The Nightmare Lands

The Nightmare Lands are an ever-changing, surreal realm of shifting dreams and formless terror—a dimension conjured from the subconscious mind of Caroline Dinwiddy, a psychic so powerful she buried her guilt in a labyrinth of delusion. Each twisted landscape and monstrous presence here is a fragment of her haunted psyche, made real and made sovereign.

Sleep is the only door into this domain—but it does not always open back outward.

Presiding over the Nightmare Lands is the Nightmare Court, each member a living nightmare born of Caroline Dinwiddy’s psyche. They war among themselves, using dreamers as pawns in surreal campaigns fought across ephemeral territories.

• The Ghost Dancer — A figure of heartbreak and loss, she weeps fire and seduces with dreams of what might have been.
• The Green Man — A lord of envy and rot, his forested domain strangles the minds of dreamers with obsessive thoughts and old grudges.
• The Weaver — A spiderlike entity who spins dreams into prisons, trapping dreamers in lives they never lived.
• The Nightmare Man — A figure of shadow and teeth, embodying the primal terror of the unknown. He delights in recursive fears and dreams that devour themselves.

At the Court’s center lies Caroline Dinwiddy herself, sometimes a dreaming girl, sometimes a cruel sovereign, sometimes oblivious to her dominion. She is not fully aware she is the Darklord, but her denial powers the domain.

Any sentient being who dreams may stumble into the Nightmare Lands.

• Those who suffer intense trauma, dread, or guilt are most vulnerable.
• A sleeper who dies in the Nightmare Lands does not awaken—instead, they become part of the dreamscape, or worse, a servant to the Court.
• Dreamers may wander the lands as themselves—or be transformed into avatars, forced to live out versions of their lives warped by Caroline’s subconscious fixations.

Caroline Dinwiddy committed terrible crimes in life—acts of manipulation, psychic domination, and emotional cruelty—but she erased her memory of them. Her guilt, repressed and unacknowledged, splintered into nightmares. Now:

• Her denial sustains the domain. As long as she refuses to accept her deeds, the Nightmare Lands persist.
• Her dreams populate the Court. Each Court member reflects one of her sins or fears, and she cannot destroy or confront them.
• Caroline is trapped in a dream within a dream, dreaming she is someone else entirely, unaware that the world around her is a lie of her own making.

Themes and Terrors

• Unreliable Identity: Who are you, when even your memories and body might be illusions?
• The Tyranny of Denial: The whole realm is a monument to unacknowledged guilt and the refusal to heal.
• Endless Recurrence: Stories repeat, lives loop, and dreamers relive their worst fears until they shatter—or embrace madness.