Simpathetic

Grounded, the simpathetic looks like any grassland bird, its mottled brown feathers blending into the plains. In flight its black wings and tail coverts stand out; the coverts may feature in courtship, but the birds are so shy then that no one has seen it. Beak and legs are dark yellow. Early reports, from when it first arrived from the seventh layer of the hells, gave it sooty plumage and blood-red beak and legs, so it is changing fast.

It pecks for 1-4 points but would rather hide, though both parents defend their young.

When a nest is threatened, the pair splits up, each bird flopping away crying and dragging a wing. Creatures of semi-intelligence or lower always fall for it, and once the threat has been led off, the bird flies away unhurt.

Good-aligned humans and demihumans who witness the act are its true targets; neutral and evil characters are immune, though evil ones often hunt these birds. A good character must save vs. spell at -5. Success means permanent immunity. Failure means dropping everything to catch the bird and hold it calmly in one's lap for 1-4 rounds, saving again at -5 each round. Each failure slides the holder's alignment one step down this ladder: lawful good, then chaotic good and neutral good, next lawful neutral, after that chaotic neutral and true neutral, and finally neutral evil, chaotic evil and lawful evil. The first success ends the effect; the character hurls the bird away and is immune thereafter. So a lawful good paladin who holds the bird 4 rounds and fails three saves becomes lawful neutral.

The bird has 90% resistance to spells and magical attacks and is immune to fire, which sages credit either to the hells or to an origin on the Elemental Plane of Fire. Ancient tales of it spitting burning blood are now dismissed as folklore.

Two devoted parents and 1-4 nestlings make up a family, and the parents defend their chicks against hopeless odds. One pair nesting in a red dragon's territory drove it off through a whole brood before it finally ate the hen and her second set of chicks.

Each autumn families gather in flocks of a few to several hundred groups, calling day and night and staging aerial displays that may be messages, then fall silent one night and vanish, likely by planar travel. They reappear as abruptly in spring.

They are intelligent, speaking every avian tongue fluently and probably the languages of the hells, though their twisted Common makes talk difficult. A few neutral sages breed captive pairs, raised in isolation from birth because the birds mate for life, hoping to speed their apparent evolution away from evil. The breeders want eggs that lead to other planes, perhaps any plane, and think paler plumage marks progress, so they are chasing a white strain.

Pairs mate for life at about age five, never remarry, and live around 20 years. Each pair produces three broods a year of 1-4 eggs, feeding chicks insects, small rodents, reptiles and carrion for two months before sending them off to wander in loose juvenile flocks. Family groups also mass into flocks of 4-400 or more. Few hunt them, apart from leucrotta and red dragons, which somehow catch whole flocks despite the birds' agility and immunity to dragon breath.

Evil creatures and planar travelers want the eggs. Eaten early, before a chick forms, an egg sends the eater to the hells. One with a developing chick is deadly; sages think its concentrated energy collapses the eater into an empty void, so wise hunters candle each egg first. Legend says a wizard who fetched the first pair swallowed their egg raw and collapsed into starry nothing, leaving only her metal belongings.