Sleeping Sickness

The Sleeping Sickness is a rare but dire condition in which the victim falls into an unending slumber. The cause is mysterious to all but a select few oneiromancers and scholars on Duskscape phenomena. There is only one confirmed cure, the knowledge of which is even rarer. Occurrences of the disease are more or less evenly spread out across Waking Materia. As force-feeding can keep the victim alive, some carriers of sleeping sickness have been asleep for years, even decades.

Cause

When one sleeps, their essence may cross the Veil into the Duskscape, a surreal land of wandering souls, demonic & fae societies, memories made manifest, as well as its own alien wildlife. Among these wild things are the qlippoth: shadowy, skittering things of pure nightmarestuff. Though typically adorned with all manner of legs, eyes and mandibles, qlippoth are usually harmless, content to frighten their victims and feed on the resulting emotions. There is, however, a rare and dangerous breed of qlippoth most commonly called dreamreivers, known to gorge themselves not only on emotions of fear, but on the very essence of a dreaming soul. When it has done so, the dream essence cannot follow the Silver String back to its body and the person cannot awaken.

Dreamreivers

Dreamreivers are described by scholars as tall, bipedal things with digitigrade legs, scythe-like claws for hands, scorpion-like tails, and curved-elongated heads lined with dozens of eyes. They have multiple-jointed mouths that can open far wider than one would expect, revealing more mouths within. They also seem more intelligent than standard qlippoth and enjoy playing with their victims before consumption.

Cure

The only known cure is to hunt down and eliminate the dreamreiver, and quickly: all consumed souls are released when the thing is annihilated, but the longer they have been a part of a dreamreiver's being, the worse their mental health upon awakening. Symptoms of long periods within a dreamreiver's essence include catatonia, chronic nightmares, insanity and more. The road to recovery can be long and fraught. If the monster is killed quickly, these symptoms are drastically reduced. Unfortunately, as the Veil had only been weakening over the past couple centuries, the tracking and fighting of Duskscape fauna is still a rare skill, and usually fetches a high price...

Type

Supernatural

Frequency
Rare

Symptoms
Immediate: Permanent sleep
On recovery: Various (catatonia, chronic nightmares, insanity, et cetera)

Cause
Soul consumption by a "species" of qlippoth known as dreamreivers

Cure
Elimination of the individual qlippoth