Hearthfinder Rookery
The towers where bloodheaded hearthfinders are kept between message relays.
Purpose / Function
The Rookeries act as homes for the long distance messagener birds of Demon Realm, the bloodheaded hearthfinder. Hearthfinders are trained through an imprinting process to recognize two locations as "home", so can be used to send massages between two designated locations. Each location will have a tower housing a small colony of the birds.
As the birds are quite large, they often serve as a general mail system - carrying regular packages of dozens of letters and packages bound for destinations across the realm.
Architecture
Rookeries are tall towers made of clay and stone, the walls of the top of the tower full of cubbies designed to imitate the mountain crevasses hearthfinders use to roost in the wild. Those tending the birds live in the wider bottom portion of the tower.
Defenses
Rookeries are typically built within the bounds of cities, benfitting from their protective walls.
History
The Rookery initiative was started by the fourth Ascended Demon King, Klesse, the General of the prior King. Due to the threat of human Champions, Klesse saw the need for faster, more reliable means of communication - and after the success of the first two towers between the Human Realm Gate and Caslavven, the program was soon expanded.
Klesse kept a hearthfinder as a pet, and it was this bond - and her bird's ability to always find its way back to Caslavven and her hometown - that led her to selecting the large and often difficult to manage birds for the job. Though their size was another boon - ensuring it would be diffiicult for other birds to attack them while flying.
The transition from purely military communications to general messages was laregely pushed by nobles during the kingship after Klesse's.
Type
Room, Tower, Other
Parent Location
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