Bogeymen

The most terrifying creatures in existence are the thirty bogeymen, the eldest of the horrors, the masters of mortal terror, the incarnations of humanity's primordial fears.

Each bogeyman heads a faction of their lesser kin--called a house--and they control a swathe of the Netherworld as a personal domain which they each shape to their own terrifying ends.

Oude Rode Ogen, Bogeyman of Death

Dread Oude Rode Ogen, the Black Dog, embodies perhaps one of the most primal of all fears – the fear of death. Many cultures tell stories of a great black beast, often canine in appearance, appearing out of the darkness of night or the storm, and serving as an omen of death. In other tales, the omen is a dark-skinned giant of a man, with a feral look and fiery red eyes burning with ominous hate. Either way, Oude Rode Ogen brings warnings of others final demise with his dark grin and shimmering glare, though he never reveals any details to the unfortunate souls he visits, leaving them to spend the rest of their days in worry and paranoia over the timing and natures of their deaths.

The Black Dog is one of the few members of the Nightmare Court who doesn't specialize in terrorizing the young, as his favoured targets are those healthy in body and mind, who are generally content with their lives. The most appetizing targets for Oude Rode Ogen are the ones who ultimately bring about their own demise through trying to ward off death after the sight of him – the ironic demises of those who would have otherwise seen long and productive lives. In stories, he takes those souls to the dark and misty moors he calls his lair within the Shadow, and curses them into existence as grimms, his favoured servants.

Cuca, Bogeyman of the Wilds

The stories say savage Cuca smiles at every animal attack – provoked or not – and laughs madly every time a mortal is killed by a fit bestial rage. She is the fear of animals and the wild, the savage and the feral. Stories may argue about her appearance: in some she is a shaggy, brown furred beast with a thousand teeth in her wailing maw, in others she is a tall, alligator-headed humanoid who slides out of the fetid swamps at night to feast, and in others she is a small, bat eared creature with glowing red eyes and long, vicious fingers who hides under bushes and in trees, waiting to ambush the unexpected. Throughout all, she is wild, vicious, and deadly, the darkest avatar of the natural world.

Also called Coca or Bola, the stories say she stalks the wilderness at night, hunting not for food or for skill, but to drive terror into the hearts of those who encounter her – and survive. Children are warned not to go into the wilds for fear of encountering her or her minions, who may spirit them away to her domain: a great, steamy jungle locked in eternal twilight, filled with all manner of vile and horrid beast, where they will be hunted for dark sport.

Babaroga, Bogeyman of Violence

The horned hag Babaroga hides in rafters and on rooftops, waiting for a chance to rain her indiscriminate wrath down upon anything managing to offend her fickle senses. While her exact description varies from location to location, usually the fear of anger and wrath is described as a wizened, elderly crone with long, spidery limbs and horns rising from her wild mane of hair. The stories say she can crawl up walls and along roofs like a giant, humanoid spider, to scowl down from the shadows at her prey with a wicked mouth full of fangs and bloodshot eyes. Her voice cracks and her body trembles with barely contained anger when she's not screaming murderous rage at those who have attracted her ire. The only thing to cause Grandmother Horn's anger to pause is the chance to elicit a similar outburst in another being – a single word here, a misplaced item there can cause the chaos and rage. In these wicked moments, her screaming is replaced horrible, cackling laughter.

The stories of Babaroga tell of her fishing up children from her lofty perch with corded darkness, and taking them away to shadow. Her terrible house is made from horns and bleached bones, and lies at the heart of her eternally storm-wracked mountain domain, and it is here that she tosses her catches into blood-slick pits where they must fight against one another for the hag's own twisted amusement. Those who win earn the privilege of becoming the main course of her depraved nightly gore-filled feasts.

Gryla, Bogeyman of Hunger and the Cold

Grandmother Gryla is the incarnation of the fear of both starvation and the cold – the depths of the winter months where food runs scarce and the northern winds are pounding at the door, threatening to drain away the last of the life-giving heat. For many, the winter months are the hardest months, the time when mild sicknesses might mean death, and the spoiling of even a small amount of food might mean starvation for a family. Hungry Gryla herself appears as a massive ogress, her bulk caused by her insatiable hunger.

The stories say old Gryla cannot leave the confines of her cold mountain home, bound as she is to the ice and famine of winter, so during the bountiful summer months, she sends her mischievous offspring, the Yule Lads, out to collect her favourite dish – children. Those children the impish Yule Lads catch are dragged back to Gryla's icebound realm in the shadow, where she cooks them into a variety of grotesque and horrifying dishes to feed herself and her spawn. It is said Gryla wishes to trap the mortal world within an age of endless dark and cold, where she will no longer have to rely on her minions to bring her food from the mortal world, but will be able to gorge herself on the bounty creation has to offer.

Abu Rigl Maslukha, Bogeyman of Fire and Destruction

Most stories of Abu Rigl Masluka's origins claim he was a mortal man who died in a horrible fire. In his final moments, the man, whose name has been lost to history, cried out in fear to any force which might save him from the pain... and somehow the Pit answered. Reformed as a spawn of oblivion itself, Abu Rigl Maslukha's smouldering terror quickly became rage and shame, leading the new terror to lash out at the rest of the universe, inflicting the fear of fire upon mortals. Despite his new existence, his legs never healed, and no matter the form he takes, he still appears with charred and shrivelled stumps for lower limbs, floating silently despite the drifting trail of ashes he leaves behind. His form appears blackened and scarred, with a dim glow emanating through cracks in his skin and the holes of his eyes and mouth – still burning all these millenia later.

In stories, the Burned-legged Man is said to appear at the scene of house fires or other infernos, wandering through the blaze and seeking out children who did not heed warnings flee the scene. Those he finds are said be drawn through the nightmare's dark flames to his burning realm in Shadow: a great desert of black sand and volcanic glass, with a dark sun shining balefully upon the blasted landscape and the twisted ruins of vile civilizations lost to time.

Pugot, Bogeyman of Disease

Headless Pugot represents the fear of plague and disease, and even his appearance is decayed and dying. Though known to be a shapeshifter, any form he assumes is always missing its head, instead possessing an eternally bleeding stump leaking dark blood onto his grimy body, covered in a hideous blend of mud and feces. His favoured form is that of a great ape with dark fur, the stories saying he lurks in trees, silently watching the spread of his vile handiwork. Pugot takes pride in concocting new diseases and pestilences to afflict on mortals, and many stories blame a number of plagues, both mundane and magical, on the work of the vile ape.

Unlike many of his fellows among the nightmare court, Pugot isn't interested in stealing away children, preferring instead to inflict his plagues on them and return his unknowing victims to their homes, where they can spread their sickness and suffering. It is rumoured he tests his sinister concoctions on small villages, contaminating livestock, water, and the young, and patiently awaits the results, his shadowy form crawling around the houses at night, silently analyzing and judging the progress and effectiveness of the plagues. He stores his creations within his humid swampy realm within Shadow, the brackish waters and rotting trees playing home to diseases which could lay low entire civilizations should he choose to unleash them.

The Sack Man, Bogeyman of Loss

As the fear of loss, the Sack Man is one of the most powerful, and well known, of the bogeymen. He appears as an elderly humanoid man, dressed in rags and tatters, with a large sack slung upon his back. Though descriptions of his exact features vary from nation to nation – in some he is lean and spry with a wild head of white hair, in others he is rotund and hunched, leaning heavily on a cane – the tales always warn he is far stronger and more intelligent than his old form would suggest.

These stories may call him Bubak or Mumus or Ong Ki or Boribaba, but all warn children away from old men who wander the streets and roads after supper time. They say the Sack Man is always searching to steal away those things people value the most – for a painter, it may be their greatest work, for a singer, it might be their voice, and for a parent, it is their child. He shoves whatever precious things he can find into his magical sack, and then takes them away to his lair within the Shadow, a twilight swamp crossed with countless bridges and roads. There, he sits and weaves the souls of those he has caught into his bag, ever making it larger. The stories are never clear on why he continually expands his bags, but there are whispers his ultimate goal is to commit the ultimate heist: stealing the world itself away from the powers that be.

Lagahoo, Bogeyman of Magic

Lagahoo is perhaps the least well-known of the Nightmare Court, reflecting the mystery and fear surrounding his own domain of superstition and magic. Knowledge of Lagahoo is limited to a few magical cultures, as well as those few who study the Shadow and its inhabitants. Lagahoo's appearance is said to shift through a great number of forms, from a snarling dog to a vampiric centaur to the furious waves of the ocean itself. However, tomes describe his true form as a headless man bound to a coffin by arcane chains whose size and shape continually shift. Three candles rest on top of his coffin, their flames flickering when he speaks, and flaring to great gouts of fire when he unleashes his considerable arcane might.

Lagahoo is said to be amenable to sharing his arcane knowledge with others in trade for either humanoid blood, or a future favour, the details of which are never covered in any book of lore. However, the details of those who try to cheat Lagahoo are more widely told, as the stories say their families are slain, their blood drained, and their undying corpses left to haunt the erstwhile swindler for the rest of their days. Lagahoo is said to dwell on a tropical island upon the stormy seas of Shadow. This isle is said to be filled with great magical treasures, but also countless hexes and traps and the undying souls of those who thought they could outsmart the Coffin Mage.

Bonhomme Sept-Heurs, Bogeyman of Pain

Appearing as a travelling healer and medicine man, the kindly face of Bonhomme Sept-heurs hides a dark secret: he is another member of the Nightmare Court. Though his intentions seem pure at first, his medications cause undue suffering, and his procedures cause cries of agony to echo through towns at night. Bonhomme Sept-heurs is the fear of pain, and he makes certain to inflict as much of it as he can in his wanderings in the mortal realm. Physical pain is his specialty, but emotional pain is also a sweet nectar to him, and he delights in causing distress and concern among those he appears to be helping. He perpetuates pain by making people reluctant to seek out help for their own problems, and can make even the bravest of men loose their will to fight on.

The Good Doctor, as he is sometimes known, is a feature in a number of stories told to children, and why so many of them fear seeing the local doctor or healer. As payment for his services, Bonhome Sept-heurs is said to take the children of the town, snatching up those who gave him trouble or did not follow his instructions and hiding them in the massive pockets of his jacket. From there, he would transport them to his dilapidated sanitarium in the realm of shadow, and let all his mad minions play with them.

The Leviathan, Bogeyman of the Sea

Ancient and proud, no other bogeyman rivals the Leviathan in terms of immensity or physical might. It is said he can crush even the greatest of mortal vessels within its mighty coils. Many ocean-going cultures have tales of the great creature that hides beneath the waves, waiting to take advantage of unwary sailors who travel too far from the sight of land. He has been described as as anything from a great serpent miles long, to a monstrous squid with a thousand tentacles, to a whale large enough to swallow ships whole within his mighty maw. Regardless of the tale, two facts remain constant about the Leviathan: his vast size, and his merciless temper.

Whether he has been called Charybdis, Turisas, Cirein-cròin, Ikuchi, Yacumama or Davy Jones, the Leviathan has been whispered about in tales by seafarers for millenia. Nearly every port town has their own story about a ship lost at see to some gargantuan monstrosity who dwells within the dark ocean depths. In most stories, those unlucky sailors drown, or become food for the whales and sharks and other sea monsters that follow in the Leviathan's wake. But in others, the Leviathan takes those poor souls down to the depths of the sea, to a place where even light drowns and darkness consumes all, where they join the thousands of other damned sailors down in Davy Jones' Locker whom he has claimed as his spoils. It is said those who sail upon the Shadowed Sea can see the reflections of all those trapped beneath the waves reflected upon its stormy surface.

Big Brother, Bogeyman of Technology

There is a domain in the realm of shadow without a boogieman tied to it – a sprawling, empty city of glass and concrete filled with many wondrous technologies. If not for the odd tower sporting a shape impossible in the mortal realm, it might actually be easy to forget entirely one was in Shadow. Indeed, the comfort provided by the technological wonders of this Metropolis are enough to make some abandon their struggles against the gloom and accept the convenience of the freely-offered comforts, abandoning their suspicion and paranoia, eventually becoming just another listless mortal shell, another one of Big Brother's drones.

Big Brother is the fear of technology, and has become increasingly proactive as the technology of the mortal world advances. He lures victims in through offers of the latest and greatest advances, increasing their dependence on machines and preying on its victims' rampant consumerism. Finally, when a victim has fallen far enough, Big Brother will offer them a trip to visit his city of the future, dragging the poor soul into Shadow, dropping them onto the barren sidewalks of both his domain and its body – the Nameless City. Big Brother sees everything within his city-body, locking its prey within its maze of ever-shifting streets and towers, while his electronic eye stares out from the billboards, monitors, and screens along the city street, reminding his victims they can never escape Big Brother.

The Man in Black, Bogeyman of Truth and Lies

Sharp of dress and smooth of tongue, the Man in Black is generally considered to be the bogeyman least hostile to the interests of mortals. Incarnated from the fear of the truth, he is the whisper in the head of every liar, the shadow behind every suspicious eye, and the hand giving the final push to send paranoids over the edge of madness. His typical appearance is a tall, middle-aged well-to-do human or humanoid dressed in a black jacket and cape, with a wide-brimmed hat – typically a top hat – hiding his face in murky shadow. Many liars and thieves have caught fleeting glimpses of him out of the corner of their eyes when the feel safe, letting them know there is someone else who knows of their deeds.

Also known as Bau-Bau or L'uemo Nero, stories of the Man in Black are used to warn children who would lie or steal from their elders. A knock on the door late at night is a sign of his presence, and children who are spirited away by the Man in Black are said to be taken to his sprawling manor in the depths of shadow, where they are locked away within its twisted halls for a month and a day, before being returned physically unharmed.

Jack O'Lantern, Bogeyman of the Dark

Jack O'Lantern is said to have been one of the greatest thieves in the mortal world – so great, the stories say he made a deal for his soul with Old Nick, and proceeded to steal back the contract, and his own soul from the archfiend's lair. However, despite his great deeds in life, death eventually caught up to him, and in a twist of cruel irony, the freewheeling rogue found his spirit trapped in a dark realm between life and death. How long he was trapped in the great nothingness, the stories never say, but eventually proud Jack broke down and cried out for someone, anything, to come and claim him. In his moment of hopelessness and self-defeat, a hole in his prison appeared, and the Pit claimed Jack.

This is but one variation on the story of Jack O'Lantern, and there are dozens more, the nature of Jack and his tricks on the various evil entities changing each and every telling. Yet Poor Jack is still plagued by the dark, to the point where the stories say he cut off his own head and replaced it with a flaming pumpkin lantern to drive away the night. Now, Mad Jack seeks to terrify others and bring them to despair or desperation through his mastery of shadows and darkness, to prove he wasn't alone in breaking under the ominous silence and blackness of unending night. His lair is a great, abandoned farmyard, filled with jack o'lanterns casting all manner of twisted and flickering shadows among the rotting fences and barren trees. Children who get lost in the dark are said to find themselves under the grinning moon of dark Jack's lair, where he plays his twisted games with them, the gaze of a thousand carved pumpkins the only witness.

The Man Who Laughs, Bogeyman of the Unknown

No member of the Nightmare Court has as more disparate stories told about them than the Man Who Laughts. Even the Man Who Laugh's true name varies with place and time, to say nothing of its motives, goals, and appearances. Some claim the Man Who Laughs to be a demented clown-god with fangs for teeth, others a alien aberration with a thousand hideous legs, others still a shadow whose edges can cut flesh to ribbons. Regardless, stories of the Man who Laughs always end with more questions than answers – and quite often, one does not want to know those answers. He is the fear of the unknown and the unknowable, what lies beyond one's understanding and knowledge, and the Man Who Laughs is horrible.

The Mn Who Laughs is said to entice children away from their parents to, typically through mysteries they seem compelled to follow, or youthful quests ending in tragedy. His realm is said to be a great carnival wandering the shadows, filled with creatures strange and disturbing, and filled with perverse amusements of all sorts. Though stories don't often say what the Jester needs children for, there are some who believe he transforms those poor victims into the ever-expanding roster of his freak-show, to live out the rest of their lives as damned curiosities.

The Prophet of the End, Bogeyman of the Apocalypse

The mad Prophet of the End represents the fear of the end times. He sits, dressed in ragged robes, in his nameless, ruined citadel that hangs directly over the Pit--the incarnation of oblivion itself--an endless stream of terrifying prophecies falling from his lips.

Iruel, Bogeyman of Religion

Iruel, the Hollow Angel, was once an angel of the Empyrean who so despaired at the power of evil, he let himself become consumed by terror, and became the fear of religion. An empty, endless void now rests over a heart where once there was valour and glory, and he has found a new master to serve. After all, regardless of who wins in the the skirmish between good and evil, it is oblivion itself that will eventually win the war...

Alice, Bogeyman of Madness

Alice, the Princess of Dreams, may once have been a normal human girl drawn into the terror or driven mad. Or she could be an exiled fey gentry whose exile to the realm so antithetical to her had driven her to the brink. Or she might be an archmage who uncovered such horrible secrets that it destroyed her mind. Or she might be a horror whose schizophrenia has lead her to believe all of these truths--and more. She is the fear of madness, and let it be known that all who decide to join her games end up as broken as she is.

Ammit, Bogeyman of Law

Ammit, the Final Judge, is the fear of the law. She was a companion of the Egyptian goddess Ma'at, her right hand in enforcing the final judgement of the damned. She consumed the hearts of oathbreakers, criminals, and warlocks, condemning them to a "second death" in the lake of fire. But Ammit was never a goddess. She was chief of the Egyptian horrors. And when the Bogeyman united Horrorkind under his rule, she joined his side, once again serving as the ultimate enforcer of her master's law.

Mr. Street, Bogeyman of Politics and the Sun

The fear of politics and power has had dozens of names over the millenia. His face and titles shift to reflect the changing tides of civilization. He has been a god-king, a pope, a sultan, an emperor, a conquistador, a robber baron, and a president. Currently, he has taken the form of one Mr. Wallace "Wall" Street, the Man in the Corner Office, a dashing young venture capitalist with perfect teeth, perfect hair, the perfect suit, and eyes that burn with the glory and might of the sun itself.

La Tuliveija, Bogeyman of Sorrow

The Weeping Mother, La Tulivieja, is the fear of depression. Once, she was a young mother in Panama, who left her child alone by a river while she went to party in a neighbouring town. When she returned, the river had carried off her child, and so she searched. And searched. And searched. And did not stop searching even as her life left her, even as she became a spirit, even as she began to fade away, even as her own fear of losing her child--of failing as a mother, caused her to fall into the shadows and re-emerge a monster. She's still out there, looking for her child. But it's been so long, and she's forgot what he sounds like. Any child will do... any crying babe in the wilderness...