Nightmare

Nightmares are different from other species of centaur in the way that they are not very strong. Their legs are not powerful and they are bad at running. Their kicks also pack little punch for centaur standards. Their human bodies are very petite as well, and they are much shorter than other species of centaur. However, what sets them apart is their high magical affinity. They don't often use this magic to fight though.

Unlike other species of centaur they do not have settlements or groups in which they live. Instead, they have to live in regular human civilisation, something they aren't too happy about. Humans never were too accepting of creatures like centaurs and other non-humans living alongside them, and the Nightmares are often ridiculed. The only thing keeping them from just moving away from human towns and cities, and that is the dense population.

While Nightmares hate crowded places and loud noises, they absolutely love the night in such places. During the night, they'll often go out into the street and pass by the windows of the inhabitants, hoping some of them left the window open. When they do come across someone sleeping with the window open, they'll use their magic to get into their dreams. This is their greatest pleasure in life, to enter people's dreams and see what each individual dreams.

They get their names for multiple reasons. For one, their horse bodies are a deep black colour, and their hooves are a pale violet shade. Their tail also looks like a purple cloud of smoke. But more importantly, if a Nightmare does not like the dream in which they find themselves, then it will, in fact, turn into a nightmare. In one's dreams, they can choose to appear however they wish, usually opting to appear as a more confident individual, rather than their usual timid self. They can actually shapeshift in the same way in the real world, but they do not like doing it very much. It takes a lot of stamina and they don't like to scare people they aren't upset at.

When a Nightmare turns your dream into a nightmare, they'll make sure to alter their appearance into a terrible monster, using whoever's dream they are invading's deepest fears as reference. They scare them as punishment for showing them a dream that they did not enjoy, after which they'll *"eat"* their dream, which replenishes their magic. When they do this, one would wake up in a cold sweat.

## Powers & Abilities

**Dream eater -** They can enter anyone's dreams so long as there is no wall in between them. If they enjoy this dream they'll stick around until the end, but if they don't, they'll turn it into a horrendous nightmare, after which they'll promptly consume the dream to replenish their magic and find a new dream.

**Shapeshifting -** They can morph their body into horrifying creatures. This power is mostly intended to scare off predators, seeing as Nightmares have very poor combat capabilities.

## Trivia

* While they will often enter the first dream they can find, they tend to prefer the dreams of young children. Seeing as they're often jolly and happy, and there isn't much in there that would upset them. Whereas themes of violence or sexual nature will cause them to turn your dream into a nightmare.
* Although their shapeshifting abilities are meant solely for intimidation, some of them with particularly high magical affinities tend to shapeshift to have human legs and take walks through town. Even though this is very draining, one of their biggest dreams is to have legs just like humans and they hate their horse bodies. Their walk is very clumsy.
* They are extremely timid and cowardly, which causes them to be bullied even more than they would already be, to which they never retort and just take the snide remarks in silence. However, some of them hold grudges against the ones that ridicule them, and they'll come to their dreams every night until they are satisfied. Needless to say they turn the dreams into terrifying nightmares.
* They tend to dress in dark outfits and black cloaks, further adding to their name of Nightmare. Furthermore, if they carry and weapon, it is almost always a scythe, even if they use it more like a magic wand than a weapon.