NIGHTMARE CATCHER
Cursed Relic, Extremely Rare
In ancient times, a powerful shaman fashioned the Nightmare Catcher, using esoteric rituals and forbidden incantations, intending it to trap and dispel dark visions.
However, the item’s potency grew beyond his control. Instead of safeguarding his village, it plunged its people into perpetual nightmares, blurring the lines between reality and the dream realm.
Some say the tormented souls of the shaman’s village still linger within, adding to its malevolent power.
Functionality: The Nightmare Catcher is an unsettling object resembling a twisted dreamcatcher with bizarre and eerie trinkets. To use the relic, it must be hung in plain sight and unobstructed. The user loses 1d4 hit points as they use their own blood to activate it.
Once activated, the Nightmare Catcher emanates a nightmarish aura within a 60-foot radius. All living beings within this area fall into a state of terrifying, lifelike nightmares where pain, injuries, and even death seem hauntingly real.
Investigators, NPCs, or any other beings who come within a 10-foot radius of the Nightmare Catcher must succeed on a Spot Hidden roll (against a difficulty set by the Keeper, e.g., Hard). On a success, the individual spots the Nightmare Catcher and becomes singularly focused on obtaining it, even if it means resorting to violence against allies. Once touched the nightmarish hallucination lifts, and the individual gains an unsettling understanding of the item’s capabilities and its origin.
KEEPERS NOTE: Should the Nightmare Catcher or any individual be removed from its area of effect, all those affected will awaken, physically unharmed but mentally scarred, remembering every horrifying detail of their nightmare experience. This includes those who may have “died” in the hallucinatory nightmare; as they will awaken, haunted by the vivid memories of their own deaths. If the Nightmare Catcher or any individual remains in its place, all effects, injuries, and even deaths remain real.
NEED AN IDEA FOR A NIGHTMARE? USE THIS TABLE AS INSPIRATION.
d20 Table of Nightmares Projected by the Nightmare Catcher
1.) Endless Fall: Those caught in this nightmare experience an unending, vertigo-inducing plummet down an endless abyss.
2.) Cannibal Feast: The area becomes a grotesque dining hall where humans are being cooked and eaten.
3.) Man-Eating Plants: Vines and roots animate to life, sprouting thorny mouths that try to eat people.
4.) Sinking Ship: The ground turns into the deck of a sinking ship surrounded by dark, monstrous waters.
5.) Alien Abduction: Bizarre, otherworldly creatures appear to perform ghastly experiments on captives.
6.) Flesh Maze: The area transforms into a winding maze made entirely of pulsating flesh.
7.) Giant Spiders: Enormous, venomous spiders scuttle out from the shadows, wrapping people in webbing.
8.) Haunted Forest: Spectral images and ghostly figures lurk behind the trees, hunting the living.
9.) Burning Desert: An arid, fiery desert where the sand burns like hot coals underfoot.
10.) Labyrinth of Mirrors: A labyrinth filled with mirrors that show horrifying, distorted reflections.
11.) Zombie Apocalypse: The dead rise to feast on the living.
12.) Flesh-Eating Swarm: A swarm of locusts that eat away at flesh upon contact.
13.) War Zone: A nightmarish battlefield filled with invisible snipers and unidentifiable enemies.
14.) Dark Void: The world disappears, leaving only an infinite, suffocating darkness.
15.) Insidious Dopplegangers: Copies of friends and loved ones appear, but with malicious intentions.
16.) Toxic Wasteland: The area is filled with poisonous gases and contaminated water.
17.) Eldritch Transformation: People begin to mutate into nightmarish forms of themselves.
18.) Medieval Torture Dungeon: An old dungeon appears, filled with horrifying torture devices that are still in use.
19.) Reliving Past Traumas: Everyone sees manifestations of their worst memories and fears.
20.) Total Anarchy: All laws of physics and society break down; nothing is predictable.
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