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One of the greatest of the Windemere beasts, the griffin gets a lot of attention throughout the series.  There are the griffin riders of Gaia who are shown in The Compass Key.  One shows up in Beginning of a Hero as a pawn of the Lich.  They even make appearances in all of the preceding books after one kind of joins the group.  Somehow this one time monster became a recurring creature like the orcs, trolls, and dragons.

Where did my interest in griffins come from?  Not really sure.  I love the fact that it is a creature of both the land and sky.  They always seem to have power, grace, and speed when they’re used.  Yet they tend to be obstacles with foul tempers, which is how I used them the first time.  I remade it in an edit to have the animal be mind-controlled, which brought a bit of sympathy to them.  A funny thing with the griffins is that they have evolved along with the story.  In fact, I see notes in future ideas that bring these guys back many times.

I’ve mentioned in the books that the griffin is the fastest aerial creature, which might seem strange.  There are creatures with bigger wings or are more aerodynamic, so how could a griffin be faster than a drite?  Because they kind of cheat.  Griffins have several abilities such as immunity to natural poisons, immediate language understanding, and a few others that are spoilers.  The one that they are most proud of is their control over wind.  These beasts can fly through a storm and never lose speed because they create the perfect conditions for flight.  They ride powerful winds of their own creation, which allows them to also do a very quick blast off.

This doesn’t even consider their skills at aerial combat since they are intelligent enough to create strategies.  A common tactic is to spin their bodies and spiral toward an enemy to impale them with a twist.  On bigger opponents, this can breaks bones and tears organs even if it is not a kill shot.  Interestingly enough, the griffins of Gaia don’t use this tactic very often because they are protective of their riders.  They are well aware that some of their abilities and tactics are too dangerous to use while being ridden.

There isn’t much to say about their physical design.  Griffins have been around for centuries, so I didn’t change much.  There are always design differences such as how much is eagle and how much is lion.  I went with eagle head and wings and the rest is powerful lion.  Like I said, not much else to say about them.