Porcuparrot - An Unlikely Beast

Fifth Edition has given us three, meaty books full of monsters for the players to do battle against. When you couple that with the unique stats from published adventures too, there thousands of adversaries a dungeon master can throw at their players. Anyone who thinks that they don’t have enough, or don’t have some with that certain I-don’t-know-what are right. As I said in my previous post, Dungeons and Dragons is all about telling your story. Sometimes your story requires a really unique bad guy, or strange being from another world.

The porcuparrot is both strange and aggressive.

The look of the creature I’m writing about is an idea borrowed from Magic the Gathering. I wanted to make stats for this strange thing for a two reasons. Mashing together two known animals to make another creature is a fun and easy jumping off point. Patrick Rothfuss once said “[owlbears are] sort of like the Reese’s Pieces of D&D Monsters”. Why not continue the tradition of mashing two things together? The other, more important reason I put this together is simply that the creature from the magic card is something my girlfriend finds very strange, and she’s in every game I GM - why not include things that personally creep out my own players?

The stat block as I see it - made on homebrewery.naturalcrit.com

So, without further ado, the porcuparrot.

Porcuparrots live where the green is dense and humid, much as their bird-like head would suggest. In remote jungles, where boughs of the trees knit together into an unbreakable ground are where they roost. Porcuparrots are solitary, and keeping their territories very well guarded against jungle cats, owlbears, and other predators. Their many spines and barbs make for natural, formidable defence when used as a ranged projectile. The plumage that makes up their faces are as brightly coloured and varied as the parrots you've seen in nature, including cockatiels, cockatoos, and macaws.

Deeply Territorial

Some porcuparrots feed on small jungle beasts, but most feed on the shrubbery or larger fruits abundant in the dense jungles of the world. For the majority of their time in the world's jungles, they've been sought after prey of dinosaurs or civilised poachers – seeking their bones for medicine or their spines for tool and weapon craft. This has made the porcuparrot very territorial and confrontational. They keep their half a square mile of treetop or thick bush very well guarded and will fight intruders with extreme prejudice.

What a strange one - art by Chris Seaman

Uncertain Beginnings

No one truly knows where the porcuparrot first originated. The prevailing theory among crypto-zoologists is that they were the mad amalgam of a deranged mind. Two creatures fused by magic or science, and made large for their own strange reasons. Some pose that the tricky gods of nature enjoy making combinations of the familiar into the rare, such as the owlbear or the platypus.

its shrieks sound like nails on chalk, but imagine if it could talk like some parrots do - Porcuparrot by Denis Medri

Porcuparrots in Your World

What I've said above are the rules and zoology of how I use porcuparrots. In my own setting, they straight up replace owlbears in a lot of regions. These are all suggestions, and to slot them into your world, there's many things you can do with them. They might not be territorial, they could be grazing beasts that move in herds. Give them claws or poisonous spines to let your players have an extra challenge. This could even be the game statistics for an awakened, enormous pin cushion if you really enjoy animated objects.

Putting a Pin in it

This is the first of many monster blocks that I'll be bringing. Future ones will be less strange to behold, and based on my own ideas instead of other mediums. Let me know about any strange creature ideas you may have, and it may get stats soon!