Peryton (Dungeons & Dragons)

The peryton is a magical beast from the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game based upon the perytons of myth.

Physical description
The peryton combines the body of a giant eagle (five feet tall with a twenty-five-foot wingspan) with the head of a powerful stag. Its skin is impervious to weapons that are not magically enchanted. Its body has dark green plumage and yellow talons. Its stag head is blue-black with pale orange eyes and glossy obisidian antlers. The peryton casts the shadow of a human rather than its own shadow most of the time, and smells like a human as well.

Society
Perytons are evil creatures who roost atop high cliffs in dense forest. They create nests of 4 or so individuals which are completely independent of any other nests, and nests are never located closer together than few miles of one another except under special circumstances, such as a particularily prominent hunting ground. Perytons need to eat human or humanoid hearts to survive, and females need them to reproduce, and they hunt such beings accordingly.

Combat
Perytons have little desire other than to hunt and obtain the human hearts they need to survive. Every day, they try to make at least one kill. They attack by finding a human, tricking them with their human shadow, and then flying up extremely high and diving back down at lightning speed. They grab the victim in their talons, carry them high up into the air again, and then rip out the heart from there. If they have eaten recently, they may carry the human back to the nest and keep it as a slave until its heart is needed. They will take any treasure the victim might have, and hoard it much the same way as dragons. Perytons can only be harmed by magical weapons.

Perytons communicate in a series of roars and cries. They cannot speak, but understand Common.

Perytons are usually chaotic evil in alignment.