Nightmare Haunts

Name: Nightmare Haunt
Common Locations:
Ipomea-Alba; Demon World; Aurora
Less Common Locations:
City of Waldenburg

Description:
Born when magical individuals, particularly demons or spell-casting humans of above average strength, suffer terrible nightmares. The residual magical energy around such an individual becomes infused with the terror of their troubled dreams, giving it life and movement. Nightmare haunts are 'born' as very small, baseball sized wisps of darkness. But they are totally undetectable to the waking, and will watch targets for days, looking for other magic users to feed on.

Once it finds a target, it'll enter their dreams and send them into horrible nightmares. Growing on the fear, they become stronger while their host grows weaker till at last they expire, their mind and soul drained dry. Older Nightmare haunts can grow as big as a person, while truly ancient ones might become as large as a building. As they grow, they gain the ability to blur the line between the dream world and the real world, drawing nightmare creatures out of their hosts mind and giving them shape and subsistence, allowing them to terrorize their victims in both the day and the night.

The only proven way to dispel a nightmare haunt is to wake a victim as they are in the midst of a nightmare. Jolted awake, the nightmare haunt will become vulnerable for a short period of time. Light has shown to be a great weapon against these creatures, so anyone seeking to combat one is advised to use it against one that has been made manifest.

Even once killed, the area where the nightmare haunt was slain will give people visiting it there bad dreams for years to come, possibly even birthing new nightmare haunts. Dreamcatchers prevent an individual's dream from being tampered with, and so can turn a nightmare haunt away, but it'll simply find a new target, and will not destroy them.