Once more we go back to the familiar well, this time drawing
up a truly fearsome bucketful of critters from the Familiar Folio and Bestiary 5. Chickens are good companions for witches,
hedge wizards, and other stay-at-home-type spellcasters. Spellcasters living under antimagical regimes
also sometimes rely on chickens—no one questions the presence of a chicken
coop. Flying foxes are friendly
frugivores that grant their Fortitude to their masters. And penguins are comical on land but a boon
to the seagoing mage.
All forms of arcane
magic are forbidden in Astapolis, save for the tightly regulated (and
closely watched) guild mages. Naturally,
rogue mages sometimes band together for protection in small secret
societies. The Greater Astapolitan
Poultry Fanciers & Breeders Association is a cover for one such group of
mages. They wryly refer to themselves as
the Lesser Astapolitans, and their exotic-looking prize hens and bantams are
actually valued familiars.
A blight is racing
through the Diskari Jungle, a strange fungus that fells mahogany trees,
goats, chimeras, and men alike. The
Green Mage Obedian the Younger seeks aid in stopping the disease…but as he
blames Outlander sailors for the blight, he and his flying fox Asijj may first
encounter Outlander adventurers as enemies rather than friends.
Adventurers have
wrecked against a rocky beach in the Antipodean Reach. They are greeted by a marching colony of
penguins…with fiery embers for eyes…which turn out to be zombie penguins,
actually. And that’s just the start of a
very bad day.
—Familiar Folio 24–27
& Bestiary 5 112–113
All I know is the flying foxes I saw in Australia were size
Small, not Tiny. Those things were huge.
The flying foxes basically own part of the Melbourne Botanical Gardens. Seriously, there's a part that's literally roped off and covered in signs that say things like "Flying foxes sleep here - do not enter for any reason".
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