007 - Imprisoned

Concept:

The current list of Conjures don’t particularly revolve around anything malicious or evil (outside of the witch concept), thus I want to develop a Conjure that is purely evil. This Conjure will have no other purpose than to cause torment and suffering in one way or another. To help me in this process, I’m going to look a bit more into nightmares, and how trauma can manifest within them and dreams. My instinctive reaction is to make something that is a direct manifestation of trauma/mental disorders that loom over an individual, and make the nature of the Conjure obvious to the audience.

Research:

• Tore Nielsen and Ross Levin created a new model of nightmares and dreams - the AND model. It suggests that REM dreaming involves the 'stripping away of contextual material from images laden with fear' which 'allows the fear image to be more efficiently integrated into long-term memory'. 'Fear extinction occurs after contextual information is stripped from affect-laden images or memory fragments' - 'Nightmares and recurrent dreams occur when the stripping or decontextualisation process breaks down and then the affect-laden image fragment remains in short-term memory stores where it gets reactivated periodically whenever semantically related cues activate it'.
• This effectively means that visuals within your brain are typically stripped of context, thus causing no fear - failures in this stripping process is why the fear response remains in response to the aforementioned visuals.
• As far as we know, our dreams are entirely formed around our memories and experiences. In fact, they are dependent on said memories. Nightmares are probably the best way of determining the validity of this, as nightmares should, in theory, occur more commonly in people with traumatic life experiences that are relevant in recent memory. 'Severely distressing and repetitive nightmares are a hallmark of PSTD, RBD (REM behaviour disorder), and several other chronic and disabling neuropsychiatric syndromes'.
• Failed fear-extinction events can be caused by 'too high a level of fear or arousal associated by the original memory', meaning that a memory may be so traumatic to someone that the decontextualisation process during REM is ineffective, meaning that the negative emotions are continually stimulated within short term memory, causing nightmares.
• Recurrent dreams are effectively a mystery as it stands - we have no idea why people can have the exact same dream multiple times. The current theory however, is that 'they are related to unresolved emotional difficulties in the dreamer's life'.
• Those afflicted with mental disorders, such as anxiety or depression, often exhibit reclusive behaviour. They often push away those around them, as it can often be incredibly draining on ones internal battery to feign happiness. They may attempt to ignore the weight of the disorder, only increasing the burden. Since we are incredibly vulnerable when depression takes hold, it can often be a self-defence mechanism to simply avoid interaction. If we don’t interact with others, our vulnerability is not exposed, merely hidden.

Translatable Qualities:

I think I want to focus on the social effects of trauma for this Conjure, as they stick out to me as something to build from. Since social reclusiveness can be a defence mechanism, it would only make sense to mirror that within the Conjure’s gameplay and/or design.

• Perhaps the Conjures abilities focus on deflecting attention (attacks, damage) away from itself, into someone else?
  • Attack redirection
  • Preventing the Conjure from being attacked
  • Damage reduction ability?
• Perhaps the apathy presented by depressed individuals could translate to a negation ability for the Conjure?
  • Nullify additional effects, damage, abilities?

Conjure Ideas:

The idea I have at the moment is a Conjure that comes in two parts, the individual, and the manifestation of their trauma/mental afflictions as its own distinct entity. The entity and the individual are one in the same and are thus inseparable, and the entity feeds off of the individuals negativity, constantly acting in ways that will increase their negativity. The entity would fend off anyone who gets too close, and continually isolate the individual, taking pleasure in their plight.

• Shadowy entity, lots of blacks and greys
• Many hands, to symbolise entrapment and restraint?
  • The entity could constantly have a chokehold on the individual
  • They could loom over the individual and dominate the artwork, as to symbolise the power dynamic
• Evil expression, and a malicious grin
  • The individual themselves would have an empty, melancholic expression, or an outright sad expression
    • Pasty white skin, as to symbolise a lack of exposure to the outside world and sickness simultaneously
      • Maybe black eyes, as to indicate possession of some sort?
    • Lack of muscle, as to further indicate lack of activity and exposure to the outside

Moodboards: