The first commandment of the Bunny Lord, the Holy Bunny Book teaches us, was to “go forth to multiply.” This He did say to the creatures He had created in the blessed Garden of Lagomorphia. And He did give to them all the Garden for their domain, that they might eat and copulate in endless bliss. Only one thing was forbidden, to eat the Carrots of Knowledge.

For some time, the Holy Bunny Book relates, all was well in the Garden. The creatures did nothing but copulate and eat, and eat and copulate, and the Bunny Lord saw this and knew that it was good.

But then a fiendish creature came into the Garden, a deceiving beast called a Cat. And this Cat tempted a doe to eat of the Carrots of Knowledge, with subtle phrases and faithless philosophy, and the foolish doe did submit to this temptation. Thus the doe’s eyes were opened, and she gained knowledge of things other than copulation and feeding. Then she gave of the Carrots also to the other creatures, and they gained this knowledge also, and were content no more with their simple lives.

One day the all-knowing Bunny Lord came to the Garden, and he saw that his creatures were not copulating. “Why are you not multiplying as I commanded?” He asked of them. Then one of them attempted to explain their reasons, and by this sin He perceived that His creations had fallen. In great anger He cast them out of the Garden, to live in the fields and forests of the wide Earth. For misleading His creations, the Perfect One then commanded the Cat to crawl forever on the ground and eat only of the dust. But the Cat did not obey Him.

It was many aeons later, when the age of the Earth was three hundred and thirty-four years (by the calculations of the Church of Copulation), that a bunny named Murch was born. Like all bunnies he was a damned soul, a creature condemned to eternal torture by cats in their horrible land, because of the sins of that foolish doe; but unlike other bunnies, he refused to obey the redemptive teachings of the Church.

It began with small rebellions when he was only a kit: he simply refused to eat his own droppings, saying he would rather go to a restaurant. And though this sin was beaten out of him, he still would not follow the path of Purity, spending far more time reading books than copulating. But his true path to heresy began when he began to claim that these books were much older than three hundred years, that they were written thousands of years ago. This the Church could not allow, so Murch was sent to the Warren of Redemption.

In that most holy of places, the misguided bunnies of the world were taught the path of righteousness through the use of discipline. Nothing but copulation and feeding was allowed, except on Bunnyday when hymns to copulation and feeding were sung. But even there, the corruption in Murch’s soul showed itself. He convinced other bunnies to take breaks from the copulation when no-one was watching; in secret they engaged in humour and philosophy.

When this was discovered, a final attempt was made to save his soul through punishment, but Murch rejected the Holy Faith. Not only that, but he escaped from the Warren – covered as he was in blood from the soul-saving, he was too slippery for the guards to hold.

Out in the wilderness, in secret unknown places, Murch learned the dark ways of Necromany. It is said that that three times the Bunny Lord appeared to him there, giving him the opportunity of redemption, and three times Murch refused him. And when he had refused each offer, ghouls rose from the earth and brought him nourishments; and then he had truly become a Necromancer.

For many months Murch travelled the lands of the bunnies, committing acts of evil wherever he went. His dancing ghouls disrupted traditional country dances in Bunwell and Shagmuch; his coughing zombies interrupted sermons in St Leporid, Harewich and Rabston. Even in the capital of Lagonia itself, his undead monstrosities frightened the faithful with their presence, unholy reminders of a life beyond copulation and food.

A crusade was begun then, approved by the highest authorities of the Church; warriors of the Bunny Lord went forth in great numbers to slay Murch the Necromancer. For some time he evaded them, but their numbers were too great; in the end they surrounded him in his tower. The siege of that tower is legendary by itself; for twenty days the crusaders withstood Murch’s onslaught of magic. Lightning fell from the sky to roast them, and the dead rose to mock them with their impurity. The doors of the tower were sealed by magic, and Murch set their engines of war on fire with his spells. It took thousands to finally defeat him.

On the twentieth day, having fought for so long without stopping, Murch was overcome by tiredness, and a brave crusader climbed the walls of his tower. Finding Murch asleep, the brave crusader ran him through with his sword, becoming the greatest champion of Good in the history of Bunnydom.

And all remembered his name, and the names of the warriors and churchmen who brought down the greatest evil of their time, and celebrated their victory for a thousand generations. Or so it would have happened if the Land of the Bunnies had not been ravaged by a copulation-related disease, all methods for the prevention of which were declared sinful by the Church. Lagonia is a ghost town these days.

As for Murch, he discovered that at least some of what the Church taught was true. He now lives happily in Katsouli, the Land of Cats, where he is a renowned entertainer. His dancing ghouls are at least as legendary as the siege of his tower, bringing in visitors from all across the Lands of Dream. He is married to a gerbil and enjoys copulating and eating, but not in ways approved of by the Church.

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This entry in the Oneiropolis Compendium was made possible by Robb Kinnison.

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The story of the Alteration Train – what little we know of it, at any rate – begins during one of the greatest battles of the Third War of Magic. Two vast armies faced each other in the smoldering remains of Billion Toad City, each led by a mighty sorcerer. By all accounts the events of that day were amongst the bloodiest and most terrifying in a war that had no lack of such, and the magical forces unleashed by the sorcerers were powerful and remorselessly brutal. Bodies were torn apart by the thousands as energies clashed and exploded; survivors described streets literally flowing with blood and guts.

So powerful was the magic unleashed, in fact, that something entirely unexpected happened. No-one has ever been able to establish the exact nature of the phenomenon – some say it was a hole in the fabric of reality, others claim it was more akin to a gate by accident unlocked – but what is certain is that for an instant, there was an opening into some unknowable Abyss, and through it came a train.

Few people ever see the Alteration Train, but all feel its passing. Often it comes at night, a deep rumbling noise washing over the horizon, but there is no time when it does not come. Though it drives on tracks, it leaves none behind. As for its appearance, it is never quite the same, changing from land to land and person to person. To one it might appear mighty and black, to others dainty and colourful; but all who see it feel the stirrings of fear, even when they are filled with delight, for there is something wild and unfathomable about it.

To witness the passing of the train is to be altered by it. Sometimes the changes are small: a man might hear the train at night and in the morning find that he has become a woman, or a woman might find herself transformed into a man; sinners may become saints, poets may become warriors. At other times the changes may be greater: you may wake up one night and hear the train rumbling past where no tracks were ever laid, and find yourself filled with an impossible urgency that will utterly transform all you have ever been; or you may simply know, without fully understanding why, that you cannot go on as you have before.

And thus all those who witnessed its coming into our world were transformed, being closer to it than any have been since; and they were overcome by a sudden revulsion for all that they had done, and an abiding hatred of war. They laid down their arms and refused the orders of their superiors, choosing instead to rebuild the city; and that was the first step towards peace.

Though they fear to see it again, the people of Billion Toad City give thanks to the train. The train, they say, brings truth disguised as terror, enlightenment disguised as delight. They also say, and it is sometimes hard to tell how the saying is meant: perhaps one day it will drive past your house.

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This entry in the Oneiropolis Compendium was made possible by Robert Hinderliter.

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Grandpa Pseudoraptor was born in a dream, as so many things are. The young girl who dreamed of him created him out of the images in a book that she found in a dusty box of old stuff that her parents kept in the cellar: a book that told of the ferocious lizards of the ancient days, of the long ages that their kingdom lasted and of the sudden destruction which engulfed it.

The images and stories in that book came to life in her imagination. She could barely read, but it didn’t matter; what she didn’t understand she made up for with her knowledge of the island on which she lived. She could never remember the name adults called it, but in her mind it was called Lizard Island, because there were lizards everywhere. Lizards of all colours, on the trees, in the bushes, on the houses. There were also crabs, and sometimes she thought a better name for the island would be Crab and Lizard Island, but that was probably too long, and anyway the lizards were much better.

It was because she knew the lizards so well that the book impressed her so much. The jungle in the illustrations wasn’t so different from the jungle near the village, and the ancient lizards were like bigger versions of the lizards she saw every day. That’s why the lizard she dreamt of was orange; she’d seen a little orange one the day before.

She couldn’t know that the raptors of our world never looked like that – or that in fact they were a whole lot more like chickens than anything else. And so Grandpa Pseudoraptor took shape. She always thought the name was a little strange, but it was his own idea, so why argue?

Oh, he was a silly old dinosaur. He was very old, because he had survived when the big rock fell out of the sky and killed all the others; yes, he’d run off to hide in the forest, like her parents, and so he’d survived all the bad things that happened. He was a bit crazy, always wanting to play or to tell jokes, but he was a clever one, and he was friends with all the creatures of the forest. Even with the snakes! When bad people would come to the forest, the snakes would watch them and slither to Grandpa Pseudoraptor and tell him how to avoid them. And the bad people never found him, and the Boss yelled at them for failing. It was very funny.

Grandpa Pseudoraptor lived in the forest for millions of years. His beard grew very big. Sometimes he left the forest to go travelling in secret, disguised as a priest. He learned all the stories of the island, all the secret stories that the Boss didn’t want anyone to know about, and he grew very wise. Wise people usually had big grey beards, unless they were women. Why couldn’t women grow beards? That was kind of unfair.

One day the bad people who worked for the Boss came to the house where the little girl lived with her grandfather. They started shouting and asking silly questions about her parents. Her grandfather was very old and a bit foolish, because he didn’t have a beard, so he didn’t know how to tell the bad men to go away. Then the bad men started hitting him and the little girl had to run to protect him, and they started hitting her too. It was awful and she cried very much, but she also got very angry. She got so angry that Grandpa Pseudoraptor heard her screaming in his jungle and came running to help her.

“Stop this immediately, you silly humans!” he said to the bad men.
“Grandpa Pseudoraptor!” they said. “Finally we’ve found you. It was a big mistake to come here. Your sacrifice will be for nothing and the Boss will give us a big reward for capturing you.”
“I didn’t come here all the way from my jungle to sacrifice myself!” Grandpa Raptor said. Then he tore the bad men apart with his claws and his teeth until they were like minced meat, and then he ate them with some black beans and rice. It wasn’t very pretty, but have you seen a lizard eat a bug?

The little girl left with Grandpa Pseudoraptor to go live in the jungle, where the bad men couldn’t find her. She would stay there until a time came when she could fight the bad men on her own. He taught her all the survival tricks that he knew, all the ancient secrets from the time before the big rock fell, and she became wise like him. She never got to have a beard, but as she grew older she realized that being a woman had other advantages which balanced that out.

Is that the end of the story? Of course it isn’t. The Boss is gone now, but his friends are still in power, and not much has really changed. And she’s still out there, in the jungle, preparing. Her time is close now. One day soon she’ll realize that the jungle is full of others just like her, full of lost children and their strange protectors, and something will rise out of that jungle that not the mightiest army can withstand.

Grandpa Pseudoraptor knows this day is coming. He can smell it. That’s why he’s smiling.

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This entry in the Oneiropolis Compendium was made possible by Eugeniy Rozhkov.

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