Caterwaul

A caterwaul is a fierce cat furred in short midnight blue, with a long grasping tail and yellow eyes. Its face looks oddly elven, with delicate pointed ears and almond eyes. Like any cat's, its tail plainly shows its mood.

It likes to wait in a tree or on a rocky ledge above a path and drop onto prey, giving chase only when it must. It can run upright at 18 and drop to all fours for 24. It claws twice for 1-4 each and bites for 1-6. If both claws hit with unmodified rolls of 18 or higher, it may rake twice more for 1-6 each.

Once per turn, alongside its melee attacks, it can let out a piercing keen that deals 1-8 to every creature within 60 feet who fails a save vs. breath weapon; it usually does this in the first round of a fight. Also once per turn it can haste itself for seven rounds, improving its Armor Class by 4 and doubling its attacks and movement. It cannot keen or attack in the round it activates the haste.

It climbs almost any surface (95%), moves silently (85%), and hides in shadows (75%). Its tail, useless in a fight, pins down food and sweeps twigs from its view during an ambush.

Caterwauls are fiercely solitary, leaving their mothers at three months. They live about 5 years and breed at most three times, never pairing for life since that would mean a permanent partner. They favor low, densely overgrown mountains. They dislike water but can swim.

Once it settles a territory, a caterwaul keeps within roughly 8 miles of home. The lair is scored with vertical claw marks and its entrance reeks of scent markings meant to warn away other animals. The cat hoards shiny things, so its treasure is mostly glittering quartz and pretty pebbles worth very little.

It eats only meat, mostly large rodents but sometimes bigger game, and sometimes a farmer's sheep or cows. Following any kill the size of a sheep or bigger it gorges and may not hunt again for ten days, though it will drive off intruders any time. It refuses carrion, even its own kill once a day old. Nothing, not even man, preys on it; it kills only to eat or defend its range. Its claws can be used to create a sword of sharpness, and its unusually colored fur is valuable if carefully treated to remove the scent.