<<< Nightmare

[Derek Addams]

OOkay, I've been thinking about some plot ideas for villains for the X-Men to fight, and, I know that I brought him up earlier, but I think he may actually make a VERY good villain for the X-Men to deal with.

And, taking into account the fact that "Magic" and "Demons" do not exist within the XMRverse. Nightmare is neither a demon, nor is he "magical". In the real world, that is.

In truth, he is just another mutant. And his ability? Psionic Energy Consumption. He drains the energy of living beings around him until they pass out. But he would also be a mutant who's power is like an addiction. He feels pain when he doesn't "feed". So his mutation found a way to get more psionic energy. Thus his second power, Dream Manipulation. Once a victim has been reduced to the point of exhaustion, he goes to sleep, where his second ability of Dream manipulation comes into play, where he creates a psychic link between himself and his victims to drain every last bit of psionic energy from them. It is there that he has ALMOST complete control over what his victims see and experience.

Since he feeds on psionic energy, telepaths would only be able to hear slight static traces of thought, and a deeply draining sensation.

Proposal One: "Nightmare" is sent to the X-Men due to being discovered as a mutant, and they take him in. A strange case of fatigue sets in over many students, and they find that the kid has a history of being moved from place to place because many of the people he lived with fell into comas or simply went to sleep and died in the night.

Proposal Two: The "fatigue" sets in over a small section of the city, and the X-Men are sent to investigate. There, they have to piece together any information and links between the fatigue and comatose victims.

In either case, whether or not they discover who Nightmare is and how to stop him, and whether or not he gets away with it, is up to the characters and the players' interactions in the plot.

[Sunspot]

Sounds awesome and creative...Sunspot is totally in. IN IN IN!

[Marrow]

I don't see too many issues with this. A little more solid progression would be wise, however, as a plot left too far open is less likely to follow through to a conclusion.

[Charcoal]

Depending on how this goes I would be plenty keen to be involved. Obviously that won't work so well if this becomes an X-men only plot, but if not I'm there.

[Derek Addams]

Revision Ver. 1
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The plot revolves around an old, and slightly large hotel in a town 2 hours away from the mansion. For now, I'll refer to it as The Rose Hotel. Reports of people dying after a few days of fatigue, hallucinations, and then finally slipping into comas have come in from multiple different areas, and the one thing they all had in common was that they stayed in this particular hotel a week before they died. Mutant activity is suspected, and the X-Men have been called to investigate.

After checking with the reports, they have found that the hotel is very successful, and there have been plenty of guests who've come and gone without incident. So they decide to assemble several teams using 6 X-Men, and (possibly) 2 students, to "bait" whoever may be behind this phenomena. I'm thinking the entire plot will last a week in game. We can call it "The Week of Nightmares". Because it sounds awesome. :P Because I'm basically "GMing" this baby, Bruiser will naturally be one of the X-Men sent :P If a telepath signs up, for the sake of story, they will find that the moment they get within range of the hotel, their ability seems to have stopped working. Or maybe they just start hearing the "hum" that I'll go into later.

Also, for the first 6 days, the nightmares will be written by the players themselves. This gives everyone involved a chance to get creative and showcase the darkest fears of their characters. :)

Day 1: This is the day that's the most structured because a few things need to happen. There are NPCs to meet, and everyone needs to go to sleep. They drive to the town together, but are told to group up and sign in as if they don't know each other. At this point they have no idea if the mutant is still there, or his M.O. They also work out the idea of sleeping in shifts in case their mystery mutant works at night. They sign in at the front desk with the innkeeper, and meet 4 of the other guests. These four, along with the innkeeper, will end up as the "suspects" for being Nightmare. One of them actually IS. I figure I can make another account called "The Rose Hotel" for any interaction with these NPCs. After an uneventful day, the teams go to the first shift, and this is where they can have some more interaction with the 5 NPCs, or maybe some adults can talk in the hallway using "subter-speak", whatever you guys want. :P In the meantime, the first shift of sleepers has their first nightmare, then everyone swaps. In general, noone makes the connection yet because hey, "Bad Dreams happen all the time, right?" Then the shifts switch, and everyone has had a chance to look around the hotel, gather clues, and write their freaky Nightmare scenario. :P

Day 2: The drive home. Opportunity for a possible "Oh shit" moment in the car if people fall asleep. EVERYONE is tired. When they get back, one person hands in the reports, and any telepath who meets one of the team during The Week of Nightmares is unable to read their thoughts, hearing only a hum when they try. It, along with the fatigue, is the mark of the telepathic link Nightmare has made, but an attempt to figure it out would only start to make THEM feel drained as well... and visulaize a rather creepy looking smile. >:D

Days 3-4: More opportunities for "Dream" and "Investigation" threads. The kids get back to school, everyone else gets back to work and does some side investigation.

Day 5: The fatigue has gotten so severe that the team is starting to collapse in the hall and some are starting to hallucinate even when awake. It's then that they realize it's the Nightmares. What happens next depends on how much they pieced together from their investigations.

Day 6: With severe hallucinations coming into play and the fatigue getting worse, the team tries to piece together their information on the mutant before they can go back and arrest him. They also get the idea that if the link was created while they slept, it can probably only be broken while they're asleep, as well. Meaning: Fighting Nightmare on his own turf and facing their own fears. Depending on how the story is played and written, there are 3 possible outcomes that could occur on

Day 7: The Showdown. Bruiser (and possibly others in the case of "Withdrawal on account of LIFE" :P) has gone comatose.

Outcome 1: After identifying the REAL identity of Nightmare, a second team is assembled to go back to the hotel and find him while a second telepathic link is created between the remaining team members, who then go into the dream world to both "Find Derek" and break the link between them and Nightmare.

Outcome 2: With no leads, they go in to rescue Derek and break the link as described, but the second team arrives at the hotel to find the 4 remaining NPCs mentioned above dead. Nightmare has gotten away.

Outcome 3: The "Fizzled" Outcome in case the plot dies. :( All the members collapsed from exhaustion, Jean uses traces of the link to go all "Mama Phoenix" on Nightmare's ass and he gets away. Everyone involved is exhausted and angry for a few days, and genuinely disturbed for much longer knowing that Nightmare is still out there and almost killed all of them.

Either way, this is when Nightmare makes his TRUE XMR appearance, and the fight unfolds much like it would in the waking world against a reality warper. The final fight takes place in the dream world version of the hotel, where the team members must "find each other" via the link and fight Nightmare. The Hotel and the final battle will have elements incorporated from the fears and dreams of all involved characters.

......Phew... that was exhausting... so...? Input? Feedback? Stamps?

P.S. I'm only using Jean as an example, but yeah, it can be any telepath strong enough to sever the link. :P

[Charcoal]

If you wanted to look at a different angle to involve students, there's always the option that one telepath (or one telepath and one support team member like Derek for example) goes to the hotel, either to psychically investigate people or maybe to try to enter the minds of people who are comatose there. Basically that one or those two people (whichever the case) are marked by Nightmare and they have bad dreams that night etc. Then when they come home, because Nightmare is well ingrained into the telepaths mind, when they link to someone else, he can nab them too. That way it could involve anyone, irrespective of rank. Just thought it could work and I am kind of partial to any version I can be in. :/ Good work though Derek, looks sweet so far.

[Derek Addams]

Ironing out details here.

Another thing we could work in is that when the crew gets back, and all of a sudden are "emitting a hum", when a telepath tries to break through the "hum" it ends up hurting them.

Basically, the telepathic link Nightmare creates ends up causing physical pain when it's messed with. Incentive for X-Men telepaths to not try and break it.

[Cyclops]

I have several concerns.

1. This is very similiar to the finale of WwX, with the nightmare scenarios, face your fears, so a lot of this territory has been recently covered.

2. I am concerned that Derek is NPCing 5 characters AND playing Derek. Seems like this is bordering on fan fiction

3. several teams of 6 x-men = a lot of players = a slooooow thread

[Logan]

Why not just make this X-men vs Freddy Kruger?

[Kitty Pryde]

I agree with Heather, you are taking a lot of the burden on yourself with all these NPC's and all, would make it very difficult to move things along. And it does sorta sound like the onslaught thing from WWX.

But also, why would all these X-Men show up to a hotel and leave the next day? That sounds like a really shady investigation.

I think if you did wanna do this... perhaps go murder mystery style. Get others to apply for some of the NPC's and when you bring in the team of X-Men... have them slowly start having these horrible dreams or hallucinations and maybe even add in what Logan just said. Make it more Freddy vs. the X-Men have the X-Men and other NPC go comatose or fall asleep without being able to wake up. So the remaining X-Men need to figure out a way to stop anymore of them from falling asleep. And stop whomever is doing this.

Maybe you would need the telepath to try and link all the X-Men together including the sleeping ones to fight through a Freddy like hotel dream sequence and finally fight off Nightmare and wake everyone up.

[Derek Addams]

Cyke: I getcha. Although, to be honest, and i'm not trying to be a smartass about this, If the only issue was that "It's been done before", then nobody would ever write anything. But seeing as how not every player playing an X-Man at this time was able to be involved in that plot, then we could add a stipulation that anyone involved in the WwX plot is automatically banned?

Second issue: I'm not sure what you mean by "sounding like fanfiction"... but that's not important. If you're thinking I'd be bogged down by the workload, I was thinking the same thing myself. Kitty just gave a good idea. I have thought out the different NPCs, and Nightmare... So.... whoever would end up taking Nightmare and the corresponding NPCs could be filled in and play them accordingly, or we could just say "scrap the NPCs" and just have them go there and get "infected". Which brings us to the

Third Issue: It would be 6 X-Men total, and possibly a student or two, not several teams of 6 X-Men... But, if the number is too much, then maybe we could go with Coal's idea of Nightmare's ability being "infectious" and have only two X-Men go. Then have anyone at the school free to make their own "Nightmares" during the timestamped week.

Contact me over AIM if you want to iron out more details, these are just possible solutions I came up with. AIM name: JadenKun.

Logan: Because Freddy Krueger is not a Marvel character. Duh. :P

Kitty: Yeah, well, I figured it would be more like a "fishing" thing. They have their common location, but they have no idea who's behind it yet, or his M.O., so sending in different teams to "lure him out". But, I dunno... if it seems to unrealistic, then maybe we can scrap the "Murder Mystery" part....

Although, the idea of having more of them go comatose sooner is also a pretty good idea. Nobody'd have to die, unless they wanted to kill off their character. And the idea of the resident telepath linking the minds of everyone affected would be good, too.

Okay, well... that's all i have at the moment... more feedback would be appreciated. Again, my AIM name is JadenKun.