Help With Naming This Monster?

I'm struggling with coming up with a name for a certain type of monster—namely an example of The Heartless that originate when a member of the story's Witch Species succumbs to negative emotion and gradually worsening insanity.

I thought about just calling them "Demons" since the story is an Urban Fantasy/ Paranormal Romance but focused more on horror elements of supernatural beings. But the name just doesn't fit.

The idea is that it is a slow but gradual transformation that starts in the mind and ends with the body until the afflicted is a physically twisted incarnation of spite that exists only to spread destruction and carnage using their powers. One of the struggles of my protagonist is turning away from the path of becoming one of these creatures.

So...any ideas of what to call them?

Edited by Swordofknowledge on Jun 29th 2019 at 2:48:42 PM

How about "shades" as both an extension of Carl Jung's "Shadow" and a means to discuss certain matters in public without freaking the mundanes.

Forbidden Planet had a similar "Monster from the Id", but it's hard to take an id-monster more seriously than a party-monster. They could at least have called it a "caliban".

@ Lost In Ligitation That's a pretty good idea; as a former psychology major I appreciate the allusion to Jung's work. The only issue I might have with the term "Shade" is the use of it when referring to spirits of the dead, such as when people use the term as a substitute for ghosts. But since there are no ghosts or spirits (at least none that are outright acknowledged) in the story, it could be doable.

As another suggestion, perhaps "scourges"?

That is a pretty good one too and matches their behavior as well as how they are viewed. Once a witch undergoes the physical part of the transformation, he or she pretty much goes on a rampage of slaughtering as many people as possible alternating with periods of hibernation and it takes a lot of firepower to kill one once transformed—it only became possible after World War 1. Once again, good and fitting name.

Here's a few suggestions:

"Cancer": Malignant growths that just grow and grow out of control with only the destruction of its host as the only potential outcome. In this context, the host would be "humanity" and the "cancers" the ones grown out of control from a once healthy part of "humanity" and turning into a monster by the passage of time.

With a bonus meaning of "Cancer" as "crab" where there is a certain parasitic organism that targets only one gender of crabs by mutating their minds and bodies into becoming the opposite gender, with actual physical changes in the progress of the infestation.

"Shard"(Plural: "Shards"): If a human mind and body is a mirror, then shattering by force would create a hazardous pile of splinters that only cuts and wounds the hand trying to pick them up and put it back together again. All while still reflecting the mind in distorted ways on cross of its surfaces.

A broken human being, reformed mentally and physically, into a dangerous pile of shards that can either still be glued together or just disposed off if the pieces are too many and too small to even begin lay the puzzle.

Or this...

"Oma"(Plural: "Oma"): What basically all forms of cancer in medical terms ends with, -oma, which is the suffix for denoting tumors and other malignant growths. In-story, it could even be an acronym within the setting to fit better, like "Obscene Magical Abnormality" or something similar, using those three letters.

Hope this helped with your inquiry.