TDM 001 ● JUNE 2025

[uruz]

TDM: ONE

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PRELUDE

(content warnings: dream horror, loss of autonomy, mild body horror, cult undertones )


You’ve had this dream before.

A moon cracked wide, spilling tendrils from its craters like bleeding silk. A sky starless and slow. And on the horizon: a wave. Massive. Black. Still. It creeps forward every time like sunrise. It hushes before collapse, but every time before this, you wake up just in time.

But not tonight. You can't outrun it even if you tried— it comes crashing down on you at last, swallowing you like a gaping black hole. Saltless, soundless, the water devours. But instead of drowning, you drift, suspended in velvet dark. And in that dark, her voice breathes.

“You don’t have to fall with it.
Let me in.
I can give you everything you’ve ever hungered for.
A place.
A purpose.
Stay.”

She offers. And you— your mouth, your mind— give an answer before you even know you’re speaking. Yes.

The tide recedes. The dark peels away like silk. You awaken beneath a canopy of gold, in a garden that hums with warmth and longing. Soft grass. Strange trees. Fragrant fruits in every color, dripping with light. And a mask upon your face, no straps, no weight, yet it clings to your skin like it was always part of you. You don't want to remove it. You could, maybe . . . But it would feel like tearing your skin away.

She no longer speaks to you, but her orchard breaths a sigh upon your arrival. A force tugs at the edges of your thoughts, beckoning you to contact the web you're now a part of. Welcome, Vessel.

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YOU CAN THREAD THE NEEDLE

(content warnings: sensory manipulation )

An orchard stretches around you in impossible directions, the horizon blurred like wet paint. Trees curl and arch with an elegance that feels practiced— like they’re posing for someone watching. Their trunks shimmer faintly. Leaves flutter even when there is no wind.

You are not alone. Others stir nearby, familiar or unfamiliar, though that distinction begins to blur. You may not know them, or perhaps you have the feeling you do even if you've never met them in your life. Either way, you might wish to know them.

From the strange branches within the orchard hang fruits shaped like stars, teardrops, or glass bells. Each one pulses faintly, waiting to be plucked. Their effects are subtle but powerful, crafted to cater to your desire and wonder:

🍎A pearlescent orb, cool and slick to the touch, whose taste floods you with a future that might be: a fleeting vision of joy, belonging, or beauty you didn’t know you craved. Whoever is nearby sees a glimpse of it too.
🍎A silver-veined citrus, fizzing like champagne. When shared between two, it evokes the feeling of a first time— first love, first rebellion, first triumph — even if you’ve never lived it. The emotional residue lingers between you.
🍎A blood-orange fruit with velvet skin, which when bitten into, causes your voice to harmonize with another’s— even if you weren’t speaking. You’ll find yourselves finishing each other’s thoughts, or speaking a secret you both forgot you held.
🍎A waxen, translucent fig, which grants you a small miracle: something you longed for appears beside you, conjured from dream. It might be a lost keepsake. A voice. A scent. A face.
🍎A smooth, silver fruit with a mirrored skin. When bitten, it briefly reflects the dreamer’s true self — not as they are, but as they wish to be. For a moment, others may see it too. The illusion clings for a time, making the character appear more like their ideal self in body, presence, or aura.
🍎A dark plum that glows faintly pink, almost heart-shaped, and warm to the touch. Its juice runs red and sticky, clinging to the lips. To taste it is to be filled with longing— for intimacy, for sensation, for touch. The desire may be gentle or overwhelming, but it lingers, tuned to the presence of someone nearby. It is not mindless. It is focused.

At the center of the orchard is a fountain, still and inviting. Its water tastes like clarity— and for a moment after drinking, your thoughts shape your surroundings. What you create might intertwine with what another dreams beside you.

Sleep does not speak in words. She breathes through the trees, hums through the soil, stares through your mask. Her voice, barely a whisper:

“Thread the needle, My Vessel.
Want.
Want, and see what answers you.”

You feel it,— if you resonate with another, something will change. Maybe the orchard will shift again. Maybe it already has.

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THE DAYLIGHT RECEDES

(content warnings: grief, loss, emotional vulnerability)

The orchard is gone. In its place stretches a landscape of ashen grass, supple and fragrant underfoot, warmed by a pale light that doesn’t seem to come from the sun. All around, a soft breeze stirs the fields— endless, loamy, and quiet. The air smells like soil after rain. It is peaceful here. But not happy.

Scattered across the fields are half-buried remnants: old beds, cracked record players, wilted bouquets, melted candles, notes scrawled on napkins— things lost in the moments between love and loneliness. Everything here feels half-remembered, yet painfully familiar. If a character reaches for one of these objects, they may hear a voice whispering a name they have tried to forget, or one they wish they'd remembered sooner.

In the distance, a shrouded figure walks the fields, unhurried, always just out of reach. Their back is turned, but their presence pulls like gravity. Some may choose to follow. Some may wait. And some may realize they’re walking beside someone else— a stranger who seems to carry a memory they, too, once held.

This is a moment of reflection. Interactions blossom from shared worries, slow confessions, or uncanny synchronicities. Characters might recognize something in another, such as a gesture, a phrase, a scent— and feel that thread begin to tug. Best follow its lead . . . You won't be able to leave unless you do.

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EVERYTHING WE LOVE RESETS

(content warnings: body horror, transformation, loss of autonomy, psychological horror, cosmic dread )

You awaken— or perhaps you never truly slept. The orchard is gone. The fields have withered. All is silence now, and the air is soaked in dread.

A still, uncanny plane stretches out before you: rotted soil, stagnant pools, shattered glass trees that hum with an almost-familiar voice. Echoes of what the dream once offered—sweet fruit, blooming things, beauty— remain only as scars on the land. Their pleasures have fermented into menace. The dreamscape is collapsing.

Sleep, ever present, ever watching, does not weep. She has already taken what she wants, and you see her teeth stretched too wide in the shadows. In the reflection that splits back at you. In the soundless breeze with much more bite and possession than the gentle caress of invitation. She whispers, from the shadows between dying stars:

"You said yes. Now let me see what you become."

The mask on your face tightens, no longer decoration. A binding. You are no longer merely dreaming— Your skin may change fluidly, or break down through the bones violently. Your flesh may split, brimming with power, or your blood could burn like lava oozing through your veins. You may even experience it again, and again, and again; a different beast or burst of magic each time. Whether painful or painless, You are now either Token, or Offering. You may not yet know what that means— But your body does.

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EVEN WHEN WE RUN WITH DEATH

(content warnings: body horror, fungal infections, parasitism, loss of agency, cosmic horror, violence, death, cult imagery)

Your surroundings bend and break with growing instability: The sky splits open, revealing a bleeding red moon, weeping tendrils like raw nerves. It feels wrong in a way you have no words for. It sees you. And it beckons for blood.

The dream does not want peace now. It wants performance. It wants pain. And above all, Sleep wants you all to herself. She watches from the broken heavens, humming in delight as you run, as you fight, as you fracture under the weight of your becoming. Perhaps you turn on each other, frightened with what you have become or too frazzled to control yourself, or the newfound power you possess.

There are other things to look out for, though. Creatures stalk this unraveling plane: malformed creatures with mutated faces and fungal blooms bursting from their orifices, or tendrils slithering from what were once mouths and eye sockets. Once Vessels. Hosts. They may speak with familiar voices. They may try to barter, or bite. Those with hands and fingers may try and force your eyelids to part, to tilt your gaze to the sky above you, chanting in tongues that drill into your brain stem. Hushing in song. Whispering Look at her. She is Beautiful.

If you are caught, if you gaze up at Her for too long— you too will suffer the same fate. Fungal bursts and tendrils will spurt from your mouth, invade you from the inside and reach out to her in sacred reverence. It's a horrible way to go. If this is an end you find, you too, despite your pain, may begin to smile. You might have even more reason to attack your fellow Vessels. They too, must see Her beauty like you do.

The song stutters. The dream recoils when you succumb to the worst of Her parasitism, even though you don't lose consciousness. It is not Sleep who speaks next. In your last few seconds of awareness, you hear in your ears, in your mind, in your soul, snarling and thick with fury:


“What have you done?”

The world begins to scream. You begin to fall.

The dream is over.

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NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia’s first TDM! All TDMs will be considered game canon.
➤ You are free (and encouraged!) to experiment with the Tether mechanic as well as Vessel options and the Network to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible.
➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!
➤ Mod invited players may currently extend one invite per player. Interested players who do not have mod invites or a friend to get an invite from may comment to the appropriate top level to solicit one, or, solicit one from the mod here. Please keep in mind that soliciting an invite does not guarantee one.
➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!

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Comments

thread the needle

[aeviternitas]

[ He doesn't notice the figure in the branches at first. The man below her instead gazes distractedly at the green of the leaves, the way the moonlight reflects off of their waxy texture, the rich colors of the various fruits. It just so happens that he had plucked one of the citrus moments before her, pulled the peel away and, with his first, almost reverent bite, is struck with a an emotion so powerful he drops the precious fruit.

There is surprise, at first - a rise in his chest, eyes wide and gaze momentarily unseeing. It is little wonder the doll woman thinks him confused. He has never felt this before; this triumph, this righteousness. It is so vivid he can almost feel the lifeblood on his hands, hot and clinging, the pommel of a blade, warm, heavy with purpose.

He laughs, then, short and breathless and incredulous. His thin body reels with the weight of it, comforting like a heavy quilt on a cold night. He presses a palm to his chest, fingers splayed before curling into the chiffon-like fabric of his robe. He can feel his heart beat in a way it hasn't in so long he forgot it was there. He does not hear the first of what she says, but he shakes his head quickly at the last. ]

Please- by all means. [ No, he hasn't felt it before. But if that is how it feels - justice, satisfaction of righting a wrong long gone unpunished... he already wants to feel it again. ]

cw: mild self harm mention

[deathstealer]

[ The pair of carved porcelain lips shown in the gap of the mask do not move, but the spectral mouth mere inches to their right curve upward with an amused, almost impish smile.

He seems overcome by the sensation. Ranni understands. She has had many triumphs, but this, specifically, is the sensation of her very first bloody one. Not her childhood triumphs; not the mastering of her own lunar magic, or beating her brother at swordplay, or learning a difficult mathematical sum. No, this is the triumph of carving into her own flesh and knowing that a similar mark was killing another demigod at the same time, the triumph of conquering the impossible and dealing a hefty blow to that which was corrupt and vile. ]

A tremendous feeling, is it not?
'twas wrought by a terrible crime.

[ Sounding matter-of-fact, she cradles the fruit in one pair of hands to examine it, shaded by the massive brim of her hat. In truth, she is less interested by it, and more interested in her current company. Another god, if she is not mistaken. She knows that sense of power well.

One lambent blue eye peers out from between the slots in the mask. ]

May I ask how it tastes?

[aeviternitas]

It is. [ Tremendous is a good word for it. The Forsaken closes his eyes a moment, taking one more breath to steady himself.

For a moment, he thinks she's talking about the feeling they apparently shared (how, he's not entirely sure). His gaze lifts to the speaker, taking her in properly for the first time. The gods are gone, now, and long since besides, but many of them looked entirely unlike the humans of the realm adjacent. So her appearance is curious, but not shocking. Her mouth - the one that looks carved or formed of pottery - does not appear to move, and the conjoined face seems to have no corporeal form. So, he reasons, she cannot eat.

Until a few minutes ago, neither could the Forsaken, though for entirely different reasons. He then remembers the fruit. His gaze drifts to it, now on the ground, dirtied with soil. The experience is such a precious one, he gets the strange sense he should not take another. But... while there are others around, there is surely much more fruit. And in any case, this is a dream, is it not? Why be concerned with scarcity?

He plucks another, peels it much the same, and removes a segment. He slips the segment between his lips in halves, and chews slowly, thoughtfully. ]

It is sweet - the juice is thicker than water, but only a little. Like the way mead pours. There is a tartness, too, sharp on the tongue, so the sweetness isn't cloying. I would describe it as... bright, perhaps. The warmth of sunshine, but a cool breeze.

[ It has been so long since he has experienced either of those, too, but it makes it easier, to remember for someone else. Or maybe it is this place.

It is a little disappointing the new fruit does not come with a new wave of that powerful emotion of before, but the feeling is eclipsed by the sheer gift that is tasting something. ] How long it has been.

[deathstealer]

[ His description is so vivid that, for a moment, Ranni can almost recall what it felt like to eat. She has lost count of the years since she had a body capable of it, and those memories are tarnished by the golden threads of control she was under. But for a second, she comes close to a fond memory, a crisp apple shared in an orchard with her brothers, the taste of sunlight on her tongue.

It would seem unwise to eat the fruit here. This is a fragile reality, Ranni can feel. It frays at the edges. It has been put here, for whatever reason. Presumably, by whichever god or higher entity has been speaking to them. They already know merely touching the fruit causes magical effects; eating it may create something even more dire.

Still, if he does suffer some sort of malady in front of her, the knowledge will be useful.

She steeples one pair of hands thoughtfully, the other setting down the fruit on the branch next to her. With the loss of contact, the feeling of blood-soaked triumph gently begins to fade. ]

Be cautious with thy gratitude.
Whatever being whispers in thine ears about purpose and wants,
may see fit to use it against thee.

[aeviternitas]

[ The Forsaken watches her, listens, before his attention turns to the fruit in his hand.

To taste again is little short of a dream come true, in a way. To experience this place at all, really. He believes this place a dream, but he must admit the vividness of it all is anything but dreamlike. The whispers, the mask on his face that feels a part of him... ]

Wise words.

[ He smiles, something grim in the way the corners of his mouth tighten. For the second time, he discards the fruit. This time, it is with reluctance, letting it roll from his fingertips as if to savor that last moment of holding it in his hand. ]

I am called the Forsaken. Might I know your name? [ She is no human. A god, then, somehow? One he has forgotten? He remembers all but the most distant, those aloof even to their brethren. Many perished in the war. The rest, he knows not where they have gone, but gone from their lush realm they are nonetheless. ]

[deathstealer]

[ Ranni watches the fruit fall the soil, and contemplates whether or not she should give her name.

In the Lands Between, such a thing had been dangerous. She had killed her godly body and shed her old godly life to be rid of the corruption that came with it, the order imposed by the Greater Will, inflexible. She had possessed the body of this doll, fashioned after her heretic mentor, and had started calling herself by another name. She had not wanted anybody to know that she, the Dark Moon, the Lunar Princess, had lived.

But she has achieved her goal. There is no Golden Order to stop her now. She had ascended to godhood to provide a fairer order the world. Do the Lands Between know her name know? She knows not. It was her intent that they specifically should not worship her.

But here she is, in an entirely different land. A fractured reality. Should it matter if anybody knows who she is? Should it matter if anybody knows what she is? ]

You may call me Ranni.
I am but a witch,
from a faraway place known as the Lands Between.

[ A mixed truth, then. Her true name, but not her true nature. She knows little about this place or its people; she wishes to hold her identity in reserve. Underestimation is a great tool, especially from other gods. ]

Where are thou from, Forsaken?
A similarily faraway land?

[aeviternitas]

[ Far away indeed, he imagines. He knows of witches, but none with the capability of such a manner of being. The Lands Between is not a familiar name, either. ]

Perhaps far away, or perhaps only shrouded — I am not entirely sure. [ He gestures carelessly with one hand. ] It has no people to give it a name.

[ Only himself, and why give name to a place from which he never leaves? Those who find themselves in his prison name the god, not the place. The place is changeable for them. To the Lost, it is wherever they need it to be. Ironically, if it were to have a name, his little insufferable slice of eternity, the Lands Between would be most fitting, he thinks. ]

[deathstealer]

A god with no people, then?
A curious thing.

[ Ranni makes no pretense of being ignorant; she knows he is a god in the same way that she can observe a plant being a plant or a rock being a rock. His aura is obvious, his very being is plain to see. Her own nature, however, is far more obfuscated. This is by design.

She slips down from the branch onto the soil and grass beneath with barely a sound, and makes her way to the next tree, head tipped up to study the fruit there. This one bears a dark plum, its skin velvety in the light. ]

Such power here, then,
to affect even a god.

[ Porcelain lips curl into a little smile, only just visible underneath the brim of her hat. ]

Or is that thy power here is weakened?

sorry for late, I'm alive! (ish)

[aeviternitas]

[ The Forsaken's brows raise, though only slightly. She calls herself a witch, but the Forsaken would assume her, too, to be a god. What other creature might have such an appearance? He cannot feel her power or sense any aura, but he is not surprised. Neither does he feel the need to refute her. ]

My people are not of the realm I inhabit, though they stumble in from time to time. [ He smiles, fond and distant. ] It is my duty to help them find their path again.

[ Again, his brows raise, lips parted in a silence he does not think to mask as she walks to a different tree. He does not follow. ]

I do not know. [ He lifts a hand to examine it. In it, an apple appears, red and blush, glossy, replete with a bright green leaf sticking from the stem. He closes his fingers, and the apple disappears. ]

I appear to not entirely be without my power, [ he muses. He ventures a few steps closer to the woman, idle in his path. ] This is only a dream, is it not?

[deathstealer]

A dream may be many things;
many of them closer to us than not.

[ Ranni covers her hand with her voluminous sleeve to pluck the dark plum off the tree, ensuring it does not touch her. Like this, she can feel magic trying to worm its way into her mind, but she can easily stave off its whispers. ]

It would not serve us well,
to say this land is only one thing.
Thy mind can become too rigid,
too closed to see the whole of things.

[ He is a god of a place that very rarely hosts people; it makes sense why he is so unused to form and taste, then. So far, he has proven nice enough, but Ranni has lived a life of not trusting gods. She's hardly going to start now. ]