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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Davies" data-source="post: 8574845" data-attributes="member: 30538">The Dreamfiend<img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/My-First-Gallery/i-bVrLf5j/0/9c75e009/S/ezgif-5-8e0a920138-S.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />In the late 1960s, a man named Garry Potter worked as a janitor at the Willow Point school in the small town of Summerland, New York. When the town suffered a rash of child disappearances in 1968, Potter was implicated as a suspect and arrested for the crimes, but released on his own recognizance due to a lack of evidence. Owing to a rumor that the charges against Potter had only been dropped due to a legal technicality, a group of concerned parents took up arms against Potter and attacked him at his workplace. In the ensuing melee, Potter was set on fire and burned to death. None of the vigilantes would admit who was responsible for this, and in the end no one was ever convicted for Garry Potter's death. To most, his guilt was proved when clothes belonging to some of the missing children were found buried in the backyard of his home, and the disappearances stopped after his death. For a while, at least.A decade later, a reporter (already somewhat famous for having covered the aftermath of a series of murders in Warren County, New Jersey) paid a visit to Summerland to chronicle the town's unusually high rate of suicide, homicide, and disappearance, which had if anything increased after the death of Garry Potter. The alleged killer had become a creature of local folklore, even featuring in songs sung by children. The reporter speculated that the ghost of Potter was haunting the town, either metaphorically or literally. This speculation eventually gave birth to a series of movies that portrayed Garry Potter as a malevolent ghost that haunted the teenagers of Summerland and other parts.But what the reporter never discovered was that he was not the first person to investigate Summerland. Just what drew occultist Leonard Valentine, years from becoming the third Blakestone, to this town in 1975 remains unclear, but he was better equipped both to get to the bottom of things and to ensure that no subsequent inquiry would be able to learn the truth. What he discovered disgusted and angered him. Not only had Garry Potter been innocent of the crimes of which he was accused, but the police officer who had actually been responsible for the disappearances (with the children sold into slavery across the country) had started the rumor about the "legal technicality", and then covered it up by planting the clothes in the home of the dead man.It was not possible to punish the worst offender in this case -- the officer had died of a heart attack in the interval -- but Valentine felt a revulsion for the entire community for the willful blindness and prejudice that had led to the tragedy. Using magic he did not fully understand, he tore a piece of his own psyche away from the rest and transformed it into a phantasmal entity that could afflict the dreams of the people of Summerland. It was his expressed intention that it would embody the verses of one of the songs about Garry Potter, and that Summerland would, indeed, never sleep again. Having completed his work, Leonard Valentine left Summerland and never looked back.The monster that he made, the Dreamfiend, could not actually kill people in their dreams, unlike the fictional character inspired by all this. But the manipulations of the dreams that it inflicted on their victims left them without restful sleep and could even put them into a cataleptic state. When the latter happened, the monster would materialize and finish off the helpless victims, usually by smothering them, before returning to a phantom state. On rare occasions, the demon would materialize to attack a conscious (but usually weakened) target. While a dangerous combatant, and hard to hurt, the demon was (and still is) most vulnerable in these instances. But whatever is done to it, it always reforms within a week.Through the rest of the seventies and the eighties that followed, the Dreamfiend haunted the nights of Summerland, slowly accumulating power from those it fed upon. A handful of occultists and would-be heroes who discovered its activities attempted to prevent them, but usually just became its prey. By 1991, it had gained enough that it shattered the psychic fetters that bound it to Summerland, allowing it to seek victims across the country. It settled for a time in Snoqualmie, Washington, before a group of eccentric FBI agents managed to exorcise it in 1996. More recently, the Dreamfiend has haunted the town of Orono, Maine, preying upon the students at the University there. The authorities in Orono have begun to realize that there is a problem, but have yet to figure out what steps need to be taken to address it, and will likely spend many sleepless nights before they do. If they're lucky.Dreamfiend -- PL 10Abilities:STR 4 | STA - | AGL 2 | DEX 1 | FGT 4 | INT 3 | AWE 5 | PRE 3Powers: Born and Reborn From Dreams: Immortality 2 (1 week); Protection 8; Regeneration 1 (natural healing) - 13 pointsDreamspeech: Mental Communication 1, Limited to sleeping targets - 4 pointsNightmare: Perception Range Cumulative Affliction 10 (Resisted by Will; Fatigued, Exhausted, Incapacitated), Limited to sleeping targets, Subtle 2 - 32 pointsPhantasm: Linked Concealment 10, Materializing; Flight 8 (500 MPH), Distracting; Immunity 30 (Fortitude saves); Linked Insubstantial 4, Materializing - 78 pointsAdvantages: Assessment, Daze (Intimidation), Improved Critical 2 (unarmed), Improved Initiative.Skills: Deception 10 (+13), Insight 8 (+13), Intimidation 10 (+13).Offense: Initiative +6Unarmed +4 (Close Damage 4, Crit 18-20)Dream Mastery -- (Perception Affliction 10)Defense: Dodge 6, Parry 6, Fortitude -, Toughness 8, Will 9.Totals: Abilities 34 + Powers 127 + Advantages 5 + Skills 14 + Defenses 10 = 190 pointsOffensive PL: 10Defensive PL: 7Resistance PL: 9Skill PL: 8Complications:Sadism--Motivation. Obviously Inhuman.Note: Nightmare is a fear effect, so Fearless improves resistance checks against it.</blockquote>

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