Hey Veeky Forums, I'm trying to incorporate griffins into a homebrew and struggling to make them unique.
I'm imagining them as intelligent apex predators, with some kind of innate magical abilities. A pack structure, but less rigidly enforced social dynamics than typical alpha/beta bull shit. No opposable thumbs, so they sometimes partner with humanoid races because it's nice to have your mane braided or who the fuck knows please help
You need to make them cool? I thought they were already cool. Do kids these days don't like griffins anymore?
They are in fact very cool already
My question is more how to incorporate them into a wider world as more than just noble steeds (pictured) or random monster encounters.
Griffons are the intelligent nobility of animals of the land. They are both the Eagle, King of Birds, and the Lion, King of Beasts.
You will find them at the heads of animal courts, which convene every solstice to debate and air their grievances. Contrary to popular belief, animals are incredibly political and have much to say.
Should they be the mount of a being, most likely an elf, that being has earned the respect of a noble and is granted the privilege of their service.
YES they have the worst attitudes ever. Literally all creation is beneath them. Their aeries are built into the highest cliff faces and mountaintops, where they can survey the land and think
>everything the light touches is my kingdom
>and so is that shadowy bit too fuck you i'm a griffin
I made them intelligent but severely limited who are trying to fight their way into civilized society. With difficulty, they can learn to speak like parrots and ravens, but they have generally been thought of as simple beasts up until recently.
Make of that what you will.
Prides (flights?) of Griffins are highly territorial. As the definition of noblebright creatures, they refuse evil monsters (goblins, undead, deepcrows) entry into their domains, and will in fact pursue them tirelessly until they leave. Young griffins are taught to hunt by adults carefully supervising their harrying and eventual dispatch of low-CR enemies.
Do they have their own language?
Go back to the original myths. Make them guard golden mountains from the Arimaspi. The griffins who are encountered away from them are rebels who abandoned their task to see the larger world.
And the animals consider this a truth.
God forbid you kill a Griffon in it's nest. The power vacuum will drive the surrounding wildlife mad, causing erratic behaviour, over-population, over-feeding, and strange migrations like an exodus to another, safer kingdom.
They hadn't even conceived of talking until they heard other races, and if they showed themselves, other races would mostly say, "Ahhh! Griffins! Run for your lives!" so it took them a while before any had the time and inspiration to figure out speech. Once they established half-way decent relationships with certain civilized areas, they simply adopted their languages.
I would expound on the relationship between language and mental capacity, but suffice it to say that in the plot, griffin society has made great strides in recent years.
And rightfully so. Anything that would/could kill a griffin is frighteningly powerful and probably pretty evil. They know better than to stick around and become fodder for some lich's evil pet cemetery army. Even foxes, wolves, and crows see upheaval in griffin courts as a sign of impending doom. In this way, Griffins are the bellwethers of the animal kingdom.
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That's funny, because I heard that griffins were the experiments of a long-dead mage-king, grown and bred to be his loyal aerial force. They have since split into several different clans -- that's why we see the typical variations of griffin, crow/panther, owl/lynx, falcon/cheetah. They were all bred for specific purposes.
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Name a better organization with griffins.
They don't quite partner with humanoids, it's the other way.
Griffins aren't only apex predators, they're highly social, hungry, supernatural apex predators. Their "death-from-sky" claw strike can crush a elephant skull. The same eye-claw coordination makes them incredible javelin throwers.
It turns out being within the hunting range of a griffin pack is what enabled civilization to develop in the first place. It was impossible to develop sedentary agriculture with all those displacer beasts and whatnot around.
Some sages believe that transhumance itself developed as a means of keeping a griffin around by virtue of lots of meat. It would explain how the eastern nomads have a higher number of griffin lords than all the southeastern kindgoms put together.
Griffin symbolism and cultural significance is such that the death god itself is represented as a griffin, both so deadly as to kill anything and capable to transporting the soul to the heavens.
Don't force anything to be unique, gryphons are cool, don't fix a running system
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Damn it...
Who is he?
Lord Haart of the Castle faction in Heroes of Might and Magic 3.
Someone post the DD comic