As my long-time watchers probably already know, I find dreams and nightmares fascinating. But I also enjoy reading other people's homebrew tabletop RPG roll tables, and I wanted to make my own!
So this here is a table for rolling up potential nightmares that your characters have during the game when they fall asleep. This wasn't made with any particular RPG in mind, and is mostly just for adding a bit of flavor and character building/roleplaying opportunities to your gameplay session. Some of these I made up, but most of them are based on actual nightmares I've had.
I tried to write it as "flexible" as possible, so if the result doesn't fit your character or setting, you can just rephrase it to fit better- for instance, if you dream about a masquerade ball, but your character doesn't know what those are like or if they're just not a thing in your setting, you could change it to a harvest festival or something.
Here's the first 10 entries- the full table below the break!
You dream nothing.
You can't recall your dream, but you have a lingering feeling of dread.
The dream starts out rather ordinary, even pleasant- until you are awakened by a horrifying face lunging at you out of nowhere.
The faces of enemies you faced previously taunt and mock you all night.
A dead friend or loved one appears before you, asking why you didn't save them.
Your parent or mentor looms over you with contempt in their eyes. You have deeply disappointed them.
You're in the middle of a crowd, and everyone is jeering and throwing things at you.
You're so frail and weak, you can barely stand upright, let alone pick up your weapon.
You're back in your home town. Everyone is gone and the buildings are all rubble.
you bite into your favorite food- it suddenly turns rotten in your mouth.
d100 Nightmare Table
You dream nothing.
You can't recall your dream, but you have a lingering feeling of dread.
The dream starts out rather ordinary, even pleasant- until you are awakened by a horrifying face lunging at you out of nowhere.
The faces of enemies you faced previously taunt and mock you all night.
A dead friend or loved one appears before you, asking why you didn't save them.
Your parent or mentor looms over you with contempt in their eyes. You have deeply disappointed them.
You're in the middle of a crowd, and everyone is jeering and throwing things at you.
You're so frail and weak, you can barely stand upright, let alone pick up your weapon.
You're back in your home town. Everyone is gone and the buildings are all rubble.
you bite into your favorite food- it suddenly turns rotten in your mouth.
Something is chasing you through the woods. You awaken after tripping over a root.
you step out a door only to find yourself plummeting down to the ground from miles above.
you desperately need to use the toilet. The only one you find is utterly filthy and offers no privacy.
You look in a mirror to see your reflection turn into a horrible monster. You look away only to find you actually look like that now.
Someone you really care about is standing on the edge of a cliff. They plummet into the ocean below just before you can grab them.
Your teeth are so loose you can pull them out like carrots- and you do.
Your hands are covered with diseased boils, and they're spreading fast.
A massive army is charging at you, weapons drawn. You're naked and wielding a spoon.
You're trying to apologize for what you've done, but you can't speak with all these insects pouring out your mouth.
You're slowly sinking into a tar pit or quicksand.
It's the day of your most important test, and you are not prepared in the slightest.
Everyone around you has the head of an animal. They bark and scream at you when you try and speak to them.
You're lost in a winding system of tunnels that get progressively narrower the deeper you go.
Spiders. Spiders everywhere.
You're lying down, awake and aware as wild predators are tearing your guts out.
You go to embrace your companion, only for them to dissolve into sand in your arms.
Time is running out. You're desperate to find the answer, but all the books in this library are blank.
You need to keep boarding up the doors and windows, before "it" arrives.
You can only watch as they pull your brain out of your head and stick it in a jar.
A dragon is massacring everyone! Its gaze falls on you, followed by its breath.
Your weapons and armor all fall to pieces at the worst possible time.
You look up at the night sky- the moon is massive and glowing an unnatural color.
You're on a farm. The scarecrows move when you're not looking.
The guards know you're here. You can't hide forever.
The desert is so hot and so big… and you are so thirsty.
Everyone you look at turns to stone, and you can't control it.
You're trying to fight someone, but your punches are slow and weak as if submerged in thick jelly.
Your body is rapidly melting like wax. Your limbs are shrinking as you desperately try to maintain your shape.
You go to meet your friends, but they've all been replaced by shadowy doppelgangers with glowing red eyes.
A giant snake has you trapped in its coils, crushing the life out of you.
You're at a table nonchalantly chopping your hand to bits with a knife.
People run and scream in horror at the sight of you. When you see your reflection, you learn why.
You're living the life you could of had, if things had gone different. It suddenly all goes horribly wrong and crumbles away to nothing.
You try and swim faster and faster, but the thing beneath the waves only gets closer and closer.
You're on a boat out at sea, desperately throwing dead bodies into the water.
Skeletal hands reach out from the ground, grabbing at your ankles and trying to pull you under.
You're trying to clean up the blood, but there's just... so... much...
Everyone is being lifted into the sky to live forever in paradise. Everyone but you.
Your deepest, darkest secret has been revealed to everyone.
You are a slave in chains, being whipped and forced to march along with the others.
You've been turned into a werewolf. You delight in tearing out your companions’ throats.
One of your companions has turned into a werewolf. They tear out your throat without hesitation.
You stumble through the dark as phantoms lunge out at you from the darkness.
Your companions have abandoned you. You will never see them again.
You're on a hill overlooking a city. A meteor falls out of the sky and obliterates it in a giant fireball that quickly consumes you.
You're trying to unlock a door as your companion on the other side desperately begs to be saved by an unknown threat.
Your arms have turned into big, clumsy crab claws.
No matter how much you yell and insist you're still alive, they keep shoveling dirt into the grave you're lying in.
Clowns laugh and dance around you as horrible music plays louder and louder.
The rickety old bridge you're walking on breaks when you're halfway across.
It's a long, long way down, and you can't hang on much longer.
You're on a boat in a terrible maelstrom, constantly in danger of capsizing.
You're strapped to a table blinding by a bright light above, as strange humanoids meticulously vivisect you.
You are in prison for life.
You're trapped at the bottom of a well, the walls are too slippery to climb.
You're on a beach with several other people. Suddenly, giant tentacles come out of the water and start grabbing people.
The tavern is on fire, yet no-one else is panicking but you, even as the flesh melts off their bones.
An evil copy of yourself is murdering your companions.
Your genitals are shriveling away.
You've somehow laid a massive egg. The creature that hatches from it craves flesh.
A giant leech sucks out your blood. You can feel yourself being drained dry.
You look in the mirror- you've become the very same person you hate the most.
Someone from your past that you hold dear has found you again. They are deeply disappointed with who you became.
You are married to a giant, hideous insect.
You just can’t stop vomiting, and it doesn’t look like normal vomit.
A pair of wings sprout from your back that you cannot control. They force you to fly higher and higher and won’t stop.
The eggs in your belly are hatching.
Demons chase you around, stabbing you with spears and shooting arrows at you.
You're at a masquerade ball. The other guests pull off their masks to reveal smooth, blank flesh where their faces would be.
You trip and fall to the ground. Your body shatters like a porcelain doll.
the crowd boos and throws rotten fruit at you as you try and fail to play music.
you find your companions all dead and hanging from a tree.
you stand at the edge of a lake. the bodies beneath the water beckon you to join them.
you slept for too long. You're now old and decrepit, and the world is completely different.
You are trapped in a labyrinth. Something is hunting you, and it knows the maze better than you.
A terrible storm is approaching fast. You awaken just as you are struck by lightning.
A crow is standing on your chest. It pecks one of your eyes out, which stares back at you before being swallowed.
Utter chaos. floating mountains, multicolored trees, upside-down houses, the ground turns to jelly, etc. You go mad trying to comprehend it.
there is a second, hideous mouth somewhere on your body, spouting obscenities to everyone in earshot.
A great field of bloody corpses stretches out before you. They are all dead because of your terrible mistake.
you stare into the mirror at you claw all your flesh off until you're just a bloody skeleton.
You open a door. A giant eye stares back at you.
You open a door. You see a filthy jail cell, and some hideous figure curled up and shivering in the corner.
You open a door. Your own corpse is lying on the floor, already pale and drawing flies.
You open a door. Wild animals on the other side attack you.
You open a door. There is a howling black void within that beckons you.
The farm you work on is dying, the crops are all rotten and black with disease. You'll surely starve.
Everyone is running away as a giant hand reaches down and grabs them one by one. The last thing you see before waking is the ground rushing away from you as the hand carries you away.
You are floating in a black void full of stars and nebulae. A dark creature the size of a planet looks to you and whispers something you cannot comprehend.
Roll again twice- you either have both nightmares one after the other, or combine the two into one big nightmare (your choice). If you roll doubles, roll again.
Tried catching up to this year's goretober (to no avail) but did like how this one turned out ig :0
Even though it's not really that gorey
From that one clone story rattling in my head. I love my two biotech testing clones and their weird relationship... Situationship??? What even is a situationship anymore...
But yeah this is before their respective traumatic procedures :0
I love cooking so hard on making character playlist covers instead of actual pieces that's so great!!
Gen question though, my two meowing mutuals, should I make an actual cover for the Chime playlist or nah? My girlie deserves one atp but like I'm so used to the picrew cover...
I love how I completely forgot about continuing his story oopsies tee hee! But like... Waah... Maybe I'll do something college during the Bowie Cal College arc
