Roc

A roc is an enormous bird of prey native to Morgenia, Reshaga, and the Wyrmspires. A typical roc is 30 feet long from beak to tail, with an 80-foot wingspan and weight of up to 8,000 pounds. The phrase "roc feathers" is a common phrase used to denote disappointment.

While their beaks are hooked like an eagle's and designed for slashing and tearing, most rocs prefer to seize prey in their massive, clawed talons and drop them from great heights before feasting on the shattered remains. For this reason, they are often followed by flocks of scavengers like rooks, buzzards, and eagles hoping to steal portions of the roc's messy meals. The roc generally ignores such opportunists, but if the scavengers don't take care, they nevertheless may find themselves accidentally consumed by the feeding roc.

Rocs are equally comfortable over land and sea. While they are capable of sleeping in the air as they soar solo across great ranges in search of food, they generally return home to the mountains to roost and procreate. They prefer rocky crags that are completely inaccessible by terrestrial means, building vast nests of tree trunks and ruined masonry. Once a decade, a mated pair lays a clutch of 3–5 eggs and raises its young. Outside of mating, rocs are extremely antisocial, and may attack others of their kind in vicious aerial battles in order to establish their territorial boundaries. When a nest contains eggs or chicks, parents trade off in their long-ranging flights, with one restricting its wanderings to within a 10-mile radius of the nest.

Rocs are most commonly white but can be a number of different colors, from dark brown or gold to black or blood red. Their massive feathers are highly prized, and their eggs even more so. Due to their scarcity and the high risk involved in harvesting them, a single man-sized roc egg can net 4,000 gp if transported to market undamaged. A roc can be trained as well as any other animal, but its great size makes this a daunting task for most would-be trainers of human size. The same isn't true for giants—particularly cloud and storm giants, who often use trained rocs as guardians for their lairs. Rocs are even large enough to serve as mounts for the most prestigious of giants.

Rocs taken as animal companions by druids or rangers are typically newly hatched birds—a baby roc is the size of a person and ready for flight and hunting within minutes of hatching.

Chaos Roc

The rainbow plumed chaos roc is found in eastern Aremia. These legendary creatures have been known to summon great thunderstorms around them when hunting or threatened. In some local tongues, they are often called Thunderbirds.


A roc is an enormous raptor dwarfing most humanoids.[1]

Appearance

Rocs appear like colossal birds of prey, with a body thirty feet long and a wingspan of over 80 feet; they often dwarf even dragons. Rocs have long, clawed talons and sharp hooked beaks ideal for tearing flesh. They come in a variety of colours including brown, red, black and white.[1]
Habitat and ecology

While rocs are equally at home hunting over sea or land, they normally live only in mountainous areas, ideally making their nest upon a crag inaccessible to ground dwellers. These nests are normally made of large trees, rocks, and even chunks of masonry.[1] Rocs are known to dwell amongst the Wyvern Mountains,[2] Kodar Mountains,[3] the Fog Peaks[4] of Avistan, and even on the barren island of Three Hags Rock in the Ironbound Archipelago.[5] They hunt on the Nesmian Plains of southern Nirmathas.[6] Rocs only mate once a decade and are highly anti-social otherwise, often even attacking other rocs that venture into their hunting ground. After mating, the female lays a clutch of three to five eggs; the parents then alternate hunting patterns, with one parent always remaining close to the nest. When hunting, rocs normally grab their prey, snatching them skyward before dropping them from a great height and feasting on what remains.[1]

Despite their vast size, rocs are still just animals and can be trained like any other animal; roc eggs can fetch over 4,000 gold pieces at market. Of course, their vast size makes training rocs incredibly challenging for most human-sized trainers, however, giants face no such problems. Both cloud and storm giants are renowned for keeping rocs as pets and sometimes even using them as flying mounts.[1]
Variants

Storm rocs live in the Storval Plateau of Varisia.[2]
Rukhs are a species of giant birds closely related to rocs, but resemble vultures more than birds of prey.[7]

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