Nyctophobia

This spell is a part of the Blotting spell chain and is found in the Blotting rune stone.

Nobody is truly afraid of the dark. This is what Dread knows and what the timoramancer comes to understand - that when a person says they fear the dark what they mean, beneath the words, is that they fear what the dark might contain. The unseen threat. The predator that the eyes cannot find. The thing that has been there, somewhere in the darkness, since long before civilization gave people walls and fire and the luxury of pretending the old fears were behind them. 

They are not behind them, these fears. Dread has been keeping them warm.

Nyctophobia reaches through Dread and wakes that ancient hardwired terror in a single target - not by creating real darkness, but by awakening the part of the target's mind that has always believed something is in the dark waiting for them. The conviction settles in completely and will not be reasoned away. Every round the target must make a Normal Mental Balance check at -2 as Dread whispers that whatever is hiding just moved closer. Failing means the terror breaks the surface entirely: the target screams, freezes, unable to attack or move toward anything external, their body having decided that the threat is everywhere and the only option is to strike at what they can reach, which is themselves. It never gets easier. The check must be made every round. Dread is patient with this particular fear because it is so very old, as old as Dread itself.