Nightjars

Nightjars don’t just drink blood, breath, or steal your life. They steal the moment you realize you’re about to die horribly as they distill out of you what you are...

— Elias Brindle Hawthorne, Bestiary of the Uncanny

Predators come in all shapes and sizes. This is quite true of the Children of the Night, if not a bloody, hard rule. But even among the Children, there are predators of predators. They’re beings spoken of in lowered voices, not out of some deference, respect, or play at royalty in a pseudo-noble court. No, these beings are spoken of in soft voices because no one wants to draw their attention. If they do, they’re in for the fight of their lives.

Nightjars are one of those Children of the Night.

They aren’t loud or flashy predators, but quiet and patient ones. Where bloodleeches drain spinal fluid and mind, dryads harvest hormones and heat, and dopplekin echo identity itself, nightjars are interested in something else entirely. Nightjars are eerie, cold, intelligent hunters who haunt the decayed fringe of human cities. In many ways, they’re humanoid carrion birds wearing a human shape like a borrowed coat. As they pass through the cracks and shadows of human societies, they leave pale, mummified victims in their wake. Corpses untouched by rot, yet emptied, their blood dried to a red dust.

Morticians claim the victims are mummified, dehydrated to death. Other Children of the Night say the victim’s life force was drained like water from a spigot. The truth isn’t as clear-cut as that. Nightjars drain both the life force and the memories of that dying breath. Something they call the Drink Between Breaths or the Moribund Ambrosia.

Deliberate, Imperfect Mirror

You’ll know it’s a nightjar when your shadow ruffles its feathers.

— Father Silas Greaves, Nighthunter’s Journal, 1703

A nightjar is a twisted mirror of the world given horrific life. Like dopplekin, they can mimic humans and often do. Their human guise is a physical shapeshift mixed with the shadowshifting ability of a dopplekin. But where the dopplekin reconstruct identities with terrifying precision, nightjars approximate.

This is by design.

Their human voices and appearance are close enough to bypass suspicion, but also just wrong enough to unsettle someone. A living ‘uncanny valley’ of a human in their disguise. It shows most strongly in their voices. It could be a lover’s voice spoken half a breath too slow. Perhaps a friend’s laugh that’s missing warmth. A familiar phrase delivered without the remembered rhythm. This imperfection is deliberate, and the key that allows them to move freely between humans and Children of the Night alike. Cognitive dissonance is their greatest tool. These deliberate imperfections make others hesitate; question their instincts and doubt their memory. It’s in that fragile, unguarded instant that the nightjar works, lives, breathes, and eats its victims.

Nightjars prefer human disguises, as humans are more plentiful. But they aren’t above mimicking bloodleeches, skinshapers, and others. While they can mimic them, they lack their natural abilities. A vulnerability nightjars overcome through traditional confidence tricks and tactics that allow them to get close before they strike. In addition to their mimicry, nightjars possess another deadly tool. They can also cloud perception; smearing memory around a single moment. A victim might later recall losing time, or forgetting how they arrived somewhere. Sometimes a victim might remember a conversation, but never the speaker’s face. Lastly, a sense of déjà vu—like having screamed, but never remembering screaming.

Over the years, it’s rumored that nightjars erase memories. This isn’t true. They only smear them, blurring the edges. The effect is temporary, and the memories return in time. Some rumors suggest that a dryad’s pollen or other exotic means can quickly restore the memories. Provided the victim is willing to take that kind of risk.

Withered Echo of Crows

Their true form is a twisted terror that’s given birth to countless myths across time. A nightjar’s true form is tall, gaunt, and desiccated. They’re human-like, but with ragged crow feathers and sharp black eyes. Any visible skin is pale, bird-scaled with the texture of old parchment that still flexes like the softest leather. Nightjar mouths split wider than human anatomy allows, much like in many ancient stories of blood-thirsty ghouls across cultures. Their mouths are lined with retractable fangs, not designed to tear, but to anchor onto prey while draining them dry.

Most interesting is that a nightjar’s nose and mouth are distended, almost like a beak. Survivors have even said there is an uncanny likeness between a nightjar in its true form and the historical appearance of a Plague Doctor in their beak-like plague mask. Like humans, they have arms and legs, but the ragged feathers along their arms allow them to glide. Ragged shadows skittering across the wind, they flit between shadows when they need to find shelter, or a new perch to search for food. Their eyes glimmer a silver-white, sharp and intelligent.

Lifespan

Unknown, may be near-immortal given enough victims

Average Height

5' 9" to 6' 4"

Average Weight

In human guise, often 140 to 190 lbs

Geographic Distribution

Often found near human city slums or rural towns, especially those with a Darklight wellspring.

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Among the Children of the Night

Nightjars are an uncommon-to-rare sight and universally feared. Among the Children of the Night, nightjars are called Moment-Eaters.

Bloodleeches avoid them—Nightjars can drain a leech dry in seconds down to their corrupt bones.

Dryads despise them—Nightjars disrupt a dryad’s long harvest, hollowing out a dryad’s precious prey, leaving them unusable even if the dryad rescues the victim.

Skinshapers distrust and almost attack them on sight—Nightjars can blur instinctual tells, making even animal senses unreliable, leaving them vulnerable to attack.

Dopplekin treat them as existential threats—Nightjars can damage shadow echoes, permanently erasing borrowed identities.

Nightjars don’t always hunt for food. Sometimes they hunt those who remember too much about them. Secrecy and ignorance? It’s their greatest weapon.

— Dopplekin elder

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Field Note

Nightjars are not fae.
They are not demons.
They are not undead.
Nightjars are what happens when rage and memory refuse to die and become meat, then learn to consume the living. If you ever meet one that knows your name before you say it?
Run.
You’ve already lost a moment you’ll never get back.

— Father Silas Greaves, Nighthunter’s Journal, 1703

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Watch the shadows. When they move, their shadows distort and stutter, like a tired, delayed memory.

— Father Silas Greaves, Nighthunter’s Journal, 1703

Hungered Memory

Every corpse they leave behind looks like it died mid-thought. Like they only half said their last words.

— Cassidy Bardarik Hawthorne

As mentioned, nightjars consume a victim’s life force, but the truth goes beyond that. Nightjars call it Moribund Ambrosia. A residual vitality stored in the body’s fluids, especially the blood. To the nightjars, blood is the ultimate carrier of that vitality. A certain energy mixed with memory, water, and emotion. All the victim’s fear, longing, relief, desire wrapped in the strongest memories. Those are the same hormones that dryads stimulate with pollen, then harvest. But where dryads cultivate this in their victims over time, nightjars harvest violently all at once.

The moment of feeding is the crucial part. Nightjars don’t simply bite a victim; they lock on with their fangs at the very moment the victim realizes something is wrong. That moment when the chest tightens, eyes go wide, and a startled word is caught in the victim’s throat. That’s when the nightjar strikes. Once they’ve locked fangs and jaws onto their prize, they do drink the vitality and fluids. But that’s merely while they perform the true nature of their grisly work. At that moment, they distill a victim down, siphoning their vitality into a jar or lantern—which is the origin of their name.

This item acts as a container, storing the excess vitality and water for the nightjar to consume later at its leisure. As this jar or lantern is filled, it gives off a pale yellow light. This glow is like the dying ember of a snuffed-out life force trapped in a jar. No longer aware but caught in their last moments for the nightjar to enjoy. Once the nightjar has finished its meal, it leaves a body intact but empty. The victim is desiccated, yet preserved like an insect trapped in the amber of the last thought they never finished.

To Kill The Withered Crow

All beasts and men have a weakness; these terrors are no different.

— Father Silas Greaves, Nighthunter’s Journal, 1703

Nightjars seem invulnerable, but they aren’t. They have weaknesses and can be hurt or killed. Perhaps more than any other Children of the Night, they have slightly more weaknesses. But those weaknesses are harder to exploit. Sunlight is perhaps their greatest weakness. It doesn’t destroy them, but weakens them. They aren’t as strong, fast, or nimble. Investigators have long thought this may be tied to their mysterious origins, but no one knows for sure, and nightjars are rarely willing to talk. A second weakness is white jade. The gemstone burns nightjars on contact, draining out their vitality into the stone until they wither to ash.

The last weakness is also their greatest—the jar or lantern they carry. Nightjars always have one container, either jar or lantern, to house their distilled victims. But not only is it how they store their meals, it’s also essential to who and what they are. Nightjars are bound to these artifacts. Separating one from its jar will throw it into a mad panic. If it’s separated from its jar for more than a day, the creature will wither to a pile of ash.

But that isn’t the end of the story.

Destroying a nightjar’s body doesn’t kill it. That only delays it, like a lie refusing to die. To kill a nightjar? That is a process, and one best not miss a step. | Father Silas Greaves, Nighthunter’s Journal, 1703 Once a nightjar has been destroyed, it will rebuild itself by the next full moon. Once it does, it returns with a burning desire for revenge. To actually permanently kill a nightjar, it takes a specific process. Each step must be performed in order; otherwise, the nightjar will return. To permanently kill a nightjar, a hunter must:

Destroy the nightjar, either with white jade or by separating it from its jar.

Boil the lantern or jar in a bath of saltwater.

Pour the saltwater over the ash-like remains of the nightjar.

Shatter the jar or lantern.

Those steps must be done in order. Miss a step, and the nightjar will return with a new container and a hunger for revenge.

What’s in a Name?

Children of the Night have unique names, from bloodleech, skinshaper, and others. They are distinct and are as much a warning as they are descriptive. Nightjars are no exception. They share this name with a particular nocturnal bird found the world over. It’s thought that the name is another deliberate imperfection. Here, they aren’t just hiding physically, but in the framework of human language. Did they choose this name for misdirection? Perhaps it was given to them because they prefer to hunt at night, like their avian namesake. No one is sure. Those who’ve asked didn’t survive to explain.

The worst part wasn’t the pain. It was realizing I’d already screamed—but that scream belonged to someone else.

— Anonymous survivor