Onniq
A breed of large, flightless bird bred for travel. Though more difficult to handle than horses, onniqs are capable of greater top speeds and can turn more sharply.
Believed to have originated in the Yenarri Hills, onniqs have supplanted horses as the standard means of transport throughout the Batsalian Union, and are now making their way across the Bitter Sea into Yena and Zalja.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Large, centralized bodies, with long necks and large heads, enormous legs ending in three-toed feet with deadly claws. Onniqs also have huge, sharp beaks, making them ideal for combat (if the rider can properly managed them).
Wild onniqs typically have sandy feathers, black eyes, and yellow claws and beaks. Albino onniqs are fairly common, having white feathers, pink eyes, and black claws and beaks. Domesticated onniqs often developed slightly-darker, more pinewood-colored feathers. Attempts at breeding have already developed other variations.
Ecology and Habitats
Most comfortable in hot, arid climates, but recent breeding has helped them acclimate to wetter and more temperate areas.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Onniqs are obviously carnivorous: they have forward-facing eyes, sharp beaks, and huge claws. Wild onniqs appear to organize themselves into 'clans' of interrelated families that often prey on other groups, though individuals are known to separate from their groups to hunt foxes, sand rats, hares, lizards, and even adolescent sand wyrms.
Domesticated onniqs are fed scraps of livestock out of a feedbag, most often cattle or sheep. Although wild onniqs are naturally cannibalistic, most owners will not feed a dead onniq to another, as this is believed to reawaken their predatory nature.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Left in the wild, onniqs tend to congregate with directly blood relations. They seem to have an innate understanding of this, with even those separated for years recognizing relatives, or cousins becoming immediately friendly upon meeting for the first time. Conversely, wild onniqs will become increasingly aggressive toward anyone more than four degrees separated from them, unless a 'clan matriarch' is present to quell this tendency. Scholars have noted that larger onniq clans tend to break apart in the wild because of this.
Although domestication seems to be blunting some of this, onniqs are generally kept in isolation as much as possible.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Concentrated principally in New Yena, now widely disseminated into the Batsalian Union, with a growing domesticated population in Yena and Zalja.
Genetic Descendants
Lifespan
20 years
Average Height
7'
Geographic Distribution