Caeder Crawlers

Caeder Crawlers, long thought to be merely tales told by mothers to keep children away from deep caves and misty gullies, have recently been observed and briefly detained by anthropologists, explorers, and scientists. Likely dating back from prehistoric times, Caeder Crawlers are characterized by the odd noise they make as well as their disturbing appearance.

Anatomy
A Caeder Crawler is, in the most general sense, similar to a spider. This comparison, however, only goes so far as the spider-like legs of the creature. The perfectly smooth skin of the Caeder Crawler covers the legs (of which there are generally six but oftentimes anywhere between four and twelve) and body. the legs of Caeder Crawlers will often, in fact, rearrange themselves with a cracking splintering sound as needed, and some have reported seeing new legs sprouting at random and old legs falling off and being devoured.

The body of the Caeder Crawler is the biggest puzzle to science. Much like the boggarts of Iriiv, the Caeder Crawler will alter their body when near a sentient creature. Instead of transforming into what that creature fears, however, the Caeder Crawler will attempt to mimick the form of what it sees. Granted, this ends up looking more like the observer is seeing a portion of themselves fused with a large spider-like creature whose skin is, apparently, boiling into new shapes during the transformation, exposing bones and organs in the process.

While few have been in the presence of a Caeder Crawler long enough to observe it further, there have been recently several invaluable instances where a Caeder Crawler was captured and observed by several scientists and explorers:

"The Caeder Crawler, it seems, actively snaps its own bones to attempt to become a perfect mimick of what it has focused on. It seems, however, that they are easily distracted, and will stop transformation halfway if they notice a more magically or physically capable being nearby, and restart the process. Moreover, as was discovered by accident due to several weak stomaches, if their target runs away, they will wander aimlessly, still half-formed. Thus, it is likely that most Caeder Crawlers are spider-like because that is the creature they most come into contact with, due to their preferance for crevices in the planet's upper crust."

---Dr Freidrich Von Frakenval, Ph D., Anthropology, Carrington University