Pretty sure Eve could do the same under the right conditions, this is likely what happened with Vayne's family: Eve exploited the father's guilt (he said "My family" so my hypothesis is that his wife cheated on him and the younger siblings weren't his children aka he wanted a family that was truly 'his') and the wife seeing her husband being taken seduced by another 'woman' and taken from her opened up her guilt about what she did to him, hence Eve was able to prey on her and her children. Queue Vayne's dramtic entrance, cut scene.
Nocturne similarly scaled up his influence from the boy's fear of the consequences of having magic, to the town's fear of magic and it continually escalated.