Tihewgoe

Tihewgoe is a dark god of nightmares. Not the darkest and not the biggest, but still a god in his own right. His only followers are dark minions that he calls Foadjik. Tihewgoe is a disregarded, unloved, petty god.


Tihewgoe roams the world in a strange form. He looks like a huge bat- the size of a small child- with an extra pair of stunted arms. His fingers and toes are clawed, and his wings are tattered. He never uses these for flight, but only for giving nightmares to his victims. When he finds a sleeper he wraps his wings around their face and begins to push nightmares into their mind.
As a god, Tihewgoe does not need to feed. He has no wants or needs other than the desire to frighten mortals. He can tell what a man fears by scent and weaves intricate or simple nightmares out of the dream-fabric.
But one thing keeps Tihewgoe in check. He cannot exist in light. He can only be in the darkness of night. So he must keep moving across the face of the world, always a few steps ahead of the dawn. His divinity assures him that he will always outrun the sun, no matter how many nightmares he grants each night.

The Foadjik are macabre puppets, stitched together out of crows and rodents. Each one is almost as large as their master and creator, Tihewgoe, and was once many different animals. Every Foadjik is different. Some have many wings to carry them away from the dawn, others are made of scurrying, scrabbling claws to clamber around the world.
Foadjik are mortal. They are created by Tihewgoe whenever a sleeper dies. The soul, still asleep, is caught and trapped in a new nightmare by Tihewgoe. He pushes the soul in a small clump of mud, which is then sewn into the form of the new Foadjik.
The soul inside each Foadjik is still asleep, trapped in a nightmare of chewing rats and cawing crows. But to keep it sleeping the Foadjik must feed off of the fear of other souls. So they follow behind Tihewgoe as a vast cloud of white noise and gather around each of his victims. If more than one sleeper is in one place then a clump of Foadjik will gather around each one and let the sleeper into their endless nightmare. The resulting fear thrills the brood and sustains them.
Like their master, Foadjik cannot exist in the light. However, unlike Tihewgoe, they are not divine. So any Foadjik that fall behind the rest and are caught by the dawn melt away. The clump of mud hardens in the daytime sun. When this hard clump breaks, the soul is released into the hereafter.


Tihewgoe is not a well known god. The fact that he exists is a little piece of trivia known only to wizardly bookworms and collectors of particularly esoteric tomes.
But the dark god of nightmares does not mind. He has no plans or goals beyond moving away from the dawn and feeding nightmares to the mortals. The creation of the Foadjik is only to increase the number of nightmares given.


Plot Hooks
Tihewgoe and his brood might bring a vicious cloud of nightmares to afflict the heroes, causing them to be tired and only half-awake the next day. This could be harmful. Or they might give such horrid nightmares to a powerful wizard or king that he wants revenge. Most would assume that the dreams come from one of the larger, more-well-known nightmare gods. One of these would dislike interference, especially for something that another god did.