You might want to check out these for some inspiration. You are talking about an entirely new campaign setting which can be very cumbersome to create without some references to go on.
Or you could play an entirely different system:
I know this isn't exactly what you were looking for but it's the best help I can give you.
Pathfinder doesn't work with fairy tales.
It's brutal, but not brutal enough. ;-)
I can't help but keep thinking about kingdom hearts as I read your post ;)
What about Blue Rose?
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I would recommend you look into Fables for a bit of inspiration, there are tons of volumes, and a few add-on books that give you a good feel of a dark, grim, mature twist on all those classic tales (ironically, all one-time dark, grim, and mature tales, before Disney got a hold of them). I recommend 1001 Nights of Snowfall, it's an excellent short read that really helps set the kind of mood you might be looking for - pocket fairy tale dimensions, a safe haven (named Haven) on the "prime material" plane, and an evil overlord entity conquering lands left and right, its fantastic.
I know you didn't ask for advice on a system, and I'm sure you're using Pathfinder/3.5, but I feel it bears saying: I think the best system to run that kind of game in would be New World of Darkness; everything you'd need in one simple ruleset, with variant rules for each specific creature. I'd look into it at least.
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I'd suggest looking over the 1e adventures "Dungeonland" and "Land Beyond the Magic Mirror".
They're Gray Gygax adaptations of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, with the various characters from the books translated into AD&D terms.
I played them back in day and figured they were worth mentioning.
I would recommend you look into Fables for a bit of inspiration, there are tons of volumes, and a few add-on books that give you a good feel of a dark, grim, mature twist on all those classic tales
As an avid reader and follower of Fables, I can't say enough about them.
Definitely check them out. Your local library probably has them (although if not, you can usually request them from other libraries near by via website).
They are an excellent source of material if you are looking for a "fable" mixup type thing.
Windquake
Pathfinder doesn't work with fairy tales.
It's brutal, but not brutal enough. ;-)
Brutality is all a matter of the way the DM runs his game. If you want to give off the brutal fairy tale vibe, have fewer, more powerful monsters and don't be afraid to describe every last thing that happens to the characters. What this game really needs is some tweaked starting races and monsters, since everything in Pathfinder, as with D&D, comes from Tolkien via Gygax with extra layers of D&D mythos that evolve with every edition. I'm working out some things right now to strip the Tolkien/Gygax stuff off of the Norse races and make them Norse again, then add in some actual fairy races from Celtic folklore. It's a lot of extra work to do this, but if you want your fairy tales to be, well, fairy tales, it's the first thing to do.
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No actual suggestions here, but I've long considered doing this as a sandbox-style campaign. Stick various "fairy tale areas" into a specific campaign area, throw out rumors, flesh out some NPCs, et cetera. Then, let the players go where they want, when they want.
"Did you hear about those two kids that went missing in the woods?"
"Yes. So sad."
"Say, isn't that the same forest that supposedly has an evil witch living in it? Maybe we should go check that out."
"Yeah, but what about the long-haired princess in that tower we passed the other day?"
:)
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I ran a similar 3.5 campaign recently.
There was a "real world" where the main quest was to take place, but to defeat the main BBEG, the players had to quest through a magic portal (think Stargate, but magic instead of Alien Tech). The portal would lead them to other worlds where they had to quest for some powerful magic items to help them defeat the BBEG in the main quest-line.
In the other worlds they encountered: Ulysses (The Odyssey), Robin Hood, Alice in Wonderland, Clint Eastwood (from a Western), Darth Maul and many more characters from Movies and TV shows. Each world was separate and isolated but allowed me to explore different story ideas.
Before I wrote the story for each world, I'd watch the movie(s) for that world (Yeah Netflix!). And then I'd modify the world so that the players wouldn't know what to expect. For example, Robin Hood was an evil thief who reveled in murder and violence. I changed the evil witch into a beautiful and good sorceress. The PCs accidentally offender her ended up fighting/defeating her, but this just added to the intrigue as they had to grip with the moral implications (and how to cover up their mistake).
I pulled elements from the Disney version, Men in Tights, the version with Uma Thurman and the version with Kevin Costner (Robin Hoods on Wikipedia).
I used leveled humanoids for most of my encounters. This allowed me to dynamically adjust the CR as the PCs leveled up (and adjust for any powergaming or new players). e.g. Robin Hood was a ranger & Friar Tuck was a cleric. The Cheshire cat was a Dire lion with Greater Invisibility at will. You probably want to get Herolab or PCGen to help with this sort of thing - I was doing it by hand which was slow as mud.
The more modern worlds (Old West and Star Wars) presented a greater challenge, but I used the 3.5 DMG rules on guns and laser pistols and still incorporated magic and monsters.
It sounds like you have a good start. Though, Sleeping Beauty alone may not be enough story line for more than 1 or 2 levels. So you then have to decide whether to merge multiple fairy tales into one world, or to isolate them somehow. Or expand the core storyline of Sleeping Beauty into a much bigger world.
Sleeping beauty's dreams may allow you to isolate each fairy tale by having the PCs physically enter those dreams. They might have to defeat the demons in her nightmares to help her awaken. Perhaps she is dreaming the story of Cinderella, Snowwhite and many more. Perhaps Cinderella's evil step-sisters are level appropriate evil wizards (can't be sorcerers with that terrible charisma).
Dream powers sounds like a cool idea - I like it. However, creating your own magic system can be very time intensive and difficult to keep it balanced. I recommend keeping it storyline only. For example, have a "cut scene" with dream powers being used, but I wouldn't recommend using it in combat against the PCs (or allowing them to make use of it). If you absolutely must use it in combat, have it only be able to simulate spells of appropriate CR from core (like an alternate form of magic).
Just my thoughts. It sounds like you'll have a fun campaign regardless.