A Falconer’s World

Falconry is an ancient practice of hunting by means of a trained bird of prey. It predates weaponry and other hunting tools, numbering among the first hunting innovations.

To early hunters, Falconry wasn't just a hobby or sport - it was a lifestyle, and raptors were prized based on their hunting instincts and ability to perform in the field. They were raised from birth to catch rabbits, foxes, wolves, and other birds in order to feed the clans and tribes of their trainers.

In some places, this tradition became the basis of wider cultural heritage, including traditional dress, food, songs, music, poetry and dance, sustained by the communities that practiced it. Families would take their children out into the wilderness and train them to handle their bird and establish a mutual relationship of trust.

In time, this tradition evolved, becoming more of a sport than a way of life. Kings and lords took up Falconry to maintain their personal and nation prestige, hosting grand hunting parties for other nobles to showcase the raptors they commanded.

In these circles, raptors were no longer just prized for their ability to hunt, but also as status symbols, that represented the warrior spirit and renown of their masters.

Falconry’s high cost also served as proof of these nobles’ wealth. Not only is the initial price of a raptor quite high, but the equipment and facilities to train and maintain a healthy raptor is costly, too.

Falconry’s noble association has led to raptors having protected statuses in many regions where it is practiced and turned certain raptors into symbols of power. In some places, the practice of Falconry has even been adopted by clerical organizations, where the raptors have a religious significance, or in the criminal underworld, where rare birds can sell for great amounts of gold or be useful companions to the crooked and cunning.

But even across this wide variety of backgrounds, all falconers share common values, traditions, and practices such as methods of training and caring for their raptor companions. Whether falconer’s treat their practice as an art or a sport, they must always respect the bond they share with their raptor - a bond which allows them to number among the most capable hunters in all the land.

Creating a Falconer

Whereas some come by their bonds with beasts through magical means, falconers develop their bonds through dedication and force of will. They earn the trust of their companions through many long days and nights of training and together, they grow.

Some Falconer’s learn the craft due their noble upbringing or status, whereas others learn it as part of a family tradition or tribal practice. Others only learn it later on in life after they have already become adventurers. But all Falconers must dedicate the time to learn the craft, if they wish to reap the benefits.

If you’d like to create a falconer, think about where your character may have learned the craft. It is possible to pay for the training, but it is a costly pursuit. Talk with your DM about tying in this element to your player’s origins. Perhaps it was something your tribe or noble family did as a hobby and you just took to it.

Your raptor can not only be a very useful companion, but a memento of your past (whether good or bad). You should also consider how your character takes care of their raptor. Most falconers are attentive, but what kind of relationship do you have with your raptor? Do your treat your raptor as a pet, or are you more of a taskmaster - with your raptor serving as a soldier under your command?

Falconry has always been an expensive pass-time, not only because of the upfront cost of the birds, but because of the cost of the associated tools and resources needed to maintain such a predator. Consider how your character affords the pursuit.

Falcon

These small birds of prey tend to be the fastest of raptors and are a common choice of companion for falconers who enjoy their reliability and capacity to take direction. Falcons are generally used to hunt prey such as small reptiles, mammals, and other birds which they can typically outmaneuver.

Hawk

Like their falcon counterparts, hawk are another common choice of raptor. They are easy to train than some other raptors and reliable companions, boasting excellent eyesight and a tougher build better suited for hunting larger prey. They are popular among both amateur and veteran falconers for how well they can showcase the fruits of their training.

Eagle

Eagles are naturally more capable predators than the smaller hawks and falcons. Not only are they more powerfully built - boasting broader wings and more powerful talons - but they also tend to be the largest raptor, besides vultures, befitting their position as the apex predator among the natural beasts of the sky.

Unfortunately, their natural predatory instincts also makes them harder to tame and train. But for a dedicated falconer, there are few more rewarding tasks than training an eagle to its full potential.

Owl

Unlike other raptors, Owls tend to be more solitary and are nocturnal birds of prey - most in their element when hunting at night. Their keen sight and uncanny ability to fly almost silently make them the perfect midnight hunters - more than adept at preying on the insects, small rodents, and even fish that they hunt.

Like their fellow predators, owls have long adapted to better suit their home environments - their plumage evolving to mimic the colorations and sometimes even the texture patterns of their surroundings. There is no better raptor for a falconer that prefers a quiet approach, than an owl.

Vulture

Vltures aren’t generally hunters - they are scavengers that feeding on the carcasses of dead animals. In fact, they rarely attack healthy animals, instead preferring to kill the wounded or sick. Though they carry a bad reputation in some parts of the world, falconers in particularly dangerous regions know the value of these cunning birds and have learned to harness their instincts to survive in even the most challenging of environments.

Additional Raptor Options

If you’re looking to explore some other options beyond the raptors listed above, there are plenty to consider.

First, there are the non-predatory birds. They are often highly intelligent, even if they're not as fierce as their predatory counterparts. If you decide to go in this direction I suggest you allow them to be taught Behaviors (see Chapter 4), but not gain Developments over time (see Chapter 5).

Some non-predatory birds may justify some interesting traits. Ravens for example have mimicry, which allows them to mimic simple sounds they’ve heard, and bats (technically not a bird, but still a great option) have blindsight through their echolocation (see Appendix A for full stat blocks for both of these).

You can also make the raptors listed in this chapter more unique by allowing your players to pick a preferred environment for their bird companion. This environment (eg. forest, desert, mountain) can not only influence their coloration (such as with a snowy-white owl from snow-covered landscapes) but also potentially provide the bird with a mechanical benefit, like getting advantage on stealth checks while in their home / preferred environment.

Falconry Kits

Beyond the raptor, a falconer needs the proper gear to train their falcon. All this gear is included in a Falconry Kit, which can be purchased or adopted as part of your background (see below).

A Falconry Kit includes a Falconer’s Glove, Raptor Hood, bells, jesses (leather strips), and a whistle tied to a string. Proficiency with this kit lets you add your proficiency bonus to ability checks you make to train or hunt with your raptor.

• Cost: 4 GP
• Weight: 2 lbs
• Includes:

Falconer’s Glove - A glove or gauntlet worn by the falconer to turn their arm into a suitable perching surface. Some gloves only cover the fist and wrist while gauntlets for larger raptor species may extend to the elbow, or even cover the entire arm and a portion of their chest.

Raptor Hood - A hood used to keep the raptor calm, especially in the early part of their training. Typically made of leather, the hood is often fitted to a raptor’s shape, in order to be comfortable and not impair the raptor’s eyesight.

Roughage

Raptors must be fed an expensive and comprehensive diet of live animals as similar as possible to their wild diet to ensure good health.

Roughage costs 1 silver (per day) and weighs 5 lb.

Mews

Mews are birdhouses designed to house one or more birds of prey. Many mews are quite large, often occupying as much space as a small house or reaching as high as three stories.

A smaller, portable mew to carry your raptor, rather than allowing it to perch on you or fly freely, costs 10 gp.

Starting with a Raptor

Getting your raptor during character creation is the simplest way to acquire one. As long as you discuss it with your GM and choose the Falconer background - or adapt another background accordingly - you can select a raptor as your companion as part of your character creation process.

Purchasing a Raptor

The price and difficulty of purchasing a raptor can vary depending on where you are. In certain regions where falconry is more practiced, captured birds might be more readily available for sale, but may also cost more if the main customer for such raptors are the young scions of noble families.

Below is a general guideline for the cost of such raptors.

Raptors in the Wild

Aside from purchasing a raptor or starting out with one, you can also capture a raptor in the wild. Doing so is quite difficult and should be a compelling narrative experience for the player character.

This process should typically involve a series of checks (Nature, Survival, Animal Handling, etc.) and is the perfect opportunity for a Dungeon Master to allow a player to be creative in the skills they'd like to use to capture their raptor.

Some of the challenges they might face could include getting the lay of the land, navigating the wild surroundings, ambushing or approaching your bird, and capturing it or befriending it without letting the raptor escape.

If they track a raptor to their nest, they may even find a live egg they can eventually hatch - though this might draw the ire of the bird or perhaps the druid watching over the land.

Raptors caught in the wild start without any learned behaviors, unlike their purchased, trained counterparts.

Raptor Personality

If you want to flesh out your raptor a little further you can give it personality traits. It's up to you whether you want to roll on both charts or just on the positive or negative one (depending on how well your efforts to acquire a companion go).

These personality traits don't have to impact the mechanics of how well your raptor performs its tasks and can just be a fun roleplay element to make your raptor more of a character. However, if you're a Dungeon Master, you may want to consider allowing the falcon advantage or disadvantage on checks where it takes actions in line with its personality.

Commanding Your Raptor

Your raptor obeys your commands as best as it can. It takes its turn on your initiative, though it won’t take any actions unless you command it to. On your turn, you can verbally command the raptor to move (at no action cost). You can also use your action to verbally command it to engage in any of the Behavior’s you’ve trained it in (see Chapter 4). Unless specifically instructed, your raptor acts independently. For example, while moving your raptor will decide on its own path unless you spend an action to direct it to take a specific route.

Combat

Within combat and other such encounters (like chase scenes) your raptor’s primary function is utility.

While your raptor companion can be commanded to attack your enemies, raptors tend to be weak attackers. You can counteract this by training and developing your raptor to be a stronger, more durable predator. That said, they will always be best used as a secondary force and their general viability in combat tends to diminish past the first two tiers of play (levels 1-11) - though the utility they provide will always remain valuable.

For example, you can use your raptor to distract your enemies by commanding it to take the Help action, or to steal an important macguffin from the grasp of the enemy leader with the Retrieve action, once you have trained each of those behaviors. Or in a chase scene, you can use your raptor to interfere with your target's escape in order to give you the time you need to catch up to them.

In general warfare, raptors serve other purposes beyond direct confrontation. Information is a critical component of all warfare and raptors are an exceptional way to gather intelligence. By sending your raptor ahead to scout, you can determine the layout of the land to plan a better ambush or devise a better way to siege the enemy stronghold.

If you order your raptor to fly above and follow an enemy patrol you can learn about your enemies’ patrol timing, making use of your bird’s inconspicuousness to get valuable tactical and strategic insights on your enemies' plans and position.

Exploration

Your raptor’s ability to fly high into the skies and get the lay of the land allows them to shine during the exploration portion of your campaigns - especially in wilderness areas like the meadows, forests, mountain ranges, and oceans that cover your world.

While these portions of the game are often less mechanically-dependent, your raptor is a fantastic asset here. They can help you find food and water, identify landmarks so you don’t get lost, and generally get a wider view of your surroundings so you can make more informed decisions as you explore - rather than just relying on your characters or parties own instincts and perspectives.

If you do want to bring mechanics into play, your GM may give you advantage on Survival checks to navigate the land while using your raptor or allow you to use its Perception to pick out landmarks from a greater distance.

During travel, your raptor can also help you and your party better respond to sudden and surprises & setbacks. When you come to a metaphorical fork in the road and must decide whether to take the mountain path ahead or cross through the valley your raptor companion can be a valuable source of information - especially if you or a fellow party member can cast Speak with Animals on your raptor’s return.

Of course, the wilderness has its share of dangers. While scouting your raptor may encounter other birds of prey, or hunters who might see your bird as their next meal and shoot some arrows at it. Or it might spot an immediate danger - like a group of cultists dragging the blacksmith’s daughter away into their underground lair.

Personality

First, you have to consider your bird’s personality. How does it interact with you? Not only is there the possibility of Speak with Animal spells that could allow you to actually communicate with your bird, but there are plenty of opportunities for nonverbal communication between you and your bird that can add depth and flavor to your roleplaying.

You should also consider playing off the personality traits you rolled for your raptor back in Chapter 2.

Running a Falconry Business

Though your character will likely spend a lot of time training their raptor companion during downtime, you may also want to start a Falconry business to make money training falcons that you can sell to other hunters or to rich nobles with little better to do than take up the sport.

A Falconry business requires:

• A Property: A hunting lodge or farm can make a great location to house & train falcons and are easily adapted to suit your purposes with the inclusion of a mew - see “Raptor Gear & Cost” in Chapter 1
• Hirelings: Skilled hirelings to serve as hunters/trappers to acquire raptors to train or train the raptors in your stead.
• Customers: Either nobles or local tribes (though many tribes will raise their own falcons or have their own preferred hunting styles). For these sales you can average the income earned using the “Running a Business” information available in the DM’s Guide (find it on page 129) or handle the business operations more narratively - making a series of narrative checks with potential customers to attract their interest and eventually close the sale, earning an income comparable to the prices listed in “Purchasing a Raptor” in Chapter 2 for trained raptors.
• Equipment: A Falconry Kit, a set of common clothes, and a belt pouch containing 15 gp

Social Intrigue

The social opportunities that come with being a falconer are great to take advantage of during downtime. Beyond the business possibilities, your character’s expertise as a falconer can allow them to make connections with the local tribe or nobility in the area.

If falconry is commonplace in the town you’re in, a Falconer background can help a character pull off a noble disguise or earn the respect of a tribe that values the skill - assuming the character has the skill to back up their bluster. You can track this through the renown the character gains with local, powerful organizations or allow it to lead to new adventure hooks for your group of adventurers.

Training

In order to help a raptor reach its full potential, a falconer must take time to train it and teach it to follow commands.

Your Game Master might allow to you to make progress in training your falcon over the same time you take a long rest, or may require you to dedicate specific time to it and treat it as a downtime activity.

Behaviors

Below are a list of behaviors that you can train your falcon to learn and use as actions. You may adjust the training day to better suit the pacing of your campaign.

*Indicates a behavior considered part of the "Basic Training" that all purchased, trained raptors come with.

Raptor Feats

As a player character progresses, your raptor does so, too, earning feats that make it a more capable hunter and better hunting partner.

Some feats are restricted to specific raptors, like the Sadistic Hunter feat for the Vulture, or the Owl's Sylvan Inheritance because they capitalize on the individual raptors' specific capabilities.

Generally, I recommend allowing falconers to pick a new feat for their raptor every few levels, or when enough time passes within the game to justify the raptor's development - like after an adventure or once a few months have passed.

Falcon

Tiny beast, unaligned

---

• Armor Class 14
• Hit Points 1 (1d4-2)
• Speed 10ft., fly 60ft.

---

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
5 (-3)	18 (+4)	6 (-2)	2 (-4)	14 (+2)	2 (-4)

---

• Skills Perception +4
• Senses Passive Perception 14
• Languages -
• Challenge 0 (10 XP)

---

Keen Sight. The Falcon has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

Quick Learner. Falcons are easier raptors to train. Training DC is 14 (instead of 16).

Actions

Beak. Melee Weapon Attack. +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage

Hawk

Tiny beast, unaligned

---

• Armor Class 13
• Hit Points 1 (1d4-1)
• Speed 10ft., fly 60ft.

---

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
5 (-3)	16 (+3)	8 (-1)	2 (-4)	14 (+2)	2 (-4)

---

• Skills Perception +4
• Senses Passive Perception 14
• Languages -
• Challenge 0 (10 XP)

---

Keen Sight. The Hawk has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

Quick Learner. Hawks are easier raptors to train. Training DC is 14 (instead of 16).

Actions

Talons. Melee Weapon Attack. +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 slashing damage

Eagle

Small beast, unaligned

---

• Armor Class 12
• Hit Points 3 (1d6)
• Speed 10ft., fly 60ft.

---

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
6 (-2)	15 (+2)	10 (+0)	2 (-4)	14 (+2)	7 (-2)

---

• Skills Perception +4
• Senses Passive Perception 14
• Languages -
• Challenge 0 (10 XP)

---

Keen Sight. The Eagle has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

Actions

Talons. Melee Weapon Attack. +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4 +2) slashing damage

Owl

Tiny beast, unaligned

---

• Armor Class 11
• Hit Points 1 (1d4-1)
• Speed 5ft., fly 60ft.

---

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
3 (-4)	13 (+1)	8 (-1)	2 (-4)	12 (+1)	7 (-2)

---

• Skills Perception +3, Stealth +3
• Senses Darkvision 120 Ft., Passive Perception 13
• Languages -
• Challenge 0 (10 XP)

---

Flyby. The owl doesn't provoke opportunity attacs when it flies out of an enemy's reach.

Keen Hearing & Sight. The Owl has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing or sight.

Actions

Talons. Melee Weapon Attack. +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage

Beastmaster Adversaries

The following enemies are all falconers. Some train their companions as scouts, while others tame them and encourage their growth to eventually serve as mounts.

These adversaries should allow you to flesh out your world further and confront your players with difficult challenges who use their raptor companions to great effect.

Most of these can be paired with any raptor of your choice, except for the Eagle Rider (for obvious reasons). The stat blocks listed below only govern the falconer. You can use the stat blocks in Appendix A for the stats of their raptor companions and assume that the masters have trained their companions to whatever level your encounter repquires.

In general, the raptors take their actions on the same turn as their master and may be commanded by the enemies listed below as a bonus action.

Falconer Scouts are expert trackers, hunters, and seekers most commonly employed for forward reconnaissance. They are set apart from typical scouts by the time they have invested in training their raptor companion, which allows them to charge a higher fee for their services and hunt bigger game.

Mercenary Elites have honed themselves over many battles, using their trained raptors to gain an advantage over their foes, catching enemies waiting in ambush. They know how to work with their fellow fighters and are driven by whatever contract they take.