Kes'trekel

Kes'trekel are foul scavenging birds that plague the city-state heartlands, feeding on whatever dies in the desert. They are skinny and barely a foot tall, their black feathers bleached gray by the sun, with a vivid blood-red head the only splash of color. Clumsy and exposed on their short, taloned legs, they are at home only in the air, where a 3-foot wingspan carries them easily. They talk among themselves in calls and harsh squawks and never learn other languages.

One kes'trekel is a pest rather than a danger. Its claws, suited to tearing carrion, deal 2-5 damage, and a target that keeps moving tends to frighten it off.

Numbers change everything. A flock swarms its target like insects, and rather than rolling for each bird, the game master makes one attack roll and one damage roll for the group. Each pair of birds beyond five adds +1 to that attack and damage and +1 to the flock's Morale; 25 birds attack at +10, deal 1d4+11, and fail Morale only on 13-15. Defending a nest adds a further +4 to each bird's Morale check.

Twenty or more can join their tiny minds to project the telepathic power aversion, using a shared pool of PSPs equal to the flock's size and a power score of 10, plus 1 for every bird past 20. Fiercely territorial, they use it to drive trespassers from nesting grounds and swarm anyone who presses on with a storm of pecks and scratches.

Kes'trekel live in flocks and pair only long enough to breed. Each female lays 3-6 eggs a year and stays at the nest for the month until hatching and two more while the young grow. Flocks do not migrate, staying in one region for centuries if conditions allow, but each nest in a crag or tree is used for just one brood.

They find food by smell, catching the stench of death on the hot desert wind, then by sharp eyesight once aloft. Some mountain tribes eat the eyes of freshly killed kes'trekel hoping for keener sight; it does not work, but tradition often beats logic.

Wild birds cannot be tamed, but chicks hatched from stolen eggs make superb watchbirds whose protectiveness overcomes their cowardice, and many merchants trust their squawked alarms. In one city-state the eggs are a delicacy if eaten within two weeks of laying, and with so many uses they command high prices. Wild kes'trekel live about 15 years, captive ones up to 25.