Bartholomaeus Anglicus Propriétaire des Choses
1485-86. From Medieval Woodcuts - see Picture Credits

This was just a little while ago a very popular pet in Mordor. Not only for its companionship, but after you got tired of it, you could turn it into Hatesgiving dinner.

The Turnkey is one of the biggest birds in Mordor, being between three and four feet in length. It is a dull brown color, with a spot of red under its wings. It is very intelligent and was formerly used for a variety of different tasks. It was on the verge of overtaking the Werewolf as the favorite pet of Mordor, until a very interesting, unusual, and quite often deadly fact came out about this bird.

It has the very, very strange ability to distinguish between right and wrong.

The idea of "right" no minion knows, therefore we are not able to update you on this subject. As said before, the Turnkey is quite intelligent. One of the jobs it was being used for extensively was burglary. Being easily trained to find gems and money, it made the perfect burglars' assistant. Or so it was thought. Unfortunately the Turnkey's deadly characteristic was that, whenever a minion was breaking into a house, the assisting Turnkey would suddenly give off a very high pitched scream, and stretch its wings above its head, showing off the red spot and drawing attention.

The result of this was generally the immediate detection of the burglar, then torture of the aforesaid. As minions are minions, there was a lot of torturing going on in those days, and the Turnkey was mostly abandoned.

Written by Aiwendil Khamul