Corby, Dire

This creature looks like a humanoid crow with oily black feathers, glittering eyes, and a sharp beak.

Corby, Dire (CR 1)

Medium Monstrous Humanoid
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Initiative: +1
Senses: Darkvision 60 feet; Perception +6

Speed: 30 feet, Climb 30 feet
Space: 5 feet

Defense

Armor Class: 13, touch 11, flat-footed 12 (+1 Dex, +2 natural)
Hit Points: 15 (2d10+4)
Saving Throws: Fort +2, Ref +4, Will +3
Ferocity

Offense

Melee: 2 claws +3 (1d4+1)
Reach: 5 feet

Special Attacks: leap, Rend (2 claws, 1d4+1)

Statistics

Str	Dex	Con	Int	Wis	Cha
13 (+1)	12 (+1)	15 (+2)	7 (-2)	10 (+0)	8 (-1)

Base Attack Bonus: +2
CMB +3
CMD 14

Feats: Blind-Fight, Skill Focus (Stealth)

Skills: Acrobatics +10, Climb +13, Perception +6, Stealth +8

• Racial Modifiers: +8 Acrobatics, +2 Perception

Languages: Undercommon

Special Abilities

Leap (Ex)

A dire corby can perform a special kind of pounce attack by jumping into combat. When a dire corby charges, it can make a DC 20 Acrobatics check to jump into the air and land next to its enemies. If it succeeds at this Acrobatics check, it can make a full attack (two claw attacks, plus a rend attack if both claws hit) against foes in reach. If it fails, it can still make its one attack as normal for a charge.

Ecology

Environment: Any Underground
Organization: gang (2-5), hunting flock (1-3 dread corbies and 5-10 dire corbies), or rookery (1-10 dread corbies and 10-50 dire corbies plus 1 barbarian or fighter of 3rd-5th level per 10 adults)
Treasure: standard


Dire corbies are subterranean predators that resemble humanoid crows with muscular arms and fearsome claws. Though they make their cliff-side homes on the walls of underground chasms, where they climb and leap with death-defying agility, they are most frequently encountered in the tunnels where they wait to ambush prey, leaping down from the ceiling to rend and tear.

Dire corbies are intelligent, but have little use for society outside of the rough, squabbling pecking order of their rookeries, where their social order is little better than that of the