#pterafolk

Mbala's Pterafolk Nest

Tomb of Annihilation

Waking up to a nice day to the beach, the gang decide to start inspecting the wrecks, starting with the one closest to the camp. Zenith accompanies them, with no care for water depth, but Bastard refuses to get into the sea. After some spirited arguments, they decide that if he wants to stay on the beach to watch their back, so be it, and into the waves they venture.

They board the ship through a gaping hole on it’s side, and spotting no obvious danger, they start poking about for salvage. At first glance, the cargo that was easiest to move had already been pilfered, but cracking open a crate, they find it filled with copper billets. As Bert was about to open another crate, a hooked pole was thrust forward, and clamped shut on her neck.

Keeping an eye out on the forest and sea, Bastard was unaware of the danger coming from an unexpected direction: two of the strange fliers dove at him, with one clamping it’s talons into his shoulder. As the pterafolk struggled to take off, Bastard manages to attack it, releasing him to the beach. Rushing to reach the treeline, while calling for help, a sudden burst of light unveils three duegars. As two of them take on their giant size to fight the pterafolk, their leader, the same woman they encountered before reaches out to bastard, calls him “droogie” and in a flash of light vanishes.

In the wreck, the group is facing off against half a dozen pair of giant fish eyes, with two kuo-toas come forward holding spears to Bert’s neck, demanding their surrender. A brief attempt to fight them off is thwarted when they realize that another half dozen are behind them. Surrounded, outnumbered, and with a teammate held hostage, they give up.

Bound and blinded, they’re taken to their settlement, where the mob parts for their leader. Addressing the group in high imperial, she asks “can you understand what I’m saying?” As Zenith responds in the positive, the group are declared messengers of the divines, released, and are ushered in the hut of the leader. As they settle in, she asks them to get her out of here.

She reveals herself as a yuan-ti girl named Ninnsay, and tells her harrowing tale of escape after being selected as a sacrifice in her home in Naas, only for the ship she had stowed away on to be attacked by pirates. She tells them that they had planned to traffic her, and had marked her back, but that ship was also attacked and wreck. She had hid, and the kuto-toas had found her, declared her a divine prophet due to her not-quite-human, not-quite-reptile features.

She had used her knowledge of religion and quick thinking to craft a makeshift faith that kept her alive and relatively comfortable for a few years, but she craved her freedom, and civilization. She also tells them about what’s going on on the island, about how the pterafolk came and disrupted the balance between the kuo-toas and the lizardfolk, enslaving both, and leaving the bariaur isolated.

She doesn’t know what the lizardfolk are doing, but her group is outcast from the main settlement, who are under the invader’s sway. They’re being sent into the sea to scavenge the ruins there for their masters’ benefit; their activities are encroaching on sahuagin territory, and those folks are preparing to wipe out the settlement, as well as anyone else on the island. She doesn’t want the kuo-toas, which she calls harmless lunatics who worship the Pick as a divine avatar, to be killed, so she asks them to see about getting the lizardfolk to help.

At the back of the hut, A cheerful voice calls out “wake up, sleepy head” and whacks the sleeper with a staff. Waking up confused, with Zmirthis smiling at her, to be told “you’ve got work to do!” and the old goblin walks off into the woods, as she does. Wandering into camp, she is spotted by Bert, who sees a small goblin woman, who introduces herself as Lia, a monk of the order of the Blooming Mushroom. She’s confused to be here, because she went to sleep at the temple in Akacia, and woke up here. With Zmirthis involved, the best course of action is to join the group, wondering what the eccentric master was up to.

Heading back to camp, they check the beach where Bastard was to find traces of what happened, finding blood and scraps of flesh being picked at by scavengers, but no traces of bastard, or where they went.  At the camp, they prepare for the lizardfolk, and Drex tries to strike a conversation with Falco. The alchemist avoids the tiefling’s gaze, his ego still severely bruised from the beat-up he received for his betrayal.

Striking out past the Pick, they spot a large sea cave opening, which they see is a natural feature that was partially carved by industrious folk to turn the place into a docking bay for small ships. They are met inside by armed, but not aggressive lizardfolk, who take them to their leader. As they attempt to open negotiations, the king, a massive lizardfolk declares himself bored and demand that he fights their champion.

Drex and Skolvir look at each other, and decide that they’ll arm-wrestle for the chance. Skolvir barely had the chance to get ready that Drex had beaten him, surprising the bulking bugbear. But Drex was ready for this, had been ready for this his entire life, a good, proper show fight, like he did as a slave in the arena, the King’s trident against Drex’s massive hammer.

Drex opened strong with a clear blow square to the chest, with the king responding with a flurry of stabs. After several exchanges of sometimes showy, often brutal blows, Drex felt the pressure of the fight, but rallied, and decided to unleash his demonic magic, forcing the king in a bout of laughter. With the king unable to respond, weapons were traded for pure body, and Drex jumped on his opponent’s back and got him in a choke hold. The king threw him off, and while the tiefling lay prone on the ground, the king went in for a full bodied blow, seeking to trap his opponent to surrender or unconsciousness. Drex slipped out, and reversed position, and returned to the choke hold. This time, it held, and after a few attempts to break which Drex didn’t allow, the king tapped out, wheezing, but happy. It was the best fight he had been in in years.

“Pterafolk” © Wizards of the Coast, by Richard Sardinha. Accessed at the Monsters of Faerun Art Gallery here

[Before 3.x and the development of the template, lycanthropes weren’t assumed to be created from any humanoid. Some things that got lumped into the lycanthrope tent, like seawolves and werefoxes, had various magical powers or monstrous forms that the template version doesn’t cover. Alternatively, some monsters, like the pteramen from Forgotten Realms, could be covered handily with the template, but weren’t when they got updated to 3.0.

Incidentally, a number of the official Pathfinder lycanthropes cheat a bit. Werebats, werecrocs and weresharks from Bestiary 4 all should be Large in their hybrid forms. In addition, if we’re following the RAW, the werebat shouldn’t be able to fly, or the werecroc to swim. But stripping those movement abilities is kind of dumb. I’ve cheated here not with the size, but with giving the hybrid a fly speed, and with keeping the natural armor high in the hybrid form. I figure that, like the ability scores, it should be based on whichever natural armor is higher.]

Lycanthrope, Werepteranodon CR 4 CN Humanoid This reptilian humanoid has an oversized beaked head, with a crest growing from the back, and great leathery wings.

Werepteranodons are sometimes referred to as pterafolk. They are most commonly found among lizardfolk communities, where they may be a secret society among the culture. Initiation into these societies, through infection with lycanthropy, is seen as a great honor. Werepteranodons are typically high spirited and quarrelsome, and lizardfolk communities with a large pterafolk population are likely to be aggressive and expansionistic in a way that others may not be. A werepteranodon prefers to fight with its natural weapons in hybrid form whenever possible, although they do carry javelins for aerial assaults. Lizardfolk werepteranodons have shorter tails than their brethren, and the tails disappear almost completely in hybrid form.

Me:

Firefinger

Tomb of Annihilation

Large Monstrosity, Neutral Evil

AC 12 (natural armor)

HP 26 (4d10 + 4)

Speed 30 ft., Fly 50 ft.

Str 15 +2 Dex 13 +1 Con 12 +1 Int 9 -1 Wis 10 +0 Cha 11 +0

Skills Perception +2, Survival +2

Languages Common

CR 1

Traits

Terror Dive. If the pterafolk is flying and dives at least 30 feet straight toward a target, and then hits that target with a melee weapon attack, the target is Frightened until the end of its next turn.

Actions

Multiattack. The pterafolk makes three attacks: one with its bite and two with its claws. Alternatively, it makes two melee attacks with its javelin.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (2d4 + 2) piercing damage.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) slashing damage.

Javelin. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) piercing damage.