Bird [Dragonlance]

Plume-runners are fat, white, ostrich-like ground birds with long necks, goggling blue eyes and heavy clawed feet, able to flutter aloft for up to a turn. Bronzefowl are bulkier, flightless cousins in bronze, gold or blue. Kingfishers are crested, short-legged and long-billed, deep blue or blue-gray above and white beneath. The skyfisher, black or gray, looks like a vulture crossed with a giant bat, with long trailing legs and a pointed beak.

Only the skyfisher is truly dangerous; the rest peck, and the two ground birds also kick. Bronzefowl panicked by noise or blood stampede, trampling anyone caught for 3d4 a round.

A skyfisher uses beak or talons each round, never both, and can open with a dive at +2 for double damage. A talon hit forces a Dexterity check; failure means the victim is lifted 1d4 rounds, then dropped for 1d6 per round spent airborne. It lets go after taking 10 damage and cannot lift over 200 pounds.

All four kinds flock and lay 2d4 eggs yearly. The ground birds stay within a few square miles; kingfishers and skyfishers migrate widely. Clever skyfishers hoard shiny objects, and kingfishers favor gems.

The ground birds eat insects, grain and small rodents and are favorite prey of wolves, which bronzefowl are foolish enough to let walk among them. Kingfishers spear fish; skyfishers hunt rabbits and similar animals. Primitive peoples tame plume-runners as mounts, and many cultures take skyfishers for omens of war and death.