Game Idea: Lucidus Somniator (Loooong Read)

[ConflictedX3]

HI ALL long time no see, before i get started i'll say i've been using this place for years, i've come to admit the truth that i can never work on an RPG maker project for more than 3 consecutive months before getting frustrated, so my previous project "Fallen Feather" is still in construction but i admitted to myself then i'd only being working on it every summer, hopefully i can pick up where i left off and finish the demo.

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But today i was at home watching an anime called "Ghost Hound" that played on Lucid Dreams and while watching it i came up with this idea for a game, i feel that the plot (while expected of an anime or a movie) would be pretty original for a game. The story was built in my head in all of 20 minutes so its pretty bare-bones, in fact i'm going to be making up names and $#@% as i go along. i mainly just wanted everyone's feedback on how this storyline would be received if the game were to be created.
The story borrows elements from Bleach, Ghost Hound, Final Fantasy's love of Latin words, inception, Star Ocean 2: second story & Naruto Shipuuden.

Title: Lucidus Somniator // Lucid Dreamer

Year: no specific date will be disclosed the entire game

Planet: Grandeur

Characters:

Name - Zale Bleek
Age - 23
Role - Co-Main Character
Race - Huma
Bio: A Soldier-Hunter In the real world, Zale makes his living fighting for the Capital's Defense Force against the various Monsters that escape from the forests and  threaten day-to-day living, albeit peaceful times such as these has made monster vanquishing no more routine than a speeding ticket. In his free time Zale spends his days at Lab-based home of his friend since childhood, Nylon, sleeping while being monitored so he may journey into Another Realm known as "REM", The very world that all people journey to when there asleep to experience their dreams. The difference being that Zale has full control of his conscious and Astral projected Body in this alternate reality thanks to an encounter with his now long-time best friend - White Tail, The Guardian of REM, when he was young.

Name - Nylon Hade
Age - 22
Role - Support Character
Race - Huma
Bio: Zale's best Friend in the real world & a prodigy since birth. Being a child genius and quite fragile, Nylon was always picked on as a kid, but always defended by Zale who would come to his aid and beat up the bullies. So it's only Natural  Nylon was more than happy to help Zale when he confided in him about a traumatic experience with sleep paralysis and  his encounter with White Tail. Since then Nylon & Zale both joined the Capital's Defense Force, Zale as a high ranked soldier and Nylon as an ace technician building new weaponry as well as gaining the title of the Eastern Defense Director. When off the clock Nylon uses self designed technology to monitor the world of "REM" through the eyes of Zale's Astral Form, assisting him & white tail all he can on whatever dangerous mission they get themselves into until Zale safely reaches back into his body. Nylon never physically enters "REM" but will use an invention he created called the "Aggressive Hologram System" to create a Virtual version of himself capable of fighting in both "REM" and the real world alongside Zale.

Name - White Tail
Age - ???
Role - Co-Main Character

Race - Vagabond
Bio: an unparalleled warrior in "REM", for as long as any inhabitants of that realm  remember, White Tail has been fighting Spirit Monsters known as "Nightmares" to keep them from completely entering the minds of innocent people experiencing  sleep paralysis to devour their mind and soul, for if their successful they can possess the victim's body and enter the Huma world. 7 years ago, White Tail came across a witch consuming a 16 year old Zale's mind and attempted to execute her, upon success White Tail realized that, unlike any Huma he's come across in several decades, Zale was able to clearly see him and shared unmistakable eye contact moments before snapping out of sleep paralysis. Ever since Zale's been capable of Astral projection and enlisted Nylon's help to safely go back into that world to search and formally thank White Tail. Upon their reunion they became fast friends, especially since White Tail has been on his own for the longest time with noone to talk to. As the years pass the two become a fighting duo to protect the real world from the attack of "Nightmares" as their attempts to possess bodies become increasingly rapid and more persistent for reasons currently unknown.


*PLEASE READ: You probably read the above and thought "well, so far, this sucks" well i hope you read below because the above was all free-styled based on my plot to better explain my idea and the below will explain the story I was talking about originally*

[ConflictedX3]

Notes before story:

Sleep Paralysis - For those who don't know, it's a crazy experience where your body is basically in sleep mode while your mind is awake, so while you have control of your eyes and can think rationally you can't move your body, you can't speak & if you try you'll just make muffled noises, your breathing is controlled as it would be if you were asleep so don't panic about that & the scariest part is most people who experience this see some demonic figure standing nearby if not walking towards them. These go by all types of names but the most popular is "the witch on your back" as some experience a sensation that a creature is literally standing on their back causing your natural instinct to panic to go into high alert, but these creatures aren't real their just a mix of your sleep mind and awake mind projecting distortions in front of you. Some even hear terrible sounds which is usually just your ears hearing a normal sound like a car outside but its amplified and changed in pitched to sound much creepier, Sleep paralysis can happen once in your life time, a few times, or for some, night after night.

people who experience sleep paralysis can take necessary steps to have lucid dreams, and beyond that is astral projection, which can be very dangerous because, if successful, there's a chance you can't return to your body because another spirit possessed your body or other complications.

Nightmares - The demons in my story, I altered how lucid dreams/astral projection/body possession rules work for their purpose, in this story Nightmares are the spirits that can possess your body talked about in the rules of Astral projection. However, "nightmares" don't need you to be astral projecting, instead they need you to be experiencing sleep paralysis and to "eat" your dream completely, thus eating your soul, to be able to control your body.

White Tail - a name given to him by the inhabitants of "REM" for seeing his white tail dance around when he destroys nightmares. He's basically a mix of Sephiroth from Final Fantasy & Naraku from  inuyasha. While the Sephiroth inspiration will come later, The Naraku inspiration would be that White Tail himself is a culmination of several Nightmares who weren't strong enough to possess Huma's on their own because stronger nightmares would come along and steal their prey, thus they came together and decided on fusing into one for the sake of becoming stronger. Upon birth, White Tail focused on fighting other Nightmares to test and prove that he was the strongest by ambushing them before they could eat Huma people's dreams. In the process of doing so, White Tail started to grow sympathy for the defenseless people. That sympathy then turned into an appreciation for Huma's and the Huma world after he met a young girl who, like Zale, astral projected herself into "REM" and befriended him decades before Zale was born, she was his first friend and visited him for years until she finally passed of old age, since then White Tail has been lonelier than ever and took it upon himself to be the official protector of the Huma who fall into sleep paralysis to assist more people like that girl that warmed his heart.

REM - in my story, "REM Sleep" isn't a territory where you dream and you wake up with memory of the dream, it's the literal act of sleeping and once you begin to dream you reach the world of "REM" thus REM-Sleep.  It's the only way people know how to reach REM and thus REM was always seen as more of a folklore place to society. Only special people like Zale can reach the world of "REM" in full consciousness.

[ConflictedX3]

LIKE AN IDIOT I Lost the Basic beginnings, I had written out from too much copying and pasting and I don't remember it all -_______________- so I'll try to salvage that here.


BEGINNING OF GAME STORY - INTRODUCTION
- Zale is a High Ranked Soldier in the Eastern Region of Granduer who only gets sent on Special missions for the CDF (Capital Defense Force) for his skill level and only receives assistance from  Nylon as no other soldier can keep up. The CDF also find him Difficuly to deal with and thus issue missions to him Through Nylon.

- The Capital Defense Force is organized military unit designed to maintain peace and protect civilians from Monster attacks and times of war, all under the funding and jurisdiction of The Metropolis known as "Capital"

- Along with Zale, Nylon was hired into the CDF but his genius earned him the rank of Lead Technician in Weaponry as well as the Eastern Defense Director, receiving mission schematics and delegated them to soldiers under his decree.

- Monster attacks have been at an all-time low and the amount of peace leaves society open to focus on the political shift that's about to occur as the next World Leader has been elected in to power for a term of 10 years, and along with her (the new world leader is a woman, a black woman) a new cabinet of Defense Directors have been elected, one of them being Derek Reynolds, the new Eastern Defense Director to take over for Nylon.

- Nylon, who received a high position at a young age, has no problem with early retirement as his work, as well as Zale's (who's also retiring) achievements have left the two with funds to be financially stable for the rest of their lives. Included with immunity to continue practicing their crafts as they please within reason and have access to certain CDF areas, they're actually anxious for their upcoming retirement so they may focus more on helping White Tail in REM, .

- Zale originally joined the CDF to get stronger so he could better assist White Tail in REM, but as his rank grew it was hard for him to stay in REM and fight, While the two are a very formidable duo there's far too many demon attacks on people experiencing sleep paralysis at once for them to save everyone, but with Zale's retirement he'll be able to spend longer amounts of time there to be of more use.

- When Nightmares successfully eat the mind & soul of someone experiencing sleep paralysis, they take over the victims body and thanks to nylon's research he's learned that the profile of those people who aren't saved turn into overnight classic cases of "Innocent Boy/Girl turned Mass Murderer, Killer, Rapist, Psychopath, Pedophile Etc." in the real world that the CDF have to vanquish in the same manner as Monsters. This especially upsets Zale because, almost being a victim himself at 16, he knows he could have ended up the same way.

- Once retired, the CDF has the ability to re-enlist them for any work if needed.

- The new Eastern Defense Director, Derek Reynolds, (or Mr. Reynolds) is a war vet and has a warped view on life with focus on military strength in the battlefield. He also has a particular obsession with the world of REM.

[ConflictedX3]

THE GAME WOULD TAKE 3 CHAPTERS, I will sum each up in 3 simple spoilerific sections

CHAPTER 1: POLITICAL SHIFT (weight of the game; 50%)
Mr. Reynolds Came across Nylon's research on the world of REM when initially moving into the Department, Reynolds has been searching for years of a way to attain access to REM since his son died. His son was a soldier in training that Reynolds, a general back then, was overseeing along with his platoon and during a day of rest, Reynold's son woke up from an elongated sleep, possessed by a disturbingly indiscrete and vengeful spirit that slaughtered the entire training platoon, war seasoned soldiers and even tamed monsters that were released on Reynold's hesitant command. It took an energy based bullet created by Nylon, who was just starting out in the CDF back then as well, to put the soldier down. Reynolds never forgot that day and distinctly remembers the spirit that was possessing his son joyfully shouting that he made it out of REM & into the Huma world and how much fun he would have killing everyone. While people took it for Trauma, Reynolds kept it to himself that his oddly-increased work ethic was based on how excited he was seeing such an impressively strong creature with his own eyes and felt pride that his son was chosen to receive such power and has ever since been looking for a way to bring more of that power into the world of Grandeur & tame it for military use. With Nylon's stolen notes he was able to produce a makeshift portal that would bring nightmares into Grandeur for Reynolds studying pleasures, catching wind of this Nylon alerted Zale who thwarted every attempt Reynolds made to get the materials needed, still the portal was made so Zale jumped into REM to warn White tail, White tail quickly formed a plan:

White Tail knew REM was one world and that Grandeur was another, but for Zale to travel back and forth there must be a tunnel he travels through subconsciously. So with Nylon's help White tail road on the coat tails of Zale's spirit to a border between REM & Granduer, thus making it possible for White Tail to physically face and fight Reynolds and help Zale stop him before the portal released hundreds of nightmares, together the defeated Reynolds who died from willingly being spirit possessed. With little time left, White Tail had to quickly slip back into REM as sitting on that boarder was putting a life-threatening strain on Zale's Soul.

CHAPTER 2: REM RELEASE (weight of the game: 25%)

With Reynolds stopped, Nylon received his old job for a second term, none knowing of white tail's assistance, Zale & nylon alone received credit for stopping Reynolds plans of what was considered to be "bio-warfare" as the CDF couldn't fully grasp the situation. Zale goes to White Tail who's acting strangely, he tells Zale the story of the first Huma who he came in contact with. The kind girl who grew up and old wirh him until she finally past away, and how he's been lonely all this time before Zale came along. White tail begins to believe that he no longer desires to stay in REM and wants to travel to Grandeur and continue to protect the Huma in their world. He realized this during they're fight against Reynolds as he's never been so close to the Huma world before. Zale chooses to help White Tail figure a safe way out but Nylon grows concerned. After intense research Nylon has reason to believe that if WhiteTail leaves REM, being as powerful as he is, it will cause a major influx in balance, REM itself will literally shatter in the process and casualties will mount to the millions mark from several side effects. While at first Zale believes that can't be possible he starts to see the truth in nylons words when White tail begins experiments with touching on the tunnel created by people experiencing sleep paralysis and those people being negatively affected with overnight sicknesses and heightened nerves.
When Zale decides to confront White Tail its almost too late as White tail reaches the final stage of his escape plan, tying together the tunnels of several hundred people experiencing sleep paralysis. Zale is prompted by Nylon to stop White Tail by any means, Nylon even uses his "Aggressive Hologram System" to create a 3-Dimensional warrior version of himself to help Zale fight white tail because if he doesn't stop him the following can and will occur:

- Anyone who's asleep while White tail rides the tunnel out of REM into Granduer, will be trapped In a coma

- those who are experiencing sleep paralysis will have their minds witness the real world and REM at once, causing mental breaks and insanity

- REM will shatter, Dreams will be impossible for anyone who sleeps, only darkness from the inside of their eyelids will remain.

- Much more unforeseen damage

Even with this on the table Zale faces White Tail....and loses due to lack of conviction to fight his friend. White Tail once again tells his story of infinite loneliness and is even more hurt by the fact that his closest friends would deny him the chance of reaching the real world after all they've been through. He denounces them & his name of "White Tail" and tells them that from now on he is to be known as "Despair" until he can find the companionship he's been longing for in the real world.

[ConflictedX3]

CHAPTER 3: HOMECOMING (weight of the game: 25%)

A year has gone by, all of Nylon's predictions have come to pass, tens of thousands of  people sleeping on that faithful day have fallen into a coma, countless died in their sleep and the death toll continues to increase with people who had sleep paralysis that night going insane and committing murders & suicides. On top of that, Nightmares have managed to escape inbetween the influx that White Tail/Despair created upon his arrival to Grandeur.

the world does what it can to survive in such times, the CDF fight to the best of their abilities but don't have the man power to survive much longer, Nylon & Zale have gone into hiding, preparing themselves. Zale knows "Despair" better than anyone, and knows that on the day he left to Grandeur that he would come back to where it all started: Capital. Although they haven't seen "Despair" in a year, the news makes it obvious where he's been, being that his existence itself causes natural disasters, wherever volcano's erupt unexpectedly, earthquakes become frequent, hurricanes mass & Nightmares gather is most likely the place Despair was last, and after a year of following the patterns, Nylon could assess that Despair, now disguised in a Huma form, would be arriving in a month's time.

[*THIS WOULD BE THE STAR OCEAN PORTION OF THE GAME: remember when Claude and the members where getting ready to fight the 12 gods and the game gave you a in-game level boost of about 10 levels and you have the option to stay in the coliseum and fight more monsters to level more? That's what would happen here, Zale would get a 10 level boost and Nylon would give the option to keep training until you feel ready.*] 

Nylon mentions how Zale has been using drugs to cause insomnia for the last year, sleeping for no more than 1 hour a day, and while his over abundance of sleep for the last 7 years has made it manageable, the amount of sleep depravation will get to him sooner or later. Unwearied, Zale desires nothing more than to make up for his failure to stop Despair and do something about it this time as a way to repent for the world that's now in turmoil, although Nylon is well aware that what Zale wants most is his friend back.

After calamities grow larger in Capital, Zale & Nylon know Despair isn't far away, and they decide to go to the most appropriate place to find him:  the area they fought and stopped Reynolds together. After fighting several nightmares on the way to the rendezvous point, Despair, appearing as a Huma in a cloaked robe greets Zale & Nylon, after a brief exchange Despair admits this is not what he wanted, and that the world he was once so eager to travel is in shambles due to his mistakes as the influx destroyed every place he visited this past year, but he's come too far to turn back with REM now gone and wishes to rebuild the world together with Zale again.

Zale painfully refuses knowing that Despair's mere existence is denying Grandeur itself and too much more of this will cause even more irreversible damage. Feeling denied once again, Despair prompts Zale and Nylon to meet him at a specific location for a final showdown, the fight deciding who Grandeur desires to be its savior:

Zale, the Huma who wishes to salvage whats left of the world, killing his best friend in the process and starting a long road to recovery
or

Despair, who wishes to rebuild the world fresh and return to being seen as a savior and guardian, although the casualties will continue to mount in the process until some sort of solution for the influx can be found.....


**THAT'S IT, I haven't decided who would win the fight, I wanted it to be a shocker but not too naruto-ish with like a double kill or something, I already got the idea of naming him "Despair" from the whole "Pain" thing

I just wanted a story that wasn't all "bad guy wants to take over the world-ish", and I didn't want the player to hate the villain at all, he takes the Sephiroth role in basically being a hero turned mightiest villain but for varying different reasons and like I said the idea just popped in my head, I fleshed it out this much just during the typing.  I also wanted the weight of the world to be on the protagonist's shoulders and he still fails because that never happens in games, usually when they fail its something salvageable, I wanted it to be world crushing failure.

Also the game would have 2 phases, you'd have missions where you would fight nightmares in the world of REM alongside a hologram Nylon & White tail, as well as against normal monsters in the world of grandeur with the assist of hologram Nylon.

Character inspiration:
Zale - Zack (FF7)
Nylon - (I watched half of the 1st episode of stein's gate last night, so after coming up with this story this morning I decided to have Nylon be loosely based off him as fragile scientist)
Reynolds - (EVERY CRAZY MOFO IN EVERY ANIME THAT WANNA RELEASE SOMETHING BAD, but lets say the 1-eyed scientist from Guilty Crown for good measure)
White Tail/Despair - Sephiroth (FF7), Naraku (inuyasha), Pain (Naruto)
!!!! **BUT PLEASE, all feedback is WELCOME, should this become a real project, what should be changed, what stands out, should I turn this into a real story, should I add more characters, what do you think would be a nice ending, feel free to ask questions etc!** !!!!!

(thank you for all your time!)

[Seltzer Cole]

Sounds interesting, but not my cup of tea. Sounds like a story driven game also. Good luck with it.