# Sleep Paralysis Demon in Sorcerer tags: #thoughts #game/rpg/sorcerer ![[Sorcerer (cover).png|300]] **[Sleep Paralysis Demon - Punky Doodles](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/brpBqEbsFZA)** A friend of mine brought up this particular little short, but then said something terrible to me. > Suddenly, I wonder if you can *do* Sleep Paralysis Demons (tm) in *Sorcerer*. Now, for this to really hit for you, you have to understand that *[[Sorcerer]]* is one of my favorite RPGs of all time, and I absolutely adore everything about it. It also was one of the very seminal RPGs of what I think of as the modern era, straight from literally The Forge and off the pen of Ron Edwards. While I may have had my disagreements with him as a person, he has always been a fantastic game designer and probably equally as opinionated as myself. It came out in 2001, which makes it 25 years old at this point, a fact which fills me with absolute horror, though there was an annotated version that came out in 2012, which at least makes me feel slightly less ancient, but not much. For the uninitiated, *Sorcerer* is a game in which you play a **sorcerer**, someone who is bound to a demon in one way or another. The actual interplay of the game is about how that affects your life. The demon might be something as innocuous as an amulet that makes you unnaturally physically resistant at the cost of needing to be fed blood once in a while, or something as literally soul-devouring as Stormbringer.[^1] Needless to say that once the question was on the table, I had to pull out my copy of *[The Annotated Sorcerer](https://payhip.com/b/JDT8)* and see what I could put together. ## The Sleep Paralysis Demon **Name:** Nachtwight **Type:** Possessor (Power vs Stamina to take over) **Telltale:** Dream-tangled disheveled hair **General Appearance:** > Without a host, a repeating nightmare of waking up and not being able to move, or a persistent, insistent fantasy of being paralyzed in situations within daily life, such as riding the subway or waiting on a bus. Within a host, as the host, except with disheveled hair and a general air of sleepwalking. During the day, the host can have the Nachtwight cloud the minds of others to let them pass by as though just a momentary daydream. They can also confuse another person, leaving them adrift in a fantasy of another moment. > > However, the demon needs to take control of its host once in a while during sleep without a fight. When it's in control, it is perfectly capable of passing as the host to even its most intimate companions. > > It's as though the person's id has run rampant. Perhaps worse, the demon can see the dreams of those sleeping nearby and has no hesitation to use them for its own gratification. > > The host can remember the actions taken by the demon while it is in control, but often only as a hazy, dreamlike recollection, unless the demon desires otherwise. **Abilities:** - Cloak (by Host) - Confuse (by Host) - Cover (as Host) - Daze (by Demon) - Perception (dreams; by Demon) **Stamina:** 5 **Will:** 6 **Lore:** 5 **Power:** 6 **Need:** Take complete control of its host during sleep **Desire:** Sensual gratification; to do whatever the host wishes they could do, but too much by far [^1]: Not to put too fine a point on it, but one of my favorite concepts for a fantasy setting was always the unofficial fantasy supplement for *Sorcerer*, *[Charnel Gods](https://www.scribd.com/document/750137605/Charnel-Gods)*. Fantastic stuff.