Society of Dreamers (Story Idea)

Some ideas that I'm putting here while I'm thinking them over.

***

Small group of Hecatonic students voyaging into the dreamlands. (With some mystical object as a focus, probably - I envision the students all asleep in the same room, arranged around a smoking silver artifact). Task: At first it’s simple exploration. I need to flesh out the cast, but I think I need to do it one at a time. I envision that they’ll take up more and more permanent residence in the Dreamlands, carve out homes/domains of their own. Potential plots going forward: Interpersonal/factional struggles for power, the threat of being possessed by Dreamland Denizens/being too in tune with the plane and thus losing yourself, or giving a way for Dreamland denizens to enter the real world (catastrophe).

Vibe of Homestuck - weird, depopulated world where rules can change. Backdrop for transformations, both strange but also treated casually as a matter of course.

Was posed the idea of alchemizer to drive transformation. My thoughts are simply to have parts of the scenery drive it at first: A source of water that makes futas, portals to size up or clone. (The latter two I had in mind for the two first scenes). Places can have Themes/Foci: particular fantasies play out here and the Dreamers are marked by them when they visit. Maybe later they can find more ways to transform.

Also: A suggestion that when you’ve started exploring the dreamland, your dream self remains. (Which is not the case for normal dreamers that pass through the dreamlands only in sleep and without consciousness). This would make for some fun phantom sensations while awake if their dream self starts moving around or of others touch it - could make for some fun kind of ‘being fucked while in public’ kind of scene.

Toying with the idea of giving the dreamers specific power sets (to be discovered/gained, I think). Inspiration there mainly is just an excuse to give someone designated Size Powers (a la Jade as Witch of Space) for growth shenanigans. It would also work well with my idea of having the leader/protagonist be unable to challenge said size powers - and could even give them powers suitable for being the plaything of such giantesses/hypers.

Thoughts on the Dreamlands themselves: It is another plane of existence, heavily inspired by Lovecraft’s Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath: It is a place that dreamers go to when they are asleep, but if takes special focus/powers to be ‘awake’ there and be able to explore it. It is a strange land that works by different rules than our world. Crucially, you can shape it with sufficient force of will/skill - something that our Society of Dreamers must learn over time. It is also populated by strange beings and monsters; a primary inspiration being fae (strange, neither friend nor foe), but also succubi, beings that want to exploit and drain the dreamers. A danger to be explored is possession and letting them into the real world. Like Kadath, it might be nice to have cities etc somewhere, but this clashes a little with the idea of it being mostly centered on the small group of Dreamers in an empty world, so I’m unsure if I want to pursue that yet. If there are cities, it might better be abandoned and empty or strange and inhuman.

One challenge here is simply where to start. My current inclination is to play with casual gigantic size, but planet-sized giantesses require buildup. And I still don’t have a grasp of every character I want to include, so starting with the meeting of the society is a bit troublesome (plus, introducing 5 characters at once is bound to be confusing; no room to breathe there). I’m thinking that beginning with their initial jump into Dreamspace and following the main protagonist as he or she (havn’t decided…) links up with their scattered comrades and makes a basecamp for themselves might be good. In that case, I can run through some one on one scenes and develop the characters as I go. And after this, I will hopefully have stumbled upon an idea for a plot to go forward; just ‘exploration’ isn’t compelling enough for a main motivation, but being separated and needing to link up in this strange new world is. And finding some inter-personal clashes to drive us forward as, maybe, powerful objects or dangerous monsters are found, might work out well. There might be rival groups in the future, or other goals to set…

Initial scene ideas:

Mention of Society’s inaugural voyage, Protag finding themselves separated, flying through the landscape to find the rest.

First (size focus): Found a strange portal that enlarges things that goes through. Does that a few times. Strangely enchanted by it.

Second (clone focus): Another dreamer has found a pond that clones things. Keeps on doing it as protagonist gets worried about the effects.

Third: (shrink focus). Dreamer is manipulating the landscape around her, making a house, growing or shrinking trees and rocks. Turns it on protag to shrink and play with them.

My initial thought was to have 5 dreamers, but 1-2-3 is a good scene number, I think. After this, maybe he wakes up - or they gather in place? (The question of “how do you get out of the Dreamlands” is still open.)