Go on...

>>57399672
*sweats nervously*
fuck that's all I got

>>57399690
Its an interesting concept.

>>57399847
I'll try to expand on it more
Meanwhile, feel free to throw ideas into the pot.

>>57399586
How is everyone not insane from sleep dep?

>>57399860
Through their domination of Sleep, Centralia has pretty much managed to gain economic control over the world. The Well itself is held in the near impenetrable fortress, watched constantly by scientists from the Centralian Prosperity Guild to monitor its output. The first war in generations occurred thirty years ago, when an Albian spy managed to get their hands on a diagram of the well, and attempted to create a Synthetic Well, challenging Centralia's stranglehold on Sleep with their own, mass-produced variety. However, the sleep produced by the Albian Well suffered a major drawback: it produced horrific nightmares.

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The Monks of the Sands engage in complex meditative practices that allow them to stretch small samples of Sleep for days, by only keeping half their brains on at a time. All of them have a wide distant look, and depending on which side is active are alternatively impassioned and mad, or calm and unbearable lucid.

It is rumored their ascended masters and abbots have so developed their minds they can recreate the Lost Art, and sleep at will. Such notions are publicly denied by the Monks and regarded as heretical and illegal by the Guild.

>>57399942
Sleep deprivation doesn't seem to have any physical effect: apart from feelings of intense exhaustion, most people can operate fine. The real danger is its psychological damage: having your brain 'on' for extended periods can lead people to snap. Thus, the rations.

>>57399586
The Red Church is the closest thing to a 'religion' in Centralia: even the Monks of the Sands deny their practice is anything more than conscious manipulation of the brain's operation. Founded quickly after the Centralian/Albian War, they seem to be a response to the Synthetic Sleep which flooded the Centralian underworld at the beginning of the war. The Red Church claim that the nightmares the Sleep invoke are not random firings of neurons, but visions of a different place (of course, there are debates among the different sects as to what, exactly, that place is.) Perhaps it's merely mass suggestion, but many taking Synthetic Sleep report similar themes, concepts, or images in their dreams.

>>57400006
Um...pretty sure that humans die without sleep. Like we have loads of examples and animal tests. Unless that's just how this world works, in which case, I dun fucked up.

>>57401017
They do but ssssh it's Industrial Fantasy(tm)

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>>57400095
The well was built by an ancient lost civilization to keep a great unspeakable horror asleep beneath the mountain

And soon it will all be consumed and the great whisperer of the red church will walk the world once again

UP

>>57399586
>unless they're pregnant
Alright guys, I think I have something we can work with...

>>57402108
For this reason, many Centralian men refer to their naked form as their 'nightgown'.

>>57400006
>Sleep deprivation doesn't seem to have any physical effect:
Wrong. The brain naturally prunes and reorders a fraction of the neural connections made over the course of the day while you sleep. Around the 30 hour mark, it switches the process on while you're awake and doesn't shut it down until you pass out or die. Around the 45 hour mark this results in permanent brain damage.

>>57402585
See replies.

>>57402585
So...now that you've dumped this real life factoid, what rammifications would it have in this vague world where it's not true?

>>57402108
Nah, it sounds like pregnant women are just given priority, not that pregnancy grants you sleep.
and the alternative is too lewd

The worst part is I'm sure we can all relate to this feeling. When you are tired and are laying in bed and staring at the ceiling but you are so anxious about falling asleep you can't fall asleep and the hours tick by and the boredom mixes with anxiousness so it feels like you've been laying there even longer and it becomes a cruel vicious cycle.

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>>57402842
Just work really hard at something. You're never bored and sleep is lovely.

>>57399586
So we got
>The Centralian Prosperity Guild, monopolizing Sleep and effectively controling the entire world via the Well (as yet unexplained)
>The Red Church, a cult of nightmare-worshippers addicted to Synthetic Sleep
>A country that created a Synthetic Well, and is responsible for the Red Church
>The Monks of the Sands, an order which specializes in the extension of Sleep
What else could exist here?

>>57402585

So, part of the setting is that humans have been magically altered ages ago to not require sleep from a physiological standpoint, but psychologically sleep is still healthy and desirable.

>>57405158

I imagine a lot of people would find false reprieve from sensory exhaustion via forcibly rendering themselves unconscious.

They don't get the benefits of genuine sleep, but being able to just choose to completely stop seeing, hearing, smelling things for a short while is probably desirable.

Lots of cases of brain damage from various self-inflicted traumas among people who get carried away with their "breaks".

>>57399586
Hate to be that guy, but wake initiated lucid dreams, sensory deprivation, and meditation break this entire setting. These have been practiced for millennia

>>57405332
Probably illegal under the Guild, for a number of reasons.

>>57405356
Those sorts of things don't work, at least, they haven't for a while. It's the same reason people can't get to sleep without, well, Sleep. See, there are *things* that move through the world, even if you can't see them or hear them. They brush against our plane like ripples in the sea, and they buzz like flies deep inside our skulls. That's why we built the Well, back when we still could.

>>57405660
Cant you come up with a better reason than "it dont work"?

Those who stray too close to the reality of the sleepers catch glimpses of things beyond mortal reckoning. Beasts vast and impossible trapped behind a thin veil of reality. Every trance, every day dream, every halucination is a needle through the fabric whcih seperates unknowable horrors from the fragile psyche of the awake. There are those who willingly submit to the realm of the sleepers. Monks, mad men, those who lust for power. They give in to the sleep of the mind, discontent to watch idly as their world is destroyed. They bare the strength, courage, or stupidity to face these horrors head on. What they quickly learn is the land of their dreams is no longer their own. Few return from their brief reprieve from reality intact.

>>57399586
I think you need more then a family threat to prevent suicide, somethign like eternal undeath without sleep or some such edgy shit, otherwise peopel would just kill their families and themselves with it. Also i would like to know more about how this came to be, were humans always like that? If so how did they first manage the well? Most importantly how does no sleep actually affect people in the setting? Of course as you said to toher people permanent brain damage is off the table, but other then that how does the lack of sleep hit people exactly?

>>57405754
Not OP, but:

What if there used to be more wells of Sleep, and they were destroyed in antiquity, and the increase of population that has come with modernity has stretched the supply thin?

Have a bump for your sunless sea shit, thread.

>>57399586
It's a crying shame that this thread didn't get more love.

This is hilarious to me only because Centralia is a terrible town south of here with nothing to speak of but a train station and a meth problem.

>>57399586
In the guild dormitories, the Sandmen administer the sleep to those with valid ration-tokens.
But their ranks are riddled with corruption. Accusations are constant; a steelmill-worker in the west district claimed that he was pulled from his cot after 10 minutes so one of the Sandmen could sleep in his stead.

one last bump

>>57399586
>>57405712
Some very rare few find themselves able, through skill and practice, or simple innate talent and blind luck, to induce a lucid dream but pause at the boundary to the other side. Walking astride two worlds, they face the depredations of the unimaginable and the spillover of such into our world, but with immense mental fortitude and some practice, one can alter reality to a limited degree around oneself. But the human will is a flickering candle against the roaring inferno that moves parallel to our world, and eventually this invariably results in a handful of unspeakable horrors of darkest black and indeterminate form quietly slipping their way through the veil and thanking their summoner with bladed claws before beginning their endless prowl.
This is why merchants exit the city walls with large retinues and armoured wagons, why fields are always patrolled by steelclad men with great lances, why battlefields are most dangerous after the battle is over, and why the fires must never, ever go out.

>>57399960
Despite Albion’s massive public support during the war, their propaganda posters are widely regarded as some of the worst ever made, even among Albian officials. There’s a very simple reason for this: it’s nigh-impossible to make sleeping people look heroic.

>>57405356
laying down with eyes closed until you fall asleep breaks the setting

So who would the PCs be in this setting?

>>57409497
>>57399586
damn, so I'm not the only one who thinks this sounds a lot like something from the Fallen London setting, except more dystopian?

>>57415486
This setting seems like it’d work pretty well for a noir campaign.

>>57405356
>wake initiated lucid dreams, sensory deprivation, and meditation
None of those things are the same as sleeping.

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>>57405158
asylums, lots of them
some that are nice and some that are just four walls and a roof
quite possibly most of the homeless (if they're permitted to exist) are people in various degrees of sleep-deprivation-induced madness, known to ramble on and mumble under their breath about things that don't exist or just nothing in particular, fond of searching out and hoarding anything comforting in the vain hope it'll help them find peace, looked down on by many but pitied by nearly everyone
>>57405332
the destitute would be prime candidates for breaking the Anti-Concussion Act, and would help explain why they're so unhinged and so far outside of normal society
>>57405712
like this?
>>57413074
not sure about that one, sounds like a different setting at this point
I like the idea of everything about this, except for Sleep and the Well and the structures and strictures built around them, being dreadfully dull
it encourages exploration of the central premise and it's a good fit for wanting to sleep but not being able to

>>57405754
it's the only life they know
like imagine if you saw a world where sugar was only present in one food, or maybe it's salt instead, let's call the food blardell
it would be in high demand all the time because people instinctively want it once they've tasted it, so it would be expensive
you'd say that sounds horrible, but those people would just be used to a blander, simpler, less appetizing sensation for the things they eat on a daily basis
a lot of them would wish they could have blardell more often, or that they were rich enough to have it all the time, or that they could taste blardell (because what else would you call sugar in this world?) in other foods without paying out the ass for it and then mixing it with something less good
actually come to think of it that fits this pretty well because like the artificial Sleep, people would try to make artificial sweeteners, but like in real life they would never taste quite the same as real blardell, and they would have questionable health effects, and you'd have to use different amounts of them in cooking compared to blardell and compared to each other and watch the temperature and all that fuss that comes with cooking with artificial blardellizers, and of course many if not most would have just as many calories as the famously fattening blardell, so you'd still have to watch your intake even if you don't believe the rumors of it causing cancer, psychosis, and death

>>57399586
>guild
do you even know what this word means?

sounds cool OP

>>57402585
The guy who set the record for staying awake didn’t suffer brain damage and was back to normal after one or two nights rest.

>>57419612
thank you

>>57405754
In a previous post they noted that sleeping at will was a "lost art" implying that at one point people slept normally.

Every so often a person will find that even Sleep brings no reprieve from wakefulness. These accursed beings are killed as soon as their affliction becomes known, both for political and spiritual reasons.
Tales are told of how they are monsters wearing human skin, that bring death and destruction in their wake.
The reality is so much worse...

Sleep comes in small hypos and can be exchanged for basically anything. it's not the defecto currency of any nation, but it IS good basically everywhere.

There's an entire, expansive underground crime scene dealing in everything from contraband (including sleep for synth-sleep exchange booths, if that's your thing) to favours and information networks.

>>57420396
people are encouraged to trade away their Sleep because while everyone wants it, sleep isn't strictly neccesary. It's a luxury, unlike food for example.

This is cool. We should make more settings based on vague song titles.

Project Sleep Over started as an ambitious idea, a method to remove the need for sleep completely from a person, and for years the best scientists worked hard at this concept, from genetic manipulation, synthetic implants, even resorting to spiritual "awakenings" so to speak, but nothing brought fruit. Instead, what came about was the development of the Pillow Talk implant, what was originally designed to assist people, became a horrifying punishment. A device implanted into the center of the brain, that prevents a person from sleeping, no matter how much Sleep they are given, named so because the device supposedly 'talks' to the brain nonstop, preventing the mind from relaxing. Thus the government took hold of this device, and instigated the Sleep Over punishment, for extreme crimes, criminals would be implanted with a Pillow Talk, and forced to live the rest of their lives, forever awake.

>>57413233
I believe we are running under the assumption that sleep can be "extracted" from people and stored in some sort of physical container, thus even if you "lay down with your eyes closed" you will not sleep.

Don't be a douche

>>57420508
wouldn't this have to be followed by incarceration?
Otherwise it'd involve sending unstable criminals out and flooding the street with psychotically tortured unpredictables

This is a neat setting idea. What system do you recommend I play this with?

>>57420652
I imagine so. Incarceration with forced labor. I imagine most criminals get a ration of a few minutes of sleep, not much, but humane, but the really bad criminals get the Sleep Over treatment, and maybe even temporary Sleep Over for other prisoners as a alternative to solitary confinement

>>57420762
a temporary Sleep-over on someone in your custody would just be not giving them any sleep though. Unless the in-prison smuggling is so extensive that people are getting Sleep in.

>>57420803
Well Sleep-Over is different from just not having Sleep, it constantly keeps your brain active, meaning you can't even relax your mind from the lack of sleep. Imagine being in prison and having someone whispering in your ear around the clock for several days, I think that's how a temporary Sleep-Over would work, where as a permanent one would be non-stop whispering and racing thoughts for the rest of your life.

What if there was someone who was either rich and powerful enough, or had something special about him, and is asleep all the time

>>57420508
I feel like we should establish a solid tech level for this setting. In the same thread we’ve gotten caravans and torches and highly advanced implants. Personally I’m thinking 1930s.

>>57421258
It's Dreampunk Fantasy.

>>57421258
Tech levels can change across the land. Like, the closer you get to the 'center' of the country, the higher the tech, where as the outskirts are torches and wagons

You need Sleep Walkers.

Now, I don't know what Sleep Walkers are, but I'm imagining them as some kind of nightmarish horror whose origins may or may not lie in getting too much or too little (no) sleep.

>>57399942

guy who has been sleep dep'd before. You can get by on astoundingly little sleep for surprisingly long. Sure, math gets hard, but after day 3, you get used to a half hour of sleep per day. Of course, that's way different than no sleep, but it's worth mentioning.

honestly though, if we've been engineered to not need sleep, or as much sleep, for reasons other than psychology - you'd be surprised at how much you could adapt.

>>57420508
Do you think there would be people who form Shamanic practices based on trying to interpret the "talking"?

>>57421389
Probably a really crazy prisoner who somehow escaped jail, and got even crazier, perhaps forming an entire personal cult around the Pillow Talk, believing "in our sleep deprived minds, the words speak of deep truths, we are not prisoners, we are the only one's actually awake!!"

>>57421389
There are probably multiple mini cults based on certain aspects. I mean, imagine how such a culture must perceive reality. 72 hours without sleep and you start hallucinating, this entire society must be seeing crazy shit around the clock

>>57421304
I wouldn’t think it would vary *that* much
Presumably the industrial revolution still happened

I'm gonna copy&paste all the posts that add detail to the setting and put them on a document. Should I upload them to Mega or something else?

>>57399586
Biology doesn't work that way.

>>57421803
I'm sorry allow me to elaborate. Let's take that same idea, but instead apply it to breathing, heart beats, or some other vital function. Your body fails and you die without it. If you are in such a state that you survive that means you don't need those things any longer, which by its very nature implies that you aren't in pain from lack of having it. Because the discomfort is derived from the associated injury.

>>57421839
Sleep also doesn't come from a Centralian-controlled Well. Your point?

>>57399586
I like the idea, but want to flag that you used "of course" 3x in the above. You might have a fixative writing problem

>>57421778
Pastebin, maybe?

>>57421868
The idea doesn't make any sense. The premise is a massive plot hole that without more of an establishing idea clarifying what OP is actually talking about. Won't work well.

>>57421881
OP here. I cringe every time I have to reread what I wrote. Proofread your work, friends.

>>57421896
Heres how it makes sense
>It just works
There we go

>>57421881
That's either intentional poetic structure or a minor error from them not having time to properly edit the post. Regardless, the premise needs more work.

>>57421908
It doesn't though. What are the people? Why do they require something to do what a body typically does naturally. If they don't need to do it than why do they feel the need to have it. Is it magical? Technological? Magical realism? Is sleep like a drug fix? Is it something similar to actual sleep, refreshing? I can go on. It raises a shit ton of question just by hearing it. So, it's literally going to define every last aspect of that village, city, region, world. So, yes. It doesn't just work without impacting everything that happens in the plot.

>>57421905
I do
the day is saved thanks to anxiety disorder!

Reminds me a fair bit of Paranoia, good setting idea OP

>>57421947
>One day, thousands of years ago, people stopped sleeping. Then the Wells popped up, and sleep returned. But now the Wells, save one, are gone, and the world is sleepless
There we go.

>>57422016
What about if the Well(s) still exist but the World is gradually (or quickly) running out of Sleep as the Well(s) are starting to run dry?

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>>57399586
I like this. I want more countries explored and elaborated on. Could Centralia and Albia be analogous to Cold War-era US and USSR? Mostly trying to one-up each other with spying and propaganda campaigns, only resorting to open conflict when they perceive a massive advantage, like a diagram of the well? If so, is there a buffer state between them? Or buffer states plural, with different ones falling into different allegiances more or less in line with the main powers?

Opinions?

>>57421947
well if you could read between the lines, that's what this thread is about, figuring out the details and implications of a fact like "people only sleep when they ingest this substance but they don't actually need to sleep they just work a little better when they get sleep"
it's been stated they need to eat so that takes care of energy and bodily resources
I would think they would need to rest even if they don't sleep, and during that rest is when healing would happen faster and the immune system would rejigger itself and some of the other essential functions of sleep
or it could just be a copy of some existing organism that never sleeps

>>57422067
I mean, we already have a dystopic pseudo-fascist state with a suicide epidemic and rationing, so I don't think a Cold War analog would be out of place here. Not sure how Albion would manage to be a major power, though, due to their reliance upon Centralia for Sleep.

>>57422016
>and the world is sleepless
Awesome, then why do they need or care about sleep? If you don't need to do it, you don't have any pain from not doing it. Otherwise all we are talking about is an opiate for the masses.

>>57422086
My point is that OP should at least have potential answers for those questions if he's planning on running with it. Which, the claims that that he doesn't.
>>57399690
>fuck that's all I got
So my advice is that he finds some.

>>57422162
>Why do they need or care about sleep?
Imagine having your brain 'on' for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, until you die.

>>57422162
We don't need sex or food that tastes good (unless you think getting basic nutrition gives you taste), so why should a society care about that? Besides that, you have a good point.

Hey, what are we gonna call this setting?

>>57422204
Sleepytime Junction.

>>57422109
Well, they still manufacture stuff out of the Synthetic Well, right?
I could imagine post-war they're cut off from the Well and they're stuck using their own shit. Now they've started descending into madness as a people, eroding what was an orderly Soviet-analog into a mad anarchist horde. Centralia is concerned that another war looms as mare-cultists in Albion make increasingly aggressive overtures, only this time their intent is to destroy the Well.

What if Sleep Medicine commercials are just glimpses into this setting?

>>57402091
Reminder there is some Lovecraftian influence in this setting.

>>57422214
Oh shit, that's really good.
I wonder if this is common practice for Centralia: after a country commits some slight against them, they cut off all Sleep exports for some period of time varying on the offense. Of course, most of the time, the country goes belly-up not long after.

>>57421258

near-future cyber punk

>>57422258
Oh, I like that. It seems to me that Centralia in general and the Guild in particular is built around complacency. There is little ambition, there is little emotion, everyone's just going through the motions. So, when they have a problem they do what they've always done, and expect the same result. Only, they don't get it. This time instead of a meek client state they made a horde of madmen intent on destroying the central aspect of Centralia's dominance at the behest of nightmare creatures from beyond the stars.

>>57399586
How has "don't rest your head" not been mentioned yet?
Are the old fags getting senile?

>>57422325
Yeah, I definitely think the Guild pretty much assumes they can do pretty much whatever they want because of their control over the Well. Also, my favorite aspect of this setting so far is that the Red Church could either be worshipping:
1. Ancient extradimensional horrors beyond human understanding
2. Some fucking crazy drugs

>>57422162
.Otherwise all we are talking about is an opiate for the masses.
I think that's exactly it. In such a society, sleep is not necessary, as you won't die without it, but you will still suffer the effects of sleep deprivation. It's like being in withdraw your entire life, and the only bit of peace you can get is to take just that tiny hit of Sleep and get a half an hour nap.

>>57422358
I prefer the drugs just being really fucked up, rather than actual eldritch gods coming into play

In such a world, the coffee barons must be fucking god-kings of business.

>>57422374
I think its better if humans still need sleep but they've just adapted somewhat to the lack of it and society is constantly sleep-deprived, otherwise sleep might as well just be any other drug

>>57422382
I agree. I think the only mystical aspects of this setting should be entirely around thee people not needing sleep, and Sleep being a literal drug. Anything else is semi-realistic problems, like other people, or just the populace's hallucinations going fucking bonkers

>>57422382
Actually, that raises the question: are there other drugs in this world? I could see something like marijuana being popular in this setting.

>>57422399
Well they DO need sleep, or else they go fucking crazy or just stop functioning, but they won't physically die from sleep deprivation like normal people. I like to think of it as Sleep is a necessary drug that helps keep people functioning, even with just a teensy bit, which is why they use the absence of sleep as a punishment.

>>57402585
>Around the 45 hour mark this results in permanent brain damage.
I can't say I've noticed any. After 48 hours, I refuse to drive a car, however.

>>57422358
Now, what I want to know is to what extent is the Red Church affiliated with Albion? Obviously they rely on them for more Synthetic Sleep, but history shows that with any ideology and particularly with religion factional disputes arise. I doubt the Red Church would FULLY embrace the destruction of Centralia or the Guild that would come with an Albian victory in a second war, despite what they may profess.

>>57422417
they probably all play second fiddle to Sleep, but anything that can take the edge off, when it's been a few weeks since your last dose? Sure.

Synth-sleep mitigates the effects of sleep deprivation, but the whole experience is like the worst trip you can imagine, dialed up to 11, so few people reach for it.

>>57422428
That's fucking boring though, because sleep could be any other drug and still function the same. If sleep is still sleep as we know it, it adds a distinct body horror feeling to the setting. People should still die and have the same effects from sleep deprivation that they do in our world, just in a longer timeframe

>>57422437
I don't think all of the Red Church would necessarily be anti-Centralia, but I do think most of them would see the Well as a lesser version of the Albian Synthetic Well, and wouldn't object to its destruction.

>>57422402
Magical Realism seems like a good halfway point for this.

>>57422437
It's probably some bullshit "evil must exist in order for there to be good" mental gymnastics grade ideology.

>>57422459
much longer time frames. Humans can go for more than a week fairly easily without a hit (averaging 3-4 full nights of sleep every month)

Anything more than that and things start getting dicey quick.

>>57422463
'Consistent Religious Framework' and 'Druggie Demon Cultists' do not really go hand in hand.

>>57422417
Caffeine is probably the biggest non Sleep related drug in the setting. Maybe a drug called Sleep Walk, that causes you to dream while awake and also tricks you into feeling like you slept, which is very fucking illegal, because you're still awake while you're dreaming, which could cause a shit ton of problems, as well as risk people experiencing nightmares and being unable to wake up from them.

Probably other drugs unrelated to sleep too. Stuff to just distract people. Night Light, take a drop in each eye and you see nothing but lights for the next hour, bright lights, dim lights, flashing, pulsing, swirling, so many lights

>>57422460
Kek, I'm imagining like some kid of a Guild official rebelling by joining the Red Church and then arguing with his parents about it.
>"I don't hate Centralia, MOM. But I don't need to be an Alby to recognize the intense spiritual AWAKENING I get from Synthetics! Fucking Dreams, you Well-heads would never get it."

>>57422515
And then he gets lynched
as he should

>>57422507
Oooh, I forgot about that part. That probably applies better to the Monks of the Sand. The Red Church probably just wants the Well destroyed so everyone can join them in their orgy of synthetic sleep nightmares.

>>57422532
No, no, no...for him, he gets dragged into a back room and subjected to brainwashing. Assuming that the lynch mob doesn't get him first. And being fully immersed in the Well. I wonder what that would do to a person?.

>>57422459
>>57422497
The problem is, if we make sleep deprivation lethal, then the populace is fucked. The Well is barely providing, and the synthetic stuff is not at all reliable. People would fight over Sleep, especially the poor or homeless, and it will be fucking anarchy. It's like rationing air, if you get enough to breath for an hour, you'll shank your neighbor to steal their air, or beat up homeless to take their rations. If you make it extremely valuable, but not a necessity to life, then the populace will want it, badly, but probably not enough to riot or attack each other for, like money, you can make it by without money, but having it makes things much easier, and some WILL kill for more of it, but most won't

>>57422550
Assuming the well is even something you CAN be submerged into, i'm guessing catatonia?

>>57422550
I like imagining the Red Church as being incredibly short-sighted in their planning
"We'll tear down Centralia and burn the False Well to the ground!"
"And then?"
"...we'll think of something."

>>57422566
It's probably just a convenient misnomer. Probably catatonia followed by extreme suggestibility. And afterwards you're always a little...off. Subsequent immersion reduces your chances of survival or just straight up kills you.

We of the Awakened Mind will guide you to a prosperous life, dear dozers. Shuck away the chains of slumber, the constraints of the tired, and embrace the true awakening! We welcome you all into our fold, where you will learn you do NOT need sleep, sleep needs you! Find the truth, dear dozers! Find the truth that your heavy eyelids desire to blind you to!

>>57422590
It's probably done rarely, mainly because it's incredibly wasteful in terms of Sleep, but I imagine there's been more than one occasion when a Guild official has taken a 'break' and come back with a lot of new and interesting opinions.

>>57422590
conspiracy theory:

The well is the last living human family capable of sleeping naturally. The guild has them hooked up to machines that siphon 'Sleep' from them, and they're kept in a chemically induced coma at all times

>>57422590
>>57422625
I doubt they can get immersed in the Well itself. Probably pulling some strings and getting a nice Sleep bath once in a while, but the Well is probably the biggest fucking web of bureaucratic bullshit, and no one is allowed anywhere near the actual Sleep unless they are extractors, and even then they probably use tools to do so.

>>57422635
Oh, I do like this one. Then could the artificial well be the result of some test-tube babies made with corrupted well family DNA?

>>57422666
Alternatively, someone just fucking stole a kid, who woke up halfway through the transport, realized what was happening, and had a panic attack before they could be put back under, thus resulting in the nightmares.

>>57422666
>>57422635
Damn, I really liked the well imagery. Maybe the drug has to be stewed up in a still or something? Looks vaguely like a well and that's where the government got the name from.

>>57422676
That, is an excellent explanation for the nightmares. They probably can't maintain the same level of life-support that Centralia does, so the kids keep dying off and the nightmares from the synthetic sleep keep changing every few months or so.

>>57422676
Also good. Also good. The question becomes, do we want to do "torturing a kid so hard he makes drugs so potent cults are formed around it" grimdark or "we've created a giant mass of flesh that we can squeeze nightmare juice out of" grimdark?

>>57422635
>>57422666
>>57422676
Lets not. It takes away from the mysterious aspect of the world if the only source of sleep is just people who are still able to sleep normally, rather than it being something from the earth they have to gather. I mean, were talking a substance that is sustaining an entire world, you would need hundreds of these sleepers to keep even the tiniest ration in everyones hands.

>>57422347
newerfag here, what is this?

>>57422731
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Don%27t_Rest_Your_Head

>>57422714
This

>>57422740
Also agreed, though I like it as a way to produce synthetic sleep.

>>57422714
That's fair I suppose. I'd like that resource to ultimately have some sort of terrible secret, though. Preferably one that causes extensive human misery.

>>57422753
Why? Can't the misery come just from the situation itself, rather than some horrible secret? Theres only one working Well left in the world, and it is barely supplying enough Sleep for the world. Theres a lot of misery to be had from that, I mean, what happens when the last Well dries up, like the rest? Why did the others dry up? Is it really supplying so little, or is the Guild just hoarding it? Misery can come from so many things beyond "The Well is orphaned children souls" or some other big twist shit.

>>57422750
I think that works better. They aren't asleep, but maybe forced into a horrible drug coma, their minds no longer functioning, and from that they can extract a chemical they use to recreate Sleep. But due to the inhumane method used to create it, and the delicate balance between drug coma and corpse, it's difficult to produce reliably, and a source can dry up in days, which is why dealers dilute their stock.

>>57422812
Well, I think some of the stuff we've established implies that the Well is a little more than just natural, or at the very least has some sort of processing that makes natural stuff into Sleep proper. Otherwise how would Albion be able to replicate it, even imperfectly?
And if it were to be solely a natural thing there would be a degree of hope that it could be synthesized perfectly someday. That hope meshes poorly with the grimdark tone we seem to be favoring.

>>57422199
We actually need all of those things
Sex, biological need and imperative. Your species ceases to exist without it and eventually there wouldn't be any working age people to do anything, ergo you die without children.

Taste is an aspect of eating, we determine if something is good for us or not based on it. Taste is essential to survival.

>>57422182
>Imagine having your brain 'on' for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, until you die.
I'd be dead in less than a week. Without the need to sleep it wouldn't even bother me because I would never be tired. In fact, my life span would be effectively doubled.

>>57422258
Punitive deprivation, the official policy of suspending Sleep exports to nations whose political positions run counter to Centralia's interest, has made Centralia the nigh-undisputed world power and been the cause of numerous government, and a few national, collapses. When the war with Albion is the most public of all conflicts, more troubling to the Guild, at least to those members who show initiative in thought, is ongoing war with Saar-Baden. Due to its low-intensity and indecisive nature the war has dragged for ten years despite the lack of Sleep on the part of the Saar-Badens. While the prevailing opinion is that Albion is supplying them with synthetic sleep, foreign intelligence has indicated that the amount of synthetic sleep imported by Saar-Baden is grossly insufficient to keep its military supplied, much less its civilian populace.

>>57422874
Effectively, but you also miss out on all the beneficial psychological effects sleep provides. You don't get a break from constant stimulus. You don't get a chance to convert short-term memories into long-term memories. You're effectively trapped in your own body forever.

>>57422874
Okay, you've got a point, but shooting down ideas is way easier than creating good ones. What would you propose? If you're just going to say, "blaaaargh, this will never work," then leave, you're not benefiting the discussion.

>>57420508
I like the idea that all the sleep-based phrases we have are completely nonexistent in this universe. Having a 'bed' is anomalous: only the insanely rich would commission a piece of furniture explicitly for the purpose of slumber. When people do sleep, it's usually on couches, or benches, or the ground, for the extremely destitute.

>>57416732
>>57413074
>>57415905
Arright then, going with the "man as monster" noir angle, communities of feral humans living in the wilderness, driven mad by their nightly visions? I feel like there ought to be something to make the countryside exremely dangerous, but still navigable with adequate preparation.

>>57423028
Personally, I'd always imagined the world outside the cities as desolate dry wastelands, almost impossible to navigate without the assistance of the giant trains constructed by Centralia.

>>57422897
>you also miss out on all the beneficial psychological effects sleep provides
Do I? I don't need it. I don't suffer any consequences from not having it. There's no fatigue because I don't get tired. I don't miss out on the missing time, in fact more time is better. Whatever memory issues don't occur either because the process's need has been removed. By extension any benefit or drawback is taken care of as a result. Which, follow the very logic of not having it. The problem with scenarios like OP's is that they don't exist in a vacuum. It either is or it isn't. There's no middle ground. Unless you want to qualify exceptions within exception within exceptions. Magical realism is really the only way to go with this, or a universal magic system. Or, an affliction befalling the people. Somehow the norm has been subverted while the consequences linger onward.

>>57422908
I'm offering a ton of ideas. The most important is for OP to see the faults without having them bite him the ass while he's playing the game with his friends. Even if he comes up with answers to my earlier questions, that doesn't mean he should give them to his players. No, they should simply exist so that they can get near them and actually revel in the mystery of the setting.

>>57423165
You seem to be missing my point here. It's not physical exhaustion that's concerning, or even mental exhaustion, it's psychological exhaustion. You are stuck seeing, hearing, and feeling everything, constantly. You get no respite. No release. No way to quell the tide of information constantly assaulting you from all sides. This is absolutely necessary for the continued functioning of a human being.

>>57422893
This works very well with the idea of a sort of Albion-Centralia Cold War going on. Has Albion shared their designs for synthetic sleep with Saar-Baden? Is the reason for the import deficit a growing domestic production? You could essentially look at most of the events of the Cold War and substitute Sleep/SynthSleep for all the materiel support the USA and USSR provided.

>>57423165
Why not forget about this "few hours of sleep a week" thing, make it so that the well produces enough for average people to get about 3-4 hours of sleep per day, and humans need sleep just as much as we do in real life? Way more horrific, IMO.

>>57421258
What sort of weaponry would a full-scale war be fought with? I feel like somewhere around WWII tech levels would feel appropriate, possibly a mix of interwar and WWII tech with some Cold War era stuff thrown in for the hell of it.

>>57423201
>Why not forget about this "few hours of sleep a week" thing, make it so that the well produces enough for average people to get about 3-4 hours of sleep per day, and humans need sleep just as much as we do in real life? Way more horrific, IMO.

Now that is getting nasty. If you leave the full consequences in place, but they can't sleep without this well. Then you have a dependent populace on a literal lifeline.

>>57423165
>Magical realism is really the only way to go with this, or a universal magic system. Or, an affliction befalling the people. Somehow the norm has been subverted while the consequences linger onward
Not OP, but I thought that it was pretty obvious that this was a situation of, "normal world and then horrible fate befalls it and its people."

Also, is it that hard to just have something where people experience a drastic reduction in the absolute need for sleep, allowing for the middle stages of sleep deprivation to last for much much longer. Humanity at it's base is altered, but imperfectly so. We don't NEED sleep, but we're not that good without it either. People go nuts (maybe turn into slavering freaks like some anons suggested) without it. The cycle is there, but it's waaaaay slowed down, stretching out the torment to nightmarish levels.

I think there's a confusion arising from, humans don't need sleep as in temporarily passing out, and humans don't need sleep and all the benefits that come from it. Hence, the monks trying to get around it with their meditation and the Red Church cultists getting fucked up on drugs when they don't have access to synthetic Sleep.

But also>>57423201 has a good point too.

>>57423230
Sounds about right. Maybe a few bioweapons or chemical agents given the whole Sleep thing. Grimdark/noir/post-apoc works better with lower tech (let's just forget about cyberpunk for a moment).

>>57423235
It seems we have two parallel concepts running here:
We have the ‘opiate-of-the-masses’ concept, where Sleep is the equivalent of a highly sought after drug that will drive people slowly insane from lack of use
And we have the ‘essential for survival’ concept where Sleep is just as necessary as food. Personally, I prefer the former, as it allows for a world where opposition from Centralia isn’t literally impossible.

In this setting, wouldn't women always try to get pregnant?

>>57423320
So in this world, sleep deprivation isn't really in the same way that depression isn't lethal. Putting a bullet in your brain is, and depression only increases your chances of that happening.

>>57423028
>>57423079
I'd imagine the countryside is perfectly fine. The main issue is that the further from transportation infrastructure you go the less Sleep, and at a higher cost, you're going to find. Most people manage an hour of sleep a month and what is commonly available is usually of low-quality, diluted, or even cut with Synth-sleep. It's less, "here there be monsters," and more Southern Gothic, full of poverty, desperation, and encroaching madness.

>>57423201
I'd be far more inclined to attribute Saar-Baden's situation to a third factor, as otherwise it makes it little more than a footnote between Albion and Centralia.

>>57423338
Yep. Ironically, this practice only increases the population, which taxes the Well, which reduces the amount of Sleep, et cetera.

>>57423354
There's gotta be some sort of state sanctioned abortion or one-child policy, someone would've thought of that by now.

>>57423344
Hence why Punitive Deprivation is such an effective tactic. It allows Centralia to completely destroy an opponent’s morale while keeping all their infrastructure intact.

>>57400006
>Sleep deprivation doesn't seem to have any physical effect
>still cucking to women and giving them extra rations of an extremely limited substance even though they don't need it and there's no public health reason to do it

Jesus Christ I'm tired of /tg/ doing this shit.

>>57423320
I'm still liking the latter, as it allows for a central conflict:
>as it allows for a world where opposition from Centralia isn’t literally impossible
But thanks to Albion and synthetic sleep, opposition IS possible. The idea being that this is a parallel to the real world and the Cold War: The only country with nukes has an unquestionable hegemony, but as soon as one other major power has them, it becomes a Cold War. There is now a choice between Centralia and Albion, or remaining unnoticed by either or essential to both. Most proxy wars would be ostensibly mercantile: both nations trying to get smaller nations to ban the import of their competitor's version of Sleep. Centralia would be equivalent to an amalgam of China in its heyday and Cold War USA: huge in and of itself, and controlling a vast "soft" network of tributaries and client states, as well as nations simply aligned with its sphere of influence, but the initial shock of Albion's defiance leads to a sudden and massive weakening of its control, and now both powers are scrambling to acquire vassals and allies as quickly as possible to prepare for the possibility of an ultimate standoff.

Insomniac bump

Bump

>>57399586
im putting this in my campaign as a sect of sleepless mutants, effective today. Thanks!

>>57399586
Sleep Dealer is a pretty good track indeed

>>57402585
>Around the 45 hour mark this results in permanent brain damage.
Oops. I've done 48-72 hours once or twice in my life.

As far as OP is concerned, I obviously can't speak for chronic insomnia or sleep deprivation, but I've always experienced a unique kind of high whenever I've pulled an all-nighter or longer. Like I'm way too mentally exhausted to have my guard up and maintain my inhibitions. How would that fit in to your setting?

>>57399586
Naptime bump

Just a quick bump.

So is Insomniapunk a thing now?

>>57432155
Looks like it.

>>57432155
>>57432663
Maybe if there were posts that added something to the setting more recent than 15 hours ago.

>>57423392
Women are half the public, anon

>>57423421
>>57423344
>>57423320
>>57423235
>>57423198
>>57423165
So which are we going with anons? 3-4 hours of sleep a week but sleep is a not-strictly-necessary luxury, or 3-4 hours of sleep a day and sleep is a basic need?

Also any ideas for other countries besides Albion, Centralia, and Saar-Baden?

>>57434139
Casting my vote for luxury.

>>57434139
I vote need for the slightly smaller suspension of disbelief, but either works well.

>>57434139
I prefer to think about it like a medication. Short-term lack won't kill you, but you'll slowly decline while a long-term lack will result in diminished capacity and eventual death.

Also Saar-Baden needs more fleshing out since it hasn't been determined why they don't need Sleep imports. Personally I'd lean towards either drugs designed to replace Sleep or a ruined, debased Well discovered within their borders that they can extract Sleep from, with both options having pretty nasty side effects.

>>57434139
>Also any ideas for other countries besides Albion, Centralia, and Saar-Baden?

Lomoria- Lomorians live in one of the farthest habitable regions of the world, very far from Centralia. This makes shortages of Sleep incredibly common and keeping oneself from becoming tired too quickly of the utmost importance. For this reason, the Lomorians have developed a unique manner of coping with their extreme sleep deprivation. From birth, each Lomorian his fed a special cocktail of drugs that renders their mind sluggish and dim, but not to the point that they are nonfunctional. Rather, it simply slows down natural processes. It takes longer for their reflexes to kick in, and forming thoughts takes more time than it does for foreigners. As the brain consumes the most energy of any organ, this deliberate reduction of energy consumption allows for Lomorians to last much longer than other peoples without Sleep, at the cost of their slower mental abilities. That said, the excel at dull, repetitive tasks, and can work in a trance-like state for days on end, making them valuable as manual labor.

Lomoria also suffers from a lack of modern technology, simply due to the difficulties in educating the youth. If it would take a minute for a child of Centralia to learn something new, it would take five minutes for a Lomorian to learn the same thing due to their slower brains, and since both peoples grow at the same rate, a Lomorian simply won't have enough time to learn the same amount of information a Centralian does, keeping them firmly stuck in the lower echelons of society.

>>57434291
I'm thinking Saar-Baden is basically like WWII Germany: basically completely off their head on amphetamine-equivalents throughout the entire war. It's not *entirely* effective, of course- Albion supplies Synthetic Sleep when it's absolutely necessary, but for the most part the Saar-Baden war machine runs off of good old-fashioned drugs.

>>57434335
I'd imagine the Lomorians have an 'upper caste' of intellectuals who are responsible for the governance and advancement of Lomoria as a whole. Which begs the question: when was this established? At what point were a portion of Lomorians willing to completely cripple their own ability to think on their feet in order to reduce their Sleep consumption?

>>57434462
>I'd imagine the Lomorians have an 'upper caste' of intellectuals who are responsible for the governance and advancement of Lomoria as a whole. Which begs the question: when was this established?

The Lomorians elite actually have the same mind alterations as the lower classes. What separates them is something different altogether. Sheer discipline. Borrowed techniques from the Monks of the Sands taught them the power of meditation and contemplation, and as such their minds are deceptively fine-tuned and calculating, perhaps even more so because of their handicap. Knowing they cannot outthink foreigners on a moment to moment basis, Lomorian politicians and officials will spend days meditating on all courses of action beforehand, planning for every eventuality until they select the best option. While Lomorians are universally looked down upon, there is a popular saying "Beware a Lomorian who starts a fight", because if they do initiate any sort of confrontation, it is only because they have considered the issue from all possible angles hours beforehand, have predicted every move you'd make, and have selected a series of actions to take that will assure them of victory, even with their limitations. Those capable of such foresight are rare, however, and typically found only in the highest ranks of Lomorian society. The majority of Lomoria's citizens will typically spend an hour or so every morning planning the motions they will make each day, allowing them to get through their lives essentially on autopilot, barring complications or unexpected surprises, the Achilles heel of this ponderous culture.

> At what point were a portion of Lomorians willing to completely cripple their own ability to think on their feet in order to reduce their Sleep consumption?

Several centuries ago during a devastating Sleep shortage that drove thousands mad. It was the only way to maintain order and became intrinsic to their culture ever since.

>>57434626
Interesting. Is the upper caste hereditary, or electoral, with anyone able to master the Lomorian meditation techniques able to ascend to governance?

>>57434462
>>57434626
I prefer to think of it as a slow collapse accompanied with a steady increase of the drug cocktail in the drinking water. Maybe they came to a decision and set up an automated system. There was probably a basis in this decision to transition to a new lifestyle in their previous culture, and it seems like the sort of thing they'd do. I'd like to think that the Monks of the Sands were an actual religion before the insomnia epidemic and they originated in Lomoria.

>>57399586
I feel sleepy. I'm going to take a nap.
It's time to sleep, no more posting.
Save it for another day.

>>57434400
A mix of stimulants, nootropics, and synthetic hormones/biochemicals capable of reducing the required amount of sleep to a tiny fraction of what is normally needed while staving off the effects of sleep deprivation. It'll keep you going, but it's deeply unpleasant, has questionable long-term side effects, and the last thing you'd ever want to do is go off them cold turkey. Research is also continuing on a Sleep substitute, derived from Albionian Synth Sleep and captured Centralian Army Sleep rations, that would completely mitigate the need for imported Sleep.

Though personally I like the idea of a ruined, non-functioning Well that Saar-Baden is trying to utilize with zero idea what they're doing.

>>57434462
The drugs were originally introduced to the prison and asylum populace both as a Sleep rationing measure. After that they started dosing the homeless and destitute as a public safety campaign. Then they started forcing released prisoners to continue taking the drugs. Then it started being used as a mental health cure all. Then it showed up in factories, small doses used as work aids on the assembly lines that you could take in the morning then next thing you know your shift is over and it's time to go home. Then it started being given out by companies to their workers. And so on.

>>57434704
I would say it is theoretically electoral as the country is always in need of such extraordinary persons, but the children of pre-existing officials have the advantage of wealth and private tutors which give them an edge over common folk, making it more difficult, but not impossible, for plebian Lomorians to find a place alongside more established dynasties.

>>57434755
I like this actually. As I said, Lomoria is one of the farthest nations from Centralia and as such getting Sleep over there would be expensive, time-consuming, and difficult. Ergo the slowly-mounting strain of such logistics simply took their toll over time, leading to the cultural shift.

On another note, in the geopolitical side of things I would place this country as a distant ally of Centralia, as it still relies on Sleep to get by, just to a more manageable extent thanks to their altered thinking.

>>57434626
As Lomoria lacks the capability to make snap decisions in combat, most of their R&D goes into heavy infantry, fortifications, and siege engines that can make up for their lack of mobility with their immense firepower and durability.

Lomoria is giving me a real Eastern Europe vibe, anyone else? What are other anons thinking of, cultural inspiration wise?

>>57434933
>heavy infantry
If you can't make snap decisions, even if you're heavily armored and armed, I don't really feel like you should be on the front lines. Unless I've misinterpreted the meaning of that phrase. I'd think that the most action oriented military position they have is a squad of snipers.

>>57434998
I'm thinking Centralia is basically wartime Britan but with the Brazil and 1984 levers pushed all the way to the right.
"We've ALWAYS been at war with Albion!"

>>57434755
>>57434887
I'd say it's ostensibly electoral, but the upper class simply has too much of an advantage in education and Sleep access for there to be truly accessible upward mobility.

>>57434933
Lomorian technology, military or otherwise, is usually several iterations behind other nations but is built for durability and ease of use due to their mental handicaps. This combined with the citizenry's natural skill in the factory means they can churn out cheap, easy to use products that are quickly snapped up by people or nations with a small budget.

>>57434998
I was thinking more African due to distance and poverty but heck, why not mix the two together?

>>57435038
Sounds good to me.

>>57399586
I read a novel some years back in which the entire world populace toiled for the bank. They were able to take a medication to avoid sleep, and thus work many more hours just to get by.

This has potential to become a popular setting. I mean, dealing with sleep deprivation is a rising problem in the modern world, and a setting where sleep deprivation has become commonplace is all too relatable.

>>57434998
Saar-Baden is pre-WW1 Germany with elements of early Cold War USA, particularly the mad dash to develop new technologies, replacing jet craft and nukes with Sleep.

>>57434998
>>57435063
Highly defensive, miles upon miles of deep defenses, landmines, barbed wire, trenches, and pre-sighted artillery. Offensively it's mostly special operations and sabotage, carefully planned out operations carried out by fully cognizant soldiers.

>>57434887
I'd imagine Lomoria is only an 'ally' of Centralia in the same way that the rest of the world is: while it's less reliant on Sleep than most, it's still somewhat reliant upon Centalia to keep their population healthy. If Lomoria found a way to keep their populace sustained without Sleep, they'd most likely hole up and isolate themselves with the rest of the world.

>>57435812
That makes sense, yeah. I can also envision them being something of an unsuspected wildcard GMs could throw at people. Sure the average Lomorian is basically an automation, but you never quite know what the leaders are thinking...

>>57435891
I'd also imagine they'd be harder to read then most, as they take longer to react and are likely able to control their own facial responses more than other cultures.

Bump for cool shit

So what if the lovecraftian thing is reaching out to humanity through dreams while they sleep, and this became a very real and tangible danger, so through some means humanity was altered to either not need sleep, or need sleep far less than they do irl.
The Well was created in order to give a form of sleep free from the eldritch abomination’s reach, but the Well provides limited quantities of sleep.

>>57423348
Is the countryside just standard Earth flora and fauna, or are there examples of alien or supernatural creatures living there as well?

>>57434857
Saar Blood, as it's sometimes called, will keep you upright and moving, but it will also make you hate yourself, everyone else, and probably life in general.

>>57438569
Ostensibly normal, whether or not anything supernatural exists is up for interpretation as most everyone is somewhat effected by a lack of sleep.

>>57438775
Some supernatural creatures are real. Some are not. In this world, the only way to truly be sure is to be killed by one.

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>>57399586

as you sleep you naturally go into a state called "REM Sleep", one of the final stages of your 90 minute sleep cycle where you show signs of Rapid Eye Movement (the name) and brain activity similar to your awake state. it only lasts 10 minutes but can reach up to an hour the more times you pass through your cycle in one night. its this type of REM sleep that makes you feel refreshed, and its why a full 90 minute nap for you is amazing for refreshing your day. Would this drug immediately paralyze you and toss you into REM sleep so you can start at that point in the cycle and complete it there?

i'm assuming people want sleep so much because they're all literally dying from the lack of it. Would one dose of the stuff last about twenty minutes? that's just enough time to sleep before you go into deep sleep. it also seems like a poor persons nap, being a full cycle is 90-120 minutes. You could establish an entire class system based on the amount of sleep people get

>>57438775
>Mass hysteria can cause hundreds or even thousands of people to start screaming about monsters that aren't real
>Entire mythologies are formed around crazy hallucinations in poorer areas.
>No one has any idea if they are true or not but most people avoid the wilderness just in case.

>>57439507
"Devin said his kid brother died from a Gorgon attack."
"Devin doesn't have a kid brother."
"Yeah, not anymore."

>>57439507
>This phenomenon has been used to great effect by the Centralian government to control and gaslight their population
>The average Centralian citizen has a completely different understanding of history than a Lomorian or a Saar-Badenian
>Unfortunately this has become an issue as even higher-ups in the government itself have begun to believe their false histories