These enormous brown pelicans are 50 feet long from beak to tail feathers with wingspans as wide as 100 feet. Unlike its eaglelike cousin, a Goliath Pelican resembles a large brown pelican. These birds of prey are known for scooping up marsh monsters, giant fish, black bears, and humans in its beak pouch and swallowing them in a single gulp (sometimes boat and all). To avoid straining their food supply, Goliath Pelicans do not nest within ten miles of other goliath pelicans.
Goliath Pelican
COMBAT
A Goliath Pelican makes a flyby attack from the air by swooping earthward to scoop prey in its powerful beak and carry it off to be swallowed whole. This swoop-n-scoop flyby attack can only be performed on opponents on or in at least 2 ft. of water; otherwise, the creature must land and attempt to scoop them. While a Goliath Pelican has no sharp edges on its beak, its sheer size allows it to bite for 1d8+12 bludgeoning damage if it so chooses.
Pelican Vision (Ex): As with the brown pelican, a Goliath Pelican can see the planetary magnetic field and its angle to the ground. Acting like gridlines on a map, every point in the sky has its own unique magnetic coordinates, allowing perfect navigation (+20 Survival racial bonus). The aurora borealis, intense storms, St. Elmo’s fire, and spells with similar effects can all cause interference with this ability, possibly blinding the Goliath Pelican.
Scoop (Ex): To use this ability, the target must be Huge size or smaller, and a Goliath Pelican must hit with its bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it can fly off with its prey secured in its beak pouch and attempt to swallow whole on the next round.
Each round that a swallow whole attempt is unsuccessful, a scooped opponent can make a grapple check to escape the confines of the beak pouch or attack using a light weapon (beak pouch AC 20). If a Goliath Pelican senses the need, scooped opponents can be dropped using a standard action.
Swallow Whole (Ex): A Goliath Pelican can try to swallow opponents it holds in its beak pouch by making a second successful grapple attack. Once inside, the opponent takes 2d8+12 points of crushing damage, followed by 8 points of digestive acid damage per round. A swallowed opponent can make a Climb skill check (DC 20) to climb out of the stomach, but this only places the prey back in the beak pouch and subject to swallowing the next round. A swallowed creature can also cut its way out by using claws or a light slashing weapon to deal 25 points of damage to the stomach (AC 12). The Goliath Pelican’s stomach can hold one Huge, two Large, four Small or eight Tiny undigested prey at one time.