Keen Sight and Smell. The bearatoo has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight or smell.
Mimicry. The bearatoo can mimic any sounds it has heard, including voices. A creature that hears the sounds can tell they are imitations with a successful DC 14 Wisdom (Insight) check.
Ambusher. In the first round of a combat, the bearatoo has advantage on attack rolls against any creature it surprised.
Multiattack. The bearatoo makes two attacks: one with its beak and one with its claws.
Beak. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 10 (1d10 + 5) piercing damage.
Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) slashing damage.
Description
A close cousin of the owlbear, it is a monstrous cross between giant cockatoo and bear. Being just as ferocious and aggressive as its counterpart, a bearatoo has more insidious approaches to dealing with prey. Able to mimic voices and sounds, it can either draw victims in for an ambush or send enemies away with threatening sounds it's heard from other native creatures.
An bearatoo's many sounds that it picks up can be heard throughout the thick jungles and sometimes even coastlines of Chult. Feathers cover the bearlike body, with a fantastic feathered crest going over it's head and the limpid pupils of its small black eyes stare furiously from its cockatooish head.
Deadly Ferocity. The bearatoo's reputation for ferocity, aggression, stubbornness, and deceptive nature makes it one of the most feared predators of the jungle. There is little, if anything, that a hungry bearatoo fears. Even monsters that outmatch an bearatoo in size and strength avoid tangling with it, for this creature has been known to lead these creatures to ill fitting environments to have an advantage.
Consummate Predators. An bearatoo emerges from its den around sunrise and hunts primarily during the day, screeching and mimicking roars to declare its territory, to search for a mate, or to flush prey into its hunting grounds. These are typically jungles familiar to the bearatoo, and dense enough to limit its quarry’s escape routes.
An bearatoo makes its den in a cave or ruin littered with the bones of its prey. It drags partially devoured kills back to its den, storing portions of the carcass among the surrounding rocks, vines, and trees. The scent of blood and rotting flesh hangs heavy near an bearatoo’s lair, attracting scavengers and thus luring more prey.
Bearatoo's hunt alone or in mated pairs. If quarry is plentiful, a family of bearatoo's might remain together for longer than is required to rear offspring. Otherwise, they part ways as soon as the young are ready to hunt.
Savage Companions. Although they are more intelligent than most animals, bearatoo's are difficult to tame. However, with enough time, food, and luck, an intelligent creature can train an bearatoo to recognize it as a master, making it an unflinching guard or a fast and hardy mount. People of remote frontier settlements have even succeeded at racing bearatoo's, but spectators bet as often on which bearatoo will attack its handler as they do on which will reach the finish line first.
Aarakocra communities encourage bearatoo's to den beneath their mountaintop villages, using the beasts as a natural defense from the ground. Certain selected Batiri attempt to tame bearatoo's as war beasts, and hill giants sometimes keep owlbears as pets. A starved bearatoo might show up in a gladiatorial arena, ruthlessly eviscerating and devouring its foes before a bloodthirsty audience.
Bearatoo Origins. Scholars have long debated the origins of the bearatoo, similarily to their cousins the owlbear. The most common theory is that a demented wizard created the first specimen by crossing a cockatoo with a bear. However, venerable elves claim to have known these creatures for thousands of years, and some fey insist that bearatoo have always existed in the Feywild.
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