I opened the door to a shed and found this guy sitting in the middle of the floor. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one this big in the wild. My coworker said it was nice enough to be out in the open and not hiding somewhere I had to put my hands.
I’m am a homebrew GM and worldbuilder so I will take all of the real world inspiration for deadly and dangerous fauna I can get :) My current favorite deadly fauna idea I’ve thought about recently is taking the utahraptor but as a huge modern avian raptor ie no longer a raptor dino but giant raptor bird. Basically a really scary chocobo at that point haha. But 4 feet scorpions are a fine addition to my collection >:)
What you’re describing is the cassowary. It’s a flightless bird that has a sword for a toe. And it instinctively knows where any animal’s heart is, knowing precisely where to stab. And its head was clearly stolen from Jurassic Park.
Just look for images of cassowary feet and cassowary head.