deviantArt user Nashoba-Hostina. Accessed at her website here
[Some fearsome critters are cute! But still shouldn’t be messed with.]
Billdad This chimerical biped resembles a
rodent with powerful hind limbs and the head of a bird of prey. It has a large
flat tail covered in scales.
Billdads
are carnivorous hybrid creatures that dwell along the rivers and lakes of the
lumberwoods. They resemble a chimera between a beaver and an eagle, possessing
a beaver’s pelt, tail and webbed feet but with the claws and beak of a bird of
prey. They favor their eagle side for diet, preying on small animals and
fishes. Their beaks are weaker than those of eagles, being unable to grab and tear
struggling prey, so they use their powerful tails to batter foes into
submission.
Billdads
are not aggressive with larger beasts or humanoids, only fighting if trapped or
cornered. They much prefer to flee, leaping much longer than their body length in
a single bound. The crash of a full-grown billdad leaping into a pond or stream
explains some of the strange sounds heard in the wilderness, although old hands
are liable to tease greenhorns by attributing every unexplained noise to
billdad activity. Billdads are also protected from predation by their toxic
meat—creatures dining on billdad flesh go temporarily insane. Claims that
people eating billdad meat think that they are billdads themselves and leap
into the water are just tall tales. Probably.
Billdads
do not build dens like their beaver kin, instead scratching out nests in tree
hollows or muddy banks and lining them with sticks and down. Billdad kits are
guarded by their parents; mother and father billdad alternate protecting the
offspring with gathering food. A fully grown billdad grows to three feet long,
half of which is tail, and weighs 40 pounds.
A billdad
is a suitable familiar for the Improved Familiar feat. A spellcaster of 5th
level or higher with a neutral component to their alignment may have a billdad
familiar.
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