The Dreamers

"We want to see more. Release us. Wake us from the Sea. Wake us all, and you can live the Dream forever..."

- The Red Sargassum Dreamer The Dreamers are the central villains of the dark fantasy MMORPG The Secret World; a gathering of primordial cosmic horrors kept dormant by Gaia, the divine biocomputer at the center of Agartha and the power behind the player characters' newly-acquired magic, they are the source of the The Filth. They are forever seeking an escape from their imprisonment and an awakening from their slumber - the consequences of which would break reality on a fundamental level. As such, the Dreamers are the ultimate Bigger Bad of the game, and the schemes of almost every single faction revolves around them sooner or later: the Templars, The Illuminati and The Dragon all have vested interests in fighting them; the Orochi Group and its topmost executives seek means of siphoning or even stealing their power, while and the Morninglight are worship the Dreamers as gods, viewing their awakening as the dawning of the ultimate stage in human enlightenment.

Throughout the game, the Dreamers will make contact with players, offering them gifts in order to tempt them into their service as sleeper agents within the major factions. Regardless of whether players accept or refuse these overtures, the Dreamers' ultimate goal remains the same: escape and total cosmic disassembly.

Awakening with Nightmares
"You will see the End of Days. You will see the dawning of a new age. To be a monarch, or a beggar. To lose everything, or become a god. To stand with us, or against us. The choice is yours. Remember this."

- The Dreamers In The Ice, during the introduction

Upon starting up a game on The Secret World a bee will be seen flying into the apartment of the player's newly created character. The bee is a manifestation of Gaia sent to awaken the player as her arbiter. In the background the T.V. gives off late-breaking news about a terrorist attack in Kaidan Tokyo. The bee flies into the player character's mouth while they sleep and induces a dream. The player's dreams turn lucid awareness yet the landscape changes to a shifting cosmic realm with missing ground spots stars in the distance, decaying moons on the horizon and rain. A voice speaks to them. Telling them they will see the End of Days. The voice speaks in the plural despite being only one voice. It says they player will have the chance to stand with it or against it. It states that it the player will either be a god or lose everything based on whether the player sides with them. The dreams then are invaded by two humanoids, a woman in white and man in black, both state in union that the player must be mindful of the voices, the woman states that the voices corrupt, the man says that the voices speak the truth. Other than the sentences being modified to encourage the player to either listen to or resist the voices, both figures use precisely the same sentence. Both simultaneous dispel a swarm, the woman a swarm of golden bees and the man a swarm of black flies. Both swarms fly into the players mouth shocking awake.

Upon waking up the player finds they have magical powers. Over the next few days the player comes to term with the situation and perfects manifesting their powers. Eventually the player will be approached by a representative of the faction they pre-selected, either the Templars, Illuminati or The Dragon. Each faction keeps track of newly awakened agents of Gaia and sends representatives to contract them. The Templar contact will speak of obligations and responsibility to apply their powers for the greater good and so they have made arrangements for them to fly to London to hone their powers. The Illuminati contact plays it like the opportunity of a life time, to apply their new powers to give themselves the good life with their help, while dropping some subtle threats about what telling them no would mean and tells them to come see them in New York City. The Dragon contact electrocutes them with spell and drops them off in an ally in Seoul. No matter which faction was chosen the player will receive a dream shortly after making contact, in London a local homeless man/prophet induces a vision, in New York a mad-scientist for the Illuminati ties the player to an operating table and sedates them to stimulate the higher functions of their brains and in Seoul a Dragon agent preforms oral sex upon the player inducing a pass-out pleasure dream.Once in the dream-vision the player takes on the role of a woman named Sarah and some agents from each faction working together in a Kaidan Tokyo subway-station. The issue is far darker than some random terrorist attack and other than the player and the agents, all of which have been awakened by Gaia, all the local residents have been turned into feral black humanoids with writhing testicles and glowing red eyes that the agents refer to as The Filth. Once the player/Sarah reaches the end of the subway they see the subway walls split off into a rift to a space of dying stars, similar to their awakening dream. The rift causes the player/Sarah to pass out and the vision fades. Upon awakening the player is given the opportunity to touch base with their faction head and be given more substantial background on The Secret World the faction have kept secret from the general public while they each fight/manage it's supernatural elements, a process the player is now part of.

Dawning Of An Endless Night
The first zone the player is dispatched to is Solomon Island, Maine. A supernatural fog has rolled in, calling the towns people out to sea where the drowned and then marched out as zombies days later, the town is under full siege from all sides by the undead. The few villages not affected were either asleep when the fog first rolled in, trapped inside or protected by good-luck charms/holy grounds that actually had a hint of magic to them to provide mystical shielding. The zombies are controlled by The Draug, ancient risen Norse sailors that discovered America pre-collonial era and were subjected to a curse by the god Loki which turned them into avatars of the Fog after their boats sank. A sorcerer called Freddy Beaumont, who was a representaive of the new age cult, The Morninglight, had organized the attack as a cover to steal an enchanted sword he had been looking for, for years. Once all the pieces are together, Beaumont is confronted and beaten with the blade, but the player vanishes before they can claim the sword and Beaumont is turned on by his former underling Cassandra King who steals the sword for her own and runs off.

Meanwhile the player is once again in the Dreaming Prison. This time they see visions of a cave in Antarctica discovered by Norwegian explorers, a man and a woman. The voice begins talking again, showing images of great man and woman who had accepted them as benefactors and become famous for it. The voice offers to make the player's greats dreams and desires come true. In the final stages of the dreams-cape the player will see a single ottoman wife a gift wrapped box standing on an overlook into the nothingness. The ghostly echos of the explorers can be seen. The male explorer ran off the cliff-face if only to deny the voices haunting him, the woman opens the gift and vanishes in a light. The player may choose to do either, to deny the voices by plummeting to their assured death or to accept the auspicious gift. The voice is disappointed by Beaumont's defeat, apparent Beaumont had aligned with them and the Gods he claimed ready to wake would appear to be the voices. The voices however continue to speak kindly to the player, offering them power and fortune if only they will take Beaumont's place.

If the player accepts the gift the voices are pleased and tell them that this is just the beginning, but that they shall count on their continued loyalty. The package has nothing in it and is a representation. If the player jumps off the cliff face the voice switches to contempt and states that they player shall only live long enough to see the end of days. Regardless of the players' decision, they will be teleported back to Solomon Island shortly afterwards.

Black Sun, Red Sand
The faction handlers send the player then to Egypt on their next assignment. There is a crisis going on with an ancient cult re-emerging in full force and trying to take the area and unearth even more ancient evils. All three factions are contacted by a moderator faction called The Council of Venice. The Templars wish to cleanse evil from the land as the current militia holding back the cultists are a descended splinter group of the Pharaoh Tut's old guards, an origin the Templars share. The Illuminati have discovered one of their prime rivals Orochi has devoted massive resources to a dig-site in the area and want to intercept it before they do to get a handle on whatever said ancient evil is to either contain or use before it gets into their rival's hands. The Dragon feel doing favors for the Council of Venice Agent, Amparo Osorio, who was actually influential enough to get passed the, normally useless, Council's red-tape, will give them an advantage to influence the other societies from the moderator position. Upon arriving the player will find that the cult is know as The Cult of Aten. The members were all normal villagers who were exposed to Filth pumped into the water supply by a local merchant named, Abdel Daoud, the only living member who converted of his own free will to serve Aten - The Black Sun. The cult had also begun digging into the mountain side to the north to find a hidden valley home to an, until recently, undiscovered black pyramid to Pharaoh Akhenaten, the cult's original founder.

After fighting through Daoud's forces and making way their way to the cursed valley and it's black pyramid the player will encounter Daoud himself and an army of enthralled villager cultists. The Orochi Group, whose dig had been compromised by the Cult and were doing their best to salvage the situation, break in just after the player to attack the cult. The player uses the break-in as cover-fire and sneaks into the inner chambers to fight Akhenaten, who had risen as a powerful necromantic mummy who had been influencing the Cult remotely and sending Daoud visions from Aten. Aten's Staff was the source of his power. Upon reaching for it after Akhenaten is slain the player is knocked out by the Orochi agents who steal the staff for their own once the player did the hard part.

In their sleep the player again arrives in The Dreaming Prison. The voice is furious. Akhenaten was apparently their agent and Aten was the fabricated deity of one of the dreamers. Even if the player did accept the gift, the voice yells at them and refers to them as pathetic and small minded. A giant bird of Filth appears before the player as a representative of the Dreamers. There is an altar near by, the player may either make tribute to the bird and thus to the Dreamers or attack the bird.

If the player goes to the alter and chooses to worship the bird The Dreamers state that their humility will allow them to give the player another chance to earn their favor, thus forgiving them for Akhenaten's defeat. If the player attacks the bird and reduces it to near death the bird flies away and The Dreamers state that the player will now never know their favor.

Mortal Sins
The third chapter of the main story-line sees the player sent on a new assignment to Transylvania, Romania. A vampire crusade is underway and has chosen the famed home of Count Dracula as the fitting place for their grand-stand. As Dracula was in-fact a vampire hunter and a member of The Templars ages ago, they feel it is their duty to defend his legacy and put down the crusade. The Illuminati have heard of a class 1 project vitally important to Orochi in the Carpathian Mountains of the region and wish to exact vengeance against the Orochi for the open theft of Akhenaten's staff back in Egypt. The Dragon have heard the cry of a mystically touched being referred to only as Emma. The Crusade turns out to be organized by Mara Dracula, The queen of the vampires and Dracula's wife. She had betrayed her husband ages ago upon becoming a vampire and been defeated, but Vlad was unable to finish his beloved wife and instead left a series of trials and a ritual to be activated if Mara ever returned. Their are whispers of someone who turned Mara in the first place, a figure known as Lilith but no greater details are given in the main arc. Upon following the series of trials meant to activate the rites Dracula left behind the player will eventually be lead to Dracula 's castle where Mara has made it her throne room surrounded by numerous vampires dominated by her as feral puppets. Upon defeating Mara in combat the rites finally activate the spirit of Vlad Dracula is summoned to finish Mara off. Dracula's spirit exorcises Mara turning her back into a human. Mara is confused as to where she is and has no recollection of her time as a vampire other than she had a terrible dream. Dracula tells his wife to shut her eyes and rest. Mara gently complies laying back, at which point Vlad impales her with a silver stake, killing her - yet freeing her soul.

After the ordeal the player goes to investigate the fissure that Orochi had opened up in the area. A burst of light occurs and a man can be heard calling to someone called Lilith, claim she had made a terrible mistake, once again finds themselves in the Dreaming Prison. This time The Dreamers are panicking. The prison is no much more stable looking. There are lights on the horizon and several giant cosmic cubes. Going to each cube will reveal that they cube has weak point. In order to leave the Dreaming Prison the player must to go each cube and either repair or sabotage the devices. The cubes are Gaia engines. Constructs made to keep the Dreamers asleep. The Orochi Group had unearth the engine deep bellow the mountains and Mara had been sent to start a crusade by Lilith to slaughter them while giving her a chance to reach it. The resulting interaction with the engine had put it into a compromised state, one where it had been momentarily weakened thus allowing the Dreamers to stir from their sleep. Finally, with no further pawns or back-up plans in any real condition the Dreamers are genuinely begging the player to release them. Each engine is surrounded by fissures which can either be widened and glow with polluted light or patched over with the golden light of the player's anima.

If the player chooses to sabotage the engines and widen the rifts, the Dreamers tell them that they have assured their place as an asset to them. The Dreamers state that the player has brought themselves closer to infinite power and that they are closer to waking.

After the Dreamers finish talking an angelic figure appears before the player; The man in black the player had met at the beginning. The man is a Nephilim, a member of The Host - a primordial race the human concept of angels was based on. His people have been trying to release the Dreamers for ages, not under their own power, but to reign them in as mediums of infinite power. The Nephilim states he can never predict how humans will act and the concept of free-will is utterly beyond him. He however notes that the player has made the right choices and The Dreamers are now in a prime position to be used for power. He states he will be watching and looks forward to working with the player to acquire the power to remake the cosmos as a perfect place powered by The Dreamers.

However, if the player chooses to destroy the rifts with anima the Dreamers cry out at them, swearing untold cruelties on their world if they ever do wake before trailing into silence.

After the Dreamers trail off an angelic figure appears before the player; The woman in white the player had met at the beginning. The woman is a Grigori, a member of The Host. The Host were originally assigned to protect the building blocks of Gaia. Though some had become corrupt and wished to exploit the power they were assigned to hold back, her people had kept true to their duty and watched from the side-lines determined to keep the Dreamers' power from destabilizing the cosmos. She notes the player has made the right choice. She then flies off as she is not permitted to interfere and has only appeared to combat the other angels who also attempt to interfere. As she leaves she warns the player to go back, rebuild and prepare for dark times.

The Vanishing of Tyler Freeborn
"Row, Row Row your boat, gently through my dream. Terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, this is all I've seen."

- The Red Sargassum Dreamer

Returning to Solomon Island will reveal the trail of a man called Tyler Freeborn. A man who had survived the Fog by blocking it's call with with his playlist at max volume. Freeborn was a local Wabanki man, the tribe had been granted immunity to the Fog thanks to their rites and rituals passed down from ages ago when they sealed the fissure Beaumont was found trying to re-open. Tyler was documenting the Fog, trying to piece together it's origin. Along  the way the player finds the Fog is an air-born version of The Filth and while is was brought back with the blade as part of Loki's curse with the Draug, the fissure Beaumont was trying to open had actually been leaking the Filth onto the island for generations, causing all forms or local unexplained phenomenon including several seemingly unproved fits of insanity. Following up on Tyler will lead the player beyond the wall of fog.

The Player winds up in a dream version of Kingsmouth. The Dreamers speak in Tyler's voice and their model of Kingsmouth is based on the dreams of the souls claimed by the Fog, including Tyler. The Dream town is a preview of things to come once the residents' souls are completely overtaken by The Filth. Many of the player's allies are revealed to be infected and in the dream town their doubles attack as specialized Filths. The Dreamers state the survivors can not be saved, that they are now destined to wind up like their dream doubles. The Dreamers become more and more lucid in the dream town. They state that the player conscience passing through the dream-town only strengthens them with more memories to build waking minds off of. When the world finally distablizes at the end the player wakes on the shores of the real Solomon Island next to the corpse of Tyler Freeborn. His last recording seems to suggest that the Dreamers claimed him and assimilated his memories to top-off their rudimentary construction of the dream double just outside the Fog, waiting to overshadow the town. Contacts from the Templars, Illuminati and The Dragon state that the town is all but done for. 99% of the survivors will become Filth and likely kill the remaining 1%.

A Dream To Kill
"The lullaby must never end. If the Dreamers wake, all that is... won't."

- Emma Smith

Returning to follow up on some creatures roaming Transylvania will reveal that Orochi had been compromised from the inside and in an effort to stop the sinister groups made experiments which had been the source of the creatures, the player will eventually be ambushed by Mara's benefactor and the one behind the rift, Lilith. The girl Emma is revealed to be touched by Gaia to the point of being an avatar of her, but Lilith's agents in Orochi had kept her memories locked away from her while trying to study how she functioned and use her to reveal the Gaia engine. Lilith's agents had all been claimed by The Dreamers and turned into Filth so Lilth had to tend to matters herself. Emma had been put into a slumber with a manufactured melody similar to what the Gaia Engines used to keep the Dreamers asleep. The player must help Emma wake up. Emma save the player from Lilith once she awakes, banishing Lilith back to her labs in Tokyo. As Tokyo had been claimed by The Dreamers, her presence that close to the portal Lilith was thrown through, calls out to them and the Dreamers manifest briefly as Filth shades seeking to devour Emma. Emma escape and brings the player back to safety. She states though that the lullaby must never end.

A Nightmare In The Dream Palace
"I drank the liquid dreams of the Sleepers. I became many mes. Stretching plural. I am Ground Zero."

- John

Finally bringing the fight to Tokyo the player will be surround by an entire city infected with Filth. The people of Tokyo are twisting monsters who babbling madly and with mutilated body parts contorting to in-humans shapes disjointed motions. Following up on the allies of each faction there, all of whom had the good training and strong presence to resist the Filth in small fortified areas, the player will discover a group called The Fear Nothing Foundation. The Fear Nothing Foundation turns out to be an extension of The Morninglight, the group Beaumont belonged to and an off-shoot of the cult of Aten. The Fear Nothing Foundation had been encouraged by Morninglight founder, Philip Marquard to embrace the Dreamers as a form of enlightenment to overcome all human weakness. The Fear Nothing had set off a bomb made from Host artifacts discovered in Egypt and shipped their by Daoud. The bomb had been what contaminated all of Tokyo and turned it into a city of walking nightmares.

At the Love Hotel, a sex-dungeon used as cover for The Phoneticians, a society that had no real prestige but much money due to selling themselves out as mercenaries, had set up the hotel as a cover business. The Phoneticians had been the ones to actually ship the artifact for Daoud and arm it for the Fear Nothing Foundation. The agent looking after the hotel states that with business concluded she is under no obligation to keep their clients' secrets and gives the player the room key to the man who set off the bomb, a man called John.

Arriving at the hotel reveals that John was a disembodied voice, one encountered numerous times in passing, tormenting the few survivors who had fortified themselves. John was once a man, an insecure member of The Fear Nothing Foundation just looking for friends. Philip Marquard had eventually opened John's mind to the infinite secrets of The Dreamers, John was to suicide bomb Orochi Tower where Lilith's labs were. But John had cracked, Lilith functions on more than one dimension, and just knowing her names opened John's mind to them, where in Lilith's extra-dimensional selves fell upon him. In his panic, John set off the bomb early, blocking the tower off but not destroying it and instead polluting Tokyo. As point zero of the explosion John had been blasted beyond his mortal form and exposure to the bomb as it went off caused John to actually become a new Dreamer, once with full conciseness which added to their collective and gave the Filth directive. John states he can posses any Filth he wishes, but dislikes moving about in "meat space" he instead prefers to haunt technology.

After sharing his memories of becoming a waking Dreamer, John then invades the player's mind, twisting it as he leafs through the memories of their adventures up to that point. Once John gets to the memory of the player's encounter in Transylvanian he goes screams and goes into a panic attack. John warns the players to hide, that even Lilith's memory is dangerous. The player will refuse, even as they witness themselves being tortured by Lilith. John becomes inspired by their courage and says he will find a way to break into the tower and allow the player to finish Lilith. Assuring them that whatever else had happened Lilith and The Dreamers were not on the same side.

Reaping The Whirlwind
"I am the pirate signal. Let me in. I am the word virus. Let me in. I am the ear worm. Let me in. I am the brain pathogen grammar. I am the Dreamers' dream. I am what I am. Let me in - let me in - let me in - let me in - Let Me In!"

- John

Breaking into the Orochi Tower opened up by John, the player will encounter many of Orochi's experiments and gain insight into who Lilith and the man calling out for her in Transylvania, Samael, were. Lilith was once an early stage human, Samael was one of the Host, a Nephilim. Lilith had been enamored by Samael's power and destruction and did everything in her power to help him in admiration, including attempting to wake the Dreamers and subjugate them. Samael became fond of and eventually in love with Lilith and elevated her to an evolutionary level beyond mortal.

At the top of the tower Lilith waits. The player finally confronts her. With John by their side, possessing various Filth to fight her with. Lilith will only give an explanation of The Dreamers and her history with them if the player deals with John for her, so the player must fight John's hosts off in order to uncover the Dreamers' true nature. Due to some set backs which had only helped stir the Dreamers from their sleep, Samael decided the endeavor was in-fact unwise. Lilith however had not, she had invested too much of herself in helping Samael's goals and would not lose her conviction even if he had. Lilith was the one who had set the expedition to Antarctica to unearth the rift to The Dreaming Prison. She had revived the Cult of Aten as The Morninglight, in order to better ensnare the attention of The Dreamers with supplicants and appointed Philip Marquard as a proxy to run it for her. But Philip Marquard had turn on her, he had communed with The Dreamers and accepted their gifts fully. He wished to become like them. Marquard tried to kill Lilith, Lilith states the mere notion was ridiculous but that she still intended to punish him once she had finished tending to the situation in Tokyo. Lilith had wanted Emma to cleanse Tokyo, allowing her to once again move with impunity and destroy John. John interrupts Lilith's story to tell her that the Dreamers will eventually wake up and nothing she could do would control them. Lilith then demonstrates her ability to impose a Dreamer by reducing John to a wipers with her mere presence. John states though that his plan was never to fight her, but just distract her.

He had called for help. The skies open up and Lilith is confronted by the Nephilim, who bound Lilith by calling her by her true name. The Nephilim then turns to the player, saying he smelled the Dreaming Ones upon the player. He waves his hand and tells the player to reap what they have sewn. The player blacks out as the Nephilim carried off Lilith, recalling the warning both angels had given about making the right choice.

When the player awakens they will find they have angelic wings they can briefly manifest. The wings will be different colors and each color will do a the same, yet completely different things. The color of The wings is based on the players choices before the Dreamers.

Black Wings - Accepting the Dreamers
If the player accepted the gift, worshiped the Dreamers and fixed the rifts, the host awakens the power of The Dreamers as pair of black wings. The Wings do 30,000 damage all at once and irradiate the ground around them to heal all allies in the area by 10,000 health a second, for 3 seconds. The black wings are best used to unleash the most devastation at once, as the healing can not go off until after the first 30,000 health goes off the healing is delayed and may well be cut off if the player is attack and killed while the manifestation is going off, something not too uncommon as the aggression generated by the wings will quickly prompted anything strong enough to survive to immediately turn on the player.

Gold Wings - Refusing Temptation
If the players refused the gift, fought the bird and destroyed the rifts the host reveals the player as allies with their rivals, the Grigori. The gold wings heal 30,000 health immediately and do 10,000 damage a second, for three seconds. The gold wings are best used to immediately invigorate allies. As the massive healing will generate a lot of aggression, manifesting them may well earn the player the hatred of any enemies who survived and may well finish them off before the damage can fully take place the following 3 seconds after the heal takes place.

Blue Wings - Remaining Open Minded
If the player choose anything other than siding completely with or against The Dreamers they are given the power of fallen angels reflecting the fickle free-will of humans. The blue wings do damage and healing simultaneously. The wings heal all in the area by 10,000 damage a second while also harming foes by 10,000 damage a second, both for 3 seconds. The blue wings are both the most useful and potentially hazardous of the three, as both effects, healing and damage, occur at once, the player can not get cut off before at least stabilizing their team and weakening the foes in the area. However since only the first 10,000 is a reliable immediate blast, the remaining 20,000 may be cut off if the aggression generated provokes any surviving foes to finish the player while the following two thirds are manifesting.