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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wildcard & run with death

[hexrot]

[ let me see what you become, she said as the endless field of memories began to rott. from it, marble shatters and concrete moans under it. packs upon packs of hosts emerge from the broken earth too fast for a beast that's only begun to change beneathe the blood moon. before jayce knew where he truly was (did he even know?), his skull has split in two different places, and the joint of his jaw, three— each to parade a curve of horns that may have been more fitting for a ram. devilish and proud, they ignore the man's twisted cries until they reach for the crimson skies and he's not a man at all. only a mass of scales, snout, heated maw and a hulking size, with his frame an encased spread of nebulae and starlight. the hosts make a beeline for the clearly drawn target on him and open their maws to shoot tendrils onto him, evverywhere, skull and eye sockets and mouth—

that's when the beast stirs to survive. thrashes, rather, with a panic of reminders belonging to a trauma long past. ]

[opheliac]

[she wants to wake up. many people she had spoken with theorize they are all just dreaming, and all of this is something they'll forget soon once someone or something stirs them enough to open their eyes. but in jinx's perspective, this isn't a dream. sure, nightmares exist, and she had them all her life. but her nightmares had always been about her past mistakes and her family haunting her at any given opportunity.

but it had never been about strangers she hadn't met. because with some, she would have definitely recognized them if they lived in runterra. so hell, or a hellish dimension. she probably deserved to be here after everything she's done; after all, she is not the "good" version of herself, and this is where she will stay, alone. fighting with these abominations.

jinx doesn't have the slightest idea how she is doing what she is doing. all she knows that whenever she starts to feel extremely threatened, or these hosts are getting too close for comfort, she lifts both her hands and freezes them in place. if that's enough to hold them off, she isn't sure. but it keeps them at bay, and thank janna that her voices are pitching in to help. they've always been so indecisive, telling her she would be better off dead, but then when it comes to the battlefield, they do whatever they can to keep her alive—shouting where the threats are if they are lingering in her blind spot. nevertheless, sometimes they distract her from time to time, but... she needs all the help she can get.]

[a howl of a man reaches her, and she pivots her entire body towards the cry. she wasn't quick enough to witness just who the beast was before the transformation, but... if whatever happened was similar to her mutation (that she desperately tried to fight off), then they were once a person, most definitely.

now raises the question if she should attack him too or assist. her instincts tell her to attack, to hurt and harm everything that's in her path. but if she thinks strategically, the beast could be an advantage. similarly, if, hypothetically... if Vander were still alive, his monstrous physique could save her and himself. should she take the risk? well, there is the option of hurting the beast along with everything else, so...]

[the voices beckon her to use the soil underneath them, that the earth underneath the grass, the mud, the hidden insects, there is water. and if her theory is right, then her new powers are centered around dihydrogen monoxide. so first, she lies her palm flat on the ground with her eyes shut—searching and gathering every drop of it she can find. and in no time, all of it raises from the surface, building and swirling into some sort of cyclone. jinx feels her throat tightening for some unknown reason, like she's having trouble swallowing and gasping for air all at once. but she pushes through the feeling, and concentrates on sending the whirlwind straight to her targets. will the roaring impact be enough to take them out? to get them to get sucked in and drown within it?]

[hexrot]

[ between getting ganged up on and trying to hiss through his bones rearranging, jayce cannot assimilate his body and how it moves to anything worth while other than thrashing and uncoordinated slaps of tail and limbs. some strike, plenty don't, he sees a flash of blue hair amidst the rage of hosts that he sweara he knows who it could be. funny how the mind works. funny how a dream structures.

but now was not the time to feed any would-be grudges if he had any, either. the waterspout sprays his scaley coat and burns the shifting plates around his cheeks, but it does not harm him like the others who are thrown away like tumbleweeds. the drake finds himself grounded with claws digging into cracked earth made parched. a moment to breathe, he could finally take, but it is not a long one. ]

You . . . [ the creature drawls, low into a snarl. there is a much larger host scraping out from underneath a crater in the pavement. something in jayce' chest rolls, thrums and sings with a power that felt like he was holding the mercury hammer to the face of an enemy, that gap in the air befors he'd pull the lever—

and fire he does; from his fissured maw errupts a corrupt blast of arcane energy, in jinx's general direction. it's not at her, if she keeps still. it's aimed behind, returning the favor. ]

[opheliac]

['you' it says. does it know her? could it be another circumstance when a beast is actually a loved one nested deep down in its form? the scream of the man prior didn't sound like anyone she had met, but then again, it wasn't as if she was seeking beforehand. still, jinx keeps her hands up and stiff, ready to conjure... whatever else she can do, but instinctively shields her face with her arms when he bellows out the arcane.]

[the symbol stands entirely still, waiting for the reaper to swipe her away once and for all. but when she cracks open an eye, she finds herself still breathing—or at least, whatever oxygen her lungs are allowing for her to have. bewildered, the teenager peeks from behind her shoulder, witnessing whatever the creature attacked has now become nothing but a gruesome mess of itself. the creature saved her? then... then they're okay. or at the least, she believes so.]

[jinx bites the inside of her cheek, musing about what she would do next, only to have her legs respond instantly by dashing towards the creature. it isn't to charge at him to attack but to possibly huddle for protection. sure, she is basically a mage(?) now, however, to take cover behind or under something that is a lot stronger and larger than her seems like the logical thing to do.

so when she's close, jinx hunches over with her hands on her knees, winded, and blows a harsh cough. it feels as if her body is screeching at her to take a break, to give it a second to compose itself before doing any more magic. she can feel the inflammation throbbing at her wrists, and she pumps her hands in hope maybe doing so will ease the ache.]

Shit. — This hurts.

[hexrot]

[ to say the least, jayce feels guarded on most days; now he's just dangerously wired, especially with jinx's approach coming in at mach speed, causing his chest to expand, his elongated neck to raise like a serpent's poised to strike and the appendages stuck to his back tremor under their webbing of sinew and arcane fractals. for a nightmare, he felt . . . overruling, but perhaps it hadn't been the first. dream terrors of blasting a hole through viktor's chest had him feeling the same potency, but a completely different consequence.

jayce briefly wonders, through the lift of a lip to reveal a sizeable fang to the tension in each limb (not just from his bad leg) if he should've given into the intrusive thought of blasting her, too. a source of so much of their pain, their problems, first a theft of their work and then the attack. cait losing her mother and then then damn escape from he final prison. had he the chance to see her fight alongside her sister and heimerdinger's brand new zaunite pupil? no. too busy getting the living daylights strangled out of him right through the hexgates. he still has nightmares of prying through the rubble just to get to viktor, of mel mumbling something in her beautiful golden aura, and he's in too much of a panic to hear what she's saying—

he finally rules that he doesn't attack her because it doesn't change anything anymore, and what did matter was already achieved. still, his tail (that's right, he has a tail) does not coil around her to cement any protective feelings because she gets none of that. ]

Funny it isn't hurting more.

[ temporary piece did not mean he was happy about seeing her! but! they've got more things to worry about, like the brand new throng of hosts that seem more rabid than the last few. ]

cw: vomiting out the ocean and the hex gemstone because i wanna!

[opheliac]

[so this dragon can talk in full sentences, not like vander, who spoke in fragments and had to work his way up. she knits her brows together and frowns before huffing out a small tut.]

Cool. So you're someone who hates me; that totally shrinks down my guesses.

[leave it to jinx to pull out the sarcasm in the middle of a battlefield. Speaking of which, as the host thrashes their way towards them, the blunette throws her hands up—the frost misting and icing up to their abdomen so jayce can tag team in and use whatever ability he has to finish them off. however, Jinx feels something rolling and burning inside her esophagus, and she quickly slouches to retch whatever it is out of her before losing consciousness.

the taste of seawater rushes past her tongue, and then the ocean puddles at her feet. how... is that possible? she's been on land this whole time, nowhere near the sea. does this have something to do with her new powers? but before she could even fathom that, right by her toes sat a familiar gemstone—staring right at her with its sinister glow. jinx blinks once, twice, until she snaps herself back into her senses and then clutches it tight in her hands.

the gem heats and pulses in her hold, but she keeps it close to her chest as she can feel its magic trying to evoke... something. a barrier maybe? jinx has seen the gemstone do this once when vi was having a brawl with sevika, but only once. however, with the way its magic steadily expanding and glowing in some sphere shape, it's quite possible.]

dreamscapes used correctly

[hexrot]

[ the dragon chuffs out a half snarl, more an equal huff than anything that makes the arcane spark fly from his teeth. it was more of a justified, heavy resentment. he'd put her in stillwater with every chance he'd get instead of doing something worse. that counts for something, doesn't it? although viktor takes the cake in welcoming her to the commune— ]

If I hated you, [ he lets her vomit to her heart's content, in waves that belonged in the sea rather than her stomach— ] you wouldn't be standing.

[ another host down with a whip of his tail, a ripple of scales running beneath new muscle. but, something— something too familiar catches his amber eyes and slims his pupils to bare slits. the hexgem.

his. viktor's. stolen and deciphered. used against them as the very explosive that blew them apart in the council room. he could still smell the dust, still hear the yells, the broken bits of debris shifting. his heart hammering in his ears as everything fell deaf and he only saw viktor's lifeless body wedged between fallen pillars. his heart hammers the same way now, and his whiskers quivering until all fangs show in rows. in a blink, he's upon her like any dragon would coil itself around treasure. claws attempt to pin her, and his tail snakes to encircle them. ]

Give it back.

[opheliac]

[jayce's sudden reaction startles her, and she yells and then crashes onto the ground by the strength of his claws. jinx wiggles underneath it and shimmies herself into a ball like a frightened hedgehog while still embracing the gemstone to her chest for dear life. she doesn't scream back at him, but she protests in her thoughts and begs for... something to help her right now.]

[and almost right on cue, the crystal boils in her palms, but this time, the bubbly force field amplifies more apparently, and it seems to be trying to shove the dragon's claws off of her body. is... is the gemstone trying to protect her? even when its creator is right there? could it be because since it came out of jinx that it's now willing to defend her no matter who it is or against what? it's difficult to determine the exact cause of its actions, but there is a lot of fight within that crystal, and it isn't giving up on opposing jayce.]

Get...Get off of me! — Leave me alone!!

[hexrot]

[ creator in reality, but not in dream. jayce knows nothing of his new biology, neither is he truly grounded to question it. when the watery safeguard boils over jinx, it pushes jayce back immediately, and trying to drive through sizzles his scales, ripples his musculature until it physically burns. jayce could take pain, but— only so much of it. he attempts, opposes his creation, only to quiver against the barrier and roar through an agonizing torch of his hide that he can no longer resist.

he's shoved away, reeling back with a sparking maw glitching fumes to blast at her. ]

You destroyed everything— with my work!

[ in a time of rage jayce would certainly pull any blame he shared— his anger shifts it, accusing just about anything within reason for why he was this way now, completely fucking shattered because he ended up at the bottom of a damn pit for it— maybe he did have a good reason to make weapons for cait. maybe jinx should've been hunted. memory of the chembaron's attack, both mel and cait nearly died right after he'd nearly lost viktor to them—

jayce is blinded. if she'd stayed out of it, things would've been settled. zaun would've been free. she would've been imprisoned. viktor wouldn't have snapped his spine on a pillar and he wouldn't have had to sprint back to the lab, wouldn't have had to feel his ribs breaking under jayce's palms when he tried to pump his heart back to life.

so he fires, one more blast that deflects against the barrier. tendrils sneak up on him from the earth to snag at his legs, his neck, his body, and wrap his stuttering jaws shut.

so much for being a jinx. ]

cw: partial nudity + voices [1/2]

[opheliac]

[and while jayce hisses and coils away from her barrier, the gemstone continues to boil until it becomes so unbearable for her to hold onto it. but when jinx frees it, the gemstone floats and plunges directly into the middle of her chest, then vanishes into her flesh. surprisingly though, the crystal doing this feels painless to her, and she senses it roaming deep within her body. just what in the world is happening to her? what is it doing? none of this seems to make sense!

but jayce's roar jerks her attention away from the sensation, and she snaps her head back to him—her frantic thoughts swirling. "my work", he says. her eyes squint in confusion as the cogs in her mind twirl in high gear. hextech was developed by two scientists in piltover, and he did seem to recognize her almost instantly when he first laid eyes on her. could this serpent be one of them? it's the only logical explanation in this ludicrous situation. then almost simultaneously when he fires his fumes, the gemstone materializes onto her back, its energy blinding and burning her sleeveless top into nothing but shreds of itself.

'wings, wings!! she has to use her wings. fly out of there, or you'll die.'
'do it. do it now!' ]

[with the whispers crying out to her to follow their instructions, jinx does just that. she imagines how her wings should look, and in an instant, they jolt out of the gemstone—so large that it causes her barrier to burst (thank goodness for those tendrils coming to her rescue). it's clumsy, but jinx takes flight with her water fins flapping in a real asymmetric rhythm. but the teenager manages to hover in midair to witness the dragon down below getting cloaked by the wisps from a safe distance. this time, she doesn't assist him, nor does her body language show any sympathy. she only observes him in silence as she hunches forward, as if she is taking a seat in an invisible chair with her legs crossed.]

You know, there's a lesson somewhere in this. Now let's seeee..... where is it?

[the raven clicks her tongue like a stopwatch, and she taps her index against her left cheek while pretending to meditate and seek for this supposed lesson.]

[2/2]

[opheliac]

[after a few more quick seconds of her faking, her back stiffens like she suddenly got a hit of inspiration. levitating upright, jinx snaps her fingers, and she says with a high-pitched cry:]

Oh, there it is!!

[with that, she dives back down to the dragon—her face only inches away from his sealed jaws. and gradually, jinx tilts her head to one side, her voice become heavier with each word, and her lips bleed with poison.]

— ... Remember which side of the bread your butter's on, Pilite.

[and then she crackles, flapping backwards from him along with a sprinkle of the ocean flicking towards his face.]

Besides!! You Topsiders ruined everything way before I was even born. If you want to blame someone, take a gooood look in the mirror, Lizard Breath.

cw: body horror

[hexrot]

[ jayce clearly rattles against his containment and it gets increasingly worse when jinx gets too close. he has so much tyell, to spit at her, to thrash— but he cannot.

the tendrils snake up his neck, around his horns, draws back against his resistance until his head is angled upward, until his eyes make the mistake of snapping at the swollen redness of the moon oozing icor. the tendrils that burst from its craters are of the same mind as the ones that wrangle him, slip under his lips and through the ssaws of his teeth, until he not only chokes on the outside, but from within as the roots delve down his throat.

jayce chokes, convulses as he painfully succumbs to the moon's influence. fungal growths pop and spew from beneath his scales, and as his body seers, as it only knows pain, as he only sees her, his consciousness goes black. the fight in him, slipping, until his muscles all but ripple involuntarily.

she really is beautiful.

what have you done?

a lot of things, it seems. ]