Nearn

"Some will tell you that there is no good way to die, more will tell you the only way to die is while you sleep, and others say that death doesn't matter and that you need only a good way to live. I will tell you none of this, because simply put, there is a good way to die, and that is any other way than how you will if you meet a nearn."

— A Magisterium professor

Frozen in Time

Conjure to your mind, if you will, the most frightening creature you can think of. Most would imagine some kind of demonic horror, maybe a lich, perhaps some find amusement in horror and would conjure an image of their angry spouse. For there is no truly ultimate frightening creature, this exercise brings different things to mind for different people, however while there is no ultimate frightening creature, there are truly frightening creatures.
One might walk down the road and see the lanky, clawed form of a nitkim lurching towards them and quickly decide to run away in case they should desire to give chase and bring them to their realm of horrors. One could also succumb to the plight of twiycks, their flesh torn by their viciously sharp claws.

Timely Witness

Those creatures are some of the truly frightening monsters that exist across the Eight Lands, but are by no means the only ones that inspire fear in those who see them.
A nearn is a creature of simple terrors, it wishes not to kill you outright, but to instead make you watch as the world moves on without you, leaving you to die long after you meet them.
Visible only to those they choose to make suffer, sitting alongside their dying bodies as the person within wastes away and screams into their own mind to be let free of their haunting existence, they have been said to take many forms. One person, interviewed after they became deceased, said it took the form of their long passed pet dog. It offered gentle conversation, at times aligning itself as a friendly entity. At other times, it was overtly hostile, bringing to the forefront of their mind every possible reminder of their tortured existence.
To die by the hand of a nearn is to die by the hand of your own despair, a fate wished upon few.