Thin Desert Fauna: Cinomolgus

The Cinomolgi are migratory birds, known for building their nests with cinnamon wood collected from some faraway clime. To hunt these dangerous predators is to court disaster, but a single nest lets a band of cinnamon hunters live comfortably for years. 

No. App.: 1 HD: 9 AC: As leather Morale: 8 Saves As: Fighter
Attacks: 1 Beak (2d8) or 2 Talons (1d8) MV: Triple human in air
Special 1: Lift victim hit with talons (save or brought to nest)
Special 2: When full, must pass a save to take to the air, and another not to break its nest with its own weight 

Lair: Cinnamon branch nest. High above in ancient pines. The ground below littered with feces, red-and-yellow feathers, pine cones and the bones of game. The nest itself an emperor’s ransom in cinnamon branches (worth 10d6 x 100 gp). 1d4-1 eggs, each enough for a week's worth of omelette.

Spoors: The smell of cinnamon, rotten meat, red-and-yellow feathers.

What is the cinomolgus doing?

1. Eating a still living goat
2. Circling above the pcs
3. Enticing a mate with its call and a trail of cinnamon bark
4. Teaching its young (1d4, stats as giant hawks) to fly
5. Fighting with jackals over a carcass
6. Wounded with lead arrows (Halp HP), a band of 2d6 hunters arrive within the hour.
   

1d6 facts about cinnamon hunters

1. Many belong to the Fragrant Society, a shadowy guild that supplies the over-indulged tastebuds of Canal gentry with the rare spices they require to be roused from their ennui
2. Some fashion light but tough breastplates (leather +1) from the speckled egg shells of their prey
   
3. They mimic the bird’s mating call with jet black shells
4. Fattened oxen used as bait make the bird too full to take to the sky
5. Leaden arrows are used to weigh down airborne birds
6. They are friendly to travellers, but known to use them as bird bait if the oxen runs out