Flying Ostrich

Flying Ostriches


In my homebrew campaign, there is a region known as the Piruna Fields. It is a collection of islands far removed from the rest of the "civilized world." Its inhabitants (consisting mostly of feral gnomes and firbolgs) rely on nature and the manipulation of natural processes to meet their homeostatic needs. For most of these peoples, then, it's unlikely they would ever see something as advanced as an airship let alone own one and know how to use it.

This presented an interesting puzzle for me to solve. How do the peoples of Piruna Fields get around? Even though I had established that most folks never leave their island, there would be cause for occasional visits to far-away lands. This is especially true of the tabaxi folk whose wanderlust would leave them very unhappy should be they stranded on just one island. And a recent session made the need to solve this riddle more urgent.

To that end, I came up with the idea of the flying ostrich, wholly inspired by the classic arcade game Joust. I am very excited by this idea. I hope you are too.

Flying ostriches are raised from birth and trained as mounts and pack animals. They come in three varieties: flying ostrich, small flying ostrich, tabaxi flying ostrich

The flying ostrich is the most common of the creature's varieties. It's larger than the other two and slightly more robust. Both firbolgs and feral gnomes use them primarily as pack animals and almost never as mounts. Gnomes don't use them as mounts because the creatures are too big. Firbolgs don't use them as mounts because they have little need to do so. Firbolgs almost never leave their home island.


The miniature flying ostrich is a smaller variety bred by the feral gnomes as mounts. They are more slender and slightly more intelligent than the standard variety.



The tabaxi flying ostrich is exclusively bred by and used by the tabaxi. There is a deep kinship between a tabaxi and their ostrich. A tabaxi and an ostrich are paired when they are juveniles. From then on, the two are never parted. They grow up together. They learn together. And they travel together. If either one of the pair dies, the survivor tends to fall into fits of depression. While new pairings can be made after such a tragedy, the relationship is never as close or intuitive as the original. The tabaxi flying ostrich is more slender, agile, and intelligent than any of the other varieties.



Note: The art for this post is the cover art for the Atari 2600 port of the original arcade game.

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