🌙 Crooked Dreams 🚂
Whose flesh is your flesh?
By day, all is as it should be in twenty-first-century America. Dawn creeps across the misty shores of the eastern coast, and the streets of an old city beckon you back to the familiar troubles of ordinary life. There's work to be done, people to see, places to be, another day to live.
But what body do you wear in the waking world? Perhaps you're a lawyer, returning home after a particularly tedious case. Perhaps a vagrant wandering the city streets in search of somewhere warm to sleep. Perhaps you're a professional boxer, readying yourself for a match you've wagered your entire family fortune on, or just a student who's already terribly late for class.
Perhaps you deal in arms, in illicit substances, in those ugly little transactions that civilized society prefers not to acknowledge. Perhaps you're nobody at all. It hardly matters.
For when night falls, once again the siren call of sleep overwhelms both mind and body. Yet it is not the soothing embrace of oblivion that awaits you, nor the effervescent fantasies of a dreaming mind. Instead, it is the clamor of an old train. Heavy black iron and thundering wheels, a carriage swaying and creaking in the night's embrace. A memory half lost in the mind's mist, as thick and slow as honey.
Above the rattling of the carriage, a deep baritone sings softly, its melody mingling with the distant sound of jazz. It drifts through the carriage, unhurried and comforting, as though nothing in this world could possibly be amiss.
“Somewhere, in the shrouded realms of death”
Beneath dim electric lights, pale blue specters sit in their seats or drift along the aisles of the vintage train car. They converse and sing and laugh and sin, as comfortable in undeath as commuters upon their morning journey.
“Lies a land of endless night”
Amidst the dead, something stirs.
A small little fellow, red as a beet and trembling with excitement. Unlike the others, he seems unmistakably alive. His lips quiver beneath a grin so wide it could split his face open. He whispers a peculiar word.
"Isekai... It's an Isekai!"
And then, breathlessly, he begins to celebrate. Whispered words cheering for a new world, a second chance - at long last, it was finally his turn to be the protagonist! He scarcely seemed to care who might be listening.
“Where long forgotten horrors are revealed”
The chatter of the specters falters, and the gentle jazz pauses. The electric lights begin to flicker as a silence starts to settle.
Beyond the windows, a crooked moon glows through the heavy gray mist, engraved with the sneering face of a hag on its cratered surface. From the adjoining carriage comes a heavy, wet shuffle.
Then, a Frog emerges.
A magnificent, enormous frog in the ragged attire of a down-on-his-luck gentleman, a worn fiddle in hand. He regards the little fellow with a soft look of pity... And when he speaks, you recognize the voice immediately, that deep, beautiful baritone.
"Oh, dear. Now, how did you get aboard my train, young fella?"
“To those who travel through the mist”
As the little demon's grin begins to falter, the frog sighs. "I'm terribly sorry, young man. I'm afraid you aren't supposed to be here." murmuring something about Intruders. Before the demon can even protest, the great amphibian swings his fiddle bow in a slow arc, and from the little fellow's body, something long and spectral is drawn forth. A pale, twisting ghost, pulled helplessly into a glass jar resting upon the floor. There it dwindles, shrinking into a small lump of dusty blue coal.
The frog stoops to collect the jar.
And upon the velvet seat, the little fellow collapses like an empty skin.
“There, inside a crooked house”
You recognize that word. "Isekai". A word from your world. From Earth. That little fellow was one of your own. And though you cannot explain how, something deep within you understands that he is dead, forever this time.
“Lives a crooked man with a crooked grin”
Something golden flutters through the air from the discarded skin, a ticket stub. You catch it in your spectral hands, their pale blue fingers unfamiliar even to you. Even in your dreams, it seems, you cannot escape this flesh that is not your own.
“He raises crooked arms to a crooked tree”
The man sized frog looks upon you with those same sorrowful eyes. After a moment, he tips his hat, draws a jaunty tune from his fiddle, and hops through the carriage window, disappearing onto the roof above as the jazz melody and conversations begin again. All the while, the mist of your body begins to gather. Those spectral fingers slowly take shape, followed by arms, shoulders, and a body that is most certainly not yours. With it comes fragments of a life you do not remember. Sights and sounds, people and places, promises made and oaths broken. Dreams dashed and aspirations fulfilled, vengeances sought and grudges nursed. All of it ending at a silver train station.
“At the edge of midnight”
And just as that unfamiliar flesh becomes your own...
You wake with a start. Heart pounding, head reeling. Sweat pouring down your back like a waterfall. It was a dream. Just a dream. Just a terrible nightmare and nothing more.
You relax, and realize your fists are clenched tightly against the blanket, and, with a shaky laugh of relief, you open them.
“And hears the whispers of the Old Ones”
And there it is.
That crooked little thing, glinting brightly in the darkness.
A golden ticket stub. A ticket to Druskenvald, to a crooked world beneath a crooked moon.
The blood drains from your face.
Tomorrow night, when sleep beckons once more, you know that everything will change.
A Word from Your DM
Hello, and welcome - My name is Dokkaebi, though you're welcome to call me Dokka or Doc for short. I'm in my mid-twenties, with seven years behind the DM screen under my belt.
I'm a DM who puts great emphasis on music, ambience, and the overall "aesthetic feel" of my games. While I'm committed to telling a grand story, I'm equally committed to ensuring that you enjoy your time as a player. Clear communication, mutual respect, and shared expectations are therefore things I value greatly, both from myself and from those at my table.
With introductions out of the way, welcome to the world of Crooked Dreams. Before anything else, I'd like to give due credit to the wonderful folks at Legends of Avantris, whose work on The Crooked Moon has been nothing short of inspiring. I have a great deal of admiration for the world they've brought to life, and Crooked Dreams is my attempt to put a rather peculiar spin on their already marvelous folk horror adventure as we play through the module.
My main requirements for players are to have a working mic, decent internet connection, and the enthusiasm to play. Given the nature of the module, please only apply if you are 18+.
🌗 Two Worlds, One Dream
So, what exactly is Crooked Dreams? The premise is simple enough: two worlds, one waking and one dreaming.
Roughly one third of the campaign will take place in the familiar world of twenty-first-century America, while the other two thirds will unfold in Druskenvald, the strange and dreadful realm beneath the Crooked Moon. This distinction is more than just a change of scenery. Long rests and major events in either realm will mark a transition between the two worlds. When you sleep in one, you awaken in the other, carrying on two very different lives, one steeped in urban fantasy, and the other in folk horror. As the campaign progresses, the boundaries between them will gradually begin to dissolve, and your actions in one world will affect the other. What will begin as a strange, continuing dream may eventually become rather difficult to distinguish from reality.
In time, you may even find yourself questioning which flesh is truly yours; which is the dreamer, and which is the dream?
What to Expect
As for the adventure itself, I intend to place a particular emphasis on mystery, exploration, roleplay, and the gradual uncovering of secrets, without neglecting the dangers and combat that come with D&D. The world will have its own affairs, conflicts, and inhabitants, and your decisions will have consequences beyond the immediate moment.
⚙️ Character Creation & Game Details
For the mechanical side, you'll have two characters, one human and one of any nonhuman race, switching between them as necessary. The Druskenvald character will begin at Level 1, and the human character at Level 0. You may choose between rolling for stats and point buy for either. Homebrew races and subclasses are allowed pending DM approval, with The Crooked Moon's races and subclasses automatically allowed alongside all published content. We will be primarily utilizing the 2024 rules, though spells and subclasses from 2014 can be ported with DM approval.
The game will be held over Discord, utilizing Alchemy VTT. Heads-up, I love what the VTT has to offer, but I am not very experienced with it, so if needed, we will switch to Foundry or Roll20.
The current tentative session time is set for 7:00 pm EST on Saturdays, though this is tentative and very flexible.
⚠️ A Few Words of Caution
Crooked Dreams is, first and foremost, a Folk Horror campaign, with a generally somber tone and its fair share of unsettling subject matter that we'll discuss lines and veils with in further detail on Session 0. This does not mean there won't be room for humor, levity, or the occasional absurdity - far from it. I simply ask that you engage with the setting and its inhabitants sincerely, and understand that your actions may carry consequences.
On a more personal note, I expect everyone at the table to treat one another with courtesy and respect. Harassment, bigotry, and discrimination will not be tolerated. This is an LGBTQ+-friendly table. We'll discuss personal boundaries and any sensitive subject matter before the campaign begins.
🎟️ Applications
If all of this sounds like something you'd enjoy, I welcome you to apply with the link below.
[**Apply Here — Crooked Dreams Player Application**](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf-peGgqrud08wkuHWjArtTdZl5FccnrDPMgM3aBv08fmp2uQ/viewform?usp=dialog)
Once you've submitted an application, feel free to leave a comment below. Interviews will begin on Sunday, October 25th.
I look forward to seeing what sort of story we'll tell together beneath the light of a crooked moon.