Dreamscape

Heads-up: Since Dread is dead now, this page is fairly obsolete.

Occasionally, characters have been known to sleep, and, perchance to dream.

By stroke of (bad) luck, they're not always recycling products from a tired mind. Every once in a while, dreaming means being at the whim of the psychic predator that is Dread.

For amusement, each victim has a little 'care-o-meter' to indicate Dread's investment in the character, usually an indicator of how cautiously he will craft his actions around them (rather than how strongly he feels any one emotion toward them), and a little 'Flavour' adjective to tack onto the word 'care'. Please note that 'just care' usually is motivated by his sense of darwinism, i.e. he feels it is just, it doesn't necessarily have to be.

(Newsletters won't be listed here, since this is a far too common phenomenom.)

Recurring

Frederick

Dread care-o-meter: [|||__] Flavour: Sadistic.

Frederick is Dread's oldest and most favourite toy, a status he could definitely do without. Dread's relationship with Frederick is violent, manipulative, and perversely sexual - by that I mean aspects of violence are sexualised that should not be, and tend not to be in his other victims. Nutshelled, Frederick gets it as bad as affectionate-Dread ever gets.

Frederick's partly defined himself as Dread's antagonist, refusing to acknowledge any warmth in the demon, despite having ample evidence of his care since #293. The two have firmly ritualised their interactions, with Dread simply having accepted that the boy will never see the light, and instead supplying himself as a reliable supernatural archfiend.

You can assume that the following list isn't anywhere near complete. Assuming nothing gets in the way, Frederick is reliably visited about once a week. Most of it is just never roleplayed.

Log #037 [Dreamscape]
Set into the sim, Eclipsed, as a setting, but breaks with the avatar rule.
Log #295 [Dreamscape]
Set into the sim, Eclipsed, as a setting, but breaks with the avatar rule.
Log #076 [Dreamscape] with Silence
Set in a mostly featureless landscape.
Log #104 [Dreamscape] with Sethiss
Set on and around a hanging platform meant as an elaborate trap for the dreamers.
Log #148 [Dreamscape] with Sirena
Set into a tourist-oriented, building-type TV tower.
Log #153 [Planetshine] with Sirena
Dreamworld distinction is blurry here, effectively set into the sim setting, Planetshine, albeit with less illumination and more hooks.

Israel

Dread care-o-meter: [|||||] Flavour: Protective.

Dread's relationship with Israel is vastly different from his usual interactions with people. He's battled his way down to her organic brain with severe effort, by now knowing how to get there with fractional more ease due to experience alone, and he visits her on a nightly basis to fish her out of the vast ocean her nightmares drown her in reliably should he not intervene.

Log #233 [Dreamscape]
Set in the frothing ocean of Israel's recurring nightmares.
Log #250 [Dreamscape]
Set in the frothing ocean of Israel's recurring nightmares.

Liska

Dread care-o-meter: [_____] Flavour: Lecherous.

Liska has an odd status, firmly on Dread's kill list for her inability to budge an inch despite repeated visits, but thus far spared since she serves as potential blackmail for Sethiss. Additionally, Dread has taken a predatory liking in exploiting her ambiguous feelings toward his attention, right along with the emotional conundrum that comes with it each and every time. Essentially, this is where he often goes if he simply wants to have an uncomplicated round of fun.

Log #071 [Dreamscape] with Sethiss
Set in a massive glass bowl drifting in the ocean.
Log #294 [Dreamscape]
Set on a flawless mirror drifting through space.
Log #301 [Dreamscape]
Set in a modern urban apartment.

Liz

Dread care-o-meter: [|||__] Flavour: Admiring.

Elizabeth is one of Dread's most prized protégés, doing most of his usual work for him, pushing herself to her limits without duress - his presence alone is usually enough to tip her into the right direction. He adores her for knowing quite precisely where her limits lie, neither exaggerating them nor understating them and it is through that which she's come to realise his true nature - though it doesn't help her one bit, as she's not found a way to speak about it to anyone. Of course, how could she? 'Dread is an okay guy, really'? It's not like anyone would do anything but consider her insane.

For some reason unbeknownst to anyone (even Elizabeth), he'd deliberately kept his interactions with her pleasant until she approached him for otherwise herself - this being communicated through a highly reluctant Sethiss effectively by accident. Needless to say that despite the bonding immediately after her first visit, it hasn't really helped their friendship any.

Log #279 [Dreamscape] with Sethiss
Set in a quasi-abandoned mall partly artistically reclaimed by nature.
Ticket
Set somewhere unknown (environment not elaborated on)

Lucy

Dread care-o-meter: [|||||] Flavour: Parental.

A transgender person trapped on the Wildcard network? Could Dread possibly resist? Of course not.

Log #441 [Dreamscape]
Set in a patchwork mansion

Nechku

Dread care-o-meter: [|____] Flavour: Just.

Excepting some initial interaction, Dread stays the fuck away from Nechku, because as much as he can enjoy a fangirl, Nechku's profound lack of normal human fears and her open and unabashed desire to interact with him has made him believe that the best way to indulge the masochist is not to indulge her at all. He also has some ethical issues with her that leave a bit of a sour taste in his mouth - interestingly, that would be mostly the 'supporting the network' part, and less the 'slaver bitch' part. Either way, he refuses to be played - really, it's a bit petulant on his side, he knows he could be having a great time if he let himself.

Samanya

Dread care-o-meter: [|____] Flavour: Lecherous.

Samanya might never have been bothered by Dread were it not for her interaction with Elizabeth post-Intervention having left her incredulous of Dread's nature. He promptly hunted her down and provided a hands-on demonstration of his abilities to command and utterly demolish her dream.

Log #347 [Dreamscape]
Set on an approximation of Mer where the Dark Water has won as in actuality.
Log #371 [Dreamscape]
Set in a train.

Sethiss

Dread care-o-meter: [||||_] Flavour: Parental.

Sethiss is probably the perfect example of a 'normal' Dread victim: Stubborn in her set of morals, inching forward ever so slightly into the direction coaxed every session, only to relapse partly but never fully whenever he reminds of his more demonic nature. Over arduously many dreams inflicted, Sethiss has since learnt that she can trust Dread in some regards, though the thought of that certainly leaves a foul taste in her mouth.

Log #059 [Dreamscape]
Set in Azimuth's at the time entirely hypothetical core.
Log #067 [Dreamscape]
Set in a house of infinite rooms and corridors.
Log #071 [Dreamscape] with Liska
Set in a massive glass bowl drifting in the ocean.
Log #084 [Dreamscape]
Set in a spaceous urban apartment.
Log #102 [Dreamscape]
Set in a featureless landscape but for a massive white pebble reflecting on the polished ground containing an impossibly acidic liquid, then is taken astral.
Log #104 [Dreamscape] with Frederick
Set on and around a hanging platform meant as an elaborate trap for the dreamers.
Log #116 [Dreamscape]
Set on an exaggerated curve of a highway.
Log #121 [Dreamscape]
Set in a featureless room.
Log #137 [Dreamscape]
Set in a super-sized hourglass.
Log #145 [Dreamscape]
Set on the face of a huge clock.
Log #167 [Dreamscape] with Tui Aru'ak
Set on a glass island in an ocean filled with tealights.
Log #169 [Dreamscape]
Set in a church.
Log #184 [Dreamscape]
Set in a theatre.
Log #205 [Dreamscape]
Set in a dead-end corridor with Dread between the door and the victim.
Log #230 [Dreamscape]
Set on a cloud made solid.
Log #273 [Dreamscape]
Set in a park.
Log #279 [Dreamscape] with Liz
Set in a quasi-abandoned mall partly artistically reclaimed by nature.
Log #358 [Dreamscape]
Set in a ferris wheel.

Silence

Dread care-o-meter: [||___] Flavour: Protective.

Slightly damaged from her youth, having fled into the network as a safety from a real life that doesn't shelter her, Silence was Dread's first protected victim. Over time, he's given her self-worth and nursed her toward a healthier psychological profile, though revealing much hidden cruelty of hers on the way - not that Dread would ever consider that a bad thing.

These days he rarely visits her, letting her remember him as a guardian angel, but more of an abstraction than a true entity, and the dreams featuring him are accordingly surreal, washed out and not rendered in his usual trademark hyperrealism.

Log #074 [Dreamscape]
Set into a mirrored, cubic room.
Log #076 [Dreamscape] with Frederick
Set in a mostly featureless landscape.

Murders

Corinthian

Dread care-o-meter: [_____] Flavour: Just.

Given his partly deliberate, partly unintentional sabotage of the Mer sim, Dread found himself questioning what use Corinthian might be to the Citizens, and after some thought decided that he was more liability than help. With that in mind, he set out to kill him, and nothing in the dream the doomed Citizen had did anything to convince him of otherwise. He did, however, promise to tell his best friend (Jeremy/Jerard) about his true feelings for him.

Log #355 [Dreamscape]
Set on Mer, albeit with restored oceans.

Sirena

Dread care-o-meter: [|____] Flavour: Just.

Sirena, as a strongly moral character, set out trying to open a dialogue with Dread but was dashed against the rocks almost instantly, terrified out of her mind of what she'd been granted insight into and equating him with the devil as soon as his irredeemably darker nature became apparent. Unable to budge an inch from that mythological picture of him and coming apart from the strain, Dread was quick to mark her a failure - and killed her.

The fact she still exists as a Puppet troubles him, but he hasn't tried to murder her through another Citizen so far, perhaps out of fear that the network might take his more precious toys away from him, seeing as they voiced their distaste for his meddling in #157 (immediately following her death and rebirth as a Puppet) and threatened as much.

Log #124 [Thread]
Initially set in a bubble of atmosphere beneath the ocean, then snaps into a Thread possession spiel.
Log #143 [Dreamscape]
Set in a hut in the woods.
Log #148 [Dreamscape] with Frederick
Set into a tourist-oriented, building-type TV tower.
Log #153 [Planetshine] with Frederick
Dreamworld distinction is blurry here, effectively set into the sim setting, Planetshine, albeit with less illumination and more hooks.

Fleeting psychic contacts

Occasionally, Dread tousles with people only fleetingly for a productive purpose:

Tui Aru'ak, for Project Bitscorch (several civil conversations)
Vector, for Closed Circle (one civil conversation)
Mekkabyte, for Closed Circle (remained intangible)
Gunther, for Closed Circle (remained intangible)
Dunestrider, for Closed Circle (remained intangible)
Amithia, for Closed Circle (remained intangible)
Jerard, to hold true to a promise he made to Corinthian (see #367)
Hakumele, to determine her Team for Closed Circle (see #366)

He also attempted to find (for various reasons):

Byelobog (dehydration death, meant to be a victim)
Patches (dehydration death, meant to be a victim)
Mandalore (hard disconnect death, meant to be a murder)
Miridia (hard disconnect death, meant to be a follow-up investigation to Mandalore)

Non-Canon

Demona