Apagophobia

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A dragon egg laid outside the territory of the eleven elemental gods will not hatch: without their magic, soul never knits to body and the embryo inside withers and dies. Without an anchor, the little waiting spark of Mind that might one day have become a person slips away through the cracks in reality. Most are eaten by the pneumavores that lurk in the hungry Void outside, but a few--lucky or clever or both--survive and grow up to become predators themselves. Shade-touched, these lost souls lurk in the dreams and nightmares of dragonkind, feeding on their fears and growing fat.

The largest of them are the greater horrors, dream-beasts without an identity beyond their Names--the specific terror they draw strength from. Most horrors are little more than beasts, unconscious and unaware of the minds around them, though they ably ape the manner and speech of dragons they meet while dreaming. The larger they are, the more they resemble thinking beings, though the veneer of intelligence lies only skin-deep over a terrible animal cunning. Sleeping dragons caught and seduced by a wandering horror might never wake again, trapped beyond saving in their own nightmares--or worse, awaken possessed, without dreams or mind or reasoning of their own.