The Puca

On Older Sister, the settlements tell stories about mischievous beings living in the woods, seeking to lure unwary children away from their homes forever. Not as terrifying as the darkness that corrupted an entire dwarven House nor as powerful as the demonic cults that spring up in cities every century, the puca are far more subtle, and if the stories of parents are anything to go by, they delight merely in luring children away from settlements to consume them.
Tales vary from puca who build houses made entirely out of sweets to puca who take on the appearance of adorable animals or injured prey that should be easy for a child to scoop up, and they lure children deep into the woods until no parent can save them. Puca make sure to keep track of which children misbehave, and these children are especially tempted, perhaps even bewitched when the moon is new and the puca can ignore the normal wards of civilization. These fae beings are restricted from crossing worked fields or moving over fences unless the moon has hidden his face, and many of the more superstitious communities leave saucers of milk and sweetbread at their doorsteps on the new moon to placate the voracious beings. Puca can change their shape easily, adopting the guise of any small animal or bird, and rumors of puca turning into fish and drowning children who attempt to catch them are common in some towns.
Of course, myth contains a seed of truth; while it's dangerous to wander away from settlements alone for a number of reasons, puca do live in the woods, and these strange beings live by rules alien to humans. Few children go missing from wandering too far away, but enough do to lend weight to the stories, and the woods occasionally ring out with laughter or crying from the lost, leading even the stodgiest adults to consider an offering for their doorstep.