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

[aeviternitas]

"Touch." The answer that comes is quick, but simple and honest to the point of vulnerability. Alarm triggers in the back of his mind - this man is but a stranger, and he, in a strange place. Nothing here is familiar, he shouldn't—

But fingers graze his palm, and any caution that might have formed flies from his thoughts. He gasps, then sighs, the sound an unsteady one. His gaze drops to their hands. He curls his fingers slowly, until fingertip brushes palm in turn. He stares as if entranced, marveling at the sensation of simple touch.

Sometimes the Lost are grateful enough to be found that they grasp a hand or even embrace him outright. Some, mostly children, want to be held to be comforted. But this is... something different, something he does not remember, or maybe he never knew. He isn't entirely sure. With his attention directed between them, he finally notices the movement of his robe, the fabric light and easily ruffled by wind - but shadow is a new one. He regards it curiously for a moment, thinks to ask, only to be distracted again by the warmth.

His blue-grey eyes lift to the other man's face, expression one of something akin to wonder.

[spiritmonger]

That the man wanted touch was something very foreign to Nymnar. The only time he'd been touched was when he got his ass handed to him in training, when some of his interrogators decided to take everything out on him rather than just leave him alone. Nymnar didn't remember his childhood, if his mother had a gentle touch. He was sure she had been - fetchlings weren't that different from humans, really, and he was the one that fell into the wrong crowd, not his family.

The feeling of the stranger's fingertips against his palm made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. There was a subtle tremble in his hand - sensitive, slightly ticklish - as he stared down at the contact as if he were looking at an interesting beetle that crawled from a grave. He still found himself uncertain of what he felt other than the tickle of warmth on his palm.

Nymnar noticed the way the other man's gaze shifted down to the ground, and the shadow suddenly stopped and retreated to behind Nymnar once his focus shifted to it. The shadow was a stark contrast to its owner: where Nymnar stood almost as still as a statue, the shadow seemed to always be in motion, even if it was just fidgeting by making the grass move, or - for example - swishing at the robes of someone nearby. "It gets bored," he offers as explanation. "If a shadow can feel such a thing."

His gaze lazily shifted up from the ground and carefully flattened his palm against the stranger's fingers. He tentatively decided he liked the warmth of the stranger's hand against his. There was a question tugging at his mind. After letting it roll around in his mind for a moment, he decided to ask, his gaze not lifting from their hands. "Of all people, why me?"

[aeviternitas]

"How curious," the Forsaken answers of the shadow. Was there a god that dwelt in shadows? He thinks so, but the memory is distant.

His attention lingers on the other man's face, taking in sharp angles that he can see beneath the mask, the bow of his mouth. He feels a warmth in his chest, strange and foreign. He drops his gaze to their hands again quickly, as if there was something he did not want to see the other man's reaction to. Delicately, he grazes the fingertips of his free hand across the back of his knuckles, marveling again at the warmth. This feels right, and he wants more—

The question is enough to drag him back to his senses, if only a little. "I— do not know," the god admits, brows furrowing. He looks up again. "You seemed... right, when no one else did." The Forsaken's brows raise, and he shakes his head.

"Forgive me— I seem not entirely in control of my faculties." Even so, he does not let go, as if unaware he still holds on, or a need he must meet.

[spiritmonger]

If Nymnar knew that the stranger was examining him, he'd be glad that there was this absolutely ridiculous mask on his face. He had come to realize that he did not like the way eyes crawled over him in the way most people didn't like insects crawling over them. It was a boon that they were both too focused on something as simple as the touch of another so did not feel the way the other's eyes picked at his features. The feeling of fingertips over his knuckles is... That's new.

"This place is strange," he replied carefully. "There is a plane of existance called the First World. I believe that Feywild is a little more ubiquitous, though it feels less precise." No, Nymnar was not fun at parties. "It is a strange place, a realm of trickery and clever chaos. This place feels as if it may be part of the First World," he said softly, his gaze finally lifting to glance toward the stranger. The glance doesn't last long before flicking up toward the fruit. "I have read that the fey are prone to trickery. Some of it malicious, some of it not." He pondered the drops of stars hanging from trees, his voice sounding pensive when he spoke again. "Did you eat one of the fruits from the tree?"

Nymnar did not notice when his thumb started to gently rub the stranger's hand in an unconscious motion, as if craving the touch himself despite not partaking in the fruit.

[aeviternitas]

The Forsaken half-listens - not for disinterest, only a distraction he cannot tear his attention from. First World, Feywild, Fey— none of these sound familiar to him, what he knows to exist.

Not that he has a better explanation, other than 'it's most certainly a dream'.

His gaze follows the other man's, lifting to the branches and the fruits dripping from them. "Oh," he says softly in realization, and though that is answer enough in itself, he nods. He licks at his lower lip, the plum juice still barely there, still sweet.

"You mentioned... fey? What are they?"

And no, he has not let go. In fact, after a long moment of feeling the other's thumb across his skin, he shifts the touch to tangle their fingers together, still as though unconscious of the action.

[spiritmonger]

The detached way that the stranger acted suited Nymnar just fine: it mirrored his own general attitude. That he had eaten the fruit only confirmed his own hypothesis, though that did not get him anywhere interesting or useful. He pondered the captured stars and their their forms, the stranger's behavior. He heard the question about the fey, but he seemed in no hurry to answer it, gaze still tipped up.

He had only ever read about the Fey and the Feywild. He'd heard some stories, when people talked within earshot - and that didn't happen very often. He let what he knew turn over in his head, letting his answer percolate as he stared up at the empty sky. His shadow got bored and started moving the grass around and swishing robes again, while the silence stretches between them as if Nymnar hadn't heard his question after all.

"In the same way that humans, elves, and that ilk are denizens of the Material Plane, the Fey are denizens of the Feywild. The Feywild is an echo of of the Material Plane, though it is more suffused with magic and emotion. Which, naturally, means its denizens are as well."

He felt the stranger's fingers intertwine with his own and he fell silent. The contact was jarring and threw him off completely. He'd never been thrown off so completely, and he wasn't sure what to do. He blinked and shook his head a little as he tried to remember where he was in his explanation, his gaze falling to the ground as his eyes blindly scanned the grass to try to pick up his train of thought. It was subtle, but his form flickered like a ghost with a tenuous connection. He politely cleared his throat, speaking calmly, careful to make sure his accent wasn't too much.

"Ehm. It is a categorical term for the people of an entire plane, much like demon is a categorical term, or devil."

[aeviternitas]

The longer the Forsaken listens, the more nonsensical it all sounds. Elves? Material Plane? Demons and devils are the folklore of humans, not anything real. And the only planes were that of the gods, and humans, and his own, tiny little corner of reality...

— At least, that he knew of. Had the gods left their realm for a different plane? If they could discover his realm for the prison they made out of it (or perhaps if one of them had made an entirely separate plane to begin with), they could have found or made another, that the Forsaken does not know of. So perhaps this Feywild and Material Plane are just other realms.

"I see," he says, idle, distracted, and seeing precisely none of it, really. "Are you from the 'Material Plane?' " The more he talks, the longer the fruit settles in his stomach, the effects of the plum seems to fade, little by little. He becomes more aware of their entwined fingers, and a growing miscomfort. Or- no, miscomfort is not entirely inaccurate, but neither is it entirely accurate. The Forsaken grows more distracted still, attention shifting to their hands, trying to make sense of it.