Urd

Urds are three-foot humanoids with short ivory horns, flat noses and red-rimmed eyes. Their frail bodies wear mottled scales from yellow to brick red, and leathery wings spanning eight feet or more let them glide far or climb steeply. On foot they stoop and lurch in an awkward hop. They wear little, though many tribes paint their bodies with berry and bone-meal dyes. They speak their own tongue, kobold and some Common.

Flocks hunt by night, spotting prey with 60-foot infravision. Three in four carry one rock bomb, a jagged two-to-three-pound stone dropped with great precision: an unwary target counts as AC 10, a dodging one as AC 2 before Dexterity. Each hit deals 2d4. The rest carry light spears, thrown or thrust for 1d4. Urds are unreliable troops, easily spooked by large fliers or bright flashes like fireballs, and they shun melee unless they outnumber unarmored, man-sized or smaller foes by at least 10 to 1. Each 20 urds include a subchieftain (7 HD, AC 7), and a flock of 100 or more always brings the chieftain (10 HD), who has a 50% chance of magical leather armor.

Urds live in clans called gens of 300 or more adults, plus young and eggs equal to half the adult count, under a hereditary chieftain of either sex. They lair in remote mountain caves or, lacking mountains, well-hidden caverns with a main hall and nurseries. In 70% of lairs giant bats live with them as pets and guards, and 1d6 shamans dwell there, able among other things to talk with bats as speak with animals. Timid and dull, they bully kobolds and goblins and quickly bow to stronger powers. Gens often pledge themselves to wizards or dragons for promised food, and armies hire them as scouts and messengers.

Heavy coins are a burden to fliers, so urds care little for gold, but they love well-made leather armor and trade eagerly for it. Diet varies by gen, from fruit and small animals to big game, and the fiercest gens live mostly on goblins, humans and elves. Hippogriffs, manticores, dragons and other flying hunters prey on them. They could live past 100, but few reach 50.