Perhaps the most prominent feature of the psychopath is that he is completely lacking in empathy. Most psychopaths, out of necessity, do tend to develop a cerebral understanding of what empathy means, but they in no way experience it. The joy or suffering of other people inspires in them little more than curiosity. 

Many psychopaths are highly manipulative people. They have no moral or personal qualms with saying or doing whatever they feel is needed to produce an outcome they desire. The truly intelligent and developed psychopath learns to exploit one of the most powerful human drives, which is precisely that which he lacks: Empathy.

Despite this, most psychopaths are not violent. They don’t make the news. The intelligent ones tend to run large companies, governments, and any hierarchical structure—as such structures are easily exploited by the utterly unscrupulous. The ones most think of when they hear the word “psychopath” are the violent ones, the serial killers and mass murderers, but the former truly capture the fascination of the public.

Many psychopathic serial killers weaponize empathy with incredible precision—both their lack thereof and the fact that those to whom they would do terrible things possess and act upon it. It is not uncommon for a serial killer in his active phase to feign weakness or some injury to lure in a caring stranger who acts on his instinct to help his fellow man. This is a brilliant strategy and one that is not limited to humanity.

In many remote places—forest edges, tidal flats, and most hilly, treeless expanses, in particular—the existence of the Pitiful Things is known. The Pitiful Things are roughly human in appearance and employ the strategy of the violent psychopath to draw in incautious wayfarers. Most often, they take the appearance of old women or small children. They express distress at being lost, or that they have lost something of great value, or that they have sustained some injury which has stranded them. All of this is, of course, a ploy to draw the caring stranger close enough for the Pitiful Things to pounce.

The goal of the Pitiful Things, if they were to have such—and they do not, as they are mindless, wandering wraiths—is the same as the serial killer: They aim to capture, torture, kill, and consume their prey. 

They do this and they are quite adept at such, as they have been going about their aimless hunt for far longer than humans have been stumbling about the world. They do not care for flesh, however. Despite their physical appearance, there is nothing physical about them. Their capture, torture, murder, and consumption is not performed on the body of their prey. What is mutilated, destroyed, and devoured is the mind.

Victims of the Pitiful Things are also known, as they are found with some regularity, if not quite uncommonly, wandering around the empty places of the world. They move around, almost floating, eyeing nothing, thinking nothing, feeling nothing. Their hearts have been made void within them and they wander purposelessly around the disused parts of the globe until hunger or fatigue overtakes them and their bodies finally die, most often approximately 200-300 years after their encounter with the Pitiful Things.