Kindly Stranger
The Kindly Stranger is a dream-play, the acting of which kills all dreamers involved.
Overview
| “ | (actor 1) I... I can’t live without you. (actress 2) You have to! (actor 1) I won’t let you go to Him! (actress 2) What are you... No! (actor 1 stabs actress 2, then falls to his knees, weeping. Focus spot on him, then INTERVAL) | ” |
This Incubus is a malevolent, self-aware play that dream-shapes a group of dreamers, four men and three women, at once, assigning them roles in its script. A copy of this script appears in the home of each victim. The victims’ dreams merge as one, dreaming the performance. The story, a tragedy, involves the deaths of all involved characters throughout three acts, run through consecutive nights. These deaths are precipitated by a Kindly Stranger (played by the Incubus), whose presence unveils a tangled web of infidelity, followed by gruesome murder and suicide. Those asleep and in-character when their character dies in the play never wake up. The Intensity of the dream is based on an Expression + Manipulation roll on the part of the Incubus. The first act has this unaltered Intensity; the second increases it by three; the third increases it a further two.
The incubus can be made vulnerable primarily in three ways: One, the stage does not appear until all sleepers have hit REM phase and synchronized; an oneiromancer can jump the gun and force the play to manifest in actor form, fighting it there. Two, if the play has begun, a lucid dreamer can act freely, independent of the script with a Composure + Resolve + Wyrd roll, contested by the dream’s Intensity. Three, altering the script forces the Incubus to re-roll Intensity to fix the changes; this roll failing breaks its hold on the cast. Note that Willpower damage in its dreamscape translates to lethal damage in reality.
Speculation Among the Lost
Kindly Ones
Those who have learned much about the Gentry note that the Kindly Stranger is at once the play, the eighth actor within the play, the documents in the mortal world and the entire theatre, which uncannily resembles the way the Others are both themselves and their kingdoms in Arcadia. Alternatively, if not an Other, it may be a creation of the True Fae, a powerful and strange variant of dream poison.
The Terminus
Some claim to have seen the Kindly Stranger leave when fought off successfully, opening the doors of its theatre-self and striding out. These individuals claim to have felt, rather than seen, the landscape “outside”; a clamor of voices that made them feel as though they were human again, if only briefly. As the dreamscape ended in absence of the Incubus, they became powerfully aware of how cut off they were from their former lives. Old writings speak of a “Terminus”, a place where all of humanity’s stories dwell and all human interaction takes place. Perhaps the Stranger is a being from this place, a sentient play that reaches out and connects strangers in the pursuit of art without realizing it kills those it touches.
Character Sheet
Dream Combat
Power Attributes: Intelligence 3, Strength 3, Presence 4
Finesse Attributes: Wits 4, Dexterity 4, Manipulation 5
Resistance Attributes: Resolve 3, Stamina 3, Composure 3
Oneiromancy Skill: Expression 4
Willpower: 6
Virtue: Temperance
Vice: Lust
Initiative: 7
Speed: 12
Wyrd: 5
Glamour/per turn: 14/5
Oneiromachy
Personal: (Presence + Brawl 2 + Wyrd) 11
Environmental: (Wits + Expression + Wyrd) 13
Dream Defense: 5 (Manipulation)
Dream Armor: 3 (Resolve)
References
- CTL: Dancers in the Dusk, p. 30-31