Cockatrice

Cockatrice
(Creature)
Common N Small Beast Level 3 Alignment LG NG CG LN N CN LE NE CE Images of cockatrices Source: Bestiary, pg(s). 66 Type Magical beast CR 3 Environment Temperate plains Alignment LG NG CG LN N CN LE NE CE Images of cockatrices Source: Bestiary, pg(s). 48

Cockatrices are bat-winged roosters with a petrifying bite.

Appearance

A cockatrice looks much like a featherless, starved version of its avian counterpart, the chicken, with a scaly lizard-like tail and clawed bat-like wings. Male cockatrices, like roosters, uniquely have wattles and combs. The average cockatrice is about two feet tall and weighs about five pounds.

Habitat and ecology

In the cockatrice's mythical origin, the first of its kind emerged from an egg laid by a cockerel and incubated by a toad. Modern cockatrices spawn in filthy dens crowded with dozens of the beasts. Their petrifying beaks keep many larger predators at bay, though males (who vastly outnumber females) sometimes encounter humanoids while scouting for new dens.

While many more powerful creatures fear the cockatrice's attack, weasels and ferrets are immune, and sometimes sneak into cockatrice lairs to consume their eggs and young. Roosters infuriate cockatrices, and the magical beasts are as likely to irrationally fight them as flee from them.

In Golarion

Cockatrices are known to be found across the vast Whistling Plains that lie east of Galt and Taldor and to the north of Qadira.

Cyclopes are known to occasionally domesticate cockatrices as meat animals. While cockatrices are normally too dangerous to be kept as efficient livestock, the cyclopes' oracular powers allow them to avoid the dangers of their livestocks' petrifying bites, and the cockatrices' quick breeding cycles suit the ravenous one-eyed giants.