As the title implies, I want to take an animal as my cohort (a hawk specifically) and nothing in the rules states I can't.
Thoughts?
Monstrous Mounts lists a number of creatures available as cohorts. Each can clearly advance in a class as they level. Animals are harder. With an Int of 1 or 2, they cannot really take a class. If you Awaken your hawk, I think you could call it less than a Worg. So perhaps Awakened Hawk = Cohort Level 4 [maybe less since a Blink Dog is also 4.]
Edit: Make it a 3, as the Blink Dog has magical abilities and the Awakened hawk has none.
/cevah
The leadership feat says
A cohort can be of any race or class.
which technically means it can be an animal, even though that is "likely" not what was intended by the feat.
Yeah, sadly I think I should go for RAI rather than RAW. This particular character is in a very low magic game (basically none) so awakening isn't possible :(
Thanks everyone
You get Leadership, yet cannot get Awaken? Oh man, that is so far from the average experience, that I am not sure I can handle it. :-)
/cevah
You could just treat it as an animal companion, as those have a fairly well defined set of rules. Discuss with you GM naturally, and agree penalties to equivalent Druid level for low leadership scores etc. Not a perfect solution, but one that should keep things streamlined.