The cockatrice is a strange, monstrous creature that looks like an oversized rooster with blue stripes down both sides and along the fronts of its wings, ending in blue wingtips. Its wicked talons are strong and sharp enough to rend thin metal walls, and its beak has been known to punch through a car door. A cockatrice's most infamous feature, however, is the strange dual-colored spiral of its irises. When a cockatrice locks eyes with any living creature, it can render its prey completely unable to move. Cockatrices are mostly solitary creatures, although they occasionally travel in pairs.
A cockatrice packs a nasty wallop and then retreats, preferring to use its paralyzing attack to render the prey helpless before moving in for the kill. Although a cockatrice can sneak up on an unsuspecting victim, it has little patience for stealth, instead relying on its mobility and toughness to see it through a battle. It will often try to use its gaze attack and then wheel into battle, wounding targets indiscriminately and then flying away to posture and reassess the situation.
Some strike teams, especially from magical organizations, train cockatrices as attack dogs. In such groups, they usually hang around the fringes of the fight and make opportunity attacks against the enemy, paralyzing combatants and either moving in for the kill or opening up an opportunity for their allies.