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.

Taken from the Creature Codex

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.

Crawvil                 CR 10

XP 9,600
N Gargantuan aberration
Init +9; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, Perception +14

Defense

AC 25, touch 11, flat-footed 20(-4 size, +5 Dex, +14 natural)
hp 127 (15d8+90)
Fort +13, Ref +10, Will +12
DR 10/magic; SR 21
Resist cold 20, fire 20

Offense

Speed 10 ft., fly 40 ft. (perfect)
Melee bite +16 (4d6+13/19-20 plus grab)
Ranged eye beam +11 touch (varies)
Space 20 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks eye beams, swallow whole (AC 17, 12 hp, 4d6+13 bludgeoning damage)

Statistics

Str 29, Dex 20, Con 22, Int 2, Wis17, Cha 17
Base Atk +11; CMB +24 (+28 grapple); CMD 38 (cannot be tripped)
Feats Cleave,Combat Reflexes,Flyby Attack, Great Fortitude, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Vital Strike
Skills Fly +17, Perception +14
SQ swarm form

Ecology

Environment any land
Organization solitary or pod (2-8)
Treasure none

Special Abilities

Eye Beams (Su) As a swift action once per round, a crawvil can fire a beam of light from its eye. Treat this as a ranged touch attack with a range of 120 feet and no range increment. This eye beam can have one of the following effects

• Fire The beam deals 8d6 fire damage (no save)
• Repulsion The beam deals 2d6 bludgeoning damage and the creature struck must succeed a DC 20 Reflex save or be pushed 20 feet and knocked prone.
• Confusion The creature struck must succeed a DC 20 Will save or be confused (as the spell) for 1d4+1 rounds.
• Paralysis The creature struck must succeed a DC 20 Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 1 round.A crawvil can use this beam at will, but cannot use the same beam effect two rounds in a row. The save DC is Charisma based.

Swarm Form (Su) As a standard action, a crawvil may transform itself into four swarms. Use the statistics of a raven swarm for each swarm, except that the crawvil’s hit point total is divided among the four swarms. A creature grappled or swallowed by a crawvil is immediately released from the grapple. The crawvil may return to its original form as a full round action any round in which the surviving swarms are adjacent to each other—its hit point total becomes the sum of the hit points of any and all remaining swarms.