Dusthawk Hill

East of the city, high above the scattered slums and cut-rate inns that stretch along the trade road, rises the steep yellow granite of Dusthawk Hill. This cliff-skirted hill is one of the last known refuges of the Chionthar Dusthawk (use the hawk statistics), a once-common raptor whose numbers precipitously declined over the last century as regional turmoil and the ever-spreading slums outside Baldur's Gate consumed its habitat.
Local legend holds that the dusthawk was Balduran's favorite hunting bird, and that the Chionthar population is descended from his own personal hunting hawks. When the dukes of Baldur's Gate realized that the dusthawk was on the verge of extinction, they declared the hill, which included both the hawks' cliffside nests and their hunting grounds, to be off limits to unlicensed hunters. Despite the fences and cliffs that cordon off most of the hill, trespassers remain common, the demand for dusthawk hunting birds having exploded among the wealthy.
Many in the Outer City resent the hill being turned into private land. Several camps and slums were cleared as a result, their dwellers losing everything. The homeless resent the Patriars for being willing to spend money giving hawks a home, but not them. Others resent The Flaming Fist guards who keep them from trapping on the hill. Stringy rabbits and scrawny quail made poor meals, but they were meals, and now many hunters have none.
Rumors hold that werewolves lair in the sea caves under Dusthawk Hill, pretending to be ordinary smugglers—or ordinary animals—while plotting against the city. Whenever a grisly murder captures Baldurians' imaginations, someone is always quick to claim that it must be one of the Dusthawk werewolves who did the deed.

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Geographic Feature