Pape Jan in the Dreamtime of Man

Introduction

When the first apes who could legitimately be described as "human" spread their way across the savannah the crocodile was there to bear witness, gliding through the waterways like a rumour of a murder. It saw the infancy of human life out of the corner of its eye, paying as much attention as a man does to the hopes, concerns, lives and deaths of deer: occasional subjects of disinterested study; occasional meals.

It remembers those early humans chiefly as bipedal, hairless creatures - something like a beast of the land, but also smooth and sleek like a fish or snake. Forever making strange chattering noises, like a bird; the crocodile does not understand the concept of speech, and if it thought about the behaviour of early humans at all, it surmised that they were somehow able to understand each other through pheromones. It thinks of them as cowards, who were extremely skittish around water and terrified of confrontation unless they were armed and in large numbers, though sometimes, at night, it perceived the warm glow of the fires they were somehow able to create, apparently from the dust itself. It saw their villages too: nests, it thought, like those of some social insect like a bee or wasp. It has no understanding of their hierarchies or sexes: it never paid enough attention, nor is perhaps capable of comprehending such a thing as a "family" or a "chief".

The world of man's dreamtime it remembers better. Hot and blasted by the sun except when the rains boiled up from the land and spilled back down like a waterfall. Dotted everywhere with trees, as far as the eye could see - flat-topped Acacias, components of an infinite archipelago in a sea of dry grasses. And rivers, great rivers, like muddy water spilled over flat ground, in the summer dried to narrow ribbons and in the rainy season bathing the world in wetness. Each year marked by the great migrations of wildebeest when there was more food than could be eaten and the female crocodiles stank of their fecundity. In those centuries the crocodile fathered more broods than it could count if even it was able. In its memory, a time of plenty, a time of joy, a time for living like no other.

The Coming of the Naacals

The first Naacals who came to the Dreamtime did so because they believed that in the search for origins they might discover deep truths about the human race and where it came from, and thus better understand themselves and others and in that way transcend their limitations and deficiencies. Scholars, then, and explorers, but also spiritual seekers - the kind of poets, mystics and dreamers who believe that one's character is like a blade that must be honed.

These seekers were first disappointed, second made afraid, and third and finally became embittered. In some embitterment manifests itself as single-minded pursuit of their original goal in spite of its clear failure. In others it appears as a kind of brutal nihilism which glories in the lack of ultimate cause and hence ultimate meaning. In others still it comes as a horrible weariness that has no respite. In many it is a mixture of all three. Naacals persist in the Dreamtime still but almost all of them are alone, and almost all of them beyond redemption due to their exhaustion, hatred, or inhuman determination.

The Coming of Pape Jan

Pape Jan is a king of the "Third India" of Ethiopië, who traveled beyond the sea in the antique past to spread the word of God among the heathen peoples of the Orient. Long thought to have forged a kingdom there, in fact he eventually made his way to Guarded Lake, and, with the help of the Lady of the Lake, ventured from this world to the crocodile's memory so as to raise a great host there and bring it back for his holy wars.

Finding his way to the Dreamtime of Man, Pape Jan came upon the strange memories of proto-humans living there and knew what his task must be: to not only bring them to worship of the true and living God, but then to use them as his war host in his battles against heathens elsewhere. He built a fortress in its wastes and from it plots his campaigns; his missionaries swarm across the savannahs bringing the proto-humans to him, and he baptises them in nearby rivers in the name of Jesus even as more flock around.

Yet Pape Jan's energy, dedication and psychic strength are a curse as well as a blessing. He has brought religion to a race of beings which had hitherto had no concept of it, nor even the capacity for conceiving of it, because the crocodile had no understanding of religion with which to endow its memories. It has found ground that is not just fertile but fecund - and occultism has spread throughout the Dreamtime like a plague. Strange new systems of thought and belief proliferate among the proto-humans in nightmarish abundance, each nest holding rabidly and single-mindedly to its own strange interpretation of doctrines of virginal birth, living sacrifice, commandments, and the eating of flesh and blood. Pape Jan cannot convert his charges fast enough to stem the tide of warped idolatory that now prevails across much of the Dreamtime.

Worse, as with all of the Seven, Pape Jan's own dreams, memories and visions have too begun to spread. Demon princes have appeared - Ornias, Beelzeboul, Asmodeus, the Star Sisters, the Wingdragon, Envy, Rabdos and others more terrible yet. His quest to spread the word of God has become a quest of a burning sword, and his orthodox crucifix a war standard at the head of armies which make the crusade for Jerusalem appear a mere skirmish.

DMing in the Dreamtime of Man

The Dreamtime of Man has at least four modes of adventure. As adventuring explorers and brigands the PCs may simply explore the infinite Acacia-dotted savannahs in search of Naacal treasures and wealth to bring back to Paradijs Kolonie and thus gain wealth and glory. Alternatively, they may become involved in Pape Jan's missionary work among the heathen proto-humans - or in the internecine struggle between the infinite competing religions of those new believers. Third, they may attempt to plunder the treasure houses of the demon princes who now make their homes in the Dreamtime. And fourth and finally, they might choose to involve themselves in the Great Crusade of Pape Jan itself, as he sends out his armies to battle the denizens of Hell as they appear in this new world he has discovered.