“Hey! Welcome back guys, how was it out there? I got coffee for Tanya, water for Donald, hot chocolate for Edith, and I’m still not sure exactly what this is but here’s your drink Mr. Neiros! Come on, tell me about your adventures!”

 

Name:

 

Morgan McGraw

 

Supername:

Dream Warden

 

Given that Morgan is the warden of the Dream Sultan (who he keeps within his dreamworld as an action figure), the supername Dream Warden was a natural fit.

 

ERC:

 

0

 

Morgan has the rare rank of 0 signifying that his metapathogen makes him incompatible with any standard emergency. His physical body lies sleeping at Hal and Greer Hospital and his Astral body is trapped within his own dreamworld. He doesn’t have to worry about what goes on outside his head, though he wishes he did.

 

Average Grade:

 

C+

 

Morgan is behind on his studies, but ever since Mr. Neiros’ Night Club visited him, he’s been far more welcoming and accommodating to his tutors.

 

Personalized Curriculum:

 

Remediation, Night Club with Mr. Neiros 

 

About two years ago, Morgan grew hostile to his tutors and kicked them out of his dreamworld. He’s behind in his education, and so he takes remediation. That takes up the majority of his academic hours (just ask Claude and Lanty how much of a pain remediation can be) the rest is taken up by Night Club, or more specifically, the little time he has with Night Club every night. They use his dreamworld as their meeting and debriefing spot, and though they can’t take him along on their missions, they tell Morgan all about them. Morgan appreciates having friends that visit him each night. He keeps his dreamworld as cozy as a winter cabin for them and always has their favorite snacks available.

 

Contact Education:

 

N/A

 

The contact education program doesn’t work when you can’t have the child make contact.

 

Metapathogen:

 

Subductive Telepathy

 

A Lonely God

 

Subductive telepathy, also known as comatose telepathy, is a metapathogen in which its sufferer’s consciousness is offloaded from their brain into the Astral. Without early detection, subductive telepathy can be deadly–the mind offloads onto the Astral, neurons stop firing, and the brain dies. Upon death, a sufferer’s ghost is pulled free of their odic bond and begins to roam the Astral thinking that they are the human that just perished lost in dreams and unable to wake up. Learning the truth is often traumatizing for the ghost.

 

Subductive telepathy can create a very tragic situation, but fortunately for Morgan, his was detected early on by TIMS and he was rushed immediately to Hall and Greer Hospital where he was placed on life support.

 

Typically in cases of subductive telepathy, the treatment is a spinal implant similar to those used to control superpowers which reroutes cognition from the Astral to the brain. But Morgan didn’t respond to implants. The next treatment was to attract his Astral body into a gaeite laced artificial body. But his Astral body refused to budge. His dreamworld was like a prison. He couldn’t get out. Even trying to get his Astral body to move to other dreamworlds failed. 

 

In the end, the only thing that could be done was to have telepaths enter his dreamworld to keep him company and tutor him in the hopes that one day he would be able to will himself to wake up.

 

The one consolation, if it could even be called that, of Morgan’s metapathogen was that it make him a phenomenally powerful telepath. He couldn’t directly interface with another mind, but he could create thoughtforms and send them out into the wider Astral to do his bidding in other dreamworlds. The degree of control he has over his dreamworld is similar to that of thaumaturgists who complete the Great Work. His dreamworld will be standing for eternity, even if he dies. It is a self-contained universe and Morgan controls all aspects of it. Morgan is a god, but a lonely one chained to his creation, and it was his loneliness that eventually caused him to act out.

 

VS The Dream Sultan

 

Boredom and frustration crept in as the years went by. Morgan’s body grew back in physical reality as his dreamworld self remained a middle schooler. It was like he was frozen in time. His dreamworld was a recreation of his childhood home minus his parents’ bedroom. It made him sad to think about his parents. He controlled a universe of bedrooms and living rooms and kitchens. He had every video game and every movie he ever wanted and they played all the time on several screens so that there would be noise. Every action figure he ever wanted lined the walls

 

In many respects, his dreamworld was like that of Simon Wheeler’s universe. It was a womb of childhood memories surrounding a boy rapidly outgrowing it. 

 

Jealous that regular people had dreams and lives while he only had dreams, he kicked out his tutors and began sending thoughtforms to terrorize the inhabitants of Joyous Harbor as they slept. It was only through his victims feeling sorry for his circumstances that prevented him, his family, and TIMS from being sued. 

 

Fearing that Morgan had started down a dark path, Martin’s sent Mr. Neiros and his Night Club to speak with him, feeling that Morgan could benefit from interacting with dreamwalkers his own age. But someone else had taken an interest in Morgan–the Dream Sultan, an infamous telepath with a career of villainy stretching back to the 1920’s.

 

The Dream Sultan, born Oscar Gagnon, was a talented dreamwalker who became hateful of the Astral following being rejected by his dreams. After he accomplished the Great Work, he created a dreamworld where he was the beloved king of the universe ruling alongside his beloved queen. But his dreams turned on him. They grew tired of being ruled over by their creator. Why did he deserve to rule over them? He only made them. He did not know what it was like to be them. They rebelled, and exiled him from his dreamworld.

 

Distraught, Oscar decided that the Astral itself was a cancer upon reality. The Astral and the dreams it contained only distracted mankind from the here and now. Dreams were parasites draining man of drive and vitality. Dreams had to learn their place as the products of superior beings, and so Oscar became the Dream Sultan, a sort of dreampirate preying on the universes of the Astral and subjugating them as part of a massive empire. Every dreamworld he conquered was added to an enormous palace. Each room was a world and the entire structure was carried on the backs of enslaved gods.

 

The Dream Sultan sought to add Morgan’s universe to his palace. It was a powerful dreamworld, its strength would serve him well. He believed that he would have had no problem convincing Morgan to part with his dream. Who better understood that dreams were parasites that entrapped men than a boy held prisoner by his own dream? He tried to make a deal with Morgan–he would take away his dream, and without the dream Morgan would finally be able to wake up. Whether or not Morgan would have accepted the deal, we can’t say, but thanks to the intervention of Night Club we don’t have to speculate. 

 

Mr. Neiros and his students convinced Morgan that it was worth holding onto his dreams. He could learn how to make something beautiful out of his dreams. He could learn how to be happy. They were willing to teach him.

 

Morgan thought Mr. Neiros made a much better offer and helped Night Club in defeating and capturing Dream Sultan. Dream Sultan is now trapped in the form of an action figure inside Morgan’s dreamworld. His palace is a playset kept inside Morgan’s closet. Morgan is not prepared to take on the responsibility of ruling, remaking, or releasing universes per their inhabitants wishes and turns the responsibility over to ARGO, though he realizes that one day he owes it to the people of the palace to reveal who their savior is.

 

Morgan is happier than he’s ever been being the caretaker of Night Club’s meeting place. His dreamworld has a use he can be proud of, and new memories breathe life into a dreamworld build of old ones. He’s built rooms chronicling the adventures of Night Club–what they’ve done, where they’ve been, and the people they’ve met.

 

Perhaps one day Morgan will take responsibility over the palace. Maybe one day he’ll take that playset out of the closet and let it range around his house of memories. It sure would be interesting to see orbs full of galaxies float by family photos and fly over potato chip bags. But whatever he decides for the future, we can rest assured that Mr. Neiros and Night Club will be at his side helping him every step of the way.

 

Behavior:

 

Good

 

Morgan used to be a bad kid. Feeling hopeless in his situation, he sent thoughtform nightmares out from his dreamworld to terrorize the inhabitants of Joyous Harbor as they slept believing that they shouldn’t be able to enjoy both the waking and the sleeping worlds if he could only enjoy one. But he’s grown up considerably since he befriended Mr. Neiros and his Night Club, though he still has a few rough edges to smooth out. For instance, he tends to ask inappropriate questions of whoever visits him–are they dating, are they married, have they had sex. He wants to know everything about his visitors down to the last secret so he can live vicariously through them.

 

Appearance:

 

Morgan’s body sleeps in hospital clothes, his hair trimmed every so often by the nurses. His Astral dreamform used to look younger than his physical self as Morgan used his own memories of himself to develop his dreamform, but Mr. Neiros helped him update his appearance by providing him with images of his physical self and helping Morgan overcome the pain of looking at his body for the first time in years. It was a milestone in Morgan’s development as a telepath and as a person that he accepted the years his metapathogen had taken away from him.