Vord
Image © @tredlocity
[Commissioned by @crazytrain48, again from Arduin. In the original text, vords are said to be enemies of the “great golden owls” or “great white owls” (the name differs between editions). The commissioner thought that would be a good fit for the willawaw I did a few years ago, and I agreed. The biggest change I made from the original has to do with its reproduction; the original was also a parasitoid, but injected blood which turned into eggs (weird, more like an aberration), the eggs took months to hatch (realistic, but never going to come up at the game table) and hatched dozens of them at a time (how small are baby vords?)]
Vord CR 8 CN Magical Beast This enormous bird appears like a black falcon with luminous green streaks in its feathers. Its claws and beak are like emerald crystal.
Vords are capricious magical avians with a strange parasitoid life cycle. Their reproduction involves paralyzing other creatures and laying their eggs inside, which hatch in a matter of hours as voracious chicks, which then burst from the host. All vords are hermaphroditic, but not self-fertilizing. The similarity in reproductive strategies has led some scholars to link vord to the similarly avian parasitoids the gryph, but vords are much stronger and semi-intelligent.
Unlike many birds of prey, vords are social hunters, and travel in small flocks. These flocks typically consist of a group of siblings, mates, or some of each. They attack with hit and run tactics combined with their Great Cleave feat, attempting to claw multiple foes at once and inject them with their paralytic toxin. When all enemies are paralyzed, they descend to lay their eggs. If some foes still fight back, they land in order to buffet them with full attacks, and then lay eggs in any victim still paralyzed when they are finished.
Because of their strength, size and speed, some humanoids attempt to tame vords to use as mounts. This is a foolish errand, and the strong willed creatures will usually attempt to overthrow and parasitize such exploiters at the first opportunity. Vords resent structure or rules of any kind, and especially dislike other avian creatures that attempt to control them. Their most bitter enemies are the willawaws, which try to curb their predations. Williwaws are intelligent and have magical gifts, but their isolationist attitude can prove fatal to them when confronted with a gang of vords.
A vord’s wingspan is between thirty and forty feet. They prefer to hunt in open spaces and nest in crags and cliffs.
