[The Crawfordsville Monster is one of the few 19th century paranormal entities to be debunked swiftly. It was interpreted as being a flock of birds disturbed by electric lights. Reflective birds are still a major source of UFO sightings. This inspired the swarm form ability I gave this version.
Oh, and the name is inspired by PFRPG and @bogleech both abbreviating the Hopkinsville Goblin as a “hobkin”.]
Crawvil This pale shining creature hangs impossibly in the air,
its body buoyed by the flapping of hundreds of small fins. It is nearly
featureless except for a single immense red eye.
A crawvil is a
strange atmospheric life form that lives its entire life in the sky. In the atmosphere,
they are something like aerial whales, consuming swarms of insects and flocks
of birds in a single gulp of their immense maws. They most frequently come to
ground when such food is scarce in order to prey on terrestrial creatures. They
are frequently curious about landlocked lifeforms, and may appear sometimes to
simply watch them in action.
Crawvils are of
animal intelligence, but are savvy combatants. Their luminous eyes can cycle
through an array of magical effects, which they use wisely to disrupt
opposition and single out a prey item. If badly threatened, they can tear
themselves apart into swarms of bird-like shreds of tissue, which can scatter
in all directions to escape an enemy. Any creature swallowed by a crawvil when
it transforms finds itself released immediately—which can be a bad thing if the
aberration is airborne. Due to this strange transformation, many people think
that crawvils are merely an illusion caused by large flocks of birds traveling
in unison. Those that have battled these sky predators know differently.
A crawvil stretches
nearly thirty feet long and is roughly cylindrical in shape. Its mouth is
nearly invisible when closed, but gapes open in a massive maw when it feeds or
fights.
Shores of Swords 