The Strange Bestiary
The hunting scream of a soaring pterodactyl is not something those who've heard it soon forget. The sound is usually preceded by a racing "cloud" in the sky that turns a bright day briefly dark. When the passing cloud turns out to be a diving pterodactyl, few options remain for the victim. As with other dinosaurs, pterodactyls in various lost-world recursions are potentially more dangerous than their real-world counterparts might have been.
The discovery of the quetzalcoatlus on Earth with a wingspan of over 50 feet (15 m) is as large as almost any "flying lizard" encountered in a recursion.
Although a pterodactyl's wings were long thought o be simple leathery structures composed of skin, recent evidence on Earth shows that their wing membranes were actually highly complex and dynamic structures suited to an active style of flight.
Motive: Hungers for flesh
Environment (Standard Physics, Substandard Physics, or Weird Science): Pterodactyls hunt alone, in pairs, or sometimes in flights of up to eight
Health: 30
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (5 points)
Movement: Long when flying
Modifications: Speed defense as level 4 due to size.
Combat: A pterodactyl attacks with its bite, or with battering wings if it's standing on the ground. If the creature bites a target, in addition to the damage dealt, the target must make a Might defense roll to avoid being snatched up and held in the pterodactyl's long mouth. To break free, a victim must succeed on a Might-based task. The difficulty of all other actions while held in the creature's mouth is increased by two steps. A victim held by a pterodactyl automatically takes 2 points of damage per round.
A pterodactyl can make a diving attack if it begins the attack while it's in the air and within long range of the target. In this attack, it moves up to a long distance, bites a human-sized foe (as described above) at the nadir of its dive, and moves an additional short distance back into the air, whether or not it managed to snatch prey.
Once a target is in its mouth, the pterodactyl wings off on its next turn. It takes the creature about hree rounds to reach its favored cruising height of about 300 feet (91 m), after which it heads for a nearby nest where its mate and possibly hungry hatchlings wait. Interaction: Pterodactyls are fairly typical predators with animal-level intelligence. However, if a fledgling is raised by a skilled trainer, the beast might be used as a mount.
Use: A pterodactyl hunting the landscape beneath it would make a fine wilderness encounter, but more interesting still would be one with a humanoid using the creature as a mount.
Pterodactyl hatchling: level 3
GM Intrusion: A pterodactyl grabs a character's weapon or other held object and flies off with the object toward its nest.