Fantasy Where Dreams go to Die (Overview)

[welian]

dream


noun, often attributive \ˈdrēm\






: a series of thoughts, visions, or feelings that happen during sleep




: an idea or vision that is created in your imagination and that is not real




: something that you have wanted very much to do, be, or have for a long time

Etherea, the world of dreams. Corporea, the world of reality. The delicate Veil stays drawn between the two, for real and unreal cannot coexist.

In the dead of night, when humans are fast asleep, they dream. Like ghosts, their sub-consciousness roams Etherea – half-awake, an intangible observer, steered by a mixture of whimsy and base desires with memory as a helpless passenger as they wander through the various domains of dreams and nightmares.


Some humans, however, are lucid dreamers. They have trained themselves to be conscious during their dreams, to make choices and move around. Of these humans, a fraction have achieved super-lucidity. They possess, by skill or by nature, such a refined sense of self-awareness within Etherea that they remember every single encounter, and have complete control over their actions in the dreamworld.


These are the humans that the Sentinel visits, with a very special request: Become a Knight under her banner, protect both Corporea and Etherea from the Terrors. Agree to spend your every sleeping moment under her command, and all your dreams will come true.


Should you reject her offer, she will not pursue you, but perhaps the King of Nightmares will. Aid him in his own endeavors to restore balance to the two worlds, and he will assist you in overcoming and controlling your own personal demons.


The year is 2016. An unusual phenomena is beginning to spread – mass insomnia. People report being unable to sleep for days on end, haunted by hallucinations of monsters flitting by their window at night and skulking about their bed.


When they try to sleep, a suffocating, paralyzing weight presses down on them. Sometimes it passes, and the victim is finally able to sleep again. Sometimes they black out, only to find themselves in another neighborhood, sometimes even another city. Sometimes they don’t wake up, their body is found rigid and cold with eyes wide open in fear of the unseen.


And sometimes, they disappear completely.


Although the waking world assumes this outbreak of widespread insomnia to be some sort of disease, the dream world knows better. These are night terror attacks - monsters that haunt a dreamer, sucking away their energy until there’s nothing left.


They spawn from a proliferation of nightmares, when a dreamer is so absolutely overwhelmed by their fear or despair that it consumes them - quite literally.


It is the duty of the Knights of Etherea to combat these monsters, these Terrors, and protect dreamers everywhere from the powers of their own minds. But these Terrors are different. They're showing up far too frequently, and their attacks seem.... predictable. As if someone is guiding them. It's going to take a lot of Knights to undo whatever is causing all these Terrors, and to repair to Veil before it disintegrates and the two worlds merge.