Cawtrid (Basic Lore)

Cawtrid (CR 15)
Pure Evil - Small - Aberration
Cawtrids are madness monsters. Only the insane believe they really exist... but there's a lot of insane people in asylums and back alleys that seem to agree on many of the same terrible details. Are Cawtrids myth? Or something so awful, so 'out of left field' that they are real, but simply unknown to most of the civilized world? If they truly exist, Cawtrids are surely some form of aberration. Fringe lunatics speculate the Cawtrids inundate the small extra-dimensional gaps between the Prime Material and other planes. This is an horrific idea, because, if they could exist, if they are real... they could be ANYWHERE. Those few who claim to have seen them, and are not utter lunatics, those that can possibly be believed about it, have always claimed that they were everywhere and innumerable. This implies that Cawtrids exist because all races with the Spark seem to BELIEVE they exist. This is the sort of thing that's truly horrifying, because how do you stop something might have come into existence purely because so many beings believe they exist? Every child's night terrors... only... somehow... real? This is the sort of thing that leads to belief in the Real Darkness, the ever-consuming Void behind all things.... Sobering stuff, eh? If they are real, they are awful. If they are real, it is not known what causes Cawtrids to take an interest in beings on the Prime Material, but the simple fact is, if you look hard enough, there are attacks that DO happen with no explanation. These attacks DO happen, no matter the scornful denials, the mocking, the disbelief. When they happen, they are the worst possible, typically leaving the victims raving with incurable madness. Whether this is caused by the psychic damage inflicted by these "Cawtrids", or by the glimpses of the tattered holes in our reality leading to the Outer Madness... Nobody knows.