Shadow Leviathan

The Shadow Leviathan is a species of Leviathan-class predator found in the Crystal Caves and the Fabricator Caverns.

Appearance
The Shadow Leviathan has an elongated black body with smooth skin and twin rows of 37 small red spots running from behind the head to just before the tip of the tail. Below each row of red spots is a shorter row of eight circular gill pores that run down the side. The head is composed of a triangular shield-like structure with three pairs of small black eyes and a large red ring in the centre. The creature's mouth is located on its underside just behind the head: it is a glowing blue tone, and lined with curved teeth resembling a ribcage with the sternum removed. The mouth appears to pass food directly into the creature's stomach, with no real throat structure present.

Seven pairs of jointed clawed appendages run down the sides of the mouth. These have spines along the inside edge to assist in securing prey. Seven more pairs of these appendages can be seen running down the body, decreasing in size as they get closer to the tail to the point that the final three pairs are little more than a small spine. This gives the impression that these grasping appendages once served as walking limbs in a distant bottom-dwelling ancestor, but have since been repurposed into their current form.

Propulsion comes from the large fins on the rear portion of the Shadow Leviathan's body. Though lacking a tail fluke, a large fin is present around halfway down the body on both the dorsal and ventral sides, the ventral fin having smaller fins in front of and behind it. The tail ends with a red point.

Design
The tail portion of the body is very similar in appearance to the black ghost knifefish and the row of holes on the neck resemble the gill openings possessed by lampreys. The mouth and mandible design was based on the heads of arrow worms.

Gallery
In Game=

Concept Art=  Shadow Leviathan.jpg|Final concept - by Alex Ries ShadowLeviathanFront.jpeg|Front view - by Alex Ries Alex leviathan016.jpg|Near-final concept - by Alex Ries Shadow Leviathan 2.jpg|Earlier version of final - by Alex Ries Alex-ries-alex-leviathan012.png|Earlier version - by Alex Ries Alex-ries-alex-leviathanmouths01.png|Alternate mouth designs - by Alex Ries EBP3ZbIU8AA9XZ1.jpg|Alternate design - by Alex Ries Shadow Leviathan 5B.png|Intermediary design - by Alex Ries Shadow Leviathan 5A.png| Ditto, mouth closed - by Alex Ries Shadow Leviathan 3.jpg|Scrapped alternate design choice - by Alex Ries Shadow Leviathan 3A.jpg|Head shots of scrapped design - by Alex Ries Shadow Leviathan 3B.jpg|Ditto Shadow Leviathan 4.jpg|Older concept - by Alex Ries Alex-ries-alex-leviathan0b.png|Early sketches - by Alex Ries Alex-ries-alex-leviathan02b.png|Early sketches - by Alex Ries Shadow Leviathan 0.png|First concept - by Alex Ries