Tales speak of a beast capable of devouring even a mighty leviathan, but such organism has proven elusive and as such regarded purely as myth ('Sky Swallower'). These eventually are preyed upon by the occasional creature even larger still ('leviathans').

They 'swim' through the sky with unnatural grace and subtlety, largely indifferent to the machinations of the terrestrial world below.Īnd here's an entire ecosystem of the creatures, too, similar to that of the ocean - while all creatures can draw energy from sunlight (and latent aetheral energies), only the smallest (known as 'gems') are capable of sustaining themselves from it and eventually become food for larger creatures (called 'shards'). I'm a big fan of atmospheric beasts/cloud creatures/etc - often mistaken for clouds, these organisms are large enough to span miles and lurk at the 'edge of aether' (the farthest reaches of the upper stratosphere). Not so much mythological beasts as cryptids. I'm still fleshing out some ideas, but here goes: This sub really has me inspired to begin world building.

Mythological creatures of aether