Nightmares

"Nightmares aren't demons. They're worse."

— unknown

Nightmares are malicious Spirits that prey on mortals. They feed on pain and fear and strive to cause such wherever they go. They are the source of many bad dreams throughout the Realms.

Creation: A nightmare is a child of the Nightmare King. They are spawned by this entity and follow its commands.

Fear-Eaters: Nightmares feed on fear and pain, especially the fear and pain they personally cause. They are attracted to fearful people and feed upon them to sustain themselves and remain in the mortal world.

Weak nightmares can enter the world potentially very easily, as fear is not an uncommon emotion for mortals to experience and the weaker spirits only need small amounts of their associated element to enter the mortal world.
While most nightmares need to cause terror in their victims just to remain in the mortal world, if a general malaise of fear is present in a community the fear the nightmare create can instead be cause for more nightmares to self-manifest, including those of greater power. It is possible for this to spiral out of control completely, leaving entire communities devestated.

On Haven, nightmares are more feared and despised than even the Demons due to historical reasons.
The Nightmare King and his children are often seen as the greatest foe to humanity in local cultures.

Types Of Nightmares

Frights
Frights are very weak, even a child could easily best them in a physical confrontation. However Frights can travel through shadows and are able to induce horrific nightmares in sleeping peoples, and can then feed on the resulting fear.
If a Fright is discovered or threatened in any way, it will flee.
Frights can be kept away using dream-catchers or a variety of well-smelling herbs.

Haunts
Haunts are Nightmare-tricksters. They have all the abilities of a Fright but are also capable of taking nightmarish shapes and tricking the senses of their victims whilst they are still awake. They will create sounds and sights to inspire fear and feed off it.
A Haunt intuitively knows how to use a situation or place to inspire fear. Haunts will attempt to pursue a victim until they collapse from exhaustion and lack of sleep, at which point they will kill them. The extreme fear and pain caused right before death are the most potent nourishment for any Nightmare.
Haunts will avoid anybody that does not fear them and instead target the weak and infirm as much as possible. Multiple Haunts might work together to scare a community instead of an isolated individual, but are also ultimately defeated if you refuse to be afraid of them.

Terrors
Terrors are millennia old Nightmares that have grown so much that they no longer need subtlety to invoke terror. They intuitively know the fear of any living being and can assume those shapes. If there is many living beings around, their shape becomes less personalized but all the more inhuman.
These monsters then hunt and torment the living to cause the absolute maximum amount of fear and pain possible. They will kill people, not only to feed on them, but they will be as dramatic as possible to use that death to inspire fear in others. Terrors will essentially do what a Haunt does but instead of to a single person they do it to an entire community.
They will torture people, wound them but let them attempt to run, hunt them to exhaustion and finally rip them apart in front of their Families.
The more you fear a Terror, the stronger it becomes. Its attacks will carry more weight, its body becomes more durable. However even if their victim does not fear them they remain potent foes.
Most methods of keeping Nightmares out will not be able to stop a Terror, and the only way to put it down will be by force. However Terrors are ultimately cowardly, they will attempt to flee from any fight that they are not sure they can win.
If a Terror is prevented from feeding for an extended period of time, it will become bold and reckless in its search for nourishment. This will allow hunters to corner it.

Appearance

Nightmares, if they reveal themselves, will always be in some horrific form designed to inspire Fear. Usually it will be humanoid or bestial bodies with wrong proportions and lots of claws and teeth.

Related Historical Events

• 1156 ND
  The Nightmare Wars