Boziom

Boziom

The Boziom are psychic, parasitic night terrors said to stalk the vulnerable hours of sleep. Unlike ordinary nightmares, these entities are believed to actively feed on unrest—fear, guilt, or stress—striking at the moment when minds are most defenseless. They are not seen in daylight but leave behind exhaustion, feverishness, and a lingering sense of dread. Boziom are spoken of in three main forms:

Sleep Demons (Drore)

Drore are the classic “night hag” of folklore. They press down on your chest, whisper horrors, and drag you into waking nightmares so vivid you feel claws or damp muck retracting from your mind as you gasp awake. Victims report the stench of rot and the sensation of something wet, bony, or insectile lingering on their skin. Famous images of shadowy, twisted figures behind a writer’s desk or a sleep-starved artist’s bed trace back to Drore legends.

Shadow Walkers (Monit)

Monit do not invade dreams. They linger at the edge of waking sight—glowing eyes in the periphery, footfalls just beyond a door, or cold drafts clinging to a room long after dawn. They feed on paranoia, making familiar homes feel unsafe. Many who wake from a Monit encounter keep heaters or lamps running through the night, unable to shake the icy unease or the creaks of wood and metal bones becoming imagined threats.

Prophetic Dreams (Rufen)

Rufen are the cruelest. They conjure vivid visions of a loved one in peril or an impending disaster, shocking the dreamer awake in a cold sweat, heart hammering, mouth dry, sheets damp. Yet the event never comes to pass. It’s a psychic hoax designed to exhaust and fray the mind with grief or dread over tragedies that never happen. “Dearly Departed,” one of the most famous plays in Afrosian theater, was inspired by tales of Rufen dreams “saving” a few people, only for spiritual forces to take them one by one.

Cultural Practices & Wards

Boziom are said to be drawn to unresolved guilt, fear, or stress; confronting those feelings is considered the surest—if hardest—protection. Folk remedies abound:

• Placing bottles of sweet oils or water under one’s bed; if the liquid turns black by morning, a Boziom has been caught. The bottle must then be sealed and hung from a tree for purification.
• Drinking strong tea or coffee and eating light biscuits upon waking to settle the stomach after a night attack.
• In the western provinces, shamans craft Boziom Catchers from mesin steel, a rare alloy said to lure these spirits the way iron lures lightning. When a Boziom is trapped, the catcher itself darkens like soot.

In Folklore

Boziom personify the mental toll of sleeplessness. Horror writers such as Em and Ellie Queen drew upon these legends for their works about child-eating demons who awaken only once a century to sow chaos in rural towns. In plays and ballads, Boziom are both villains and warnings: proof that unaddressed fears will always find their way into the night.