Darkwing

A darkwing is a flying humanoid with green scales, black leathery wings, long sharp claws and a mouth crowded with fangs. Many scholars think the creatures are kin to deep glaurants.

Each flock shares a crude language of its own, mostly words about hunting and rank. A rare few pick up human speech, and a flock's leader more often learns the tongues of humanoids it might recruit for livestock raids.

Dark coloring and silent gliding make darkwings superb night ambushers, imposing a -4 penalty on victims' surprise rolls. They fight with claws and bite. When two attack a human-sized target together and both roll 18 or better, they can lift it and fly off with it. Bigger animals such as horses and cattle are killed and cut up on the spot, then carried home in pieces.

They hate bright light and stay in their caves whenever the moon is full. Under a light spell they suffer -1 to morale, attack and damage. Continual light forces an immediate morale check at -2; those that fail retreat to the lair, and those that stay take -2 to attack and damage, though every hit still does at least 1 point. These penalties do not stack, so a darkwing under both spells fights at -2, not -3. A darkwing that passes its morale check fights to the death despite the penalties.

Flocks rely on numbers and flight to frighten and corner their quarry. A strict pecking order puts the biggest, cleverest member, male or female, in charge; the leader picks the hunting grounds and the choicest mates. The post is never safe, since every underling is always angling to climb.

They roost in dark caves high in rugged mountains, filthy places littered with dung and bones. Every lair has 2d6 young perched on its ledges, which fight only if threatened (they bite once for 1d3 and have AC 8 and 1-1 Hit Dice).

Darkwings never leave their caves by day. After dark they descend to the lowlands, where farm herds offer the easiest meals. Farmers seldom have the means to stop them and the creatures have few natural enemies, but a flock that troubles a district for long soon draws opposition: angry farmers, the local knight and his retainers protecting their rents, or adventurers. Already rare, darkwings dwindle wherever civilization advances.

Without livestock to raid they turn to rabbits, fawns and other small game, culling the weak, old and sick as wolves do. Such hunting is harder, which keeps their numbers low even in the wilderness.