#their feathers/scales are valued by the scavengers in the region

[seven-skies-above]

random compulsion to make a custom lizard design eeeeeeee

[fuzzlepiece]

What if people in the whole region are poor subsistence farmers and craftspeople, but they manage a decent standard of life through trading in an usual line of goods…

Directly above them is a huge sprawling magical city in the sky frequented by wizards and adventurers who would never even notice the land below, and certainly never visit - it’s considered the backest of backwaters and rarely even thought about.

Depending on the weather the city is usually invisible/extraplanar so it doesn’t block light from the farmers’ crops. It has a sophisticated sewage and recycling system that requires magic to run, but due to a glitch in the system, if a magical item or material is accidentally thrown out or dropped through a sewer grate, it’s unable to be moved through the system and is ejected from the city’s underside, falling to the countryside below. In a city packed with adventurers and magic users of all kinds, this happens frequently. Magic rings are particularly fond of slipping off people’s fingers and rolling through grates.

The inhabitants of the region are the beneficiaries of a sort of “snow” of magical items falling from the sky. Once every few decades there might be a great big dwarf-forged heavily ensorcelled battleaxe that comes whirling out of the sky, and you certainly hope nobody’s standing underneath it when it does. But for the most part it’s smaller things: enchanted jewellery, wyvern scales, low value gemstones, maybe a potion if it lands in soft grass or a pond instead of shattering on the ground.

The inhabitants of the region collect these windfalls and sell them for lower prices at small local markets or to travelling merchants, after which they are in turn sold at larger markets or taken to cities to be sold for their actual value. It’s not a lot of money for the scavengers, but it’s generally enough for them to buy medicines, small magics and whatever else their region isn’t self-sufficient in. They themselves have few among them with a talent for magic, and only weak magic at that . But their knowledge of magical artifacts and components needs to be vast in order to appraise what they find.

Sometimes birds fly a bit too high underneath the city and the protective magical barrier automatically responds to them as a threat and blasts them with lightning, causing them to die and fall to the ground. Very occasionally a magical creature will meet this end - a sky-serpent, a phoenix, even a pegasus. A whole village will come together to butcher and process the creature - into meat, if edible, but most importantly to extract and clean the magical components - eg. bones, scales, feathers, sometimes a particular gland; it varies between species. Though it’s infrequent, every child must learn the skills and knowledge to properly process a magical creature, so that they’re ready to help if one falls.

But one day a gargantuan sky whale is seen on the horizon, an unusual sight since they normally fly so high they can barely be seen. The whale is beyond ancient, nearing the end of its many eons of natural life. It’s heading to the mountains to die, but it’s left it a bit too late and its strength is already failing, causing it to fly low, low enough to soar beneath the magic city. It’s so close to death that when the automatic protection system triggers, the lightning bolts a healthy sky whale would shrug off are just enough to kill it.

Every part of a sky whale is an extremely valuable magical ingredient. The skin, the oil, the teeth, the bones, the ambergris. A piece of sky whale scrimshaw made millenia ago was a magical artifact powerful enough to change the course of history. And now, this whalefall, this cataclysmic bounty, has fallen right in the center of a land of scavengers who know more or less how to process it, but have no idea how to cope with the changes it will bring.

Low-level Dungeons & Dragons adventure where one of those big goofy skywhale things has died and crash-landed in the middle of town, and what initially appears to be a simple cleanup assignment abruptly takes a combat-heavy turn when the party gets to find out what feeds on skywhalefalls.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Neophron percnopterus

By Koshy Koshy, CC BY 2.0 

Etymology: A Childish Trickster

First Described By: Savigny, 1809

Classification: Dinosauromorpha, Dinosauriformes, Dracohors, Dinosauria, Saurischia, Eusaurischia, Theropoda, Neotheropoda, Averostra, Tetanurae, Orionides, Avetheropoda, Coelurosauria, Tyrannoraptora, Maniraptoromorpha, Maniraptoriformes, Maniraptora, Pennaraptora, Paraves, Eumaniraptora, Averaptora, Avialae, Euavialae, Avebrevicauda, Pygostaylia, Ornithothoraces, Euornithes, Ornithuromorpha, Ornithurae, Neornithes, Neognathae, Neoaves, Inopinaves, Telluraves, Afroaves, Accipitrimorphae, Accipitriformes, Accipitridae, Gypaetinae

Status: Extant, Endangered

Time and Place: Since 12,000 years ago, in the Holocene of the Quaternary 

Egyptian Vultures are known from locations across India, Western Asia, Africa, and Southern Europe 

Physical Description: The Egyptian Vulture is a small vulture, only about 54 to 70 centimeters long with a wingspan of a little more than twice that size. It is also very distinctive in color, and extremely fluffy (which makes sense, given it is probably closely related to the Bearded Vulture). It has a very long and narrow head, which is bare and yellow over the eyes and beak; the tip of the beak is sharply hooked and black. The back of the head and neck is very fluffy and white. The rest of the body is also very puffed, mostly white but with black edges and tips to the wing feathers and tail feathers. It has white fluffy legs, with only some of the feet bear; the feet are pale in color. The females are usually much heavier than the males. The juveniles are significantly darker than the adults in color. 

By Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0 

Diet: Egyptian Vultures primarily feed on large dead animals such as carrion of birds, livestock, wild mammals, and even dogs. Usually it will prefer scraps from large carcasses. Sometimes it will also eat eggs! 

By Вых Пыхманн, CC By-SA 3.0 

Behavior: These vultures are pragmatic opportunists, eating a wide variety of carrion that are often rejected by other vulture. It even competes often with crows and other corvids - more pragmatic, intelligent birds! These vultures spend a lot of the day soaring overhead, searching for food from up to one kilometer away; they also will perch and search for food on trees and cliffs. They tend to congregate in large numbers where there is good sources of food - even though this bird is rare. They will pull off chunks of carcass and often will throw stones at eggs to open them up - a documented use of tools! They also will use twigs to roll up and gather strands of wool for nest-lining. They aren’t very loud birds, making small whistles, grunts, groans, and hisses when needed. Somewhat social birds, they are usually found in pairs or in large groups around carcasses, though often they spend time alone. 

By Jiel, CC BY-SA 4.0 

Egyptian Vultures breed in the spring, with pairs courting by soaring high together and then swooping and spiraling down. They are monogamous for at least one breeding season, and may stay with the same mate for many years or even their whole lives. They tend to come back to the same nest sites year after year. They make nests out of twigs and wool, placed on cliff ledges and on large tree forks. Neighboring birds may form polyamorous groups with a mated pair, allowing for the two pairs of adults to aid each other in caring for the young. Usually the birds prepare for copulation by giving each other food, and preening each other to get in the “mood”. They lay around two eggs usually, which are incubated for around one and a half months. All adults will incubate the chicks, which are very brown and puffy. They stay in the nest for up to three months, cared for by the parents for most of that time. They reach sexual maturity between 4 and 6 years of age, and can live for nearly four decades, though most tend to die by the fifth year of life in the wild. 

By PJeganathan, CC BY-SA 4.0 

The vultures tend to soar on thermal wind, using the heat to raise themselves higher in the air; on the land they’re much less graceful, waddling around awkwardly. They are very calculating animals, waiting for predators to leave a carcass before approaching. They’ll even feed on poop to get carotenoids - pigments - from large herbivorous mammals. They tend to migrate only in the northern part of their range - in Africa and India, they stay mainly in the same location year-round. They glide extensively while flying, wasting as little energy while migrating as possible. 

By Dr. Raju Kasambe, CC BY-SA 4.0 

Ecosystem: Egyptian Vultures prefer open areas, preferably ones with dry and arid habitat. They especially prefer locations near cold and wet climates, such as scrub habitats. They also frequent deserts, steppes, pastures, and some fields, though they try to stay near rocky places when nesting. They also can be found in mountainous regions at lower or mid-level altitudes. They are hunted upon by golden eagles, eagle owls, and red foxes as young; they also are very vulnerable to other mammalian predators (like wolves) as adults and to human interference. In fact, human activity takes a toll on population size. 

By Tomasz Baranowski, CC BY 2.0 

Other: Egyptian Vultures have gone through extensive population decline, though in some locations the population is more stable now and recovering. They are greatly affected by human activity, including things such as power lines and hunting, intentional poisoning, and superstition-based activity. Since vultures are considered harbingers of doom, people tend to be afraid of them - and they aren’t always the prettiest birds, so people don’t feel emotional attachment to them enough to avoid killing them. Declines in herding and livestock maintenance among humans also has lead to some population decline. Combinations of these factors in many countries make conservation efforts difficult to implement. Some attempts to preserve this vulture have included “vulture restaurants”, where carcasses are made available to vultures nearby.

~ By Meig Dickson

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