Dominia
Shrouded in perpetual storms and lashed by cruel winds, the island of Dominia rises from the churning waves like a wound in the ocean. Stark cliffs encircle the island, hiding its secret: a grim, fortress-like hospital perched atop a lonely rise—the Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed, under the direction of Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth, who is far more monstrous than the tormented souls he claims to treat.
Dr. Heinfroth presents himself as a physician and scholar of the mind, but beneath his polished manners lies a parasitic evil. A vampire of the intellect, he feeds not on blood but on madness and psychic anguish.
- Heinfroth developed forbidden techniques of psychic vampirism, leeching away the sanity and identity of his victims, consuming their minds to prolong his own twisted brilliance.
- He sees himself as a pioneer, researching the psyche not to heal but to break, twist, and harvest. His notes are voluminous, written in tight, obsessive script.
- Through hypnotism, sedation, and sinister surgeries, he silences patients and staff alike. Even the sane begin to doubt themselves under his influence.
Themes and Horrors
- Gaslighting and Institutional Horror: Reality is fragile in Dominia. Patients are told their memories are false, their feelings symptoms, their insights delusions. Resistance is met with medication, isolation, and worse.
- Loss of Identity: The deeper one explores Dominia, the more they lose track of who they are. Names, pasts, even faces begin to feel unreliable. Heinfroth’s feeding erodes the soul as surely as any blade.
- Madness as Commodity: Patients are experiments. Madness is studied, dissected, and distilled for Heinfroth’s consumption. Some inmates are driven to act out dark plays for unseen observers or speak in riddles that aren’t entirely untrue.
Notable Locations
- The Observation Wing: Patients are kept under constant watch here. Some whisper that the mirrors don’t reflect your image—but someone else’s.
- The Surgery Vault: A forbidden sub-basement where “corrective procedures” are performed. Tools hang from racks, and gurneys bear deep scratches and dried straps.
- The Electrotherapy Ward: Flickering lights and the stench of ozone. The machines hum with unnatural energy, powered by something not from this world.
- The Hall of Lost Cases: A long corridor of locked rooms. Each door bears a name, but some match the players. What’s behind them is best left unopened.
Geography
Dominia is a small, isolated island, barely a few miles across, entirely dominated by the Asylum, an immense and labyrinthine institution of cold stone and iron.
- Its halls are dim, its wards echoing with whispered prayers, cries, and laughter twisted by despair. No warmth, no comfort—not even the pretense of care—graces its interiors.
- The island’s landscape is bare and wind-scoured, dotted with barren trees and overgrown paths that lead nowhere. The few outbuildings, like the morgue, greenhouse, or surgery pavilions, are always locked—or worse, unlocked.
- Patients never leave, and visitors rarely do either. Most who come seeking treatment or offering oversight become inmates themselves, often with no clear memory of how it happened.
Localized Phenomena
- Storms Never Cease: Dominia is surrounded by constant tempests. Lightning arcs across the sky, and ships that approach the island are drawn off-course or wrecked.
- Reality Fractures: Time skips forward. Dreams become memories. Conversations repeat with slight changes. Sanity slips away, even in brief visits.
- Isolation Is Absolute: Sending spells fail. Maps of the island change when unobserved. It becomes increasingly difficult to determine whether one has been here days, weeks, or forever.
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