Bekkah
"Alien Cat, step 2" © Cary Narveson, accessed at their ArtStation page here
[The bekkah seems to only appear in the Creature Catalogue, not having come from a Basic D&D adventure nor being reprinted in the Mystara Monstrous Compendium later on in AD&D. It's also not entirely clear what it looks like; the text just refers to it being black, but there's a picture of a sabertooth lynx with the Big Cat entry that might be it, or might just be the giant lynx. The third eye is unique to the art I'm using, but it fits in well with me giving it greensight, inspired by the medieval bestiary lynx being able to see through solid objects. As is often the case for big cat monsters, the damage is high for a creature of its CR; I compensated by bringing down the AC.]
Bekkah CR 11 LN Magical Beast This great black cat is the size of a bear, with a short tail, long ears and oversized paws. It has eerie gray eyes, a third of which sits in the center of its forehead.
The bekkahs are supernatural black-furred felines native to the deepest jungles. They are apex predators, and do not brook intrusion into their territories by other large carnivores. Humanoid hunters are tolerated as long as they do not overhunt, and they pay the bekkah proper deference. This deference is usually in the forms of offerings of meat, although especially desperate or evil societies may do so through humanoid sacrifice. Bekkahs do not go out of their way to hunt humanoids, but are willing to consider them prey.
A bekkah’s combat style does not differ much from those of mundane big cats. They stalk prey and attack from ambush, grabbing their foes in their enormous paws and tearing with claws and teeth. The special offense of the bekkah is in its roar, which carries supernatural fear. A creature that hears a bekkah may be rooted to the spot, unable to flee and thus singled out for a brutal pounce. Bekkahs do not kill needlessly, and if attacked by a party may kill one as a warning to the rest and then retreat with the body to feed.
A bekkah is rarely found unless it wants to be; they are very difficult to track and have magical defenses against divinations. They usually lair in the densest vegetation, which they can pass through without difficulty, anywhere from tangles of roots to the canopies of large trees. Their territories are demarcated with scent marking, deep grooves carved in tree trunks, and oversized paw prints left on trails. Bekkahs are solitary, with males leaving their territories every several years in order to find a mate. Females are good mothers, raising one or two cubs for three years before they leave to find their own territories.
Bekkahs speak Sylvan, but have little to say except to fey creatures and to each other.
