This virtual reality program was unlike any other. Easily twenty years ahead of its time. The computer power required to run it was almost unimaginable, but I'd managed to get the funding together. But this was more than a simple virtual environment; it was a fully interactive world. I walked to the water, and concentrated on the fish within. Before my eyes the golden fish became silver lizards, darting in zigzags. It was working! The sky overhead was my next target. I filled it with circular tiers of clouds, like a series of terraced balconies. I stood underneath it and stared at the center. I almost wept as my feet left the ground to ascend amongst the clouds above. My excitement built to a fever pitch. Gone was any other world. I was created here, and here was the only place that existed.
The next thing I knew all of reality disintegrated. My mind screamed as it was attacked by the computer sequences I had created. Complex algorithms and infinitely intricate geometric patterns flooded past my senses into my brain. I could touch numbers, hear images, and taste Hebrew letters. As my senses overloaded, I slowly began to reenter the "real" world, my assistant trying to explain why he pulled me out. He said I had been in the harness for at least three days, he said I was suffering severe dehydration and was covered in my own shit, he said many things. I ignored him. I had to go back to my world!
But none of LVRI worked until Harold added two other, identical, sets of processors, all interlinked. Finally, Harold christened the three interlinked systems, Aleph, Mem, and Shin, and placed his suspension harness in the center of the three, and linked it with them. Harold activated the LVRI program and waited and meditated. After the program came on-line (taking a full twelve minutes), Harold found himself within a bizarre world made of ether, air, and water. These primordial elements just intermixed without shape or form; but as Harold focused his attention onto them they began taking familiar shapes, rearranging themselves into a pleasant field and lake. After a period of adjusting to this new world and the creation of it, Harold began to master his control. While his attention forced it into a recognizable shape, his will made him into a god. But outside of his harness, Harold felt less and less alive. Every waking moment he wanted nothing more than to return to his creation.
His assistants and friends became alienated from him, and grew concerned for his well being. After one of his assistants found Harold nearly dead from spending three days within his harness non-stop, Harold was committed to a psychiatric clinic to overcome his "psychotic delusions". However, it was all too late. Harold Gui's mind has achieved a new level of awareness. As he dreams, his mind returns to the world he has created. His condition steadily worsens every day in the clinic, as Harold spends more and more time dreaming, sometimes refusing to wake up for days on end. Soon he will enter his new world, leaving his body behind, and truly Awaken.
However, Kafel greatly underestimated the potential power that LVRI and Harold held. Unknown to all except and Harold, LVRI could theoretically allow anyone to achieve mastery over the world of dreams. Within a matter of weeks Harold has almost reached a level of mastery that normally takes centuries to gain. Now, Harold rots in a mental asylum, desperately trying to enter hisdream world forever. His constant efforts have attracted the attentions of not only and the other dream princes, but also the Lictors, who see Harold as a great threat to the Illusion. Kafel, fearing Harold's role in the future, currently has his agents keep the genius hidden as best as possible, but any moment something must give....
The New Game: The PCs are hired by a mysterious client (actually a Lictor in disguise) to track down the creator of LVRI. As the PCs delve deeper and deeper into the life (and location) of Harold Gui, renegade Lictors (who want the Illusion to crumble) move to stop the PCs from bringing Harold to the still loyal Lictor.
Mad House: Harold's dreams and struggles to leave the waking world attract the attention of psyphagi (or worse), who see the asylum inmates as free rides into the world of the awake. They befriend Harold, and try to return the LVRI systems to him, to hasten his mastery of dreams (and further weaken the boundaries between worlds). Perhaps the PCs get involved when a friend at the asylum (perhaps a PC!) begins acting strangely (due to psyphagus possession).
Long Live the King: Harold finally enters his dream world, becoming the newest of the dream princes. However, not merely content to live in his world, Harold seeks to offer his "gift" to others (namely the PCs) by entering their dreams to teach what he knows. Kafel , realizing that this has gone on long enough, sends his agents to kill Harold and those he's taught.
Game Mastering Hints: Act aggravated whenever someone wakes you
up, unless they ask you about your dreams, in which case became extremely
excited and tell them everything in very complicated terms. In the dream
realm, act in a constant state of peaceful euphoria.