Messenger Hawks

History

While many human cultures use carrier pidgeons to transfer messages quickly across the distance, the wood elves of the Valley of the Tall Trees have found these birds to be too gullible and weak to survive in harsher conditions. Thus, well known druid and leader of the sunbeam circle Talarya first proposed the idea of training birds of prey instead. After years of experimentation, messenger hawks became the new form of communication between the elven elite.

With their advantages over pidgeons, most elven towns and larger villages have dedicated hawk resting places where messenger hawks can be rented for single or return messages to other places within the network. The hawk keepers are usually respected druids or priests and receive help from the locals to feed and keep the animals well.

Breed and Training

Messenger hawks are a crossbreed of the eastern forest hawk, mostly found around the Valley of the Tall Trees, and the Alarian falcon, a species known for its magically enhanced speed and hunting ability. Due to the remaining magical potential in their blood, these hawks are easy to train by magic users with animal skills, and trained birds can be used even by those with only latent magical potential.

Training of the birds usually starts at a young age and takes between one to two years, depending on the ability of the trainer and their connection to the animal. In contrast to traditionally trained pidegons that remember a single destination, hawks can be magically shown an image of their destination and even their suggested travel path, usually based on a series of clearly visible landmarks, and are therefore able to deliver messages to a range of receivers. Due to their robust nature and enhanced hunting ability, messenger hawks are well suited to long and strenuous journeys, as there are few known cases of these birds getting lost or dying on the way.