DREAM
Set a card aside, face up. It leaves your hand, your draw pile, your discard, your exhaust — everything — and waits.
AWAKEN
Next turn it comes back with Retain, and it costs 1 less for that turn. Your setup turn buys the one after it.
LUCID
True for the rest of any turn in which a card woke up. A third of the pool reads it and pays you more.
FRIGHT
An Unplayable, Ethereal Status. The Nightmare cards hit above rate and leave these behind for you to deal with.
One slot, and the whole turn changes
Dreaming a card costs you the turn you are in. Everything the character does is an argument about whether that trade was worth it.
TURN 1
Play Tuck Away. Gain Block, and put the expensive card you can’t afford yet to sleep.
ENEMY TURN
The sleeping card sits outside the deck. Nothing can discard it, exhaust it, or shuffle it away.
TURN 2
The nightlight pays 3 Block. The card wakes with Retain, one Energy cheaper, and you are Lucid.
THE DECISION
Spend it now, hold it with Retain, or fill the slot again and keep the light on.
92cards, every one with its own art
20 / 35 / 25the game’s own reward-pool split
70 HP3 Energy, one Dream slot to start
5 + 2multiplayer cards, and two Ancients
Starting relic
The Last Nightlight
At the start of your turn, if a card is Dreaming, gain 3 Block.
Rules clarifications
- Start-of-turn order: effects that check whether a slot is occupied resolve before that slot’s card automatically Awakens. This is why The Last Nightlight and Nightlight Glow pay out on the return turn.
- Lucid is a turn condition, not a stack: it is true from the first time a card Awakens until the end of that turn.
- Temporary cost changes do not cross zones: the Awaken discount expires at end of turn or when the card leaves your hand, unless a card explicitly says otherwise.
- Extra delay stacks: “waits one extra turn” postpones that card’s automatic Awaken by one start-of-turn check and grants the stated extra discount.
- Fright is a Status everywhere: it can be removed or transformed by effects that target Status cards.
- Dreaming Powers is allowed: the delay and discount are useful, but a Power leaves the deck after it is eventually played as normal.
How it plays
The packages are intentionally porous. A good run takes immediate answers first, then commits to whichever scaling the rewards and relics actually support.
Lucid planning
Core: Count Sheep, Stay Up Late, Sleep Cycle, Storybook, Blue Hour, REM Sleep.
Schedule expensive or situational cards one turn early, trigger Lucid, then chain discounted cards. Strongest when the deck has draw and a few high-impact 2–3 cost cards — not when every pick merely says Dream.
Nightlight defense
Core: Blanket Fort, Night Watch, Safe Corner, Nightlight Glow, Nightlight Eternal.
Keep at least one slot occupied to collect steady Block and turn setup turns into safety. Two More Minutes is the signature tempo choice: delay a payoff to survive now, and make the later card cheaper.
Nightmare aggression
Core: Shadow Kick, Bogeyman’s Claw, Toss and Turn, Stuffed Guardian, Nightmare Fuel.
Take above-rate damage and draw that seed Fright, then draft enough exhaust outlets to stop the deck choking. Early on Fright is a real cost; later, each copy becomes Block, damage or Strength.
Act-by-act priorities
| Stage | Take first | Do not overvalue | Deck check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early Act 1 | Direct damage: Bedside Bonk, Half Awake, Monster Check, Drowsy Swing | Pure slot scaling before the deck can kill an Elite | Can this deck deal 35–50 damage quickly? |
| Late Act 1 | One Fright outlet, one reliable Weak source, and AoE | Multiple Fright generators without cleanup | Can it survive a bad draw while a key card is Dreaming? |
| Act 2 | Scaling Power plus draw or targeted Dream access | More low-impact Commons that dilute Awaken turns | Does the scaling package work with only two pieces? |
| Act 3+ | Redundancy, deck thinning, and a long-fight engine | Slow setup that duplicates an engine already solved | Can it block, scale, and handle Status-heavy fights on its own? |
Three representative turns
- Tempo: Count Sheep draws into Moonlit Lunge, then Dreams it. Next turn it Awakens, becomes Lucid, and costs 0 because its own Lucid discount stacks with the Awaken discount.
- Defense: Two More Minutes keeps a key Power Dreaming, gains 6 Block now, triggers The Last Nightlight again next turn, and eventually returns the Power with a 2-Energy total discount.
- Nightmare conversion: Toss and Turn draws three and adds Fright; Shadow Parade Exhausts that Fright for two extra hits; Stuffed Guardian and Nightmare Fuel turn the same Exhaust into Block and damage.
Balance notes
Everything here is implemented and playable; the numbers are not final. This is what the design is deliberately holding on to, and where it is most likely to need a pass.
Main exploit watch
Cost reduction plus repeated Awaken can create infinites. Temporary discounts expire when a card leaves the hand, and the “first time each turn” gates on Blue Hour, False Dawn, Storybook and Wakeful are intentional rather than oversights.
Main feel risk
Dreaming a card is card disadvantage until next turn. If a turn feels passive, the fix is the starter relic or Common damage — not making Dream draw a replacement, which would erase the central tradeoff.
Main complexity risk
Dream slots carry a lot of state. The HUD shows each slot face up with its countdown and predicted return cost, and illegal Dream actions are refused before you spend Energy. If any of that ever goes quiet, the mechanic stops being readable.
Getting it running
Three minutes, and one dependency. If the character doesn’t appear on the select screen, BaseLib is the usual culprit.
1
Install BaseLib 3.3.8 or newer
The Dreamer is built on it and will not load without it.
2
Subscribe on the Workshop
Or drop the TheDreamer folder into the game’s mods/ directory yourself, next to BaseLib.
3
Restart, and pick him
He sits with the other characters on the select screen, lantern already lit.
Ninety-two cards, and three ways to build
Take the discount and chain expensive turns together. Keep a card asleep and let the nightlight pay you Block for it. Or hit above rate and live with the Fright it leaves in your deck. Most runs end up somewhere between two of them.
Card catalogue
No cards match those filters.
Put a card to sleep. See what it’s worth in the morning.
Get it on the Steam WorkshopAlso on Nexus Mods