Global Nightmares

## Casualties and Creations

### Casualties and Losses

Uncounted mortals trapped in nightmares (released), Karis (killed fighting Morpheus in Dream World), Mias'Maux (killed fighting Morpheus in Dream World)

## Common Knowledge

During the spring a few years ago (10,017 A.B.), nearly everyone’s dreams became darker and more malicious. These dark dreams varied in intensity from simply very unnerving or uncomfortable to violently intense nightmares. Almost as suddenly as they began, they stopped just before the season ended.

## Contributing Factors

### Return of the God of Dreams

Morpheus, Elder God of Dreams, had been slain by a band of heroes called the Dreamwalkers about four thousand years ago. Before his untimely demise at the hands of these demigods, Morpheus imbued part of his consciousness into a powerful necklace before hiding it in the farthest reaches of Orelisle. In 10,014 A.B. a selkie treasure hunter found this amulet, granting Morpheus form once more and allowing him to plot his revenge against the Material Plane and its inhabitants.

## Binturian Involvement

The Binturian Party became one of the initial focuses of Morpheus’ ire, as he anticipated that next to the Dreamwalkers they would be the greatest threat to him. In the guise of Lord Nocturne, Morpheus tried to imprison the Binturians in the Dream World, but the Binturians escaped. Now knowing of a potential threat, they sought the aid of the Order of the Wakeful Sleepers and released the Dreamwalkers from their self-imposed slumber, gathered their strength, and took on Morpheus in the Dream World. They would go on to secure a blade of the same material as Morpheus’s failsafe necklace, and used it to enter Morpheus’s own dreams and purge the dark influence of Madness that had corrupted him for ages.

## Order of Events

### Morpheus’ Disappearance and Return (C. 3,000 A.B. - C. 4,000 A.B.)

Once the benevolent master of the Dream World, Morpheus began to be corrupted by a seed of madness implanted in him eons ago by Madness himself. Morpheus departed from his realm, leaving it unstable and chaotic, for a thousand years. Upon his return, Morpheus was a darker, crueler mind almost unrecognizable to even his own daughter.

### Dreamwalkers and Morpheus’ Defeat (C. 4,000 A.B. - 5,890 A.B.)

Morpheus began to take pleasure in inflicting suffering upon slumbering minds, a pastime he engaged in for hundreds of years. By 5,878 A.B., his appetite for misery led him to trap mortal minds within their own nightmares forever, unable to awaken ever again. This move towards nightmare-locking innocent mortals caused mass hysteria and grief across Orelisle, and ultimately led to the emergence of six heroes who would stand against him. Calling upon an ancient ritual, these six and their allies (the Order of the Wakeful Sleepers) summoned and bound Morpheus just long enough to siphon some of his power into themselves using the ancient Rite of Divine Transfer.

These Dreamwalkers now each held a fragment of an Elder God’s power, and used it against Morpheus in combat for years. As a failsafe, Morpheus uses his powers to create a copy of himself (albeit a weaker one) in a hidden amulet forged from Reality Crystal - a rare and elusive substance found only at the farthest reaches of the Void. Two years later, the Dreamwalkers defeat Morpheus in battle and kill him, driving their demigod blades through the Elder God’s heart. The Dreamwalkers then placed themselves into an artificial slumber, guarded and maintained by the Order of the Wakeful Sleepers, in anticipation of Morpheus’s eventual return.

### Vela Daré and Lord Nocturne (10,014 A.B.)

A selkie psion treasure hunter named Vela Daré caught wind of an unexplored ruin thirty miles south of Port Calla, discovered but untouched. From his Reality Crystal prison Morpheus’ mind had learned to push outwards and influence the world even without a body, and had deliberately spread information about the necklace to lure a would-be host to the temple. In the temple’s deepest chamber, atop an altar, Vela found a deep blue crystal pendant, which she donned herself. Now in possession of a body again, Morpheus amplified Vela’s talent for Phantasmal magic beyond mortal limits to give himself magic once more, and tested his abilities by plunging the High Elven village of Kilas, Brennon, wholly into the Dream World.

This exercise in strength caught the attention of the Order of the Wakeful Sleepers, who dispatched the inexperienced but powerful reconnaissance wizard Oneiro Trógon. Morpheus transferred the necklace from one host to another, now giving himself a new, far stronger host. Out of attachment and utility, Morpheus granted his old host body dream manipulation, sleepwalker control, and illusion powers before awakening her as his right-hand woman. Vela returned in a manner of speaking, warped by Morpheus’ influence into a wicked witch caricature. Donning the identity of Lord Nocturne, his new small army of sleepwalking soldiers constructed a castle in the Binturian forest for him where he could prepare his grand return to Orelisle.

### Return of the Nightmares (10,017 A.B.)

In the year 10,017, Morpheus was ready to enact his revenge upon the world. But he decided that he needed to start by taking out one of the most continuously present world-saving threats: the Binturians. Unfortunately for him, his efforts to trap the Binturians in an eternal dream, thus incapacitating them without having to worry about their pesky habit of coming back from death, failed, and now he had to deal with them tracking down the Order of Wakeful Sleepers and waking up the Dreamwalkers.

Catching on to these actions, Nocturne attempted to sabotage them by sending Vela and her sleepwalkers after them, then by entering the dreams of Salvatore and corrupting his dream fortress, and finally by kidnapping Avos Buteo, still in his cryogenic pod, forcing the party and the other Dreamwalkers to fight to get him back.

While the Binturians went to wake Avos, the Dreamwalkers attempted to hold off Nocturne, and while successful in repelling him, it cost them the lives of Karis and Mias’maux. However, with Nocturne weakened, the Binturians were able to finish the job, forcing Nocturne into a comatose state, protected by growths of crystal.

To save Oneiro and to purge Morpheus once and for all, the Binturians and the Dreamwalkers broke into Nocturne’s dreams. After fighting through layers of dreams upon layers of dreams, the party finally confronted Morpheus, and after an arduous battle, defeated him. But instead of killing his consciousness there, thus ending the God once and for all, they used a Dreamwalker’s power to go into Morpheus’s mind, and destroy the seed of madness, returning him to normal.

Upon regaining his senses for the first time in five thousand years, Morpheus willingly left Oneiro to wander the Dream World, searching for purpose.

## Aftermath

Thanks to the Binturian Party (though the world would never know their involvement), the mass nightmares ended, Morpheus was cured of his cruel and insane streak, and all but two of the Dreamwalkers had returned to the Material Plane.

## Further Information

* The Binturian Party
* Dreamwalkers
* Dream World
* Elder Gods
* Morpheus
* Order of the Wakeful Sleepers
* Reality Crystal
* Void