The Nightlords

Immortal masters of the Lands of Night, they are also the masters of fear. Also known as the Lords of Night and the Ba'al.

Basic Information

Anatomy

The Lords of Night may have a form they identify as their true self. But we never see these forms. For all we know, they may just be a coalescing formless consiousness. What we do see are the avatars they create. These avatars wield the same powers, but not as far-reaching. Each avatar they create is in the image of someone's fear or nightmare. As such, they are typically sinister, monstrous or disturbing in some way. In fact, an avatar of the Nightlords is indistinguishable from a Nightspawn morphus, except for the fact that reality warps around them constantly, reflecting the fears of those they influence.

Dietary Needs and Habits

The power of the nightlords is so pervasive and far-reaching that it affects worlds on a continental, if not global scale. Every mirrored surface comprising part of the mirror veil between The Nightlands and Earth allows the fear-inducing, nightmare-producing power of the nightlords to seep across the lands of Earth. The nightlords feed off this fear, sucking it back through the mirror veil. In the nightlands, each mirrored surface is at the center of an expanding reality-warp as the Lands of Night mutate to reflect the nightmares coming through from the other side.
The ability of avatars of the Nightlords to warp reality around them is almost absolute and they use this to target the fears of those within reach, almost surgically. Their reach is more local, perhaps extending as much as a hundred meters, but their fear is also more customized, extreme and nutritious to them.

Additional Information

Symbiotic and Parasitic organisms

Any sentient, but not necessarily sapient, species is a food source for the Nightlords. If it is capable of feeling fear, it is a food source. In this way, Nightlords can be considered parasitic, since their nutrition comes only from living hosts capable of fearing them.
The first sign one may have of the approach of an avatar of the nightlords is their surroundings becoming more scary and of animals going into a panic.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Most people have heard of the Nightlords. Their influence throughout Earth's history has seeped into our collective consciousness. They call themselves the Ba'al.

Average Technological Level

The Nightlords have no technological level, so to speak. Their ability to bend reality at will precludes dependence upon any technology or magic.

History

They conquered the The Nightlands when it was going through its time of rifts just as Earth is going through its time of rifts today. It is possible that the Nightlords are a product of the imaginations of the original denizens of that world just as those of The Spirit World are a product of the beliefs of the denizens of Earth. Regardless of their origin, they easily conquered their world, are the masters of it, and have been for eons.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

The power of the nightlords is the power of fear. They have an intimate relationship with fear, they can smell it, seek it out and then bend reality around them to reflect that fear, amplifying it and making the reality they create even more fearful, amplifying the fear, making the reality more fearful, amplifying the fear, and so on and so on in a self-reinforcing loop with no end. Their power is as great as those who fear them believe it to be. Is there any wonder about how easily they conquered the Nightlands?
Nightlords have little power without someone to fear them, however. In that regard, despite all their power, they are parasitic in nature. Left alone, they would slowly wane to nothing. But they are not alone, there are countless races across the universe, the influence of their nightmares leach fear from all of them, but none moreso than the people of Rifts Earth. The unleashed arcane energy and rifts make connections to Rifts Earth ubiquitous. There is a constant, steady stream of fear coming from the peoples of Earth and the Nightlords are gorging on it.

The Nightlords know that all prey will eventually build up a tolerance to fear, either through insanity, catatonia or despair. There is only so much fear a creature can endure.
Once Nightlords have leeched as much fear as they can out of their prey, they will kill it, earlier if they can use that death to instill even greater fear upon others. The power thay can suck from their victim's death is a nice cherry on top of the treat their fear provided.