Sleep Stalker
Page 589, cat. Air Elementals, sub. Stalkers
Placing wards of cow tongues and sheep blood around doors and windows is said to scare off the proddings of stalkers. Many tales and childrens stories tell of the silent stalker that enters the cracked window or unlocked door in the dead of night to steal the breath from a sleeping child. Crib deaths are often blamed on this silent stalker even though it is not true.
-Essay on elementals, subsection Stalkers.
Description
Known by many names, Breath Stealer, Silent Stalker, Stalker, Sleep Stalker, Sleep Stealer, among others; they are a nightmarish creature associated with air elementals. They are angry and malevolent wishing nothing other than to feed off the life force of those who can not defend themselves. They average to be about 4' tall but are hard to determine a proper height for them since they are like the shadows. They are dark grey and appear to be made of shadow and smoke, their form always shifting and blending into their surroundings.
They live and thrive off of the essence of others. Sleep Stalkers are one of the more rare of the air elementals to find. They are one of the few elementals that can arrive when another elemental is summoned, seldom are they actually summoned on their own as they are difficult to control and work with. They piggy back with the other elementals, usually acting as a shadow of sorts and then leaving at the first opportunity. Since they were not the summoned elemental they are not bound to the caster who did the summoning.
They scour the world feeding off of individuals that are sleeping. They siphon off an individuals mental energy and feed. This mental energy is in the form of the beings sanity and will to live, once that is depleted and gone the victim lapses into a coma like sleep and dies shortly after, their body choosing to let it self go. The being does not have to be asleep or immobile; they simply choose to have victims who don't realize what is going on until it is too late. This is why a lot of children and young babies are found dead in the middle of the night without marks or signs of a reason to their death.
Tales and stories are told to children to make them behave and keep them in line. Act right or the stalkers will steal your breath and take your soul in your sleep. Then you return to torture others by stealing their breath trying to find your own. That is a common saying or punishment defense.
Many folklore and myths and tales have ways to keep them at bay and free from your home. Cow tongue nailed to the door every moon night (full moon), the blood of a sheep spread across the threshold and window panes of every window in the home. Close and lock the doors and windows before night fall so they can not enter unhindered. If a door needs to be open after dark, then light must bath the entryway for at least five feet beyond the door to keep the stalker at bay.
Most of these are untrue and do not work. The bathing of blood and the locking of doors however seems to be true as they can not seem to pass through closed portals, doors and windows as well as cross over the spilled blood of the meak.
Not Registered Yet? No problem.
Do you want Strolenati super powers? Registering. That's how you get super powers! These are just a couple powers you receive with more to come as you participate.
- Upvote and give XP to encourage useful comments.
- Work on submissions in private or flag them for assistance.
- Earn XP and gain levels that give you more site abilities (super powers).
- You should register. All your friends are doing it!
? Responses (6)
Nasty creatures.Perhaps on the Elemential Plane of Air they are the underdogs, so they take out their fustration on humans? 5/5
These creatures should feel malevolent, invasive...but I'm not feeling it.
My most difficult critic.
We each have a critic out there who is especial hard on our work, this could be that this critic knows what we are capable of, and knows when our work isnt up to its usual standard. For me, that critic is Ancient Gamer and I find it a real challenge to write a submission that he would give a 4.5/5 or a 5 to. Before the new blind vote system was put in, I could see a long list of votes, 4.5, 5, 5, 4.5, 3...3? and it would be AG.
My most difficult critic.
And you would be mine :)