At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.
All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do--
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.
The strangest things are there for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the land of Nod.
Try as I like to find the way,
I never can get back by day,
Nor can remember plain and clear
The curious music that I hear.
-Robert Louis Stevenson
In the Hebrew version of Genesis, there speaks of a Land of Nod. Cain, the first murderer, was sentenced to wander forever, immortal, cursed, in this Land. Nod, in Hebrew, means "To wander". And millennia later, this place, shrouded in secrecy and uncertainty, has been lost to the shrouds of myth.
All that remains is a single poem, whispered lullabies, and the screams of the sleeping. What became of the First Murderer, and whose dreams does he walk still?
A force is gathering, at the edges of our consciousness. In worlds beyond our imagination, nightmares brew. Cain has grown tired of his immaterial prison. He seeks to walk the Earth again.
It is time to dream deeper than you have ever dreamed. Time to take control of the world that lies in our minds. Time to track the demonic Cain to the heart of his domain. Before it is too late.
Close your eyes, pretty child, and I will show you... the Land of Nod.
This roleplay takes place in modern day times. Various people are suffering more and more nightmares, and some people are seeing strange doorways in their dreams that lead to a strange, quiet and foggy world beyond. Various groups around the world begin to meet in order to discuss the strange events, religious sects, scientists, "magic" practitioners, excitable school children, psychologists, the lot.
Then the comas start happening. People go to sleep, but they don't wake up. As the world's population begins to fall into this state, it is clear something must be done. Old religious books are dragged up from basements of museums. And the quest is given to a rag tag bunch of people from various ages, backgrounds, whatever.
Armed with a few special spells, you and your companions must give yourself to the lure of sleep, only to wake up in a world beyond your imagining...
Who is Cain? What does he seek to achieve? How can he be stopped? And why is his eternal prison so fiercely embedded in the Human Mind?
Anyone interested?