JERICHO ● SEPTEMBER 2025 EVENT/TDM

[uruz]

TDM & EVENT: JERICHO

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Prologue: New Characters

You've been plagued with a reoccuring dream, as of late. Every time you sleep, the dream returns to you.

It always begins the same way: As a breath held for too long. As a pressure at the base of your spine. A silence that presses against the skin like confession, like prophecy. A ripple moves through your bones. A tide builds and pulls at your feet, familiar by now. You dream of a black, soundless wave, thick like oil and starlight, swelling across the horizon line. You've seen the wave before, countless times, always rising. With every night, it never reaches you. You always seem to wake before it does . . . That is, until tonight.

The wave moves slow, deliberate— like something ancient and alive. And when it finally crashes, there is no harsh impact. Only warmth. Only submersion. Rather than drowning, you are being claimed with saltwater that's sweet with myrrh. The darkness embracing you pulses with desire. Then, a voice envelops you.

"Come home."
It dribbles with honey-like promise, like a truth you've always known, whispered now from within your marrow more like temptation than a request.

"You are mine. You always were."
The voice offers purpose. Worship. Belonging. And when you wake . . . You wake changed, with a mask on your face you did not choose. Elegant. Sacred. Too important to remove. You have been given a gift. A new beginning.

Welcome home, new Vessels.

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Sink Down Like Precious Stones

( content warnings: drowning, body horror )

Vessels awaken within the dreamscape as the black wave recedes from their skin like velvet falling off the bone, their masks in place over their eyes and left afloat in the watery expanse. All around them, the ocean stretches infinite and lightless— so still it mirrors the sky above, indistinguishable from the void. Far in the distance, massive obsidian walls curve inward, enclosing this vast seascape like a forgotten temple basin. And there, at the far horizon, one glow pierces the dark: a low-burning fire flickering within a half-sunken structure of impossible architecture— arched, ribbed, as though built from marble and cathedral glass.

This is a test, and it begins with belief.

Those with unwavering faith— whether in Sleep, another god, or even themselves— will find the surface beneath their feet holds firm. The sea becomes glass, and they may rise, and walk. But those adrift in doubt begin to sink. Precious stone creeps over their skin. Joints stiffen. Flesh cracks. Breath slows. It is not death, but it is close and might as well be hell. Your only salvation lies in your own conviction . . . Or the mercy of another Vessel who happens to walk.

Those who drown will not die. They will loop this moment— sinking, blackness, return, sink again— until belief takes root in some way. Alternatively, they may awaken in a later dreamspace . . . Changed.

NOTES:

• Pale white fish as well as glowing jellyfish may be encounted. The fish stare at vessels as they drown, and jellyfish may leave behind a shock that could temporarily stop the process of crystalization. But only temporarily— and their stings are excrutiating.

TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Magic becomes volatile— spells flicker, overcharge, or fizzle unpredictably when cast on or near the ocean.
• When you cast, your veins glow from beneath the skin, but not with light. It's writhing. Like something trapped under glass.
• When channeling magic, your mouth may fill with brine and blood.

OFFERING EFFECTS:

• The water responds emotionally— thrashing with fury or calming with yearning depending on the Offering's state of mind.
• The sea amplifies desire and instinct, making base emotions harder to suppress— rage, hunger, longing all churn just beneath the surface.
• The black water feels too warm, too alive, clinging to the body like memory; any stillness invites visions of Sleep's embrace, both reverent and consuming.

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You Taste Like New Flesh

( content warnings: body horror, psychological horror, compulsion, unreliable reality )

The ocean path ends at a palace carved of pearl and spun silk, impossibly perched where water meets nothingness. Whether you have traversed the black sea on trembling feet or simply awaken seated at an impossibly long table, it makes no difference. You are here now, and welcomed, suddenly in attire fit for a gala. Around this table sit countless Dream-Vessels, many silent and still, faces unreadable in the flickering candlelight wearing generic, six-eyed masks. The table stretches beyond sight, arching beneath creeping vines that twist like ancient veins overhead, blooming with strange blossoms that beat with energy. Flames dance atop dozens of candles— some burn on brass holders, others hover, like fireflies caught mid-flight, their shadows flickering and shifting with an otherworldly rhythm. Around you, phantasmal forms shimmer on pedestals: Sleep's ancient Guardians are eternalized through memorial, monstrous and magnificent, lost to time yet enshrined in reverence. On the highest pedestal stands a still living One, silent and watching the feast with somber eyes. Sleep's voice whispers in your ear, encouraging a glance to, perhaps, see what you may become.

"Feast, My Dear Vessels. Until you taste like New Flesh."

The foods before you don not come unmeddled with. Each bite pulls memories from your bones to the surface— moments buried or erased, but these are not just yours. The banquet feeds on shared history, stirring secrets tangled between you and the others here. To eat is to open a door: to risk awakening something dormant, to invite others inside your buried truths, to forge bonds or betrayals that can never be unseen.

Eton Mess: Crushed meringue, tangled cream, and berries that bleed like bruises when bitten. Sweetness melts quickly, leaving your tongue cold. As you eat, a memory rises— but you don't experience it alone. The person nearest you sees what you see, hears what you hear, feels what you felt. Together, you can alter one key detail, and that change ripples outward, shifting how you both remember the event.

Deviled Kidneys: Spiced and seared, the metallic richness clings to your mouth, as if tasting old blood. Eating summons the echo of a painful or violent memory, but your partner experiences it with you.

Roasted Lamb in Mint Sauce: The sweetness of the meat is cut by mint sharp enough to sting the throat. Your act of consumption awakens a craving, but not in you— in the Vessel sharing this dish. They feel an inexorable pull toward your memory, even without knowing what they seek. The bond persists until the craving is confronted.

Honey Scouse: A thick, golden stew heavy with warmth, but beneath the sweetness, something cloying curls around the edges. Every shared spoonful spreads a slow, creeping influence between you and your partner: intrusive visions, subtle compulsions, small lapses in agency. Neither of you can tell whose thoughts belong to whom.

Starpit Fruit: Plum-sized and faintly glowing, the juice leaves your fingertips dusted in silver, like handling starlight. When bitten, the fruit releases the memory of a forgotten wish, not to you but to the person beside you. They see it clearly— and know exactly what you once wanted most, even if you had buried it.

Marigold Brandy: A golden spirit served warm, glowing faintly as though sunlight has been trapped inside the glass. When lifted, it releases a soft, floral scent. The first sip draws you and your partner into a shared burst of joy— a memory that makes you swell with happiness. The sensation is so immediate, so electric, that when the memory breaks, your bodies ache to move, to speak, to draw more positivity to light. You may feel an irresistible pull to get up and dance on the wide palace floors, even if no music is playing . . . And if others nearby drink as well, the effect multiplies.

Saints Breath Chalice: A dark, wine-thick cordial served in tarnished silver cups etched with symbols that shift when stared at too long. The liquid smells faintly of frankincense and something sweeter— blood-warm and alive. Drinking it floods you and your partner with the overwhelming sensation of being inside someone else's celebration, a memory that belongs to neither of you: a vast mass of black, with branching antlers and six, glowing red eyes. It reaches to sink its claws into your chest as she sings: One. Beloved. We were meant to be. It is impossible to tell whether you're witnessing joy or manic worship. There is chanting you cannot understand but somehow already know, drums that sync with your heartbeat until you can feel nothing else. Your limbs begin to twitch, then sway, then move without conscious thought, drawn into a dance you do not remember learning. If more than two people drink, your movements synchronize perfectly, your breath matching theirs, until the room seems stop to watch.

The table awaits.

NOTES:

• Feasting becomes addictive. The more a character eats, the harder it is to stop. Gluttony may cause physical consequences: nosebleeds, twitching fingers, warping speech, uncontrollable confessions, or dripping nectar from their mouths.
• Those who refuse to eat at all begin to starve in a dream-sense: they lose color, smell burning, and feel the weight of Sleep's gaze. Her wrath isn't immediate— but it grows the longer you reject the feast. She takes offense.

TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Each spell cast after eating releases parasitic energy— manifesting as flowers, thorns, parasitic insects or rot— either from their own body or from someone they recently touched.
• Casting warps your limbs temporarily: too many joints, fingers curl the wrong way, nerves burn like wires.
• Touching others leaves sigils burned into their skin. These will briefly carry over into the waking world during next month's event. Runecasters will get the innate feeling that this symbol has a meaning summed up as "The Night Does Not Belong To God". How they interpret that is up to them.

OFFERING EFFECTS:

• The act of devouring awakens an overwhelming desire, often physical, but sometimes emotional or spiritual. This desire clings to another Vessel at the table, creating obsessive attachment or aggression.
• The more they eat, the more their monstrous traits subtly emerge.
• Consuming another Vessel's memory (if shared or touched) grants a brief glimpse of their deepest fear or weakness.

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There's Something In The Way You Lay

( content warnings: sexual content, voyeurism, body modification, omegaverse traits, loss of agency )

Beneath its pearlescent halls, beyond the banquet of flickering candles and dream-Vessels who eat in hollow silence, a spiral staircase winds downward. Its steps are damp and velvet-slick. The further you descend, the warmer the air becomes— humid, cloying, thick with the scent of sweat, salt, and incense. The sounds reach you first: Slaps, gasps, the wet chorus of bodies and perverse intimacy. Laughter, muffled sobs, the echo of whispered names long forgotten. At the base lies a corridor of "private" rooms. Their doors swing open with dreamlike invitation. Inside, the scenes unfold: past dream-Vessels lost in tableau— arched backs, bitten lips, mouths open in prayer or obedience. Some are alone, coiled in worship. Others tangle in groups, indistinguishable where one body ends and another begins. Vines bloom across the ceilings, watching. The walls glisten with breath. You see their faces, but you can't quite distinguish what or who they are. You may not remember choosing a role, but the dream has chosen for you. α or Ω— and with the naming, your body changes. There is no shame here, only devotion made manifest. This is how Sleep is worshipped now: through cruelty and surrender, through the giving and the taking of flesh.

NOTES

• Masks may optionally offer a sort of glamour for Vessels who wander into these chambers— they will not be able to recognize each other. How much of that, whether it be appearance, voice, and so on, is up to you.
• Past dream-Vessels perform for no one, eyes vacant, movements perfect, as if only a ghost of a memory. Player characters may interact with them and even partake in intimacy with them, but be warned: they are emotionally absent and may cause symptoms of succumbence that could be remedied with a proper, player-character tether.
• Tools hang on the walls: Rods of all sizes, slick with heat. Collars that hum with low, seductive voltage. Blindfolds that intensify physical contact, There's no need for cuffs or chains when there are vines that seem to respond to the α party's mood— tightening, flowering, or reaching for skin. You are free to come up with your own items.
• α perks:: Instinctive claiming (done through biting, rubbing, branding, etc), an almost predatory focus and obsession for those who interest them, pack gravity (the ability to attract one or more vessels at once), emitting a scent that ignites heat/rut in others, darker urges surge and a commanding voice.
Ω perks: High pain tolerance, instinctive yielding, emotional synchrony with those being watched, self-lubricating, hypersensitive, scent tracking, intense need to please or be filled emotionally, physically, and spiritually. When touched, glowing runes bloom across the skin.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Spells cast during acts of intimacy may provoke a heightened sensation of euphoria for both caster and whoever is affected by the spell.
• Magic may manifest as misty appendages— extra hands, tongues, eyes, etc.
• Divine energy becomes volatile when passed through the body— ecstasy may border on agony, or vice versa, and Tethering becomes impossibly euphoric.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• Flesh becomes malleable mid-act— bones bending, jaws unhinging, skin blooming open, etc.
• Animalistic traits emerge: tails, claws, growls, tentacles, scent glands— all begging to be used.
• Feeding and Tethering are indistinguishable— hunger becomes worship, and worship becomes need.

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I am not worthy

( content warnings: body horror, violence, gore, parasitic/invasive feeding, death )

Wherever you are, the palace begins to rot. First slowly, then all at once: vines swell with black fluid, splitting at the seams. They burst from beneath marble tiles, coil up pillars, slither across frames and vacant thrones like arteries choking a heart. The candlelight flickers. One by one, the flames throughout the palace float upward . . . And die. No smoke. No warning. Just wet silence. Then the Dream-Vessels begin to fall. They do not scream as they do. They collapse like marionettes, limbs askew. Their flesh splits open along wounds that should not exist— a rip at the neck, teeth marks prying open the ribcage, a bite that swallows half a torso. Bones jut like sculpted ivory. Entrails slither across the floor like garlands. Some burst mid-air, as if the dream demands spectacle. Others fold in on themselves until all that's left of them is a mound of flesh.

"I am not worthy."

One voice. Ten. A thousand—layered, glitching, sweaty. It echoes from the walls, the bodies, the seams in the floor. The corpses twitch in time with the chant, jerking violently. Some snap backwards, eyes wide, jaws unhinged. Others explode— blossoming in gore, raining viscera. From the heaving pile of ruined Dream-Vessels, something forms.

It lurches into being: stitched from tongues, teeth, torsos. Weeping. Wailing. Worshipping. A monstrosity of raw flesh and faith: all failures made meat. Its eyes (are they eyes?) blink out. Arms claw outwards, too many to count. Its scent is of copper, sweat, and sorrow.

When The Abomination chooses to feed, it seeks not flesh, but the softest rot inside you. An appendage uncoils from its writhing mass and unhinged jaw— veined, slick, and trembling like a violated root. It drives itself into your mouth, splitting your lips with obscene tenderness, and sinks deep into your throat, locking you still.

What it draws out is not blood. It siphons your doubts, your fears, your most secret self-hatred. Your inadequacy. Every buried shame. Your hate. Your negativity. Every flinch of unworthiness. Every moment you believed yourself unlovable, unseen, too small. It gorges on what you hide from even yourself, and the more you try to resist, the sweeter your sorrow becomes. The last thing it takes is your life force, and then your viscera, leaving you wilted and shrivled like a hollow log.

This death is violating and feels painfully slow. You're drained raw of your vitality until you're but a brittle husk that breaks to dust in the wind. It seems near impossible to destroy, always reforming into bits and pieces left smudged behind. Perhaps your best bet it to run, or attempt to wake yourself up from this nightmare.

One's voice repeats in choked sobs: I am not worthy.

NOTES:

• Wounds from the beast linger. You may wake bleeding or marked.
• If devoured, characters will awaken the following month extremely fatigued during the first 3-5 days of the month. They may also sporadically rigurgitate black sludge. Characters who die and are already in the game may requesta plot clue, that will be a vision your character will dream of before awakening.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Magic recoils violently when used on The Abomination, backfiring with psychic screams or ripping into your flesh.
• Your hands glow uncontrollably, burning what you touch— even those you love.
• Magic becomes hungry; it demands pieces of your body to function. A tooth. A nail. A rib (and so on).

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The rage it stirs in you is monstrous. You begin to shift uncontrollably— flesh blooms, bones crack under strain.
• Your body begins moving before you decide to. Twitching toward The Abomination, and toward the scent of despair.
• During the chaos, you may develop a fixation with another Vessel's flaw. You can smell it on them. It entrances you . . . To the point that you may feel the urge to feed them to The Abomination.

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OOC NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia's second TDM, which doubles as our third gamewide event!

➤ This TDM is considered game canon. You are free to have your character remember as many details as possible.

➤ Only new characters are free to experiment with the Vessel options to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible. Current characters must remain as their chosen Vessel type unless you requested a switch, which can be done on the Taken page.

➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!

➤ Veteran players, I ask to please refrain from making post-event threads for the time being! We have some important information to take into account in next month's event when characters are slated to "wake up". At the very least, please wait for the information to be offered on the next plotting post. Thank you everyone for your patience!

➤ Please comment on the TDM's INVITE TL if you are a new player interested in joining the game, but don't yet have an invite. Current players or the mod may reach out to extend an invite. Once you've got one, please don't forget to comment on the Invite page so you may properly link it in your reserve and app.

➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!

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[merged]

Sharon nearly slams her heel down the instant fingers close around her ankle, a sharp shriek tearing loose before recognition stops her cold. Not a monster, not some nightmare hand trying to yank her beneath the black depths, but another Vessel. Breath still tight in her chest, she crouches, grips the girl's wrist firmly, and hauls her upward. The water parts, then stills, and soon the Vessel's feet settle atop its surface as if it were solid glass, just like Sharon's own.

[goty]

Ellie stands with the same confidence found in a newborn deer-- she was drowning, now she's walking on water. She looks into the face of her savoir and feels a sucking awkwardness in her chest. "Th-thanks," she manages. "What the fuck is going on."

[merged]

Sharon feels a sudden gratitude that her own first plunge into the dream had been calmer; just an endless painted orchard, confusing but safe, no threat of drowning, no immediate struggle. Just confusion.

This girl, though... she's dealing with so much more.

"You've been chosen by Sleep to be one of her vessels, congrats," Sharon says, sarcasm dripping from her voice, but she immediately catches herself. That's not going to help right now. She exhales, shaking her head. "Sorry, bad habit. I'm Sharon, and, well... this is a dream. Not a good one, either."

[goty]

Pretty girls snipping at Ellie while she's dripping wet isn't totally out of left field for a dream, except she's actually shivering. She can feel all of this in a way you don't when you're actually asleep. If it's real life, then... Ellie can't keep holding onto this girl, can't embarrass herself, them both. Loneliness isn't an excuse for shit, or Joel-

She doesn't want to think about Joel.

Ellie lets go, and takes a cautious step on the surface of a black ocean. "You're gonna have to say that first part again," she says. "And, uh. I'm Ellie."

[merged]

The girl lets go and tentatively tests the water, asking Sharon to repeat herself. Sharon snorts softly, a mix of amusement and exasperation. It's a lot to process, she knows, especially if you come from a normal world, one without gods or magic.

"Well, Ellie, you've basically been kidnapped by some kind of god." Sharon moves effortlessly across the water, keeping close in case Ellie slips under. She's not about to let anyone drown if she can help it. "She goes by Sleep. And honestly? She sucks."

[goty]

Ellie thinks of children with bows and arrows, scarred faces, hoods. She shakes her head. "I'm not religious." As though that explains anything.

[merged]

Sharon laughs. "Congrats, me neither." She is the furthest thing from religious. In fact, she's almost violently anti-religious—the woes of being sacrificed by a cult at the age of 9. "Doesn't change shit about the situation, though. It doesn't matter if you believe in Sleep, she's still got you."

[goty]

Ellie opens her mouth to argue, and finds she has neither the words nor the energy. This woman believes it. Within the confines of this conversation, at least, that means it's true.

"Okay. I've been kidnapped by a- a goddess." Whatever. "What's that mean in the field?"

God, she's been hunting Abby too long. Everything's practical. Boots on the ground.

[merged]

In the field? That makes her cut her a sidelong glance, something sharp flickering in her eyes. "It means everything you've ever known is about to change. Well, depending on the world you came from, anyway."

She gestures loosely at their surroundings. "Because outside of this, it's a post-apocalyptic hellscape. The kind where the rules don't matter, and the impossible keeps getting real. We're talking your reflection crawling out of a mirror and trying to murder the people you love kind of weird."

[goty]

It all sounds familiar, until the comment about mirrors. That's fucking magic. Ellie shakes her head. When she was a kid, she used to hope and wish that the wizards and dragons in her stolen books would become real. Everything you've ever known is about to change. The chemical burn under her tattoo feels like the bite wound it once was.

"So you got hit hard, huh."

It's an ugly thing to say, but Ellie feels very ugly, just then.

[merged]

Sharon's expression sours instantly, her lip curling in a sharp flash of anger as she stalks ahead. "Yeah, I got hit real fucking hard. That's why we're walking on water right now."

She flings her arms wide, voice dripping with bitterness. "Congrats, you cracked the code, genius. We're all just out of our damn minds!"

[goty]

Years and years of survival, of going out on patrols when she didn't even have to, of fighting through Seattle tooth and nail-- it's made Ellie jaded. She's used to having her skills respected. She's used to tough, hard-eyed survivors. She isn't used to this.

She wants to look at the girl's hands. Are they soft? Has she lived her whole life behind a wall? Ellie's aren't, calloused, cracked, nails dirty. She's sure she's stronger.

"Oh my god. Sorry, did I hurt your feelings?"

[merged]

"Oh, yeah, I'm so hurt," she mutters with a snort, rolling her eyes. What this girl believes isn't Sharon's problem; she'll figure it out eventually, or not. Either way, Sharon isn't about to waste energy trying to prove herself. Sleep will handle that in her own lovely way.

"You won't have a choice but to believe me once we wake up." She tosses a glance back at Ellie, only a touch exasperated. "So tell me: what's the wildest shit you've seen? Give me a taste of the world you're from."

[goty]

Ellie looks back at the other girl, eyes narrowed. She's trying to figure out what this girl is talking about, because she knows-- she thinks she knows-- the limits of acceptance the world has for her life. You swap stories like ration cards, everyone does it, but Ellie knows the limits. The strangest thing she ever saw was the bite mark on her hand, and what happened after.

"You first," she says.

[merged]

Suspicion flickers in the girl's eyes, like she's bracing for a trick or waiting to be dismissed. Sharon meets her look head-on, lips pressed thin, then gives a careless shrug. Fine, she'll go first.

"I watched a man shove a magic seal into his chest and turn into a giant monster. Basically turned into a damn bullet sponge, took every shot to the chest like it was nothing." Her face twists at the memory, the weight of hindsight settling in. She knows now it was her own mistake—she saw a blind man and thought that gave her the upper hand. She couldn't have been more wrong. "I wouldn't say it's the wildest thing I've seen, but you already think I'm crazy, so..."

She's not about to tell her she's been burned alive, or turned a town into a nightmare—there's no way Ellie would swallow that.

[goty]

Ellie doesn't know what a bullet sponge is, or how this girl defines a seal as 'magic', but context quickly makes it clear. She's talking about a genuine inexplicable moment, like Saint Elmo's fire or that shape Eugene once said he saw, moving at dusk between the trees.

"I don't think you're crazy." That's more important than stories. In this girl's eyes, Ellie sees a settled-in kind of judgement. This woman is sane, but she's also a believer. "Maybe I just gotta see it for myself."

Delicately set aside, the question of what Ellie has or hasn't seen.

[merged]

"Right," the doubt slips easily into her tone, though her head tilts with understanding at the idea of having to see it firsthand. That much, at least, Sharon can agree with. She doesn't blame Ellie for not believing—well, not too much, anyway.

But if the other girl thinks the question's been dropped, she doesn't know the woman she's encountered. Curiosity has its claws in her, and once it does, she never lets go. "So," she presses, sharp and expectant, "you going to answer the question now?"

She's relentless, like a damn dog with a bone.

[goty]

Ellie sighs, realizing she'll have to give a tidbit of something, even if it's not the real truth. She's still the strangest thing she's ever seen.

"You know, out west, there's some other kind of infected? Like bloaters, but they're fast. Smaller. Still explode, still throw shit."

[merged]

She shoots Ellie a look of plain confusion. "...Okay, I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe it's common knowledge where you're from, but I've never heard of bloaters. Or infected, for that matter."

In Manhattan, the ones overtaken by Sleep, those who collapse under her power, are called Hosts. As far as she knows, none of them explode.

[goty]

Wherever this girl's from, it's far away. "What do they call 'em? People with cordyceps."

[merged]

The confusion doesn't fade, and she shakes her head, "Never heard of it. That a weird virus or something?"

[goty]

Ellie can't believe it, and her confusion stops her in her tracks. Her mouth barely moves when she talks. "Uh, infection. Fungal."

[merged]

When Ellie comes to a halt, Sharon follows suit, her attention entirely on the other girl. "The only fungal infections I know about back home are, uh... Something to do with feet. Makes them itchy." It's unimportant. "Guessing this... cordyceps" the word is foreign on her tongue, "has fucked your world up?"

[goty]

It feels like a judgement. Ellie stands a little straighter. "Yeah, I guess. It's been years since it happened. Decades."

[merged]

"Huh." Decades of a world ravaged by a fungal infection that warps people, some of which even fucking explode. A few months ago, it would have sounded insane to her, straight out of the 2000s zombie craze. But now? It's no stranger than what she's lived here or back home.

She turns back toward the palace, resuming her stride. "I've seen enough movies to guess how that turned out. You probably won't have much trouble adjusting to Manhattan, then." A silver lining for Ellie.