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

ii. daylight recedes

[descendre_encendres]

[She glances at him through her mask and his open question that seems to sit in the air.]

It's... a record player. It plays music.

[She pauses another moment, considering.]

You haven't seen one before?

[offseers]

[ his eyes brighten, despite himself. ]

No. Never. It plays music?

[ his fingers itch for his flute. nowhere in sight. perhaps if he has the chance, he can make a new one. though he's not sure if he could ever play again. ]

How?

[descendre_encendres]

Yeah... it's-

[She walks over to the record player gesturing with her hands the size of a record.]

You need a record first. They're large discs that hold the music and then the needle runs over it to play the sounds recorded on the record.

[She's still a bit surprised he's not heard of them. They're rather fashionable where she's from.]

[offseers]

[ noah has had a very limited experience. though that never stops him from having an open mind. compared to his comrades. ]

That's incredible. You could listen to the songs you like at any time.

[descendre_encendres]

Yeah. [She gives the weakest of smiles, her thoughts adrift.]

Do you play any instruments?

[offseers]

[ his expression grows a touch melancholy but his smile remains. ]

I do. I'm an offseer. I used my flute to send off the departed.

It's strange . . . not having it on me.

[descendre_encendres]

So you guide the dead... [She's a touch concerned. She knows she's not dead. Surely. But then again, if they are stuck in a dream...

She tries not to let her worries soak into her words.] I've never heard of that, an 'offseer'.

[offseers]

[ noah shakes his head, a trace of good humour. ]

That doesn't surprise me.

[ a faint, tentative pause. should he ask? no. that'd be rude. best to wait. ]

It's a function among the colonies. Keves and Agnus. After a battle, we make sure to play our songs. And send them off.

[descendre_encendres]

[The more he talks, the more confusion weighs on her brow. Another world? Another canvas? Or just another part of this nightmare? She doesn't know any of those places, but pointing that out probably won't help either of them understand the other.]

Off to where exactly?

[offseers]

[ ah. he hesitates for a moment, glancing at the ceiling. ]

Who knows? Wherever they're supposed to be. After death.

[ he's lying and it grinds him a little to do so. once soldiers die, it's back to the cycle. but still. but still. ]

[descendre_encendres]

[She doesn't know him well enough, and despite her experience with liars, she'll take him at face value for now.]

Oh... So you just send them on their way? You don't know?

[Maybe each place is different, but it would be kind to know if there's some form of afterlife. A comfort.]

[offseers]

[ noah's not much of a liar. and his expression softens. ]

Do we have to know? As long as there is some place they can go . . . that's enough.

[descendre_encendres]

I guess.

[It's not the answer she wanted, but few answers seem to be. It's tiring.]

So how did you get here then? To this... dream? [She makes a wide gesture as though to demonstrate the vastness and the lostness of it all.]

[offseers]

[ he shakes his head slowly. ]

No. And this is no dream I could ever conceive of.

I don't think anyone could have dreamed of this.

[descendre_encendres]

[She has some pretty wild dreams but they've all ultimately made sense in the end. This place though? This place has no sense. Besides, it feels real.]

If it's not a dream, then what is it?

[It's not a canvas either, she knows. She's already tried to... 'fix' it.]

[offseers]

I don't know.

[ and there's no shame in admitting that. the world is large. it gets larger every day. there's so much he doesn't know. so much he keeps learning. and noah would never choose ignorance. ]

I just know that . . . it feels real to me.

[descendre_encendres]

It does.

[She agrees. But the canvases feel real, she'd argue they are real, even the creations in them. Even though others would argue otherwise.]

So can dreams be real?

[Or nightmares?]

[offseers]

I don't see why not. Especially in a dream like this one.

In the end, it's what you feel that makes anything real.

[descendre_encendres]

I guess.

[She doesn't find as much comfort in that as she may have thought she should. She doesn't want this place to be real and yet they are here.]

You seem so calm. Aren't you worried about going back?

[offseers]

[ yes. it'll be back to oblivion. back into the cycle. he will forget them all. his friends. crys. mio. he'll be a soldier. he'll kill to live. he'll live to kill. ten years. over and over.

or. it'll just end. after all, he's — ]

I don't want to lose my head just yet. I am worried, but there's a lot I don't know yet.

I want to learn what I can first.

[descendre_encendres]

Right, okay.

[She was fine until she realized she had no control over this place. No chroma in this place. No weapon in this place. All she can do is run. It's overwhelming. This guy's being way more reasonable and she'll take note of it.]

So.. what have you learned?

[offseers]

[ noah is always a touch uncanny that way. too kind. too compassionate. too empathetic. and too calm, even in the face of the worst there is. ]

Well, our worlds don't match. We come from very different places. And we're disconnected from them for some reason.

I assume whoever brought us here wants something from us.

[descendre_encendres]

[Surely that is something to be concerned about.]

Something like... what?

[offseers]

I don't know yet.

But the sooner we find out, the better off we'll be.

[descendre_encendres]

[It just seemed like he had dealt with something like this before. That he might already know what sort of exchange or parasitic theft they were in for.]

Right. Okay.