Feature Story/Extended ONS Proposal: Dream Banes (Revised)
The following Feature Story writeup was the compilation of my notes, OOCly, which went into the makings of the story. This stuff is around for OOC references and thus carries spoiler warnings if you haven't read the RP logs already.
Main Locales: City homes of Garou, Farmhouse (for any possible Taint detection or Mindspeak scenes outside the city). Bawn/Caern in case of Cleansing rites. Temporary GM room may be dug (though I likely will use Yi's apartment) for GMed dream scenes.
Prelude: After the explosion and meltdown of Hilliard Memorial, the Umbra was tossed around in the area. Things happened. One of them was the release of some banes that were located in the heavily blighted psych ward. While many of them were involuntarily wrenched off their hosts, some of them survived. And then there are the Hypnus, or minor Dream Banes that draw power from their victims and torment them in their sleep. These banes work their insidious powers upon the dreaming, the unsuspecting, and the mentally vulnerable. In the end, all walls that were built are stripped away. All doors that were closed, opened. And the skeletons come dancing out of the closets of shut minds.
Prologue: Chimera's warnings come to a few chosen Garou - friends, likely, of the future victims. The warnings are in the form of dreams, foreshadowing the twisted nightmares and taint to come.
Conflict: Attracted to Garou because of their extremely violent, tragic lives and disturbing dreams, the Hypnus follow the energy to the source. They visit the Garou, and start to take over their dreaming world. It starts, driven by old memories within the mind that become twisted into parodies and convoluted meanings in violence and deprivation. Sleepless nights later, the victims find themselves more and more exhausted, more and more irritable, and prone to fly off the handle or snap at others. Their Willpower is sapped. Their Rage is at higher levels than they are aware of. Sleeping pills don't work. Drugs make it even worse. And with the moon's waning, the dreams get even stronger.
Climax: Tainted Garou are found out to be so. Sense Wyrm reveals Taint readily, but the source is inexplicable by day. Chimera's warnings, if they were heeded, would lend a clue. At night, Garou step sideways into the Umbra and see the banes (literally) of their comrades' sleepless nights. The Hypnus are revealed. Possible battle resulting from stepping into a Really Bad part of the city Umbra.
Loose Ends: Not destroying the banes found and allowing them to flee. Banes will continue to revisit Garou, or choose new Garou, or possibly move to kinfolk. The only 'source' of these banes are the connection to the hospital's psychward, but they freely roam around the city, sticking towards the more depraved sections. There may be more floating around, but those other banes have latched onto humans rather than Garou.
Bane description: Vestigial bat and bird wings, curling horns, quadrapedal with deer-like feet, snake for a tail, and a fox's face with mirrors where the eyes should be. Around it are darkish wisps like smoke and mists. About two and a half feet tall. Quick.
Bane stats:
Rage 3, Willpower 5, Gnosis 7. Power 20.
Charms: Airt Sense, Suggestion, Corrupt Dream.
In addition to the Suggestion and Corrupt Dream charms, a bane may have either the Incite Frenzy or Sap Will charm. As there will only be two of them, one will specialize in one charm, and the other will have another. Innate ability of the bane is to appear in the target's dream as a person or thing from their memories - lost loved ones, phantasms, or even an illusory Nexus Crawler - harmless as it's a dream being, but terrifying nonetheless. Corrupt Dream involves knowing manipulation (GMed scene) of a dream from something good to bad. Banes can also draw out 1 Gnosis per Garou per night and covert it to 5 Power, with a max of 3 Gnosis drawn out from 3 Garou (15 Power). This must be a contested roll spirit's Gnosis to target's Willpower. This additional Power lasts for the night only.
Normally if a bane were going to victimize a Garou, it will first attempt to draw out Gnosis. If it is successful, it will use the extra Power towards its Corrupt Dream charm. If it is not successful, it will attempt to corrupt the target's dream (spending 10 Power.) It will only use Suggestion, Incite Frenzy and Sap Will during battle as defensive manuevers.
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