Badeedle

What — A half-bird, half-beetle pest creature (also "bedeetle"): bird-like grabby hands, a beak, and a chitinous beetle carapace on its back, running on two legs in the hobbling, side-to-side way of pigeons (they can fly but mostly don't). ~4'8" tall; widely considered vermin. They nest under cliff overhangs in colonies — a brood of drone "babies" led by a larger, egg-laying Mama Badeedle. Life cycle: eggs hatch into badeedles; the strongest pupates into a new egg-laying Mama. First met defending their undercliff nest below the Menagoles mine cliff (Session 49).

Threat — Low (a pest, not a trained combatant). Dangerous mainly in numbers and as a noise hazard near guards.

Observed abilities (Session 49)

• Tremorsense — they detect approach through the ground; no stealth gets past them on their own turf.
• Beak (piercing) and claw (slashing) melee attacks; the Mama rakes with both arms and, if both connect, tries to bite/peck the head.
• Alarm whine — open their mouths to emit a high-pitched "silent scream" (heard up close, absorbed by terrain at a distance).
• Burrow speed — can shuffle away into the dirt to flee.
• Quirks: HP varies wildly between individuals (~28 to ~60+); occasional flukes (one had an unused, never-awakened spell slot).

Resistances / weaknesses (Session 49)

• Resistance to slashing (the carapace); bludgeoning and piercing crack through better.
• No tactical sense: they don't reliably make opportunity attacks, and can be circled freely.

Tactics & behavior — Swarm whatever threatens the nest, mobbing and clacking; the drones largely fight because the Mama does. Kill the Mama and the loyalty breaks — outer drones flee back to the dirt, though zealous ones fight on.

Disposition to the party — Hostile by default (feral, territorial). But Lash tamed one with a treat (Animal Handling, a 35), nicknamed Burrito — as far as the pest is concerned, whoever feeds it is its new mother.

Status — Brood largely killed; some fled; one tamed (Session 49). The Mama Badeedle was dropped by Jex; a Magra Nature check found she'd laid a fresh egg nest that day (left undisturbed). Their chitinous shells could make ~15-AC armour, but the party is well past that tier.

SUMMARY: Half-bird, half-beetle cliff-nesting pests with tremorsense, slashing resistance and an alarm-whine; a brood (and their egg-laying Mama) fought silently below the Menagoles mine in Session 49 — most killed, one tamed by Lash.