The Scars of War

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Nathan
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The Scars of War

Post by Nathan »

After nearly a century of conventional war the land of Merveilles had been devastated. The lush coastal views of Amoursland were scorched, the striking mountain ranges of Daguesland had crumbled, the picturesque valleys and rivers of Rubisland were dried up, and the green plains of Matraquesland were brown and infertile.

The land itself wept.

Alone, the physical destruction was unbearable, but combined with the Nuns' Plague it was incomprehensible. The Houses, at first deciding to keep the Plague contained in Daguesland, soon recognized the potential for seizing power and over the course of the war strategically infected the other Houselands with the Plague using coerced nuns. The Convent originally responsible for unleashing the Plague went deep underground, using terrorism and guerrilla tactics.

The entire country was soon trapped in a waking nightmare. Sleep suddenly became too risky, for fear of falling prey to your dreams. Even in isolated towns where the Plague had not spread the Wonderscape was shattered, twisted and rotting according to Receptives living there. To combat sleep deprivation, physicians were sent to these safe zones in order to Wonder creative solutions to allow for sleep without the danger of being killed by one's own dream. Each House's physician came up with equally genius devices. The Matraques, as always, took the direct approach and used a device that blocked all active Wondering while asleep. Soon, their minds were essentially trained to not dream. As a result, the Matraques didn't need these devises anymore, but they never dreamed again. The last 3 generations of Matraques have no idea or conception of what dreaming is.

The Rubis characteristically threw money at the problem. In the early days of the Plague they would hire people to stand watch while they slept, in order to protect the sleeper from anything Wondered. Soon, this practice was organized and regulated as the Dream Guard. The Guards were professionally trained and bound by law to defend their sleeper no matter the cost, even at the expense of their own life. Wealthy people kept Guards on staff, along with chefs and chauffeurs. Guards were rented on a nightly basis by middle and lower class people. The poorest of all were left dependent on each other to stand guard. This posed a problem as unguarded homeless sleepers were sometimes only injured by their dreams, and the Wondered monster would then be loose, unable to be dismissed is the sleeper was comatose or otherwise incapacitated. The common solution to this was to kill the sleeper, thereby forcibly dismissing the dangerous Wonders.

The Dagues and Amours, who bore the brunt of the Plague and had less time to develop defenses merely used their Receptives to guide them to pockets of healthy Wonderscape. Both Houses became semi-nomadic during this time, as terrorist nuns would find these healthy pockets and infect the Wonderscape, forcing the encampment to move. The Dagues, over time, were able to coerce captured nuns into restoring sections of damaged Wonderscape in the cities, but the task was neverending as one nun could only restore so much Wonderscape before dying of exhaustion. And then in retribution for their lost sister, a nun would infiltrate the city to destroy the restored Wonderscape again. The Amours, much to the chagrin of the Dagues, took in nuns and paid them every kindness and granted every luxury in the hope of convincing them to restore the Wonderscape.

The conclusion of the War of Nightmares has not ended the Nuns' Plague. Sovereign Severus has forced the Four Lords to work together to combat the Convent. There was limited success as the Lords of the Amours and Dagues pointed out that the nuns were able to restore the Wonderscape so an all out eradication of the nuns would not be possible if the Wonderscape was to be restored. However, portions of the major cities had been restored by captured nuns (using both the Amours and Dagues plans). For the countryside and any other remaining pockets of damaged Wonderscape the Rubis' Dream Guard was sent all over Merveilles to protect sleepers, and the Matraques' dream inhibitors were used for emergencies when no Dream Guard was available as short term limited use did not permanently affect one's ability to dream later.
The ghost of Nathan Waffel-Paine

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Scott Alexander
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Re: The Scars of War

Post by Scott Alexander »

The Matraques' solution seems like the best. I like dreams as much as anyone else, maybe more, but if I had to worry about Hemah damaged wonderscapes turning my dreams against me, I'd use the "never dream again" device in an instant.

Well, assuming there were no other side effects. Are there any other side effects? The biologist in me says that you can't get rid of REM sleep without fatiguing yourself to death, but it looks like that hasn't happened to Matraques. You should talk to Resplendence. I feel like this is right up their alley, and maybe the tellurics will forgive high-tech medicines for the same reason they seem to permit normal biology.

Also, no matter how many times I read the phrase "terrorist nuns", it never gets old.

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Nathan
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Re: The Scars of War

Post by Nathan »

Indeed, it is the most effective, that's why it has been mass-produced and sent throughout the country for emergencies. The only side effect of the Matraques' devices is increasing their already legendary aggressiveness and decreasing their already low creativity (I envision dreaming as the planning stage for the best Wondering during waking times therefore the Matraques can no longer Wonder complicated things). This device is magical/Wondered so it's able to repress dreams while still allowing REM sleep, so no one is going to die from this, but the other Houses surely consider not dreaming and losing higher Wondering ability to be similar to death.
The ghost of Nathan Waffel-Paine

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