Sabreclaw

A sabreclaw is a 6-foot creature of slick, oily black fur and leathery red-brown wings, with burning red eyes and a long, bony sword growing where its right arm should be. It stinks of wet fur and raw sewage. It has no real language but understands its master's commands, and wing-mates talk among themselves in shrieks of varied pitch and volume.

Sabreclaws serve as hunters and bodyguards for their makers; on the hunt they attack any living thing in sight. They exist only in wings of 2d10, and the wing shares its hit points: each member adds 25 to a pool, damage to any one is spread across all, and none dies until the pool is empty. A wing of eight has 200 hit points even if every blow lands on the same creature. At 0, every member screams horribly and bursts into a cloud of greasy black smoke.

A faint telepathic link lets them coordinate silently, which explains their good Armor Class and sharp aim. The sword-arm strikes as a 9 HD monster for 1d12. A diving charge gains +2 to hit and deals double damage, but worsens the sabreclaw's AC by 1 and gives the target -2 on initiative.

They love snatching foes and dropping them from a height. One can lift a size S or smaller creature, two a fully equipped man, four a large creature, six a huge one, and ten or more a gargantuan one, depending on its weight. When ordered to fetch someone, they skip the game and deliver the captive as told.

Spells of 1st through 3rd level cannot affect them, and neither can poison. Each saves as a 5 HD creature, +1 for every four members in the wing. They see invisible, ethereal, and hidden things as with true seeing.

For a sabreclaw, nothing exists but the wing: they fly, fight, eat, and sleep together, with no notion of self. Making one wing takes a full laboratory, an ancient banned spell guarded jealously by its few knowers, at least 60,000 gp of components, and a wizard of 12th level or priest of 11th. After a month of preparation the casting runs 1d6+12 hours without pause. The wing obeys its creator; if he is slain, it tracks down and kills his murderers, then dissolves into black mist.

As artificial beings, sabreclaws neither add to nor take from the world around them. They exist only to serve.