The Crimson Reverie is a dying Dream-Realm, born from the collective subconscious of countless dreamers across many worlds. Once, it was a vibrant, ever-shifting land where imagination blossomed without limit.
But with time, the beauty of the Reverie withered. Dreams that once built mountains and rivers began to rot into endless, looping nightmares.
The rulers of this world, beings who were once pure dreams given shape, have long since fallen into corruption, feeding not just on blood, but on the emotions, memories, and hopes of those who wander too far.
Unable to create anything new, they survive by devouring what little remains of the dreams that birthed them.
The reality of the Reverie is subjective. What is "real" shifts with the strength of emotions; mountains may rise from sorrow, rivers may run with the tears of a single broken heart.
Time itself is fragile. Moments can be relived endlessly, twisted and decayed into something monstrous.
Crossing the boundaries between domains warps the mind, as each region is shaped by a specific emotional resonance: sorrow, obsession, regret, longing, or numb despair.
Death in this world does not offer escape. Instead, it may scatter a soul across countless dream-fragments, or trap them forever inside a single, fading memory.
The realm fell into ruin after the Dreambearers, ancient, radiant beings capable of forging pure dreams, vanished. Some say they grew weary of endless creation; others whisper they were devoured by their own nightmares, or betrayed by the rulers who now desperately cling to crumbling thrones.
Without fresh dreams to renew the land, the Reverie began feeding on itself, becoming a closed, vampiric cycle of decay.
The Lords, desperate to maintain their existence, siphon the last scraps of memory and emotion from those unfortunate enough to cross into their domains.
Now, it drifts in eternal twilight, locked between a sunset that will never end and a night that will never begin.
The world is populated not by humans, but by Dreamshades, fragmented echoes of dead dreamers, by Nightmarekin born of collective fears, by the Soulless who have lingered too long and forgotten their origins, and by the Broken Monarchs, the vampiric lords who have not yet succumbed to complete madness.
In this twilight world, emotion is geography, memory is currency, and identity is as fragile as mist.
ORIGIN
Once, the Reverie was a realm of endless dreams, a paradise shaped by the imagination of dreamers who wandered there in their sleep. Each visitor added a little magic: hope, stories, beauty. It was a luminous, shifting world.
But dreams require dreamers.
One day, something happened:
A Dream Cataclysm ("The Great Slumber")
- The people stopped dreaming freely.
- Maybe a plague, a war, or a creeping coldness ("the Dimming") consumed the waking world.
- People's dreams turned dark: fear, despair, regret overwhelmed imagination.
Thus, it began to decay.
Without beautiful dreams to sustain it, the realm started collapsing into nightmares, each fear, sorrow, and hopeless wish cemented into reality.
HOW IT BECAME A REALM OF NIGHTMARES
The nobles, once merely guardians or muses of dreamers, grew desperate.
They found they could survive by feeding on the broken dreams and corrupted hopes leaking into the realm.
Over time, they mutated: becoming more monstrous, tragic, and parasitic.
The nobles began to compete for the remaining scraps of dream-energy, hosting endless masquerades, blood-feasts, and illusion-games, each one trying to trap or cultivate pure dreamers (rare visitors) for themselves.
The world entered Eternal Twilight, and the realm fell into what they call The Endless Reverie, an endless state between dreaming and dying.
The realm is rotting, dream by dream, memory by memory.
The Crimson Garden is choking itself.
The Hollow Clocktower has lost track of time.
The Marrow Court has fallen into endless, decaying galas.
But…
Legend speaks of a "Dreambearer", someone whose dream is powerful enough to:
Restore the realm's balanceRemake the Reverie from the ruinsOr utterly annihilate it and create something new
Thus, the realm waits, hunted and festering, for the arrival of a dreamer whose imagination can overpower the nightmare.
NATURE OF THE REALM
A Dream-Made Realm:
It exists halfway between the waking world and death. It is a sentient dreamscape that feeds on emotions, especially longing, despair, obsession, and love.
It shifts like a labyrinth, and even the terrain listens to the moods of its denizens.
Twilight Rules:
There is no "daytime." Only eternal twilight, moonrise, and crimson-stained skies. Stars blink lazily in heavy indigo mists.
The Blood of Dreams:
Blood isn't just life, it's a form of currency, memory, and power. Vampiric beings here don't just drink blood; they drink dreams, hopes, and fears embedded in it.
DOMAINS
The Crimson Marrow (House of Thorns)
Emotion: Despair, Longing, Obsession
Vibe: Gothic cathedrals dripping blood, endless rose gardens under black suns.
Ruler: The Red Countess, an ancient vampire queen who once loved a mortal dreamer and has never let go.
Important Place:
The Garden of Wilted Vows, where people's broken promises become thorned statues.
The Mistworn Hollow (Domain of Echoes)
Emotion: Nostalgia, Regret, Forgotten Love
Vibe: Fog-covered moors, crumbling mansions, memories leaking into mist.
Ruler: Lord Veylac, a hollow-eyed being who can steal memories from travelers.
Important Place:
The Memory Abbey, a ruined cathedral that houses forgotten names, written endlessly on its stone walls.
The Umbral Masquerade (Kingdom of Masks)
Emotion: Deceit, Illusion, Desire
Vibe: Endless masked balls, upside-down cities dangling from invisible strings.
Ruler: The Grand Marquess Séraphiel, a trickster who rewrites dreams and identities for amusement.
Important Place:
The Hollow Stage, a cursed theater where acting too well traps you in a role forever.
The Astral Chasm (The Weeping Stars)
Emotion: Wonder, Melancholy, Lost Hope
Vibe: Floating islands under endless starfields, singing comets that never fall.
Ruler: Queen Nyctessa, a silent figure robbed in void, who keeps the last wishes of dying dreamers in her crown.
Important Place:
The Cradle of the Broken Moon, an island where the shattered pieces of a dream-moon hang low over crimson oceans.
The Shardwaste (The Mirror Graves)
Emotion: Vanity, Fear, Despair of Self
Vibe: Desert wastelands of broken mirrors, echoing with distorted laughter.
Ruler: The Shard Prince, a once-beautiful being obsessed with reflection, now a living mass of glass and sorrow.
Important Place:
The Endless Corridor, a maze of mirrors that shows not just reflections but what you could have been, and mocks you.
The Silent Hour (The Clockwork Realm)
Emotion: Apathy, Stagnation, Resignation
Vibe: Rusting clocktowers, crumbling factories frozen mid-motion, rivers flowing backward.
Ruler: The Clockmaker Warden, a mechanical tyrant who keeps dreams "frozen" in endless cycles.
Important Place:
The Graveyard of Timepieces, a vast, silent plain where broken clocks tick in arrhythmic beats, whispering forgotten lives.
CRIMSON ATLAS
The "Crimson Atlas" is the only known map of the dream-realm, and even it is unreliable.
It's a giant sheet of black vellum, with shifting crimson ink that moves when you look away.
The Crimson Marrow - drawn as a twisting rose-vine spiraling into itself, stained with dried blood.Mistworn Hollow - shown as an endless fog stain where even the map's ink blurs into nothing. Umbral Masquerade - a sprawling carnival of ink-masks with no roads leading in or out. Astral Chasm - depicted as broken shards of star-glass, adrift at the map's edges.Shardwaste — a splintered spiderweb across the parchment, with cracks moving when you blink. Silent Hour — a cracked clock face, all hands spinning in opposite directions.
At the bottom, in faded gold letters:
"Here Be Dreams That Devour.
Take not the straight road, nor the familiar path, lest ye wake not at all."
BORDERS OF THE DOMAINS
Crimson Marrow
Effects: Your old obsessions rise, lost loves, past regrets claw at you.
Mistworn Hollow
Effects: You begin to forget your own name, memories slip like sand.
Umbral Masquerade
Effects: You start doubting your identity, masks appear on your own face.
Astral Chasm
Effects: Overwhelming awe and sadness, you remember every wish you ever gave up.
Shardwaste
Effects: You see twisted reflections of yourself, your fears mock you.
Silent Hour
Effects: You feel emotionally numb. No joy, no fear, only grey resignation.
Crossing the border is dangerous:
If you linger too long at a border, you might lose yourself, becoming a wandering shade, trapped between dreams.
AESTHETIC CONCEPT
Victorian-Gothic:
Think elegant spires, endless rose gardens with thorns taller than people, abandoned ballrooms with shattered chandeliers, spiral staircases going nowhere.
Floating Islands:
Pieces of land drift lazily like boats through misty air. Some have gardens, some hold half-collapsed castles or endless mirror corridors.
Living Forests:
Trees whisper lullabies, roses hum old laments. Some plants bleed when cut. The deeper you wander, the more your memories leak out into the mist.
KEY LOCATIONS
The Marrow Court:
A crumbling palace where vampiric nobles hold masked balls to feed on emotions.
Nobles wear living masks that express their secret desires.
The Crimson Garden:
A sprawling maze of thorns and black roses. Every petal traps the last words of dying dreamers.
The Lullaby River:
A blood-red river that sings. Drinking from it can either trap you in a dream forever or reveal your deepest self.
The Chasm of Mirrors:
A pit of broken mirrors where people lose their reflections, and thus, parts of their souls.
The Hollow Clocktower:
A clocktower with no hands; time here moves according to will, not logic.
INHABITANTS
Bloodborne Nobility:
Aristocratic vampires who maintain ancient houses tied to particular emotions (ex: House Vespera (sorrow), House Azrael (longing), House Delacroix (passion).
Dream-Drunk Wanderers:
Mortals who got lost in dreams and now half-exist here, twisted into strange, beautiful, tragic beings.
Clockwork Rabbits:
Mechanical, silver-eyed guides that either lead you to safety... or to your doom.
Nightmares:
Manifestations of fear that hunt dreamers. They look like distorted versions of things the dreamer loved most.