Bird, Adarna

Elusive magical bird of beauty. A small fey.

Imagine an iridescent bird of unreal beauty. Seeing it makes you want to cry. In fact, most of you are crying right now.

Impossibly beautiful, elusive perfection, nervous melancholy.


 
HD: 0 Armor: none
Hit it: normal Dodge it: normal
Move: slow, fly fast  

It resists mundane weapons and spells (because it’s a fairy). Also, as a imaginary creature, willpower must be used for attack rolls against it instead of dexterity. When it dies, all plants and objects near it when it dies are changed as if they had spent a year in a dusty, sunless attic.

Adarna bird guano petrifies sleeping creatures upon contact.

Attacks (1/round)

Soothing Song. Anybody hearing the adarna bird sing must save or fall asleep until the song ends (1D4+1 minutes), after which, the adarna bird changes color and it becomes invisible to all who fail a willpower check. They simply cannot deal being faced with such beauty.



Random Encounter
  1. Monster: 1 adarna bird.
  2. Lair: A human-sized magnificent lyre-shaped nest made of woven gold flowers. Coins and shiny, delicate trinkets are set in a perfect circle in the nest’s opening. Passing through the opening cleans as if taking a perfumed bath, but the next time a trespasser sleeps, they will dream of the adarna song, only waking up 1D6 days later.
      OR
    Omen: You hear a heartbreakingly beautiful bird song, your eyes start to grow heavy. See soothing song ability.
  3. Spoor: One broken iridescent feather, only visible to creatures with more than 5 intelligence.
  4. Tracks: Two joyful notes resonate far in a random direction.
  5. Trace: A person (D4 1:Artist, 2:Noble, 3:Child, 4:Ettercap) arrives with legends of the bird. They are escorted by a (D4 1:Veteran Game Hunter, 2:Local Guide, 3:Oneirologist, 4:Pet).
  6. Trace: A person petrified while napping. A small stain of dried guano on their forehead.
D6 What the Monster Wants
  1. Decorate the place with fresh flowers, only for them to die before the task is complete.
  2. To be captured by an impossibly good person.
  3. Transition through all the colors.
  4. Clean the area completely.
  5. Freeze in time a person at its beauty peak.
  6. Sing a duet that matches its beauty.
Salvaging the Body

A quill made of an adarna bird feather is prized by wizards who can use it to scribe a new spell with the word chromatic.

Collecting adarna bird guano is hard, but the substance is also powerful and precious. Fresh adarna bird’s guano petrifies sleeping creatures upon contact.

Adarna Guano. Petrifies a sleeping creature upon contact with their bare skin.

D6 Symbolism

In local cultures the adarna bird is a symbol of …

  1. Beauty
  2. Moral Worth
  3. Goodness
  4. Superficiality
  5. Perfection
  6. Sacred


DM Notes

The adarna bird appears in the Filipino epic poem of the same name by José de la Cruz. Richard J. Leblanc Jr’s adaptation in the Creature Compendium is very close to the original. For my version, I removed the piercing shriek (too violent for a creature of beauty), made it a fey, and more importantly, added the petrifying shit back from the original story, because it’s hilarious. — SaltyGoo

Written on November 14, 2020