Nightmares, The Scourge, and Night

The Major Themes

With the information released so far, some recurring themes have come forth: Nightmares/Dreams, Disease/Transformation, and Day/Night.

These themes will inform and direct the story, and figuring out how they play into the world and how they connect to each other is the key to understanding the game as a whole.

Now this is ultimately idle speculation, as I'm sure the game will outright answer and lot of this, but as someone who is invested in solving the lore of this game I think there is value in thinking about it now. That way, when the game is released I have an idea of what I'm looking for.

The big question is: How do these themes connect? On their own I can get a relatively clear picture, but I am coming up short when I try and imagine how they form a cohesive story.

Night meshes well with both Nightmares and Transformation; Nightmares happen at night typically and Transformation in Gothic horror is certainly linked to night. But how do Dreams/Nightmares and Disease/Transformation connect?

Disease can be linked to hallucinations and disconnecting from reality, but I do think the Nightmare World/Dream Refuge are connected to dreaming, and not just a symbol for psychoses or horrors of the mind (you can find out why in this article). This basically becomes a question of how are the Nightmare World and the Scourge of the Beast related?

Without understanding what the Nightmare World is, my pursuit to answer how the major themes connect ends, and speculation begins.

Speculation

My personal thought is that perhaps the Nightmare World is the manifestation of people's fears. Similar to the Fade in Dragon Age, there is a connection to the Nightmare World when humans sleep.

Following that line of thinking, The Scourge of the Beast then could be a disease that literally transforms people into the monsters of their nightmares. Could this mean the plague came from the Nightmare World? Maybe someone tries to access the Nightmare World through a ritual involving blood, and thus the plague began.

This isn't a great answer, but it's a theory. Unfortunately it creates more questions, and there is enough unknown already, I don't need to try and answers created by my own speculation.

Questions

• How do the themes of Dreams/Nightmares, Disease/Transformation, and Day/Night connect to one another?
• How are the Nightmare World and The Scourge of the Beast related?
• What is the Nightmare World?
• What do you guys think? Am I over thinking things? What are your thoughts on these questions?

To see the full list of questions, visit this page.