Layers of Unreality

By Josh Hittie

Ostrichmonkey Games

Touchstones

• The Backrooms creepypasta

• I’m Calling - Tennis
• Possibly in Michigan (1983)
• Liminal Horror: Voidcrawl Procedure
• The Stygian Library

Layers of Unreality is an independent production

by Ostrichmonkey Games and is not affiliated with
Goblin Archives LLC. It is published under the
Liminal Horror Third Party License.

Liminal Horror is copyright by Goblin Archives LLC.

content
The spaces between
Backgrounds 2
Zones 4
Depth 5
Exploring the Skein 7
Skein Fallout 10

Weaving the skein

Room Tables 12
Zone Tables 16
Depth Tables 22
Tangles 27
Creatures 31
 The Spaces
Between
The Skein exists between the spaces of reality
as an amorphous, fluid, warping, and twisting
plane of semi-existence. The Skein is an
uncanny funhouse mirror dimension formed
and shaped by strange hands. The Skein is a
parasitic reality, siphoning off energy and
thought from the shared dreamspace of
humanity. The Skein doesn’t exist at all, you
cannot find it. The Skein is all that exists with
the waking world merely a comforting dream.

The Skein welcomes you.

The Skein takes on the appearance of human-

made places. Boring and mundane locations
that have been twisted and warped into the
uncanny. All the hallmarks of being man-
made, yet subtly hostile to human existence.

You have stumbled into the endless rooms of

the Skein. Perhaps you were looking for
someone or something, maybe ending up here
was completely accidental. Whatever reason
you have for being here, you need to leave.
Leave before the Skein sinks its hooks into
you, reforming you into a new shape.

Using the SKEIN

Layers of Unreality can be used as a
standalone procedural adventure for a new
Liminal Horror campaign, or used as a
location-crawl for an existing Liminal Horror
game, with the PCs slipping into the Skein for
a brief time. You can also chop this all up into
pieces and sprinkle it throughout whatever
game, system, or adventure you can think of.

Layers of Unreality centers on the method of

generating the ever-expanding Skein, and the
procedures for exploring, and maybe even
escaping. It is suited for an emergent style of
gameplay. Allow the Skein to seed its ideas
into your game, and wait to see what
monstrous results begin to germinate.

1

Backgrounds
The following Backgrounds can be
used during character creation
following the rules laid out in The
Bureau.
Terminally Online: You’ve been an
enthusiast of dark and scary
stories spread through the web for
years. You shouldn’t have opened
that link. You shouldn’t have
followed those strange directions.
You shouldn’t be here.
• Take: Panasonic RR-DR60
recorder, backpack (+2 inventory),
tactical flashlight (d6)
Wrong Turn: It was supposed to be
just a quick trip, and you thought it
was weird when there was a new
doorway on your way out of your
apartment. You should have
trusted your gut.
• Take: house keys, cellphone (low
battery), grocery list
Amateur Sleuth: Following up on a
set of suspicious missing persons
cases led you down a rabbit hole
you never imagined possible. Torn
between finding closure and your
instincts screaming at you to turn
around, you soldier onward.
• Take: taser (d6), leather jacket (1
armor), charged power bank
Urbex Junkie: The old factory had
been long abandoned and far too
tempting to pass up. It was
practically untouched, just waiting
for you to enter.
• Take: headlamp, EDC multitool,
climbing rope
Mirror Twin: You are from
somewhere else. A stranger trying
to blend into a world you do not
belong in.
• Take: shears (d6, bloody), lighter,
odd mask
Video Influencer: Subs have been
on a steady decline. You need
something fresh, something big!
This livestream will be your
magnum opus. Assuming you can
make it out in one piece.
• Take: selfie camera rig, mobile
hotspot (tenuous connection),
laptop
Liminal Resonant: Something
within the Skein touched you,
drawing out your latent psychic
powers. Once you set foot into the
spaces between, it was like waking
up from a long, hazy, dream.
• Take: occult journal, dream
memento (+1 stability), 1 magic
spell
Desperate Seeker: You lost
someone to the Skein but no one
believed you. After years of
searching, you’ve finally found your
first real lead.
• Take: handgun (d6), photo of
loved one, flare
Corridor Addict: The Skein nearly
took everything from you, but you
escaped. Or did you? You kept
thinking, dreaming, of this place. It
refuses to let you go. But this time,
you came prepared.
• Take: Armored Vest (+1 armor),
sawed off shotgun (d6 blast,
bulky), 1 Skein Fallout
Naive Piranesi: Like a moth to a
flame, you were pulled here by
unknown forces. Something within
the Skein wants you to find it, to
never leave, to play a part in
something greater.
• Take: Strange knife (d6), ball of
red twine, broken pocket watch
(+1 stability)
2
 The SKEIN
The Skein is the backstage of
reality. Liminal spaces given
ominous shape. They cling to
the underside of reality like
parasitic barnacles,
occasionally burrowing their
way through, opening up
trapdoors for the hapless or
foolhardy to fall through.
Unraveling The
knots
Entering the Skein on
purpose is rare, but not
impossible. There are arcane
rituals of old and dangerous
procedures that push the
human mind to their limit,
that can unlock access to
the Skein. Sometimes the
Skein may open itself up to
an individual, seeking them
out for some inscrutable,
larger purpose.
Uncanny
Spaces
The Rooms
Rooms are the base units of the Skein.
They are individual spaces chained
together to create the endless expanse
of the Skein. The deeper into the Skein
you go, the stranger and more
dangerous the Rooms become. Some
Rooms may appear to have a function
or purpose, but it is always obscured
behind a strange logic. This nearness to
the familiar amplifies the uncanniness
that suffuses the Skein.
Rooms can be more than just
rectangles. They can contain internal
twists, turns, passages, corners, niches,
archways and more. The Skein takes
Rooms, that which is superficially
familiar and understandable, and twists
it into something alien and haunting.
When entering a new Room, roll to 1d6
determine its type, 1d6 to determine
how many doors or passages are
present in the Room, and 1d6 to
determine what encounter is present.

D6 Entrances to the skein

Perform an ancient, bloody, arcane ritual. A sacrifice
1 is demanded.

Complete a strange and pointed puzzle-cube that

2 opens a doorway to the beyond.

Ingest tailor-made psychotropics, altering your

3 perception of reality.

Within a sensory deprivation tank, allow your mind

4 to open to new, strange ways to perceive reality.

Follow your nightmare deeper into dream right

5 before you wake up.

Become truly lost, grinding yourself far from home

6 and all that is familiar and known.