When I was a kid, they had me dissecting owl pellets. It sounds gross, but it was actually pretty cool (and personally I'm glad my school never had us dissecting actual dead frogs). Just little balls of super compacted fur and bones, usually mouse fur and bones. The mouse bones were SOOO tiny and had so many intricate shapes, and you could find little broken pieces in there too. Maybe cats could gather owl pellets for bonus materials?
I have no idea where a school would get so many owl pellets for kids to dissect, or if they're still doing this, but in some context playing with mouse bones was a thing!
My school had a marine biology course where we got to dissect increasingly complex animals, bloodworms, starfish, goldfish, working our way up towards a shark for a whole year. The day before we were gonna do it, someone LEFT THE SHARKS OUT IN A BUCKET. Aaaaaalll night, had to be trashed in the morning.
it is my third or perhaps fourth villain origin story.
Owl pellets are pretty common though! You get them in mass from almost any captive owl, since they don't chew. Come to think of it, I should totally make a divination practice for Clerics based off what they can find in a pellet.
Maybe call it something like "Omen Gralloching," in reference to cutting it open and pulling out bones like they're organs from prey. I love how an owl was used as a symbol of oncoming dark times in TPB and I'd like to subvert the "wise old owl" cultural trope in some way.
