The Joys of Nightmares (I call 'em Carcossas)

[Amechra]

A Carcossa is what happens when a madman dreams... sometimes.

Other times, they are tapped into by perfectly normal dreamers. That's right. Tapped into. Not dreamed. Tapped into.

Carcossas are dreams that have gotten bigger than mere dreams, expanding to nearly their own planar status.

Some of them are intelligent. Some of them can dream.

How does a Carcossa form?

The simple answer? No one knows.

The unsimple answer? Scholars assume that they are formed around so-called "nightmare seeds", which are created every time that a creature has a nightmare. Yes. Every time.

What happens is that nightmare seeds are attracted to dreams related to the basic seed, consolidating and growing and consuming and breathing until the random noise caused by the disparate dreams coalesces into a steady whisper of "I am. I was. I will be.

How do you recognize a Carcossa?

Recognizing one is... hard. They seem to most senses that dreamers, even lucid ones, possess as if the nightmare-world was nothing more than a dream had by a potent Lucid Dreamer. Which, to be honest, is close enough to what they are that it isn't an inaccurate assessment.

But it is more complicated than that; Carcossas are not linked to the normal realm of dreams, instead acting as parasites that feed of dream seeds and lesser dreams. In fact, if you die inside a Carcossa that isn't on the Plane of Dreams at the time, you die. Permanently. As if you had died in real life.

Of course, that isn't the most horrendous fate that can befall you inside one of these world-dreamers.

Basic Carcossa Traits

All Carcossas share a few traits in common.

Firstly, they are built around the original seed; when the whispers started, the seed became, for all intents and purposes, a Dreamer. It deludes itself into believing that it's some shape that is relevant to the original seed. This entity (for it isn't a creature, not exactly; there is at least one carcossa where the central "dreamer" is nothing more than a 'mundane' boulder) is heretofore referred to as the Nightmare Heart. If the Nightmare Heart models themselves as a creature, they are always treated as if they had 23 ranks in Lucid Dreaming, and a Wisdom of 30, for the purposes of what they can do inside a dream; they additionally receive a +10 within their own "realm" on all Lucid Dreaming checks, beyond what other bonuses they can "find". Otherwise, they can be practically anything.

Secondly, the Carcossa, while not very effective in and of itself, is highly contagious. (Insert rulesy bits here. Essentially, they warp Lucid Dreaming checks of "infected" creatures so that they are forced to include some thematic element of the Carcossa in them; a dream that is affected enough by the Carcossa basically collapses into being a part of it, with horrible consequences for the dreamer.)

Thirdly, Carcossas are ultimately fragile; if the Nightmare Heart is destroyed in any manner, the Carcossa begins to collapse into it's component nightmares, and any dreamer currently in it is simply wakes up with nothing but bad memories.

Lastly, if a Dreamer enters a Carcossa, they remember every moment of their time in the Carcossa. Intimately.

[Amechra]

The Grand Hunt

(click to show/hide)

Do you remember all those nightmares you've had, of being chased, without recourse, without a single way out? Of being trapped like a rat, forced to tear off pieces of yourself until you finally wake up, sweaty, rapped in sheets, teeth chattering because the window in your room is now open, the way it wasn't before you slept?

That is the Grand Hunt. Death holds no reign here. Anything that dies merely sleeps, until it gets up moments later, well rested...

That is to say, this realm is filled with monsters that literally fled from people's worst nightmares. However, the Nightmare Heart does not reflect this; it was formed from the first dream of being hunted, by some proto-humanoid from before history began.

Therefore, it itself is the prey; it looks a lot like you, but not in a nice way. Why does it cringe so? You would never plead in such a manner; it's enough to make a coward blanch. It is a shameful thing, and should be hunted down and slain.

The secret to this place is that, to kill the Nightmare Heart, there must not be a hunt. Any other attempt to kill the... thing results in it twitching there, bleeding, broken, pleading, crawling away, the wounds sealing themselves just enough so that it can run away.

Forever.

Of course, this place isn't safe; the monsters will hunt anything, after all, and they might follow you out...

Sadness

(click to show/hide)

You are useless. The dream tells you that; and it's right. Love is only a pathway to pain; affection a lie, your achievements mere drivel.

Nothing happens here; it is merely a small stone garden, every living plant dead due to the way that the sky always drizzles with tears. It never rains hard enough to be more than a mere annoyance; the rain is the kind that lightly mists up from the ground, rendering protection from the weather in any way possible.

The Nightmare Heart is a statue of a young girl in the tatters of a dress, seated on a rock, perpetually weeping; despite the fact that is just a statue, it has a mind.

And that mind is fundamentally alone, even though its every thought is heard, and indeed felt, throughout the entire garden in the patter of the rain. As a fact of it having a mind, it has the full powers of a Lucid Dreamer (namely, 23 ranks in Lucid Dreaming, Wisdom 30, and a +10 bonus); the sad truth of the matter is that, being made of nightmares of inadequacy and tear-soaked dreams, the Nightmare Heart knows of no other way to exist than to be miserable, and so it perpetuates its own pathetic state.

There is an old legend that, if someone manages to get the Nightmare Heart of this Carcossa (which is sometimes nicknamed Lenore by Dreamers that encounter this 'dream'; some believe that this is name that the Nightmare Heart uses to refer to itself) to feel even a moment of true happiness, the statue will become flesh and blood, the Carcossa will dissolve, and the dreamer will wake up with Lenore at their side, having acquired a potent ally.

Men and woman have driven themselves mad trying; this comes from listening to too many stories.

[Amechra]

Reserved.

[Amechra]

You can post now; I decided to make the first two example Carcossas less direct horror, and more the kind of subtle thing that actually make my dreams disturbing.

The Grand Hunt is about turning a nightmare around, and you, with all the right in the world, hunting a "harmless" being down, and hurting it. Hurting it really badly. That'll make the Paladin shiver a little when he wakes up, won't it? After all, you can wander into these things by accident, and if you aren't a Lucid Dreamer, you get kinda caught up in it.

Sadness is just plain depressing. And, well, more heroic characters will probably try to help the poor dear. After all, they hear (what they assume) are the statues thoughts, and she's suffering.

I'd be pleased if you added anything that you can think of. Mechanics would be nice.

[Garryl]

Wait a sec, are you or are you not in control of your actions in a Carcossa? If not, then anything that happens in there is meaningless (the script would play the same if Biff the Understudy was there in your place). And if you are, then the Great Hunt doesn't seem like any issue for anyone but certain types of evil characters.

I wouldn't give Carcossas straight 23/30/+10 for Lucid Dreaming. Give a scaling range of values so you can have different Carcossas of different CRs. +43 modifiers aren't for everyone.

I'd like to share a nightmare of mine. Maybe you can use it for something. It's the only one I've ever really remembered for more than a couple of days. I had it about 10-15 years ago, back when I was playing the original Pokemon Red on Gameboy. In the nightmare, I was playing Pokemon, but I sort of was the character in addition to the player looking into the game (and also sort of not; dream perspective and self-identification is weird). I was in a sunken ship area (vaguely reminiscent of the one from Super Mario World, minus the flooding and the ghosts), exploring, wandering around, etc. However, every so often I'd run into this rival Pokemon trainer named John John Johnson. Naturally, as is the way of the game, he challenges me to a duel, and I lose. However, instead of getting ported back to the last Pokemon center, I wind up back on the ship again somewhere. Whenever I wander about again, or try to leave, I run into JJJ again, and he beats me again, and I'm on the ship again. I think once or twice in the nightmare I even managed to beat him, but he just showed up again later, inexplicably, and beat me. It's not like he was out to get me, he was just there and circumstances dictated that we must fight and I must (usually) lose.

[Amechra]

You are in your control... if you entered them on purpose.

However, these things can invade other dreams (mechanics will be needed for that, of course, but the image of a dreamscape just getting shredded is cool), and so people can get caught up in them, and their "scripts".

Plus, given that Carcossan Nightmare Hearts are unique, I was thinking that when stating time comes along, the Great Hunt's Nightmare Heart will emit an aura (short range inside other dreamscapes, affects the entire dream inside the Carcossa, due to it being written in the very fabric of the dreamscape) that worsens attitudes towards it and adds a compulsion to hurt it. And it runs away.

If the Carcossa becomes desperate, there's always mind controlling spells; their effects go away when you wake up, but the personality instilled by a Mind Rape spell might not be as adverse to hunting down and 'murdering' a creature.

There should be a rule where, even if you don't consciously want to, that you can use Lucid Dreaming checks to remove mind control and such within a dream. That way, a Carcossa trying to rewrite you into a willing member of it's pageantry doesn't ULTIMAWIN!

Oh, and one last consideration. You won't be the only the being there; dreamers can accidentally "wander" from infected dreamscapes into a Carcossa, and so you'll have to deal with some people who have no defenses against the "hunt this being down" compulsion.

EDIT: Whoops, I kinda forgot:

As to the set bonus; yeah, that's a placeholder when you get down to it. When I (or someone else) gets around to fleshing out Carcossas, I expect that each Nightmare Heart will get their own skill points/Wisdom scores.

And as for your nightmare... a foe that you inevitably lose to, without any real malice behind it, seems like it would be pretty effective. I mean, I already have a Carcossa for those nightmares where everything is perfectly normal, except for one surreal, horrifying detail (it's a birthday party. In the middle of a war-zone. Everyone carries on like normal, despite being pincushions.)

[Garryl]

I think part of the problem is that the "solutions" are just too obvious. The way out is just the natural thing to do, so the only way to prolong the encounter is force the characters to act along with it. However, at that point you've just turned a visceral mindtwister into yet another hack and slash (albeit with different mechanics than sword-swinging). Player agency should not be at odds with player participation.

The idea of other real characters participating in this script could change that, but by completely altering the objectives of the scenario, rather than making natural player agency compatible with it. Having the players be side characters looking in on this macabre play could be very interesting, especially if the struggle to avoid being sucked into it themselves is a secondary goal on the way to the primary, rather than the main objective itself.

I think the idea of ever actually "defeating" a Carcossa is a bad idea, at least in the context you've presented. It shouldn't be the primary solution to being caught in one.

[phaedrusxy]

if you play NWN, check out the custom scenario Elegia Eternum. It has a plot like one of these...

[Amechra]

True, it would be better to play them as something that you are looking in on; I'll have to rewrite when I have time...

And, yeah, "destroying" a Carcossa isn't supposed to be the best way to deal with them; they are more of a "survive until you can get out", because, heck, they are contagious horrid nightmare dreams.

Though I do need to think of at least one where you are on the "dealing out" end of the nightmare. Thoughts?