Hyper-reality

ripvanwormer's picture

 The concept of hyper-reality comes from the Ravenloft boxed set The Nightmare Lands, which defined five levels of reality.

Level one reality is common dreams. They are incapable of hurting creatures from our level reality.

Level two reality is dreamscapes, which are dreams that can hurt you. There's more on dreamscapes in A Guide to the Ethereal Plane and Heroes of Horror.

Level three reality is waking reality, "our" level of reality. Of
course, our minds spend a great deal of time in levels one and two when
we're asleep.

Level four reality is hyper-reality, more real than real. Compared
to hyper-reality, our reality is only a dream, albeit a very vivid one.
Everything in hyper-reality is more intense, more vivid, more damaging,
more colorful, and so on. Hyper-real creatures like mercurials can
manipulate our reality at will.

Hyper-realities are rare in this multiverse, generally occupying
out-of-the-way corners of existence and not affecting the rest of the
planes very much. When they do, the results can be catastrophic.

Beldaari is just one hyper-real realm. There are others.

Hyper-reality has nothing to do with the Far Realm, although I wouldn't be surprised if the Far Realm had hyper-realities in it.

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