Pseudowyvern

Woodcut after Conrad Gessner showing a serpent, winged serpent, and dragon. — Serpent, Winged Serpent, and Dragon, after Conrad Gessner, Wellcome Collection / Wikimedia Commons.

Armor Class: 1 [18]
Hit Dice: 3
Attacks: Bite or Sting (1d6)
Special: poison
Move: 3 Fly 15
HDE/XP: 4/120

Description

A Pseudowyvern is a 3-foot long ophidian creature featuring several characteristics of a wyvern, hence the name. They have a spine-crested ridge from their horned head to their stinger-tipped tail, a pair of bat-like wings, and clawed forelimbs. Their colors match those of tropical rain forests, jungle, and other warm and humid climates where they live. This coloration gives them a 10% chance of being detected so long as they remain still and 30% if moving. Thanks to their near- human intelligence they can communicate with nearby humanoids, expressing emotions and general concepts through a limited form of telepathy, and can learn to mimic a wide range of other creatures’ calls after a few times hearing it.

Pseudowyverns are very gentle nocturnal animals with an almost inoffensive bite and sting. Despite this their sting can inject a highly lethal poison (save or die) which is used mostly for hunting mice, small insects, and similar prey, and for self defense.

Source note: This creature is converted from The Basic Fantasy Field Guide of Creatures Malevolent and Benign – Omnibus Edition, 1st Edition Release 4, © 2010–2025 Chris Gonnerman, R. Kevin Smoot, James Lemon, Matt Sluis, and Contributors. The Basic Fantasy Field Guide textual material is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International; this page adapts that creature to White Box.