Amelia Wulfhart
𝕰𝖍𝖗𝖊 𝖉𝖎𝖊 𝖂𝖔̈𝖑𝖋𝖎𝖓𝖆
Objective: To codify a famous mythical creature in Gaia
Category: Creature
Image Credit: Nef | Gryph-Hound | AI Images
Development Thread: N/A
Permissions: N/A
Name: Demigriff
Aliases:
- Demigryph
- Demigryphon
- Gryph-Charger
Intelligence: Non-Intelligent
Longevity: ~30-50 Years
Population: Rare
Diet: Carnivorous
Location: Found across Eroba in small numbers
Habitat: Mountains and Forests
Magical: No
Description: Demigriffs are pack based ground predators that are hybrids of avians and felines, bred for power, ferocity, and controllability among the highest echelons of knighthood. With hooked beaks and keen eyes of an eagle or hawk paired with the bundled cords of sinew in the body of a large feline, they dominate hunting grounds in small family groups. Less intelligent and more instinctual than true griffins, the demigriff prides carve out territorial hunting grounds far from civilization.
Average Height: 163 to 183 Centimeters at the Withers (16 hands to 18 hands)
Average Length: 230 to 300 Centimeters from Beak to Tail
Average Wingspan: N/A
Average Weight: 500 to 600 Kilograms
Color Variations: Feathers can include browns, reds, greys, black, even white in some cases. Most demigriffs are white or tan furred with small tufts of brown fur on elbows, along their back, at the end of their tails. While not as common, demigriffs with tiger stripes or leopard spots exist as well.
Communication: Chirps, Caws, Squawks, Screeches, and Hisses. Light growling rumbles from time to time. Body Language.
Variants:
Griff-Hounds:A smaller sized demigriff, sometimes known as Gryph-Hounds, usually the size of a large dog or big jungle cat.
- Average Height: 70 to 85 Centimeters at the Withers (7 hands to 8 hands)
- Average Length: 160 to 200 Centimeters from Beak to Tail
- Average Wingspan: N/A
- Average Weight: 100 to 150 Kilograms
- Average Speed: 75 kilometers per hour (Sprinting) | 30 kilometers per hour (Average Run)
- Longevity: 30-40 Years
- Description: A smaller, less ferocious, more trainable breed of Demigryph native to ancient Gelbyia, now Merélais. While still much more vicious and unruly compared to the average trained dog, they are more easily trained than their larger cousins. Some nobles and wealthy hunters keep Griff-hounds as reliable hunting pets, able to train them well enough to return to their master after a hunt and follow simple commands like heel or stay. While never truly domesticated, Griff-hounds have been seen lounging inside a castle like a large cat until roused.
Demigriffs are ambush predators in the wild, relying on short, explosive hunts preceded by long periods of stalking and positioning of the pride to ensure the capture of prey. They prefer to hunt by launching into sudden charges and pounces that overwhelm prey through mass and shock.
When domesticated, these instincts can be managed, but never fully removed. Captive-bred cubs are taken early from breeding pairs, often before full imprinting can take place. This reduces the strength of parental bonding and helps promote tolerance to human handlers. They are raised in controlled enclosures, with constant exposure to people, tack, and noise. A demigriff is less domesticated like a horse or hound, and more accepting the proximity and routine of human interaction. They retain strong territorial reactions to unfamiliar people and demigriffs, even those gelded to be used as mounts must be housed with spacing and visual barriers from other prides to prevent escalation. Prides in captivity do not truly exist, but are managed aggregation overseen by their handlers. Feeding practices and staged combat drills reinforce their natural behavior, while conditioning them to respond to rider direction. In the field this translates more to controlled release than mastery of mount. They can be aimed, they can be held back, but once they begin the attack, their predatory instincts cascade and they revert from organized cavalry to autonomous violence. Once the fighting begins, the rider is less directing the creature and more going wherever it takes them. Some minor directional adjustments might be able to be made, but rarely anything beyond that.
The requirement of more land, livestock, and trained handlers keeps their numbers low due to expense. In combat large contingents become agitated with one another, usually keeping units of mounted demigriffs restricted to three to fifteen beasts, emulating the average pride size they keep in the wild. Due to their expense, few nobles can afford to keep them. In marching horses and other mounts must avoid them, exhibit signs of nervousness or fear. In battle, demigriffs cascade into predator drives, largely uncontrolled by their riders, swiping, smashing, and pouncing on movement that isn't their own pride less than actual friend or foe identification. They create killing fields that very few horses would willingly charge into, disrupting formations.
Languages: N/A
Special Qualities: N/A
- Ferocious: Demigriffs are monstrous apex predators with the senses of a bird of prey and the power of a feline scaled up to the size of a large warhorse. In battle they are frenzied creatures, swiping with dinnerplate sized paws. Demigriffs will also often fight through fatal injuries until their bodies simply cannot anymore.
- Pack Predators: Demigriffs often hunt and fight as mounts as a small pride rather than solitary, coordinating among the pride for success. It is this nature that allows them to be trained and domesticated.
- Barely Controlled Instincts: Demigriffs are not bonded-partners like humans with griffins, and not well controlled mounts like horses. They are predators that can be trained to carry a rider and can be aimed. They are still bound by their instincts and once combat begins they devolve into these instincts rather than following the direction of their rider. The pride may strike together in a wedge, but they do not fight as a single organism. Getting them to disengage is difficult, if nigh impossible.
- Sprint, not Marathon: Demigriffs are not enduring creatures. In the wild most of their time is spent lounging in shade or traveling at a walking speed. In combat they are quick, fast, explosive, but tire quickly as they are not naturally built for long combats. They rarely pursue enemy units that break, coordination drops, and after a few minutes of sustained combat they tire noticeably. While ferocious, after one or two minutes of combat, they may try to instinctively disengage or stand over fresh kills rather than continue the attack
Before the rise of the Curia, Demigriffs were still rare but more prevalent and regarded with fear and wariness, rarely interacting with humans and humans avoiding their prides instinctively. With the rise of the Sanctus and emerging distrust of Fae and magic among humanity, Demigriffs became a target for eradication. Prides were hunted in the systematic purges, used as hunting trophies to prove their martial prowess. Populations were pushed to near collapse and those near civilization dwindled to near extinction. Several centuries of hunting passed, and the Griffin began to be used as a religious symbol, representing Edom's divine origins and union with humanities mortal willpower. Griffins were commonly used in art and architecture, especially around temples where statues were claimed to have protective properties against the unholy.
Open hunting declined as peasants began to associate griffins, and by extension their flightless cousins, with divinity and piety, though prides near towns and villages were still driven off when they became dangerous. Around two hundred years ago, when Griffins began being bonded with human knights, many attempted to fabricate bonds with them. When these attempts failed, some turned to Demigriffs as an alternative. Demigriffs being less intelligent and less solitary allowed for their domestication and to be bred in captivity. They were bred more for size and amenable temperaments, leading for most demigriffs to outside Royal Griffins by a small margin since they did not have to remain light enough to fly gracefully.
In the present day, most demigriffs still exist in the wild, but the small number that have been domesticated remain largely feral, less mounts and more directed war beasts. Maintaining a domestic pride is massively expensive and requires numerous trained handlers, keeping their numbers low. TThe demigriff is also the sigil of the Tzar of the Great Gorvalost, and they are more prevalent as mounts there than any other nation in the world because of it.
