Dreams of the Sandman - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Dreams of the Sandman

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
The_Stray
Apr 12, 2004 23:42:58 I'm trying to come up with a backstory for a monster I'm working on.

The Sandman is a creature of pure psychological terror, a nightmare with finesse. He eschews the blatant gross-out dream or unrefined torture scene for fears that run deep. Every little phobia or deeply buried terror can become his tool as he seeks to enlighten those he victimizes. Those who succeed at facing sustained attacks from him gain great mental resolve as he tests their tolerance for horrors. Those who fail (that is to say, most of his victims) usually die, either from the sheer fright he inspires or by their own hand after he's through with them. Those that don't die are mentally damaged, sometimes permanently, and bear the emotional scars of their encounter for as long as they live.

He was once a normal person. How did this person get to the point where he would enjoy inflicting fear on people enough to want to don the Mask of Dreams Fullfilled (an artifact that grants twisted wishes) in order to get better at it?
#2
zombiegleemax
Apr 13, 2004 4:43:31 I see obvious connections to the Nightmare Lands. Could he be recruited by the Nightmare Court after being "indoctrinated" at their hands?

In the alternative, he could be a rival to the Nightmare Court and has a rivalry with them. The helment is a means for him to suplant them. Likely he became aware of the nightmare court through (1) Dr. Ilhausen before (2) his own work in a sanitarium or (3) lost a loved one to the Nighmare Court. A little further out could be that he has fallen in love with the Ghost Dancer aspect of the Court and seeks to possess her by gathering power.

Instead of a rival how about an out and out enemy. He could be a man who has fallen into darkness by trying to "fight fire with fire", that is to say is using the same tactics as the enemy to try and "starve them" from the energies they seem to need. Or he could be using the helm to further understand how his enemies operate so he can later come up with a plan to exp[loit their weaknesses.

In a campaign without the Nightmare Court you could have a scholar "of fear" who is looking for a way to transcend the frailties of the human psycology. A variation on the mad scientist theme, he no doubt started with a positive goal in mind but the unethical methods he's used have brought him to the attention of the DPs and and started him down the road of (failed) powers checks.

You could also have him be the guardian of the item...only to be corrupted by proximity over long years.

How about a rouge (male) vistani who sought a means of divination equal to the women of the tasque? He has found or created the cursed item in question. He thinks its letting him see possible future events, but its all vaugue. The horrible nightmares he inflicts on other people is due to his frustration and spite. Or is a requirement for the helm to do what he really wants.

Its all off the top of my head. Hope something there helps.

-Eric Gorman
#3
The_Stray
Apr 13, 2004 20:30:58 The "scolar of fear" idea was the first one I came up with for The Sandman, but the first draft of the background had him looking an aweful lot like the villain Scarecrow from the Batman comics. Since I don't have much information on the Nightmare Court, I can't really use them for this.

I like the Vistani idea, too. That some one, not necessarily a Vistani, would envy the Vistani powers of seeing and would put on the Mask (not create it...the Mask is a greater Artifact that found its way onto Ravenloft) to gain them. The Mask only works once for a particulatr individual, then vanishes, BTW...it's a sort of Monkey's Paw iten (to see another example, check out the link in my sig...this is another monster created by the Mask)

Perhaps a combination? A scholar of the human mind convinced that if only he had the Vistani's Sight, he could find the answers he truly seeks?
#4
zombiegleemax
Apr 17, 2004 3:59:41 I personally tend to lean away from the scholar of fear idea. Ultimately I find the idea of said scholar peculiar. Why is he or she so durned interested in Fear? Past trauma? Bad seed? How is this unique from other Darklords/RL villians? And why do I (as a PC) feel sympathy for someone so far around the bend?Ultimately a PC should feel some sympathy for any Ravenloft villian.

I'm glad you're at least intrigued by the idea that someone might try to use the mask to steal secrets. Some one might get the idea that they could use the Mask as an extended way to read peoples minds via dreams. By applying "sticks" they may trick or force their victims to reveal information that they want to know. Such a person might particularly relish preying on vistani since they tend to be knowledgeable about esoteric material...or have some idea how things are going to play out in the future. Of course after a while the NPC might grow to like the power in general, or just use nightmares on people in general to test/perfect strategems to use against the few people he or she is trying to pry things out of. Such a villian clearly has a discreet goal in mind (what I don't know) besides mayhem for its own sake and could have a few endearing qualities in addition to (at least) the vice of imaginative cruelty.

You might mine the movie "The Cell" for dreamscape ideas. If you ever get a chance to purchase the Nightmare Lands boxed set I can't recomend it strongly enough. When a product is good I tend to think "I know just how to use this to creep out my players". Reading nightmares presented in the boxed set material *I* was creeped out going - thats just wrong!

-Eric Gorman
#5
The_Stray
Apr 17, 2004 16:12:16 Hmmm...I've got ideas now...let me build on this:

Instead of being a scholar of fear, he is just a scholar trying to work out how the mind works. He would become a doctor in a sanitarium, to further his study of the human mind. Through his contact with other scolars, most notably Dr. Gregory Illhousen, he developed a theory that all of a person's hopes and fears, the very keys to unlocking a person's self, could be found by interpreting their dreams. If he could unlock the meanings of their dreams, then he could read their very minds! The idea excited him.

At first, he had altruistic motives. By divining a person's mental state through their highly metaphoric dreams, he could understand what a person was thining and feeling, and with that knowledge he could guide them, much like modern psychologists, into feeling better about themselves and their world, easing mental stresses and helping those poor unfortunates who've gone mad by understanding their minds.

But as his debts grew and his research seemed to be in danger, he turned to another use for his research...blackmail. He became very good at ferreting out those little secrets people like to hide about themselves. And he also found that certain...unsavory people will go to great lengths to find out things they want to know, and they tend to pay quite well for those secrets. And since the good doctor was more interested in actually learning those secrets than what was done with them after they were discovered, he had no problem playing information broker to interested parties.

But his methods were imprecise. Dream interpretation is difficult in the best of circumstances. Not only are the symbols highly subjective, they are quite personal, meaning the good doctor would have to learn much about how a person sees the world in order to interpret the dreams. And getting accurate accounts of dreams was almost as difficult. People were reluctant to share their dreams, and often didn't know how to realte the sometimes bizzare images, feelings, and impulses common to the slumbering mind. The doctor developed a method of putting people into a trance state, hypnosis, that solved many of these problems, but it was still imprecise and vague. If only he could SEE the dreams, experiance them directly, he could understand so much more...

He envied the Vistani. They seemed to have keen insights on a person's fate, on a person's feelings, on his very essence. He visited Vistsani caravans, sat through many tarokka readings, and watched intently. He studied their methods obsessivly, and ruthlessly questioned the madams, who could only shrug and tell him it was the Sight, and that the Sight could not be explained. He could not accept this, and so he kept questioning. And that was how he met Bela.

Bela was a Vistani, but he was male, and thus he would never have the powers of divination that the women of his tasque possessed. But he desired them. He longed for them with all of his soul, and he found a kindred spirit in the good doctor. He also knew of something that could help them both, a powerful Vistani artifact, said to be able to make a person's wishes and desires a reality. It was known as the Mask of Arara, or the Mask of Dreams Fulfilled. Becasue of his heritage, he could not get the Mask on his own. He needed the gorgio's connections to find it, and the doctor needed Bela's larcenous talents to obtain it. It was really a fine match. They worked together, tracking down the mask. All over the Core they searched, from the cold shores of Lamordia to the endless plains of Nova Vaasa, then on through the mountains of Barovia and the forests of Kartakass. They became a team, with the doctor able to gather and find information in short order while Bela stole what food and money they might need, as well as other items of interest. Neither of them ever forgot what they were seaching for, however, nor why.

And when they finally found the mask, in the hands of a vicious crime boss in Port-a-Lucine, their greedy natures caught up with them. Each of them wanted to be the first to don the mask, and have what they had dreamed of for their entire lives. Bela planned to kill the good doctor as soon as he knew how to get to the mask, but the doctor was craftier. Through the years of their association, the doctor had honed his skills on Bela. He knew his wants and needs, his joys and his sorrows. And he knew Bela's fears.

Bela was deathly afraid of snakes.

And it just so happened that the crime boss had imported very deadly asps all the way from Sri Raji to protect his treasures. At least, that's what the doctor told Bela. And it just so happened that the doctor had studied poisons, and knew how to fashion an antivenom...but he would have to be there in case Bela was bitten. Bela reluctantly agreed to take the doctor along, figuring he could kill the man after they had escaped.

So they crept into the mansion of the crime lord and found their way to his treasure vault. The good doctor watched Bela sneak past and disarm all the traps, and incapactae all the guards, though there was no sign yet of the asps. Finally, they came to the Mask.

As a show of good faith, the doctor handed over his black medical bag to Bela, so that the thief would have something to carry it in. But when Bela grabbed the mask, and opened the bag to stuff it in, an enraged asp slithered out of it, up his arm and towards his face. Bela screamed, in rage at the betrayal and in fear of the snake, and dropped the mask to shake it off. But the snake was quicker. It bit him several times, then slithered off into the darkness. As Bela lay dying, the doctor cooly walked over, and picked up the Mask. "Put me on, and All your dreams shall be fulfilled" the Mask told him, whispering the words in his mind. The doctor smiled, and slipped it over his face. "I wish to see people's dreams." he said. "I wish to read their nightmares." As the crime lord's men sounded the alarm and burst into the room, the Mask melted away...and the doctor vanished, too.
#6
rotipher
Apr 18, 2004 13:44:09 Cool backstory! I like this character. :-)

BTW, another twist on the "scholar of fear/the mind" theme can be found in Clive Barker's short story "Dread". The villain Quaid deliberately terrorizes innocent people into abject catatonia, in an obsessed attempt to quantify and thus (he believes) vanquish his *own* deep-rooted fear (foresight?) that he's destined to be hacked to bits by an ax-wielding clown. Perhaps this Mask-using doctor is "rewarded"/cursed by the artifact, for his presumption in seeking the Vistani's gifts, with endless visions of his own imminent, gory demise ... visions, which he seeks to avert by pre-emptively destroying those he envisions participating in his 'death'.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 The_Stray Apr 12, 2004 23:42:58	I'm trying to come up with a backstory for a monster I'm working on. The Sandman is a creature of pure psychological terror, a nightmare with finesse. He eschews the blatant gross-out dream or unrefined torture scene for fears that run deep. Every little phobia or deeply buried terror can become his tool as he seeks to enlighten those he victimizes. Those who succeed at facing sustained attacks from him gain great mental resolve as he tests their tolerance for horrors. Those who fail (that is to say, most of his victims) usually die, either from the sheer fright he inspires or by their own hand after he's through with them. Those that don't die are mentally damaged, sometimes permanently, and bear the emotional scars of their encounter for as long as they live. He was once a normal person. How did this person get to the point where he would enjoy inflicting fear on people enough to want to don the Mask of Dreams Fullfilled (an artifact that grants twisted wishes) in order to get better at it?
#2 zombiegleemax Apr 13, 2004 4:43:31	I see obvious connections to the Nightmare Lands. Could he be recruited by the Nightmare Court after being "indoctrinated" at their hands? In the alternative, he could be a rival to the Nightmare Court and has a rivalry with them. The helment is a means for him to suplant them. Likely he became aware of the nightmare court through (1) Dr. Ilhausen before (2) his own work in a sanitarium or (3) lost a loved one to the Nighmare Court. A little further out could be that he has fallen in love with the Ghost Dancer aspect of the Court and seeks to possess her by gathering power. Instead of a rival how about an out and out enemy. He could be a man who has fallen into darkness by trying to "fight fire with fire", that is to say is using the same tactics as the enemy to try and "starve them" from the energies they seem to need. Or he could be using the helm to further understand how his enemies operate so he can later come up with a plan to exp[loit their weaknesses. In a campaign without the Nightmare Court you could have a scholar "of fear" who is looking for a way to transcend the frailties of the human psycology. A variation on the mad scientist theme, he no doubt started with a positive goal in mind but the unethical methods he's used have brought him to the attention of the DPs and and started him down the road of (failed) powers checks. You could also have him be the guardian of the item...only to be corrupted by proximity over long years. How about a rouge (male) vistani who sought a means of divination equal to the women of the tasque? He has found or created the cursed item in question. He thinks its letting him see possible future events, but its all vaugue. The horrible nightmares he inflicts on other people is due to his frustration and spite. Or is a requirement for the helm to do what he really wants. Its all off the top of my head. Hope something there helps. -Eric Gorman
#3 The_Stray Apr 13, 2004 20:30:58	The "scolar of fear" idea was the first one I came up with for The Sandman, but the first draft of the background had him looking an aweful lot like the villain Scarecrow from the Batman comics. Since I don't have much information on the Nightmare Court, I can't really use them for this. I like the Vistani idea, too. That some one, not necessarily a Vistani, would envy the Vistani powers of seeing and would put on the Mask (not create it...the Mask is a greater Artifact that found its way onto Ravenloft) to gain them. The Mask only works once for a particulatr individual, then vanishes, BTW...it's a sort of Monkey's Paw iten (to see another example, check out the link in my sig...this is another monster created by the Mask) Perhaps a combination? A scholar of the human mind convinced that if only he had the Vistani's Sight, he could find the answers he truly seeks?
#4 zombiegleemax Apr 17, 2004 3:59:41	I personally tend to lean away from the scholar of fear idea. Ultimately I find the idea of said scholar peculiar. Why is he or she so durned interested in Fear? Past trauma? Bad seed? How is this unique from other Darklords/RL villians? And why do I (as a PC) feel sympathy for someone so far around the bend?Ultimately a PC should feel some sympathy for any Ravenloft villian. I'm glad you're at least intrigued by the idea that someone might try to use the mask to steal secrets. Some one might get the idea that they could use the Mask as an extended way to read peoples minds via dreams. By applying "sticks" they may trick or force their victims to reveal information that they want to know. Such a person might particularly relish preying on vistani since they tend to be knowledgeable about esoteric material...or have some idea how things are going to play out in the future. Of course after a while the NPC might grow to like the power in general, or just use nightmares on people in general to test/perfect strategems to use against the few people he or she is trying to pry things out of. Such a villian clearly has a discreet goal in mind (what I don't know) besides mayhem for its own sake and could have a few endearing qualities in addition to (at least) the vice of imaginative cruelty. You might mine the movie "The Cell" for dreamscape ideas. If you ever get a chance to purchase the Nightmare Lands boxed set I can't recomend it strongly enough. When a product is good I tend to think "I know just how to use this to creep out my players". Reading nightmares presented in the boxed set material I was creeped out going - thats just wrong! -Eric Gorman
#5 The_Stray Apr 17, 2004 16:12:16	Hmmm...I've got ideas now...let me build on this: Instead of being a scholar of fear, he is just a scholar trying to work out how the mind works. He would become a doctor in a sanitarium, to further his study of the human mind. Through his contact with other scolars, most notably Dr. Gregory Illhousen, he developed a theory that all of a person's hopes and fears, the very keys to unlocking a person's self, could be found by interpreting their dreams. If he could unlock the meanings of their dreams, then he could read their very minds! The idea excited him. At first, he had altruistic motives. By divining a person's mental state through their highly metaphoric dreams, he could understand what a person was thining and feeling, and with that knowledge he could guide them, much like modern psychologists, into feeling better about themselves and their world, easing mental stresses and helping those poor unfortunates who've gone mad by understanding their minds. But as his debts grew and his research seemed to be in danger, he turned to another use for his research...blackmail. He became very good at ferreting out those little secrets people like to hide about themselves. And he also found that certain...unsavory people will go to great lengths to find out things they want to know, and they tend to pay quite well for those secrets. And since the good doctor was more interested in actually learning those secrets than what was done with them after they were discovered, he had no problem playing information broker to interested parties. But his methods were imprecise. Dream interpretation is difficult in the best of circumstances. Not only are the symbols highly subjective, they are quite personal, meaning the good doctor would have to learn much about how a person sees the world in order to interpret the dreams. And getting accurate accounts of dreams was almost as difficult. People were reluctant to share their dreams, and often didn't know how to realte the sometimes bizzare images, feelings, and impulses common to the slumbering mind. The doctor developed a method of putting people into a trance state, hypnosis, that solved many of these problems, but it was still imprecise and vague. If only he could SEE the dreams, experiance them directly, he could understand so much more... He envied the Vistani. They seemed to have keen insights on a person's fate, on a person's feelings, on his very essence. He visited Vistsani caravans, sat through many tarokka readings, and watched intently. He studied their methods obsessivly, and ruthlessly questioned the madams, who could only shrug and tell him it was the Sight, and that the Sight could not be explained. He could not accept this, and so he kept questioning. And that was how he met Bela. Bela was a Vistani, but he was male, and thus he would never have the powers of divination that the women of his tasque possessed. But he desired them. He longed for them with all of his soul, and he found a kindred spirit in the good doctor. He also knew of something that could help them both, a powerful Vistani artifact, said to be able to make a person's wishes and desires a reality. It was known as the Mask of Arara, or the Mask of Dreams Fulfilled. Becasue of his heritage, he could not get the Mask on his own. He needed the gorgio's connections to find it, and the doctor needed Bela's larcenous talents to obtain it. It was really a fine match. They worked together, tracking down the mask. All over the Core they searched, from the cold shores of Lamordia to the endless plains of Nova Vaasa, then on through the mountains of Barovia and the forests of Kartakass. They became a team, with the doctor able to gather and find information in short order while Bela stole what food and money they might need, as well as other items of interest. Neither of them ever forgot what they were seaching for, however, nor why. And when they finally found the mask, in the hands of a vicious crime boss in Port-a-Lucine, their greedy natures caught up with them. Each of them wanted to be the first to don the mask, and have what they had dreamed of for their entire lives. Bela planned to kill the good doctor as soon as he knew how to get to the mask, but the doctor was craftier. Through the years of their association, the doctor had honed his skills on Bela. He knew his wants and needs, his joys and his sorrows. And he knew Bela's fears. Bela was deathly afraid of snakes. And it just so happened that the crime boss had imported very deadly asps all the way from Sri Raji to protect his treasures. At least, that's what the doctor told Bela. And it just so happened that the doctor had studied poisons, and knew how to fashion an antivenom...but he would have to be there in case Bela was bitten. Bela reluctantly agreed to take the doctor along, figuring he could kill the man after they had escaped. So they crept into the mansion of the crime lord and found their way to his treasure vault. The good doctor watched Bela sneak past and disarm all the traps, and incapactae all the guards, though there was no sign yet of the asps. Finally, they came to the Mask. As a show of good faith, the doctor handed over his black medical bag to Bela, so that the thief would have something to carry it in. But when Bela grabbed the mask, and opened the bag to stuff it in, an enraged asp slithered out of it, up his arm and towards his face. Bela screamed, in rage at the betrayal and in fear of the snake, and dropped the mask to shake it off. But the snake was quicker. It bit him several times, then slithered off into the darkness. As Bela lay dying, the doctor cooly walked over, and picked up the Mask. "Put me on, and All your dreams shall be fulfilled" the Mask told him, whispering the words in his mind. The doctor smiled, and slipped it over his face. "I wish to see people's dreams." he said. "I wish to read their nightmares." As the crime lord's men sounded the alarm and burst into the room, the Mask melted away...and the doctor vanished, too.
#6 rotipher Apr 18, 2004 13:44:09	Cool backstory! I like this character. :-) BTW, another twist on the "scholar of fear/the mind" theme can be found in Clive Barker's short story "Dread". The villain Quaid deliberately terrorizes innocent people into abject catatonia, in an obsessed attempt to quantify and thus (he believes) vanquish his own deep-rooted fear (foresight?) that he's destined to be hacked to bits by an ax-wielding clown. Perhaps this Mask-using doctor is "rewarded"/cursed by the artifact, for his presumption in seeking the Vistani's gifts, with endless visions of his own imminent, gory demise ... visions, which he seeks to avert by pre-emptively destroying those he envisions participating in his 'death'.