Editing Demiplane of Nightmares (section)

==Dimension of Nightmares==
The "Realm of Nightmares" concept was first visited in the [[Mystara|Known World]] setting for [[Basic Dungeons & Dragons]], via the BXCMI modules. BD&D / BXCMI never did accept [[AD&D]]'s [[Great Wheel|DMG circle]]; instead they went [[Sword & Sorcery]] by way of [[Michael Moorcock]] system of alternate realities, or "dimensions". One of the first of those dimensions to be detailed was the Dimension of Nightmares (or, simply "the Nightmare Dimension"); details were initially sparse, and the ultimate explanation was almost brain-bendingly confusing, but the basic idea is that the Dimension of Nightmares is a kind of prototype to the [[Far Realm]] we see in the modern era - a place "askew" from human perspectives, inhabited by alien, horrible and monstrous entities.

The Dimension was first mooted as the home of the not!demonic [[Malfera]] in [[X4-5-10: Desert Nomads series|the module X5]], which [[Frank Mentzer]] nommed for that [[Companion Set]]. [[CM5: Mystery of the Snow Pearls]] mentioned it as well. The Immortals Set described it more fully: a parallel reality which exists at a perpendicular angle to the baseline reality, and which thusly is alien and weird by mortal semblances. This set took the first step towards asserting that, despite its name and the horrible monsters associated with it that we'd seen, like the demonic Malfera and (thus [[retcon]]ned) the brain-harvesting [[Neh-thalggu]], it was not actually a hellish netherrealm - it even invented a "human analogue" race native to the dimension, in the form of the [[Diabolus|Diaboli]].

The Rules Cyclopedia and Wrath of the Immortals would retcon all of this away, stating simply that "dimensions" are entirely seperate multiverses from each other, and leave the Dimension of Nightmares basically its latter descendant; the Demiplane of Nightmares.

Other references to the Dimension of Nightmares include the Mystara Monstrous Compendium Appendix, the Known World Gazetter #3: The Principalities of Glantri, and its AD&D "reprint", Glantri: Kingdom of Magic.