Babaroga

The Babaroga preys on a very strong fear: the parental fear of losing a child. They are wily and unpredictable, despite their overall small size. A babaroga appears as a small, rather shrivelled old woman with wiry hair and horns on her head. She can stretch her arms out to unnatural lengths when reaching for something, and every babaroga carries a rupa, a specialized portable hole, that can do two things: first, it can be stretched out across a surface to create a portal to the other side (provided the wall is not thick). Second, a babaroga may stuff a child (or child-sized object) into the rupa and carry it with her.   Once the babaroga has the child, it is very unpredictable in what it does with it. Sometimes the child is eaten (only to inspire fear, as food does nothing to nourish a bogey), other times it is forgotten inside the babaroga's rupa and allowed to expire; upon discovering this a babaroga is likely to discard the child's corpse inside the home of its next victim.Other times the child is held for a time and tormented in a cruel mockery of parenthood (fed rotting food or random objects, or given spoonfuls of "medicine" that is no such thing) before being abandoned in the attic of its parent's home, to be discovered by parents whose nerves are no doubt quite frayed by that point.   The babaroga has poor eyesight even though it only comes out at night, relying on movement or talking or light to find its victims. As a result, a child may stay protected from the babaroga simply by remaining under their covers and lying silent and motionless.   A babaroga, like any bogey, has the ability to passively alter its surroundings to serve it. An attic that is larger than the roof it is under-- or in a building with no attic constructed for it-- is a sure sign of a babaroga's presence. Within the attic, floorboards creak, dust and spider webs cover everything, claustrophobic arrangements of shelves containing derelict children's toys, all combine to make those trespassing in the babaroga's attic profoundly uncomfortable.