Back Alleys of the Mad City

[Arion]

You hadn't slept for days.
Maybe it was watching as your daughter was kidnapped by the monster under the bed.
Maybe it was seeing doors and windows and buildings where they shouldn't be.
Maybe it was just the caffeine pills you were eating like tic-tacs to keep from falling asleep.
Whatever the cause, you couldn't sleep...

And then something clicked.  And you, for the first time in your life, became Awake.

You can see the Nightmares now, stalking the Mad City that somehow overlaps the real one... or maybe the Mad City is the real one...
You've run from the children made of old newspaper and torn up magazines... Dodged the Ladies in Hating and Officer Tock... Stepped through doorways that open into the Bizarre Bazaar...

You don't know what's happening, or why.  All you know is that if you ever fall asleep the Nightmares are going to get you; maybe they'll kill you, or maybe you'll become one of them.  Maybe you'll go mad yourself.  Maybe you'll become a Resident of the City.  Or maybe, just maybe, you'll find a way to Sleep again, where the Nightmares can't get you...

So, hello out there.  I'm looking for a partner to try a game set in the Mad City of Evilhat Production's game Don't Rest Your Head.  Think of the setting as a cross between Dark City and Neverwhere, only far darker and more disturbing.  Time periods and styles within the city vary with each location and person and range from the modern to things from 150 years ago.  For it I'd like to use some elements from the tabletop game, such as the questionnaire, but I've always found that free-form games flow the best.  Also would like to do this as more of a collaborative storytelling rather than the traditional player-and-gamemaster style play.

A partner would be taking on the role of one of the Awake, those who through sleep-deprivation are able to see and interact with the Mad City.  The Awake have powers that can bend and even break the rules of reality, but at a cost: they might become so exhausted they fall asleep, or they might slowly go insane.  Fall asleep and the nightmares might get the character; go insane and the character might become one of the Nightmares themselves.  Depending on how we plan this out, I might also create an Awakened or may keep to the Nightmares and Locals (locals are the normal people who have somehow gotten trapped within the Mad City and who have become permanent fixtures of it, such as a plane full of passengers half-embedded in a building, all alive and breathing but unable to leave because the captain never turned off the 'Fasten your Seatbelts' sign).

The game itself already establishes some of the features and creatures of the Mad City (Officer Tock, the Paperboys, Mistress When and her Ladies in Hating, the Skyfort, the Wax King), and I plan on creating more (with ideas such as Tattercat, the Necropolis, and the Holy-Roller floating around).  Input on and development of the places and characters would be helpful and appreciated.

So, anyone out there, please reply here or PM me.  I'm looking primarily for female partners, but may accept a male partner for this.  Also, if you're interested and could please direct me to a sample of your writing, I'd appreciate it (I will, of course, provide one of mine if requested).  If this goes well, or if there's enough interest, I might try to start this as a group RP also.

Thanks for stopping by.  I'll see you on the flip side...