Casting Shadows

This week’s seed is for Brass & Steel. Unlike the vast majority of the seeds I post, I have not had the chance to use this seed in actual practice, so it is not a tried and true idea stripped of its specific details and presented as a framework, it is just a framework of possibility. This game has been much on my mind since my initial reading and subsequent rereading of it, and soooo~

The Seed

A society of bored, wealthy young people have become the self-proclaimed ‘Friends of Morpheus’ and spend the bulk of their afternoons and evenings in shared dreams and explorations of life beyond the veil of sleep. They do not suspect that in truth they are fueling the maniacal purpose of a nefarious spy, and are slowly, but surely, falling under his spell.

Planting the Seed

In order to bring this seed to fruition, all that is really needed is for one or more of the characters to have an innocent, young, gullible, well-to-do relative or family friend that they will desire to extract from the lascivious clutches of a cult which may in fact have even darker leanings

The Details

Initially a literature and bored chit-chat club, the arrival of a handsome, young foreigner of means to the social circle of well-to-do do-nothings took the group in a different direction. Well-spoken, with no trace of accent or cultural missteps, but still terribly exotic and alluring, he worked his way into their lives inexorably and with the patience of long practice. With seemingly limitless access to mystical trappings, dream enhancing food, drink, and elixirs of no clear distinction, the young fellow served as guru to lead the dilettante children of the nation’s elite into an exploration within, sharing secret after secret about the whys and wherefores of lucid dreaming.

It was not long before even the most prosaic dreamer among them began to adhere to the newcomer’s teachings; experimenting, exploring, and expressing newer and previously taboo realms of thought and fancy… alone, and in groups.

Meetings were shared dreams punctuated by personal reports, individual and group instruction in the technique and art of oneiromancy, sealed by the intimate bonds of their ever-growing friendship.

The circle expanded, little by little, and by wont and necessity took on layers of mystery, complexity, and responsibility – like any good, restrictive, secretive society of like-minded individuals and those they dupe to follow them.

Recently, the character(s)’s loved one has been accepted into this group, and the characters have noticed the child’s behaviour changing, their frame of reference expanding, and their far too ready shedding of the sense of innocence and inexperience of childhood for the world-weary cynicism of older and embittered adults and seditionists.

What’s going on

Of course, the truth is that members of the Friends of Morpheus were ripe plums being groomed and husbanded for future villainy. First, their own family secrets are revealed to the group slowly and under guise of everything being in confidence. As time goes on, this process intensifies, and sources of blackmail and manipulation or harvested, as are dark secrets buried by the powerful families of the nation, and the levers by which to lift those families into action if necessary. Ultimately, a sea change in attitude and ideals is fostered, planting dark seeds of dissent and sedition should there come a time when they are needed.

Through it all, the focal point of this tightly knit, loving, and loyal order of equals sits like some sated spider in a dream web of his own creation, counting the days and bodies of his hapless victims like beats on a distant drum summons to war.

The characters, once aware and alarmed are left with tough choices. If they simply pull the loved one from the web, she will return of her own volition… and in dreams… who can govern where she will wander? How can they sever the strands which tie their cherished on to the villainy of a traitor and despoiler of young minds?

Are their own resources enough to withstand a foe who can find them at their most vulnerable, and lead things so hideous as to be undreamed into the once-safe gardens of their sleeping minds?

Enjoy!

  I hope to hear about their choices, whatever they decide~