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

[omertosa]

[There is truth to her assessment of that triumphant sensation—and yet it draws a tired feeling from Texas, one that may linger as an echo for a moment in this strange space. She is glad, then, as the inciting emotion fades with that fruit set aside. It allows her to more fully relax, and she moves to stand and lean against that tree the strange woman is perched in.

Her attention likewise drifts to the other trees in their surroundings, and she keeps a mental tally of the varieties of fruit on display.]

Magic.

[She lets the word stand alone for a moment, as if testing it. For this all to fall under the effect of some sort of Arts feels almost unfathomable, but it is hard to deny the experience before them. Nothing about this is natural, so it cannot be denied that other forces are at play.

Finally, she gives a slight shake of her head, then glances back up toward her once more.]

I’ve hesitated to touch them much. Something about this feels unsettling. [She breathes out the ghost of a sigh.] Maybe it is the magic. I’ve never seen anything like it.

[deathstealer]

Oh? Thou'rt new to the ways of magic?

[ Ranni sounds intruiged, thoughtful. Magic is so steeped into the lands from whence she came that it sounds strange to her to not be familiar with it. Even the smallest child, raised under a rock in the Lands Between, knows of it. But this wolf-eared girl is from a world that knows nothing of it. How fascinating.

She braces two hands on the branch she sits upon, and slips down to the ground. The soil is warm underneath her porcelain and metal feet, her white dress brushing against the grass. She is half-tempted to pick more fruit simply to know their effects, but she forestalls. For all she knows, one of them may prompt her to spill all of her greatest secrets, or make her body explode into a thousand pieces. ]

'tis a most unsettling world, I agree.
It frayeth at the edges, like an unstable dream.
A fine net in which we are all caught.

[ She raises a hand with a small twisting gesture, a snap of her fingers, and smiles. It starts snowing around them, gentle flakes falling upon the brim of her hat. ]

But magic is neither evil nor good.
'tis merely a tool.

[omertosa]

[Not entirely new, no, but if this strange dream-like world has shown her anything thus far, it’s that even seemingly familiar things can feel foreign when presented in such a way.

She both watches and listens in silence as the woman slips down from her perch, and it’s then that she can really take in the oddity of that porcelain body. Odd yet fitting, considering the current surroundings. Under normal circumstances, she'd wonder how such a thing might be possible, but these are anything but. Sure, might as well be speaking with a four-armed porcelain woman.

Amber eyes track the falling of the conjured snow, lit with interest rather than surprise. She raises a hand to idly catch a flake or two in her waiting palm, where they swiftly melt against the warmth.]

We call things like this Arts, where I’m from. Originium Arts. Though maybe it’s not quite the same.

[But certainly a tool, as she describes. And like all tools, it’s one easily misused in the hands of those with ill intent.]

But it's something that’s always invoked with intent, like this snow. But here… I dunno. It feels innate, ambient. It’s what makes it feel so strange.

[And why she feels that caution is warranted.]

[deathstealer]

Yes. A rare magic indeed.

[ She dismisses the snow, and it gradually peters to a stop, barely settling on the soil and grass. It will melt with haste, leaving no trace of itself behind. Just how Ranni likes to operate.

The wolf-eared girl is correct: whatever has created this reality feels more powerful than illusions or mere conjuration. It feels like something wild, something emotional. Is there a clever mastermind behind this, or a mad mind barely aware of what it has done?

She reaches up and fits her fingertips at the edges of the strange mask upon her face, tugging it off. Holding it in four pairs of hands, she turns it around to study it. The urge to put it back is disgustingly strong. It's finely made, but strangely shaped, designed for concealing the eyes but wholly revealing the mouth and jaw. Something symbolic, perhaps? ]

Thou'rt wise to be wary.
Perhaps it will keep thee alive longer than most.
I sense this reality will not be stable long,
but what it will become, I do not know.

[omertosa]

[Texas reaches one hand up to her own mask, fingers brushing against the smooth edge of it, and… finds herself surprisingly hesitant to likewise remove it. Why is that? Any explanation she could come up with feels fleeting and flimsy (maybe she’s comfortable withdrawing into the anonymity? maybe there’s a frustrating part of her conflating it with the masks of the encroaching Carnevale back home? maybe—) compared to the urge to keep it in place.

So she lets her hand drop, for now, and instead fixes her gaze on the mask in the porcelain woman’s hands.]

Have you seen anything like this before? A place steeped in this sort of magic?

[It seems a prudent question to ask, considering the strange woman’s familiarity with magic and the sense she seems to have of it. True, she’s made it plain that she doesn’t know what to expect of what this place may become either, but anything more they might have to work with in deciphering this dreamlike space would feel better than blindly moving forward in the dark.]

[deathstealer]

[ Ranni almost seems to smile. ]

My home is a land such as this;
steeped in magic and myth wherever thee turn.
From gods and beasts and outer beings,
to dragons and omens and mortal men.

[ Still, the Lands Between is far more concrete than this place, clinging by its fingernails onto a shred of reality. There, dreams can become reality if the dreamer is strong enough, and other shards of reality can cling onto the main realm if they are tenacious enough. The Land of Shadow, the thin veil between reality and the outer gods, even the strange space that the evergaols occupy.

But her academic strength does not lay in dreams, and so unfortunately, Ranni is no expert on this place. She yearns for a tome to pick up, something to study and examine. Fortunately, on the other hand, she is excellent at figuring out magic. ]

My concern lies with who created this land,
and who looketh down upon us as we fret.
Their desires will guide our path,
and conjure what we encounter.
If they are benign--

[ She waves both left hands at the orchard, a graceful gesture. ]

--then we are presented with peace.
But this dream may not stay so mild,
as ever, the dreamer's mind may turn fitful and torn.