>>45296925Went on a quick search for "scary owl", "scary fantasy owl" or "horror owl" and tried to make sense of what underlying themes and cues there are and quite often they were modeled after barn owls. I think the hair tufts around the beak obscuring the recognizably bird-like features and pitch-black eyes with no visible irises increase the unsettling factor.
So for your story, depending on what kind of antagonist you need for the scenes, an owl could be presented more as a silent and unsettling predator that is less about an outright conflict but more about the hunting and stalking presence of it out there somewhere in the darkness. If you want like a white knuckles heated battle, an owl doesn't strike me as the optimal candidate. Probably not helpful to what you were asking though.
