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I posted something like this back on the 1e forums but it never got much attention. Anyways, I figured it would be good to make a bunch of sample nightmares, so if someone casts the nightmare spell the DM doesn't have to make up one on the fly. Anyway, here's an oldie but a goodie:
1. The target dreams they are giving a speech, doing a performance, etc before a crowd. They suddenly realize they are stark naked. As soon as they notice this, the entire crowd starts laughing at them.
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Here are some real nightmares that I have had.
2. The target dreams that they are trying to warn their loved ones from some impending doom, such as an erupting volcano, and get them out of the danger zone. However, they are too filled with enui or disbelief to be the least bit cooperative, and saving them from themselves proves to be all but impossible. In the meantime, the coming doom grows ever closer, ever larger, ever more real.
3. The target dreams that, for some inexplicable reason wholly unknown to them, they dream of violently murdering somebody very dear to them (such as a parent, spouse, sibling, or best friend). This, dark, murderous version of themselves is wholly alien in personality and temperament, save that it is unmistakably the dreamer--or what they have the potential to become.
4. Zombies. Always with the endless zombies...
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5. The target dreams the rest of the party is keeping secrets or hiding treasure from them.
6. The target dreams the last monster they killed or helped kill was not a monster, after all. They dream someone has cast an illusion no someone they know.
7. The target dreams of something called the internet and realizes they posted something there that everyone took the wrong way.
8. The target dreams the road or path they are traveling on only leads to their death.
9 The target dreams see themself getting killed in horrific detail, when they wake from the nightmare they have no physical wounds but do have the wounded 1 condition as if they had really died. (this would be a variation of the Critical Failure results listing in the spell.)
10. Failing a saving throw makes the target awakens fatigued, use the chase cards to make a seemingly endless chase they just never escape. Every time they start to get ahead in the chase whatever is following them grows bigger or if a group of creatures the number of creatures multiplies.
11. The target is a wizard, dreams they must learn a spell in a book they are reading, if they can't something very bad will happen to the world. They keep reading page after page, but the book never seems to end. they light more candles to keep reading into the night. The candles burn down and they light more, again and again, until they see the melted wax is covering the entire floor of the chamber. They look into a mirror as see themselves looking extremely old and shriveled up, looking outside the window they see the world they were trying to save in ruins.
12. The target is a Druid dreaming they are running from a forest fire, but where ever they go the fire follows. They start to realize the more they run the more forest will be destroyed. So they start to look for a lake to run the fire into, to prevent more forest from burning. they awake without ever find a lake, and everything they can see is in ashes.
Starts to wonder if there's a happy version of this spell....
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This is based on a real nightmare i had :
13 : The target discover that every social contact does not remember it. It has no legal existence.
Its home and hearth are gone or belonging to someone else.
And then, assassins and aeon begin to try to kill it, as the target is seen as an anomaly.
My nightmare was concluded by the discovery that it was a cruel prank by a trashy real tv show, but for the nightmare spell, no such niceties.
15: The character exits from the most fancy and prestigious emporium. His armor is shiny and his sword bears the most powerful runes that have even been created... He walks downstreet swagging, until a group of rusty mae and rust monsters appears, surrounding him... they then swarm on the character, who tries to defend himself the best he can, but the corrosive abilities of the enemy quickly destroy everything he has.
What is "rusty mae"?
16
You are running, scrambling, fleeing, across an open meadow. The grass, the ground, even the sky are all calling out for you to run, run faster, faster! You look around wildly, trying to see what you are fleeing from but there is nothing but the field, the wind, and a sky so empty even the sun is missing.
Then, with a sickening crunch, the calls to flee turn to mourning as the sky cracks like a pane of glass. The cracks spread, reaching the horizon, then racing across the ground. All about you pieces of the sky rain down and the ground falls apart, dropping into an empty blackness.
Soon all that is left is a single patch of grass you cling desperately to. The grass laments that you could not run fast enough, that it is over, that all has come to naught. With that, it bids you adeu and falls into that endless void, leaving you to fall alone, screaming, into the abyss.
17 Now this one is a bit more intense, so I am going to spoiler this one. It is also better suited for a noble or similar character.
You are sitting at your family's long dinner table, opposite your father. He is halfway done with eating his salad, but you have yet to touch yours. You grab a fork, but when you stab at the salad, the fork goes limp and mushy in your hand.
Whack! Someone whips your back and calls out in a matriarchal voice, "Wrong fork!" You stifle a cry from the pain, not wanting to interrupt your father's meal. You look to the table and see a pile of identical forks. You grab one, hoping it is correct, and stab the salad again.
Whack! "Wrong fork!" You look about wildly and see all around you are piles of forks, towering to the ceiling a mile in the air, spreading out around you like waves on the ocean. You scramble through them, grabbing fork after fork, looking for the right one. WHACK WHACK WHACK, each fork you touch as you climb gets you a strike, but you can't scream for your father's sake.
Suddenly a massive, ring-laden hand comes through and wipes all the forks away. "ENOUGH! If you can't find the right fork you will eat with your hands!" You feel your hands stiffen, and you look down to see your fingers have grown long, metallic, and sharp. The hand puts you back in your seat and demands "Now EAT."
You scoop the leaves into your mouth, but as you try to chew, your teeth soften and squish. "Can't even eat right! What a disgrace!" One of your teeth comes loose, and you spit it into your hands.
It squirms, then grows legs and scurries off. An endless stream of teeth begin to flow from your mouth, fleeing your inadequacies. They stream across the table, across your father's now empty plate, and he looks up at you. His face contorts in horror, and he runs from the table.
18. You want to join up your party and get the way wrong, now you are alone
19. You get kicked out of your party because you are really bad at something irrelevant (maths)
to share something from my dreams :P
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Terribly mundane dreams;
20. You dream that a shiny thing belongs to you and that a party member has stolen it from you. The item in the dream is a treasure item that the other party member claimed (but you kind of wanted), but is obviously 'theirs' now and was never yours. You clearly have unresolved feelings about this distribution of loot...
21. You dream of a violent disagreement, you have no idea over what, between yourself and an ally with whom you had some sort of contentious interaction the previous day, ending with the other person stabbing or choking you (even if it would make more sense for them to burn you with a fireball or something...). You wake with a start, and find it difficult to trust that person for the rest of the day, even if they are obviously not to blame for your dream.
22. You are in your childhood home and try to get to where your caregivers kept the food for the household, but when you open the door to the pantry/kitchen/whatever, you are in a tavern, and when you try to order a meal or drink, the servers all ignore you, and when you try to go back into the food prep area, you find yourself in a keep, the sounds of a feast happening in a nearby hall that you walk and walk through various corridors but can't seem to get to. You wake up hungry.
For a "mundane but disturbing" one
23. You are alone eating something delicious. You suddenly notice something gross/disturbing in it (poop, blood, eyeballs, maggots, or whatever). You waken sickened 1 (fort DC same as the initial nightmare DC) or 2 on a critical failure, rather than drained.