The Eyrie

Ancestral home of the Avian people, the Eyrie is a city built on a natural bridge, the only known crossing over the Trench. Avians have a strict caste system within the city, with different types of avians being restricted to specific jobs (hummingbirds are messengers, seagulls sailors, birds of prey are warriors and rulers, etc). Those who don't support the restrictions of the caste system are free to leave the city and make their own way, but culturally this is often seen as abandoning your duty.

Each avian within the city must undertake a coming of age ritual around the time they hit adolescence. Young avians are lined up on the edge of the city with the 1000 foot fall to the Trench below in front of them. One by one they are instructed to jump. Those who do so and find themselves able to fly are welcomed back into the Eyrie as full citizens, while those who are too afraid to do so are shunned until they return another year to undertake the rite or leave the city. Those who take the leap but are not able to fly do not have to worry about the issue for long.