Lurking in the shadows, the barn boglin is an often maligned and misunderstood keystone species in the Mossfell archipelago. Barn boglins are the largest extant species of boglin - a clade of bats which have adapted to a fully terrestrial and arboreal lifestyle. Boglins likely diverged from the bumblebat, another prominent group of bats on the archipelago, 12 million years ago. 

Like bumblebats, boglins have developed incredibly derived forms due to their long geographic isolation from the mainland. This is best exemplified in their reversion to terrestrial locomotion. The wings of a barn boglin have long since been reduced to a sturdy arm. The conversion of a flying limb to an arm has left the boglin with only two clawed digits, however it is able to still grasp branches and food by closing its fingers on a padded palm. Barn boglins are capable of bipedal locomotion for short distances, but prefer to use a quadrupedal form of locomotion similar to apes. Like chimpanzees and gorillas, barn boglins also walk on their toes in order to preserve their nails for climbing, handling food, and defense. While other boglin species are mainly specialized for arboreal lifestyles and brachiation, barn boglins are only mediocre climbers and will prefer an almost fully terrestrial life.

Despite preferring a ground-dwelling lifestyle, barn boglins are primarily found in dense forests and thick scrubland. Barn boglins avoid open areas like cliffsides or fields in order to avoid predators old and new such as cockatrices, ayturcats, and feral dogs. Barn boglins are crepuscular, and prefer to forage for food at dusk and dawn. The barn boglin specifically gets its name from its habit of living in abandoned or neglected barns, warehouses, and other ruins. In the modern day, barn boglins will not hesitate to also live in the abundance of cellars, drainage pipes, or overpasses produced by the human inhabitants of the archipelago.

Barn boglins live in groups of 2-12 called a malice. These malices will establish semi-permanent dens in abandoned burrows, hollowed tree trunks, or small caves. The malice will contain both males and females, and demonstrates highly cooperative behavior. The malice does not have a strict hierarchy, and individuals will not usually fight for dominance within the group. In the malice, individuals will help with raising each other's pups, will return with scraps for the den, and will survey for threats. This form of sociality is less complex than the bumblebats' pseudo-eusociality but is on par with some new world monkeys. If threatened, a barn boglin will usually flee, but if cornered it will assume a bipedal defensive position and bare its teeth. If the posturing is ineffective, the barn boglin will shriek loudly to signal distress, summoning the rest of the malice. The malice will then shriek loudly and, in rare cases, attack the offensive party. 

Barn boglins are omnivorous animals which appear to be trending toward a carrion-based diet. The majority of the barn boglin diet consists of berries, shoots, and insects, but approximately 45% of their diet is carrion. Boglin malices will prefer carrion to other food sources, and will defend carcasses from other malices. Because of the dearth of large carrion-eating and scavenging animals on the archipelago, and the (until recently) large amount of large un-predated megafauna, the barn boglin is crucial at processing carrion for decomposers such as fungi, insects, and worms.

Due to the behavior of boglins - their group dynamics, their posture, their diet, their preference for dark spaces, and their shrieking - they have been often compared to devils, imps, and other evil spirits. The Mossfell Norse and their descendants the Viardrmen both compared boglins to servants of evil. This is likely because barn boglins are not picky about where they get their carrion. Several records describe barn boglins emerging from church cellars to consume corpses before burial. One record in the Henswyck codex details that following battle "the grotesque creatures emerged like wraiths from the forest or dragur from the tomb. They have no qualms picking amongst those slain in the field with their yellowed, rotten maws. The fields of battle echoed with the shrieks of pain and death in the day, and the howls of monstrosities at night." 

This hatred of the barn boglin led to various eradication campaigns. Within the first 200 years of settlement on the island, the little known and much larger hob-boglin (Vespitiliohorribilis hobgoblin) species was fully eradicated by 1250 C.E.  and settlers began to focus their efforts on the smaller barn boglin. Because of the cooperative nature of the barn boglin, it was easy for settlers to capture a boglin in a cage and then coax its entire malice to arrive to defend it. This would end with the entire malice being slaughtered. Other methods of barn boglin eradication involved poisoning cattle carcasses with poison. Often, local officials would encourage the practice of killing the boglins with bounties and tax incentives, and boglin hunting competitions were frequently held. This led to the barn boglin population plummeting to near unstainable levels in the late 20th century. It was only when the link between barn boglins and carrion elimination was made that local governments stopped offering hunting bounties. Due to a dearth of terrestrial scavengers on the island, the near elimination of the barn boglin led to an overabundance of carrion-related illnesses and pests, most chiefly the dreaded skewerbettle.

Due to intensive population management and a relatively short generational time, the barn boglin made a stunning recovery. As of 2022, the barn boglin has been reintroduced successfully to St. James, St. Anne, Isle of Hens, and Fernbank with populations steadily growing on Mossfellheim and Neffannafjall. Thanks to increased public awareness regarding the importance of scavengers in a healthy habitat, the barn boglin is no longer a maligned creature. This education change does not exclude it from skepticism however,  and many inhabitants on the Mossfells still regard the creature with disdain. It is easy to sympathize with this mentality when a plethora of shrieking, lurching creatures begins to emerge from the shadows at twilight - looking for their daily scraps. 

The Haunted Barn

Why one shouldn't venture into abandoned buildings

"I dare you!" Deepti smirked as she teased Bruce. "I guess we have to call you chicken, or better yet, baby Bruce! Oh poor widdle babby Brucey"

"Oh knock it off Deepti, you know he's a chicken already. No need to keep rubbing it in his face." Sam glanced up from her TikTok feed for a second, barely paying the teaser and teasee attention. "Besides I'm sure Bruce would probably immediately combust if he got a single spider on him."

"Wow guys, really mature. I'm totally a big baby" Bruce attempted to answer coyly. The three 7th graders stood in front of the derelict shed. It loomed over them with crackled paint, rotten siding, and an overwhelming musty smell. It smelled godawful, like when Bruce had forgotten a yogurt bottle in the back of his mom's car for a week. "Besides, what's the point of going in? It'll probably fall down in a few weeks." It had always been here since they moved to this neighborhood, but today it felt especially menacing.

"We get it Brucey babby, still afraid of the dark?" Deepti's smirk widened into a loud guffaw. Sam looked up and chuckled too. Bruce didn't get why they were so mean to him now. He was always the reserved one in the friend group, ever since they met on the bus to kindergarten, but this felt uncalled for. 

"Okay! Fine! I'll go inside and see the fucking gHoOSts or wHaTEver. Fucking dicks." he snapped. Bruce opened a creaking door and stepped past the threshold. Deepti and Sam followed behind eager to catch Bruce flailing at cobwebs. The awful rank of the shed was even more distilled inside. It made Bruce want to gag. Deepti stifled a cough. The shed felt too warm inside for October, like someone had been heating the building. Only faint, lethargic rays of light peaked through the rotting siding of the barn, leaving broad swaths of darkness in the hay covered corners of the shed. Bruce, eager to prove his point (and to leave the shed) quickly turned to Deepti and Sam "Yep okay so I'm inside. There you go you assholes." Deepti and Sam didn't react to Bruce though, they stood frozen looking behind him.

"Yeah really funny guys, oooh there's something behiiiiinndd meeeee!" Then it shrieked. 

***

The trio screamed back at the form in the darkness as they began to tumble over themselves on the way out of the shed. As they bolted out of the door, the barn boglin lowered her hackles and sheathed her teeth. She turned to the two pups beside her and began to groom the curly brown hair on their backs. Only a few moments later, the rest of her malice stood beside her, returning with food and scouring for threats. Soft shrieks and chirps conveyed the notion that the threat was gone, and that the young were safe.