Brash Brutes: Aarakocra

In my previous post I talked about aarakocra I tossed into a short and sweet Dark Sun adventure. I figured I should write a post dedicated entirely to those lovable (in that Gremlin or Skeksis sort of way) screeching death birds.

Aarakocra: Forgotten Realms vs Dark Sun

"Bird-men," "eagle-folk," "aarakocra," in D&D (and numerous RPG settings, especially the Forgotten Realms) they're the humanoid creatures with two long legs with talons, two arms with opposable thumbs and needle-like nails, two huge feathered wings, and the head of eagle with keen eyes and a strong beak; they fly high above mountainous areas wielding their finely crafted spears, serving as protectors for their tribes and guides for friendly travelers. In RPGs, the birdfolk were introduced in the early 80s in the AD&D Fiend Folio, coming after a long line of characters like Hawkman and Hawkgirl from the 40s, the winged viking Prince Vultan from the slightly earlier Flash Gordon — Brian Blessed's character in the 80s Flash Gordon movie was the first birdman I remember seeing outside of mythology books — and millennia after the Egyptian deities Horus and Ra (which are also the inspiration for Hawkman, more or less from what I understand). It's the monstrous eagle-like aarakocra that most D&D and Pathfinder players think of when they imagine hawk-men and birdfolk nowadays, being part of the game for so long now, inspiring modern players in much the same way majestic, real-world eagles and hawks and all manner of mythological griffons do while being able to collaborate and communicate as well as they can fly and rip and tear, or better.

The "aven" of Magic: the Gathering offer plenty of other examples as well, no doubt inspired by D&D's archetypal eagle, hawk, or parrot aarakocra for many of their armored eagle warriors, but showcasing a wide variety of unique versions from owl wizards and crow shaman to crane monks and falcon clerics to hoopoe and buzzard soldiers, peacock warriors (not on theme for this post, but go see Battlebond's "Soaring Show-Off" art by Sidharth Chaturvedi), and vulture zombie or possessed aven horror. Some mutant aven even resemble hook horrors (see Scourge's "Coast Watcher" and "Aven Farseer" art by Luca Zontini and the rest of her portfolio). While I like a lot of things about the classic bird-people, it's the zombie vultures, owl wizards, flying hooked horrors, and crow shaman that really grab me when I play Magic, create a D&D character or brainstorm new monsters and adventures to plug them into or shape around, and when I sit down to sketch or paint.

When I'm thinking about darker, grim, brutal settings like Dark Sun, creatures twisted by the magnificently horrifying Phyrexians are another avenue I'm pulled to. The "pseudo-Giger-esque" (if that's a term) and Dark-Crytal-invoking, haunting art of Adrian Smith (nightmarish "Tine Shrike"), Mark Zug, Daarken, Nils Hamm, Dave Allsop, Greg Staples, Chippy, Steve Argyle, Stephan Martinière, Tomasz Jedruszek ("Carrion Screecher" for this discussion), Kev Walker, [insert a dozen more artists here], the duo of Jana Schirmer and Johannes Voss (both of whom are great on their own, I love their collaborations most), and finally [not finally] darker pieces by Terese Nielsen ("Dismember" and "Despise", for two) amplify my brainstorming tenfold. Another artist I must mention before moving on [to more artists] is Cos Koniotis. I don't know much about them outside the fact that they have done a few pieces for Magic; their art style, their sketches and digital art are awesome, it fits the mood of Dark Sun so well to me. They don't seem to have all of their work in any one place, but they do have a DeviantArt and can be looked up on Gatherer (Wizards of the Coast's searchable archive of every MtG card) and the internet in general, of course.

The art that originally shaped the world of Dark Sun — from its time as "War World" or whatever it was called before its slight shift and polishing — was that of Tom Baxa and Brom, neither of whom, I assume, need more of an introduction than their names. I've known Brom's art since I was a kid, I loved it (even still) more than the work of other famously known artists like Frank Frazetta, pouring over it as much as I would William Adolphe Bouguereau (which is a lot, to say the least). His "Morgan le Fay" on the cover of The Art of Brom was one of the first, then "Red Wing" and "Black Wing," Jack on the cover of The Plucker, "Peter" and "Sekeu" from The Child Thief, the covers for the War of the Spider Queen series. I loved the covers for Dark Sun's Freedom and Slave Tribes (the only ones I was familiar with for a while) and the old computer games as well, although somehow I wouldn't connect the dots and learn that they were pieces for D&D until high school when I started playing a lot of chiptunes from old games and finally read more about the setting. Around that time I found more of Tom Baxa's contributions to the world but wouldn't become familiar with him until some years later (just a year or so before now), and it helped strengthen my idea of what Dark Sun is, what the people in it are like, what the creatures are, how the world should feel. A lot of what made it it I liked in the same way I do the different parts of Star Wars (mostly all of them... mostly).

And so, to make something long-winded brief, an aarakocra in Dark Sun shouldn't make you feel the same way that seeing a soaring griffon feels, watching it leap off a rock high above you, far beyond your feathered pathfinder coming to rest after circling the treetops. It should make your heart beat a little faster by striking up a fear of death inside you, when you see it perched on a mountainside you should find beauty in its savagery and wickedness, its jagged beak and singed skin and feathers. Like a battered pigeon missing half a wing and a foot and has a popped balloon string caught around its neck and a bobby pin through its face, that by all means should have died weeks ago when it slammed into the window in the second floor of the pizza shop and fell smack onto the bike rack hump but is still existing in the dingy neighborhood with every other broken thing.

Twisted by the Sun Above the Burning Sands

Now, when I first looked through my growing list of monsters I'd want to use for wasteland adventures, the aarakocra was at the top. I just liked the idea of taking the classic monster and dropping it into a harsh wasteland and fiddling with it, adapting it to that environment. I thought about how to start doing that and figured that instead of it being an eagle, it's a vulture. Obvious, simple, fantastic. Flipping through the pages of 4e's Dark Sun Creature Catalog I had borrowed from a friend revealed that most of that work had been done, however, and so what was obvious to me before was instantly set in stone. It still has a beak and wings, talons, a spear, but instead of being pristine or armored they have ragged feathers, crooked beaks, they wear scraps if anything. Instead of tending towards doing well in the world and assisting those in need, they tend to be aggressive, selfish scavengers and prey on the weak whenever possible.

My first notes for them:

Aarakocra: Sparsely-feathered, pink- and red-skinned, scrawny vulture-like species and a "fluffier" grey, black and white-feathered and pink-skinned, pudgey condor-like species. Their shrieks echo through the badlands, desert plains and canyons they make their roosts in.
Medium humanoid, chaotic neutral, CR 1/2-1 (100-200 XP)

• Savage, tribal. There are many different tribes scattered around the world. Despite being extremely similar, they all fiercely defend their territory from other tribes as well as any trespassers. They are quick to rob, extort, kidnap, or kill and eat any who wander close unprotected.
• Predators, scavengers. While most would prefer to let other creatures or nature do the fighting and scavenge afterward, they are cunning and brave warriors themselves. They also make great scouts and are commonly employed (or enslaved) as such.

• Spiritual. They venerate the sun, sky, and the wind as primal entities, some tribes name and worship them as deities. Shaman, leaders of the tribe also known as windcallers, use prayers and rituals to summon gusts of wind, dust storms, or even call spirits and elemental creatures to aid them in battle and mundane tasks.
      Smaller, secluded tribes may consist of as few as four warriors, larger tribes may number anywhere from a dozen to a hundred and have various levels and types of classes within the tribe.
• Few Allies. Among their very limited allies are the occasional kenku and wealthy merchant house, the former more often making treaties rather than partnership. Other allies may include spirits, elementals, or other flying creatures.
• Enemies to Slavers. Slavers steal their eggs to hatch and raise, then enslave themselves or sell to merchant houses. Tribes who have caught slavers or discover merchant houses with aarakocra slaves harass them, making war for generations. Their only other constant and universal enemy are other tribes.

Good at: Flying and fleeing, bravery, reflexes (DEX), scouting and ambushing (vision), scavenging (equipment, food, etc.).
Bad at: Communication (with others, CHA), stealth (leave feathers around, shriek to communicate with themselves or intimidate, etc.), 1-on-1 combat.
Stats: +STR, ++DEX, -INT/CHA. (+4 total, -2 total?)
Equipment: Spears, longspears, anything scavenged they can use, no (or little) armor.
    Other weapons: Wings, beaks, talons, razor feathers, wind.
Can dive to gain bonus to their attack or damage or can swoop down to "grapple" and fly away with a medium-sized creature (two or more can pick up larger/heavier creatures).

Going through canyon: large brown and red feathers on the ground, possibly hear "caw" or "warble" echo in the distance. Roll Nature/Survival, low: large bird (hawk or vulture); high: distinguish the call and feathers as aarakocra.
Other: merchant carcass on a high ledge in the cliff.

After a few minutes thumbing through a few AD&D, 4e, and 5e books, a few more minutes scribbling down ideas, I was left with plenty to use (more than I needed, for sure).

But I was still missing actual rules. A stat block or note card with attacks and AC, at the very least. The 4e books had multiple versions with attacks and abilities and stats, but other than the art and some descriptions everything was entirely alien to me. I never played that edition and don't even know someone who did (my friends who have 4e books essentially tear material out of them and plug it into their Pathfinder campaign). I know that version went to level 30 instead of 20 but after "mathing" through the stats it didn't feel right. So, instead of trying to "convert" those monsters to 5e rules, I started with the aarakocra in 5e's Monster Manual. Some notable things about the process were that I wanted them to really have a place in the world outside of being angry meat to throw at a party (the big blurb above was basically finished) but part of me also really wanted to be able to use them as angry meat to throw at a party. And make them challenging at a wide range of levels; simple in small numbers, flexible enough to work in large numbers or with minor tweaks and be dangerous for higher levels PCs. On the lower end of things and for new players, I wanted the first encounter with them to be pretty straight forward rules-wise (to use as a DM) but pretty dangerous. Later on, hopefully they would either meet a larger group and vividly remember their first proverbial handshake with the monster and its rules or all that fluff would be working its way into the game.

I whipped up a handful of stat blocks, one for the standard warriors, one for minions, and a few that were more specialized, higher level, or twisted in some way (in the croaking undead horror sort of way, to be specific). I gave a rough telling of the adventure I put them in in the previous post (one warrior and two minions that I tweaked), afterwards I ended up with the following rules:

Aarakocra Warrior
Medium humanoid, chaotic neutral
AC 13, HP 20 (4d8 + 2), Bloodied 12, Speed 25 ft, Fly 40 ft
STR 12 (+1), DEX 17 (+3), CON 10 (+0), INT 10 (+0), WIS 13 (+1), CHA 7 (-2)
Skills: Perception +4
Senses: Passive Perception 14
Languages: Common
Challenge Rating: 1 (200 XP)
Abilities
Keen Sight and Smell. The aarakocra has advantage on WIS (Perception) checks that rely on sight or smell.
Pack Tactics. The aarakocra has advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of the aarakocra's allies is within 5 ft of the creature and the ally isn't incapacitated.
Sly Takeoff. (Entire turn.) Disengage then fly 30 ft. If the aarakocra is being Grappled, they instead attempt to escape with advantage, then fly 30 ft if successful (they do not take the Disengage action and therefore may provoke attacks of opportunity).
Triggered Abilities
Bloodied, 12 HP. Disable Flyby Attack.
Death Shriek, on death. The aarakocra lets out a long, piercing shriek with its last breath, alerting other nearby aarakocra, allies, or predators.
Actions
Flyby Attack. The aarakocra flies 10 ft and uses its spear attack at any point during the movement. (This attack may provoke attacks of opportunity.)
Spear. +7 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 12 (2d8 + 3) piercing damage.
Beak. (Use if Grappled.) +3 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 6 (1d6 + 3) piercing damage.
Talons. (Use if Disarmed.) +3 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 7 (1d8 + 3) slashing damage.

Aarakocra Minion
CR 1/4 (50 XP)
HP 1 (destroyed if hit by any attack), [reduced stats to STR 10 (+0), DEX 13 (+1)]
No Skills or Senses, use leader's during encounter (Warrior or Windcaller, if any).
Loses Sly Takeoff.
Retains Flyby Attack, Spear attack damage reduced to 5 (1d8 + 1).

The warrior has a ton of stuff for a simple, low-level encounter at first glance, but I didn't use most of its abilities and only used its flyby and spear attacks; I kept but didn't use Pack Tactics since it was alone but was needed for the minions later on, its Death Shriek was more for flavor and was part of the canyon area and encounter notes instead of being attached to itself (it might be better the other way, I'm not sure). For the minion, I only needed the 1 HP and its weaker attack on the back of the warrior's note card, referring to the front for anything else not listed; they would also have the Death Shriek, but again in my adventure it was included with the encounter notes and wasn't relevant.

For other notes, I had scribbled up a mutated inix in the area that's attracted to dead and dying mammals like the birdfolk and adventurers, the party would meet it if time allowed. After the adventure and not really using the it, I whipped up two small tables: Wandering Scavengers, Daytime & Nighttime. If something died and could be eaten or heard or smelled by something, I would roll on one of those. I plugged the inix into the nighttime table with a 30% chance to appear, adding some odd rot-eating beetles at 30% (little critters that would leave 1d8 larvae by morning for each size the dead thing was above small), another aarakocra warrior at 20%, and left the rest open (20% nothing).

And that's pretty much that. Eventually I'll flesh out my stats for the "Zombie" and "Windcaller" and talk about those at some point. For now I'd say that's good enough for me.

Continued in Part 2