The Nightmare Court - Advice Requested

[NeoTiamat]

Allright, once again a thought has come up, and while it germinates in my mind, I decided to post it here in the idea that the intelligent people around here will post some interesting ideas. If nothing else, posting and explaining the situation will help clarify my mind.

After a fairly long startup period, the Amber Wastes campaign mentioned in the other thread is actually starting up now. The characters are passing in backgrounds, and I got the following blurb from one characters. It's a nightmare he has been having for a while:

Floating through the endless sea of grey mist is a woman, eyes closed, her mind trapped beneath the heavy blanket of unconsciousness. Her short, black hair is gently swept about, her soft, pale skin caressed by the passing waves of mist. Flowing beneath her are long, elegant skirts of cerulean and cream. Her dress is quite loose, as her swollen stomach demands. She drifts a bit further into the grey void. Wisps of moist fog begin to form around her wrists, her ankles, and neck, sweeping across her dress and fluffing the loose folds of fabric. Then the subtle, soothing breeze which has been present from the beginning… stops. The wisps darken into cold, black tendrils. The woman’s eyes shoot open as these shackles of mist tighten, her eyes wide with terror as she manages only a stifled gasp from her closed throat. The black clouds envelope her, pulling her legs apart as the more tendrils travel down her blouse and up her dress. The sudden, intense pain sends her into convulsions causing her back to arch violently and bursting the blood vessels in her eyes. The grip around her throat tightens further, and blackness begins to sweep across her vision. The last sound she hears is a demonic giggle. In a second, she is completely hidden within the vortex of black mist. Then, there is a high pitched scream that gives way to the sound of tearing flesh and popping bones. Slowly, the black mist disperses. In the center where there was once a pregnant girl appear to be an infant. He cries as newborns do, covered in blood and gore. But then, the crying stops. They child open his eyes with a demeanor of cold, supernatural intellect. The eyes appear to be black orbs of pure shadow.

He awakens from the nightmare and sits up with a start. His sheets are soaked with sweat, his heart racing and his breathing heavy.

I stared at this for approximately a minute, then the Nightmare Court starting flashing in my mind and I'm afraid I must've scared the player a bit (I think he's suspicious now). Oh well.

The backstory for the player is that his mother was an outlander who traveled through the mists into Ravenloft while pregnant, and thus the child born has some decidedly peculiar powers (Necropolis Born from the Complete Arcane). Recently, he started having a recurring nightmare, posted above.

Now the player was just thinking of a way to flesh out the backstory, but I have a wish to bring the Nightmare Court into this somehow.

The question of course is how? For one thing, which member of the Court is appropriate. There are residual feelings of guilt involved here, so the Ghost Dancer might seem right, and she makes for a very nice tragic villain.

Suggestions on an actually concrete adventure idea?

[Jasper]

The first thing that popped into my mind after reading that was the birth of Morphius lord of the Forrest of Everchange. He was said to be half demon amd born in the nightmare lands themselves so that fits quite nicely with the image of the pregnant woman in the mists and the black eyed demon child. I would have the PC be Morphius half brother and linked to his bothers dream powers due to the shared blood. Once Morphius views the dream of thier monther and figures it out he would do all in his power to draw the PC into the dreamscape to learn all he can about his lost mother.

[Band2]

I would suggest the nightmare not be from the Nightmare Court. Make it a prophetic dream. The woman is his mother’s sister, or another female relative who he must find before she gives birth to a demon, maybe one of the Gentleman Caller’s children. If you want to include him in your campaign.

On top of this, as time goes by and he cannot find her, his feelings of frustration and failure draw the attentions of the Nightmare Court. I forget which one preys on fears of failure, Hypnos or maybe Mullonga. The nightmare court then begins to torment the character with nightmares.

[NeoTiamat]

An idea, but not a practical one for me. The bulk of the campaign is taking place in the Amber Wastes, with the PCs escorting an archeological expedition, and generally far away from civilization (unless one counts Phiraz, and when I'm done there, they won't). So I need whatever side-adventure to take place entirely in the PC's minds.

They do have a gnomish scholar traveling with them, so I can drop various information about the Court to them, assuming they think to ask.


The Morpheus idea, on the other hand, is possible. The character is a human, but I could play up the half-fiend abilities (Just a vicious thought, but I might have the character start manifesting half-fiend powers throughout the campaign. I'd need to work it somehow so that the balance of the campaign isn't to skewed though. Should be workable though).

Allright, an idea, a very definite idea. Other suggestions/comments/philosophical ramblings?

[Hell_Born]

Not really connected to anything you're asking, but you might want to consider turning the Half-Fiend template from a template into a racial class, much like what was done with the Half-Elemental template in an issue of Dragon (all four classes are repeated in my "Born of Pyre" topic, if you need to see a concrete example of what I'm talking about). It makes things a bit easier, as you can simply have the PC "earn" levels in Half-Fiend when appropriate; keeps him more in balance with the other PCs.

[Jester of the FoS]

I view it more as a dream of what could have been, or a metaphor for how he was touched by the Mists.
Perhaps one of the Nightmare Court is trying to ensnare him, to draw of this Mist-power (a fragment of the Dark Power's essence?) and the dreams are their first attempts.
Later they may try trapping him in the world of his mind. Imagine an adventure where everything goes wrong and the characters die one after another, only to realize it's a dream and he's trapped (it'd be a fun way to end the last half of a session, start something new and then quickly kill off half the party in an pverpowered encounter or deadly trap. Have everyone curious and pissed when he's the only survivor, hurt and fleeing. Then have everyone looking at his twitching sleeping form wondering what he's thinking about).

[NeoTiamat]

Another idea. Hmm. The problem is that I'm running this in a PbP, and I doubt I could get away with a near-TPK, considering that it'd last a good week at the least, and there is no way I could keep the pissed off players together during that time. You're right, it'd be fun though.

The idea of the Nightmare Court trying to draw in his powers...That's probably a better idea then the ones I've had so far (I was thinking of making him a Half-Ennui or some-such).

The other issue I run into is the difficulty of explaining just whats is going to the PCs. Like I said, they have a gnome scholar around, but he's a specialist in a different field. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to arrange for the gnome to have read Professor Illhousen's work, but having knowledge of Dreamwalking might be difficult.

A formatting that just comes to me as I write this is to have a successive series of complicated nightmares advance upon the PC, perhaps coupled with minor physical changes only he notices. The character might become withdrawn or start acting strangely (that or I start calling for madness checks). Then, as the nightmares reach a climax, the other PCs become drawn in by the awaking powers of the nightmare addled character, until finally the power is called for, and the sheer psychic energies draw the entire party (and any NPCs in the nearby area) into the dreamscape.

The unanswered questions though are just what kind of nightmares do I afflict the poor fellow with (I'll give him a power or some such to make up for it after I'm done with him), who do I have organize this (which Court Member), and what is the power that the Court is after.

For the first one I'm not too sure, probably something heavy on mists and screaming.

For the second...As I write this, it seems that the Nightmare Man might be the natural choice. All the same, I think Morpheus might be interesting, what with the fiendish appearance and the combination of Mists and Change...could make for a properly bizarre encounter.

As to the last...something Mist related...hmmmm.

[Addendum - The half-fiend is already a racial class. Wizards broke up the template in the Savage Progressions Article on their website. It's in the archives. The problem is that I'm working this adventure in a rather narrow level range, so the power of a half-fiend would be a bit overbearing. I still have this half-Ennui idea stuck in my head...]