Cockatrice

This unsettling blend of rooster, bat, and lizard is as big as a large turkey or goose. It has a cock's head and body, gray batlike wings, and a long green lizard tail with a few feathers at the tip. Its plumage is golden brown and its beak yellow, while the comb, wattles, and eyes glow bright red. Hens, far scarcer than males, look the same but lack comb and wattles.

A cockatrice savagely attacks anything it sees as a danger to itself or its nest, grappling to touch bare skin and turn it to stone. Flocks swarm and bewilder foes, sometimes flying straight at their faces.

Its petrifying peck passes through cloth and leather but is stopped by metal armor, and it even reaches into the Ethereal Plane. The bird has learned to aim for skin it can affect. Against a lightly covered foe, assume it automatically finds flesh. Against someone fairly well armored, its base chance to strike a vulnerable spot is 10% times the target's adjusted Armor Class.

Cockatrices cannot petrify each other. They eat insects, small lizards, and similar prey, and do not use their stony touch when hunting.

These birds are nasty-tempered and odd in their ways. Because hens are rare, they rule, and each keeps several mates; males fight or strut to win a place in her harem. Groups nest in caves, return to the same site for good, and constantly line it with shiny things such as coins and gems.

A hen lays one or two rust-flecked, brownish red eggs each month, but only 25% of eggs hatch, taking 11-19 days. Chicks gain full size and power in six months and are then chased off by their parents. Larger bands are often such castoffs banding together for a while to survive.

Thriving in wild country, the cockatrice has few predators thanks to its touch, which also helps it compete with other birds. Many magical scrolls must be written with pens cut from its quills, so certain wizards pay well for feathers. Others want unhatched eggs or live birds as exotic pets or guards.

Pyrolisk: people often confuse this crueler relative with the cockatrice, since only a single red tail feather and a reddish tinge to the wings tell them apart. Unlike its instinct-driven cousin, the pyrolisk delights in chaos. Anyone meeting its gaze must save vs. death magic or erupt in flames and die in agony; those who save still burn for 2-13 (1d12+1) and are thereafter immune to that pyrolisk's gaze. Creatures within 30 feet that are naturally or magically immune to fire are unaffected. Once per round it can make any fire within 30 yards burst into fireworks, as a pyrotechnics spell. Fire spells and attacks cannot hurt it. It attacks almost anything it meets, but its deadliest foe is the phoenix.