Sitak

This forest bird of the desert world is kin to parrots and cockatoos, with their hooked beak, talons, vivid feathers and gift for mimicry, though it mimics telepathically. Colors vary widely: green or red with a yellow throat is common, but blue, gray, white and black birds are nearly as frequent. White ones, with their spiky crests, pass for cockatoos until they chatter psionically.

Easily startled, sitaks rarely fight unless trapped. A sitak rakes with its talons and then pecks with its beak, 1 point of damage per hit, aiming by instinct for the eyes. On a natural 20 it strikes unprotected eyes and blinds the target for 2d10 rounds. A pet guarding its owner or a parent at the nest has morale 12 (Steady).

Its psionic contact and mindlink (20) cost no PSPs but work only within line of sight, and the bird sees poorly past 30 feet. Any resistance breaks the contact, it cannot reach creatures less advanced than birds, and because it is merely echoing sounds it does not understand, its mindlink does not bridge different languages.

Kept alone, a sitak goes mad, but otherwise it makes a loyal, demanding companion. Wild birds have animal intelligence; patient training from the egg can raise a pet to Semi- (2-4). Food is always the first word it masters, and it may pick up about 20 others like danger or no.

Trained birds can relay silent mindlink talk between two people who share a language, but no more than two at once, and they tire fast, especially when hungry or cranky, which is usual.

Pairs probably mate for life. A female lays one egg yearly in a huge branch nest, and communal nests may house several pairs in rooms big enough for a halfling or dwarf.

Foul, stringy meat deters predators, but disease and parasites plague them. Anyone exposed to sitak fever who fails a Constitution check comes down with something like a bad flu, which then recurs in week-long bouts whenever the sufferer goes into jungle or forest, until a cure disease spell clears it for good.

They live along a forested ridge and, more sparsely, in a great crescent forest between two rival city-states. Some halfling tribes see them as bad luck (-6 reactions toward explorers carrying them); others find them harmless but neither keep nor eat them. One city's merchants buy crest feathers at 1-3 ceramic pieces apiece, and its hunters have nearly emptied the crescent forest, while the rival city's hunters keep sitaks as pets and think killing one is unlucky.