendly and, in many cases, very warped. A Land of Dreams and Darkness briefly covers, as do the rest of the series meaning that there is a lot of space for expansion by a GM, the land in question and it can be found by clicking here.
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