The Drimrada (same spelling for both singular and plural) are malevolent aberrations, non-corporeal beings that feed off of the life energy spilled from dreams. Ravenous creatures they are cunning, deceitful, and never able to satisfy the pit inside. They are not intelligent to the point of sentience but are not stupid and can be formidable and adaptive at maintaining their feeding grounds.
Behavior
The Drimrada is always starving, it can never be satisfied for long. They are ravenous and delight in decedent prolonged feedings with as many victims as possible under the same roof. Attempting to keep sleeper not only asleep but to gather as many sleepers as possible in a single structure. The creature will attempt to use reality perceptual manipulation to force people to stay beyond their desire to leave and common sense. It prefers to feed on the most innocent as they are easier to fool into a deeper and more restful sleeps
Social
Drimrada tend to be loners and will rarely group together, though they will not fight. Most often the weaker Drimrada will just leave where feeding is already established to seek its own. Since each one takes on some of the characteristics of where it is created they will take on some of the personality aspects of the victims whose dreams spawn the creature.
Servants to Demons
It is possible for a demon to create or capture a Drimrada that has been banished and return it to the material plane. It is rare though, usually a demon capable of doing so would have other means to get what it wants from humans. That being said there are historical records which suggest this has happened before.
Origins
A Drimrada is created from an intense and sustained disruption in the Aether around a living being while it sleeps. For the creature to form the disturbance must be sustained over many nights and the person's dreams must be heavily disturbed. This disruption in the Aether during sleep over time causes the energy in the region to take on characteristics of the person's deepest fears. Still this is not enough to create a Drimrada, the disrupted and now disturbed energy requires a corrupting influence in order to break free of the confines of the person / location it was created it. Only then does the Drimrada take form and grow into an entity unto itself.
Reproduction
Unlike many aberrations the Drimrada can actually reproduce as it can cause both the intense disruption in Aether as well as the corruption to occur if it feeds enough energy at once.
Abilities
- Dream Stealing
- The creature feeds off of the life energy given off in dreams, especially pleasant and restful sleep where the body rejuvenates itself. It consumes the dreams of its victims.
- Dream Invading
- The creature is able to manifest as a physical form inside the dreams of its victims. It most often does this to promote a peaceful sleep to feed off of in prolonged feedings.
- Perceptual Distortion
- While it is unable to physically distort reality in any real way it distorts perception to an extreme degree. The creature can cause a waking dream state where the real world is viewed and believed to be a dream. It can also produce hallucinations and bend the perception of a person through memory manipulation and the alteration of senses.
- Dream Cage
- When a sleeper is being fed off of, the Drimrada can effectively keep the person asleep unless some intense physical harm comes to the body while it is sleeping. While using this ability the victim cannot be woken by normal means such as shaking or even being slapped. It takes a significant blow, pain, or even pharmaceuticals to wake the victim from this state.
- Haunting
- When established in a location it can become partially joined with a site or structure. This allows it to visit multiple rooms / sleepers at the same time. Doing this the Drimrada will sometimes feed on entire families at once, orphanages, hotels, apartments, and other structures. While not a true haunting it is often mistaken for one.
Anatomy of Feeding
Using the abilities it has the Drimrada will seek to induce a very deep dream state which is difficult to wake up from. Once a victim is in this state it will enter the dream and begin to shape it as to produce something peaceful and lovely, as it desires to feed from the life affirming energy present as the body rejuvenates. While the Drimrada can cause nightmares that is not the goal. The creature would far prefer to be able to feed indefinitely.
The act of feeding sapps the life energy from the body and distorts the dreaming to reflect the danger present. As the sleeper is in a deep dream state they cannot easily wake. The mind and body will react by producing nightmares in an attempt to wake up. The nightmares get more intense as the Drimrada continues to feed in an alternating cycle of inducing calm and restful sleep before it feeds and the dreamer is plunged into a world of fear and nightmares as the mind attempts to wake.
Psychological Impact
Victims of the Drimrada see their mental health deteriorate rapidly, depending on the frequency of the feedings and strength of the creature. Without restful sleep the body finds it difficult to function normally and victims suffer effects similar to a lack of REM sleep. Irritability, difficult concentrating, and eventually hallucinations and insanity. The end result of prolonged exposure to a Drimrada is death, usually by suicide.
Banishment
A Drimrada cannot be killed but it may be banished. They are deeply tied to the material plane with connections to the Ocean of Dreams. They can be banished to the Dark Aether or the Severed Realm. They cannot actually starve to death but if their connection to the Ocean of Dreams is severed they will become significantly weakened. Once weakened they can be banished using conventional magic. If they are not banished they can still feed but will be significantly weakened for a very long time, eventually they will reestablish their connection to the Ocean of Dreams from whatever plane they are bound to. The best way to overcome a Drimrada is to play into its avarice somehow, sever its connection to the Ocean of Dreams and banish it from the material plane. The Drimrada are not capable of planar travel without help.