2025 Apr 24: Lesser Zurakh

 Not unlike their more imposing cousins, lesser zurakhs sport four wings and four legs on a mostly-avian body. However while the greater zurakh is a lonesome hunter, lesser zurakhs are quite social, and will eat anything and everything. This has led to them losing their natural fear of mortals, and now they descend in great numbers upon the trash heaps of cities, and the great granaries and foodstores of temples and palaces alike. This plague of birds has cost many once great states of the south their last food reserves in the midst of famine, and as such, the lesser zurakh is considered a sinful bird by many, a harbinger of hardship, and an animal to be hunted and killed wherever they may be found. Some even say, they are demons in the flesh, trying to snatch up the souls of the dead as they leave their mortal coil, to carry them away from their afterlives into eternal torment.

This hatred however is not universal. Indeed the people of both Tir and Caeledor, make great use of these birds as messengers, owing to their uncanny ability to find their way back to their nests, even when separated by hundreds of miles.