“I, me, I, Leonardo de Montreal, I have plunged myself repeatedly down into the darkest depths of my own primordial psyche and found there—at the tangled root of the spiraling garden of my dreams—a place where the real world and the world of nightmare twist together into a bottle without shape or form and there one may fold through the What is Not into the Is.
I have made my dreams a blueprint for reality.
I have ascended to the throne I have always occupied, in some unknown Heaven; I have discovered myself as God.
And who better? And who else?
There was never a better qualified; no, not among all the scattered stars.”

— Leonardo de Montreal, Nightmares’ Angel,
explaining why he drank the last of the milk and did not buy any more.

The wind puts out the fire and
The stars are falling from the sky.
That which is eternal, ends.
Seek nothing, gain all;
Reject nothing, transcend all;
Hold to no conceptions, rule all—
This is a far and a sunless land.

Properties of the Outside
(Layer 9)

This is a system to help you tell stories. It’s a story of a beautiful place. It’s an ideological tool, too, it’s totally propaganda, because I do have a purpose here, in writing it.
I want you to heed the call, if you ever hear it.
I want you to come to Town, if you ever find it. I don’t want you to be scared or disbelieving. I don’t want you to be dismissive. It’s a beautiful place and it needs a few more people, good people, like you.

The Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG

In the event of a jam emergency the Fortitude Regional Council maintains a Jam Line—OK, it’s actually just the office phone number for councilmember and jam guru, Amelia Kozlova—offering helpful advice for any sort of difficulty. She always says, “I see, so you’re in a jam” at some point during your explanation of the problem, even if you attempt to forestall her by using the pun yourself; it is best to just accept this eventuality.

Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake

“You don’t have to stay,” said the morning star
”Run away, run away, run away to a far
To a far, to a far, to a far, to a far, to a far and a sunless land.”

“You can run,” said the sun, in the middle of the day;
”O I wish that they’d told me I could run away
Run away, run away, run away, run away, to a far and a peaceful land.”

“You can run away,” said the sunset’s light,
And it set its horizon in a hard flat line
”It’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK and you’ll find
A far and a sunless land. A far and a sunless land.”

And the night rolls over and it makes me sick
It’s a trick, it’s a trick, it’s a trick, it’s a trick,
And I wish someone’d told me I could run away
To a far and a sunless land.

The Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG

It’s possible, and so the math says it’s inevitable—if there can be cities, continents, and worlds lost in that void, then there must be, and in infinite numbers. Yet it is our good fortune as people of conscience in such a world as this that when it comes to the deep Outside the math is not an infallible guide.

The Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG