Overview

The Velvet Mirage is a 5e campaign for levels 3–7. A seaside city called Nereid’s Gate appears only at night, drifting between shorelines as if carried by a tide of dreams. Citizens awaken with fragments of memories missing and peculiar tilts of reality, hinting at a hidden design behind the ever-shifting masquerade.

Setting & Tone

Dream-logic meets nautical peril: social intrigue at a grand gala, coral-walled marketplaces, and a labyrinthine dream-realm accessed through a sentient velvet mirror. Bell-shaped waves carry wrecks of memory; clockwork sentries hum with remembered futures. Expect illusions, mind-affecting effects, and moral choices that ripple into reality.

The Main Quest

The party uncovers that a figure known as The Curator intends to tear open a permanent rift between dream and waking, feeding on memories to fuel a secret empire of dream-sworn beings. The main quest is to locate four Memory Anchors, seal the rift, and decide the fate of dream-waking borders—whether to restore balance or seize the power for themselves.

Key Locations

• Nereid’s Gate: a harbor city that vanishes with dawn; the starting hub for clues, factions, and NPCs.


• The Mirage District: a floating market inside a shifting urban maze that only exists while the Velvet Mirage is near.


• The Glass Archive: a library of memories stored in mirrors; a puzzle-rich dungeon of reflections and paradoxes.


• The Clockwork Reef: an underwater fortress of gears and sentries that guards one Memory Anchor.


• The Velvet Vault: a chamber of mirrors where the final anchor lies and where choices bend the ending.

The Four Memory Anchors (Main Objectives)

1) Echoes of the Ocean—recover a submerged memory shard from a drowned temple.
2) Glass of Truth—reclaim a memory from the Archive’s lucid-trap.
3) Gears and Gales—claim a mechanical memory from the Clockwork Reef.
4) Velvet Seal—seize the final anchor within the Velvet Vault and confront The Curator.

Side Quest

Investigate the wreck of the Blue Wren to recover a stolen memory crystal used by dream-walkers. Align with the Lumen Choir, a faction of benevolent dream-walkers, to learn survival tricks and dream-safety rituals.

Hooks & Traps

• Each character receives a fragment of a memory that only resolves when they perform a ritual at a masked gala.


• A patron’s memory vanishes, triggering a race to the next Mirage event.


• A talking mask offers cryptic guidance, but only if the wearer can pass its riddle.

Rewards & Progression

• Mirage-touched gear grants brief, potent boons for a single scene (advantage on a skill check, a short teleport, etc.).


• Memory Crystals usable to re-roll a failed saving throw or recall a learned spell once per day.


• Dream-walker’s Boots or a Mask of Hidden Truth unlocks limited dream travel or reveals illusions for a short time.

Challenges & Atmosphere

Expect social intrigue, puzzle-heavy dungeon segments, and combats with dream-entities and tide-wrack guardians. Time pressure from the shifting city forces quick decisions. Themes explore memory, identity, and the cost of power over dreams.

Ending Options

• Close the rift: reality returns to balance, memories restored, the Mirage dissolves.


• Seize the dream: the party becomes custodians of dreams, with new powers and responsibilities over what is remembered and what is forgotten.