#Griffons

[3gremlins]

feel like im having a DA2 experience again where I really liked it and was in my little "this is good" cocoon where i played it many times only to emerge from underground and find everyone else hated it (i mean ive found the other da2 cicadas since but at the time it got really slammed). i've been really enjoying DA:TV so far ( lol tho obvs have notes) here's an early thoughts review, may be a bit spoilery, def rambley, trying to stay vague on stuff still (i think i'm about half way maybe? im trying to not look things up and doing it blind on my first run through. it's hard to tell b/c i went hard on all the side quests and am now way over level for the msq)

the combat system is a little jarring at first and i still miss at least being able to switch to and play as party members if your character dies (instead of the god of war style of full wipe), but i've gotten used to it (it's more annoying for boss fights, regular combat it's very zippy and fun). the targeting at least on controller is kind of annoying sometimes- i'll think i'm pointing at one enemy only to have rook turn and fire at nothing or companions to hit an add instead of a boss. I wish we at least had more control over how it queued who it was hitting. some of the arenas are obnoxious design wise - there's bosses that teleport to you and they give you like a tiny little box to dodge around, not the most fun. i do like that you can punch way above of your weight class sometimes which reminds me of DAO a little bit (like how you'd just wander into a fight or hit a gong and be like oh no, those enemies have skulls over their heads, oh well YOLO). sometimes it doesn't work out but when it does it's very satisfying. It's nice to be able to conquer something mechanically even underleveled (smol fromsoft vibes) Having always been a big fan of the strange composition parties (i.e not just war/rogue/mage), i like that this is now even more viable (and not just me being cheeky "we're having a leather party!" of all squishy rogues). but like the main thing about bioware games is the companions/interpersonal shit and i'm enjoying the heck out of that .i only do main quests to get more side quests from companions (or more side quests in general so we can troll around for more banter). i like petting griffons (and cats and dogs) and playing games with manfred*. I wish the gift system was more interesting like DAO or DA2- i was so excited to see it again and then it was a little disappointing to have them barely react when you get them stuff.

my current fave party are rook and the poison boys (emmerich and lucanis) since they're a rogue too and we just stack necrosis, bleeds and other elemental effects on things till they disintegrate. i like the lighthouse, it feels much cozier than skyhold. I love that you can just wander up to companions having convos and awkwardly eavesdrop. I do miss the little interactions/quests you could get with cole esp*** i think the animations are a little lack lustery? Idk there's something with the face model morphs that sometimes feels weird but the voice acting is strong enough that I don't notice too much. i do miss some of the more bioware-y cheeky things like item descriptions or weird notes near random silly environmental tableaus (there's a little but i just want to read all the notes! there's some in the grey warden areas where i was just like WAIT I HAVE QUESTIONS but there was no plaque about them T.T). where are the stacks of cheese (i do appreciate the fereldens love cheese jokes tho and harding getting so excited when someone says something nice about ferelden) i was esp bummed that there were no random things to read in the black emporium and it's all codex entries instead (that's my favorite tiny bit in DA2 where there's junk you can click on and xenon says weird shit to you). i also wish more had been done with accents of npcs- like i wish all the antivans had similar accents or your crow rook had an antivan accent, stuff like that (having a lot of "ferelden" generic british accents everywhere is disappointing. takes you out of the immersion a lot) My biggest gripe is probably the pacing - I wish it had more horror/mystery pacing like dao and da2 had- the reason we're all scarred by the brood mother is b/c the build up to that was so so creepy (also the necromancer bit w/hawke's mum in DA2). They gave us time to be unnerved or afraid and I do feel the evanuris reveals have been a little rushed so you can't really feel that worried about them (some of the side quests get close to this but still not quite there**). I wish they'd let them breathe a bit more instead of rushing from one giant world changing event to the next. Some of the reveals have been not so great- like lore that the fandom has poured over for 15ish years explained in one line?? i wish there'd been more build up of rook as a character too, maybe even a time skip from a prologue to finding solas kind of thing. the first trailer made it seem like that's what was going to happen but then it in media res'd us in a strange way. the first 10 hours of the game are probably the weakest imho, it took it a bit to get rolling and feel more natural. I appreciate that the first major decision doesn't really let you scum save for it (bit of a jump scare for me lol).

I also don't really need this much varric anymore, i kinda wish we had a different narrator if we have to have one. He feels really awkward to just have there and not doing anything(and not just kill off or have something happen to him? he got stabbed by the dagger and harding only touched it is what i'm saying). at least let him get better pjs and slippers or something Idk it does feel like bits of previous iterations they were working on are still there and they don't completely serve the plot well. And ofc there's the decisions not meaningfully carrying over thing- which is a huge bummer. But in reality they've never been good at that- the characters from previous games we see in new games don't really carry through their plots/arcs that much (it's more like cameos or they're a new person now) and the world states are usually effectively the same just with aesthetic faction swaps. I was sort of hoping we'd get some solavellan SOMETHING but it doesn't look like we will get much at all past the stuff in minrathous. i feel like if they were going to only include the one choice it really should have had more impact on the story. (i am also still a clown and want to talk to solas constantly still even tho he has no reason to talk to my rook at all, i do not care, i love a sad woof. i wish we could just casually visit him in the fade. i wish we could switch to lavellan and visit him in the fade, idk something. need more gareth david-lloyd pls) the interpersonal character decisions have been the only ones that mattered much and then only within the constrains of their own games- the bigger world changing stuff is usually the illusion of choice. It would have been nice if they let us have one protagonist carry through but i can also see why they liked changing it up and felt stuck in that format. tl;dr: i'm really like it for what it is but it's def got flaws. Parts of it feel super polished while other bits do not- i think knowing how game dev works that they had to make decisions on what was going to get prioritized and some of it works while others not so much. I wish the pacing was better for sure but i love the characters/companions which is generally what bioware is best at. sad it won't get meaningful dlc, i don't really care about mass effect 5 tbqh. So far I like it better than inquisition for the most part- it feels like a bigger/more polished DA2 in a lot of ways if that makes any sense (with similar budget/pacing issues, but the environments are more fun). as i mentioned in my other post, i really appreciated the trans/non binary inclusion into the story/cc tho. like that can't be discounted, even if the rest of the game has issues. (all the holes in the narrative make me want to do fan art and fan fiction tho so idk, maybe that's an okay thing. maybe dragon age is best at inspiring us to sandbox around in it)

*side note, i am surprised at how much i like emmerich like holy shit what a lovely soft nerd of a man! going to have to play through a few times and romance him and also bellara for sure (romancing lucanis this time round) i find myself shipping my companions with each other more than i normally do too. I just want them to be happy! I wish they'd let us have polyamory, like i could see little polycules in this squad so easily. i need to give bellara hugs and lucanis head pats. taash deserves head pats too, but my rook will need a ladder.

**i am going to cry if they do with the griffons what i think they're doing with the griffons. like straight up, feeling like it was a cursed wish to have them now T.T *** do we think the caretaker is cole? the character design makes me wonder (like the hat/silhouette is very cole like but maybe not. maybe i just want it to be cole lol) there's def characters i want to see show up that aren't going to and then bioware is like "what about this fan favorite??" and i'm like "eh".

[nightingaletrash]

So here's a thought: griffons have a natural, inborn hatred of the Blight that is so overwhelming that they can't be put through the Joining. They will tear themselves apart before they accept it. Even Isseya's modified Joining couldn't make them accept it - the griffons simply became hyper aggressive and would fight to the death, no matter how badly wounded they became. They cared only to kill darkspawn, even at the expense of their riders.

Griffons are also hybrid creatures of cat and bird. You know who loved to create hybrid creatures? Who's whole deal is creating beasts and monsters? You see where I'm going with this.

So what if the griffons were created specifically for the purpose of fighting darkspawn? Like a sort of frontline defense to fight the physical symptom of the Blight, and their rejection of the Taint was a means to ensure that they wouldn't then be corrupted in favour of the Blight.

[camelidae]

All that important mischief-making tires a baby out.

[uchidachi]

He is the only thing that matters to me

[vigilskeep]

adult griffons are 12 feet from beak to tail with an even wider wingspan

males weigh over 1000lb, females are smaller but only slightly

smaller, lighter-weight grey wardens are typically chosen as griffon riders, to give the griffons the least burden for long flights or harsh conditions, but a healthy griffon can carry two fully armed and armoured warriors

their claws can “shred plate mail like damp paper”

they have a “musky leonine smell” which “vaguely recalled a tomcat in rut”

most griffons are variations of grey, while other colourings—fully white, fully black, or even rarer parti-coloured ones—are recessive but do occur

their eyes are typically yellow/amber (making assan’s blue eyes an oddity)

we hear about “the earthshaking rumble that passed for their purrs”, and at least one is described as “actually purring”

they’re territorial and short-tempered. it’s a bad idea to feed them when gathered together because they will fight. do not hand-feed even a sick one, you WILL lose fingers

they should be generally safe around people they know when unprovoked by them, though; it’s very alarming if they’re not. they are regularly capable of carrying an extra passenger, even if it’s a stranger, along with their rider

“a griffon would sooner hurl itself into a mountainside than it would accept servitude to a master it disliked. they were never servants, never slaves. a griffon was a partner and equal, or else it was a foe.”

they mourn a lost rider, and fight desperately to save a rider, even if to do it they have to bite into darkspawn, thus becoming tainted and dying horribly (they are usually trained to use only their claws against them)

[dragonagitator]

I actually teared up a bit when I saw this precious little baby in the trailer.

For those of you who haven't read the books, griffons were believed to be extinct in Thedas for hundreds of years until the Wardens found a clutch of unhatched griffon eggs in Last Flight.

That there's a baby one running around as a Warden's animal companion several years later suggests that not only were they successful in hatching those eggs, but also that they've been breeding more griffons. The griffons are making a comeback as a species!!!

(We know this one is still a baby because Wardens used to ride griffons into battle, and this one obviously isn't big enough for that yet.)

[astralarias]

under the light of the moon, we float as silently as silhouettes along the path

[shewolfofvilnius]

My Hero-of-Ferelden-worshipping Rook when Davrin gets his baby griffon Assan

[niofo]

thinking about how irl there is stuff pets can't eat, like chocolate being poisonous for dogs etc - do you think there are any historical records on what griffons can and cannot eat or the wardens had to figure it out by themselves? assan stealing a snack from davrin and then throwing up all over his bed bcos apparently griffons can't digest carrot after all :( and considering davrin met assan relatively recently maybe he'd have to brainstorm with bellara and lucanis to put together balanced meals for assan.

[feyriane]

My Hero of Ferelden is gonna appear out of nowhere and steal that griffon

[feyrianedoesart]

A very good boy - Assan !

[whoisnotmyname]

More bird wip

[nazrigar]

Beast Fables - Wyverns, Gryphons and other Avian Chimera Part 1

And the big worldbuilding focus of this month! Wyverns, Griffons and other Avian Chimera, for my Beast Fables setting.

Context: Beast Fables is my worldbuilding project, where everyone on land is some form of werebeast, while merfolk are the denizens of the seas and oceans. In the context of Beast fables, Chimeras are basically the temporary forms of animals that also have the Gift of Transformation as Werefolk do, usually involving borrowing traits from OTHER animals.

Birds have a multitude of chimeric morphs, the most famous are the universal Wyvern, a form all birds can transform into, and the Griffon, an iconic morph emblazoned in various segments of Werefolk culture.

[camelidae]

March and April originals are in my shop now – lots of cuties up for grabs, whether you like your critters fluffy, feathery or contentedly undead.

jaimiewhitbread.com/shop

[uchidachi]

Tonight we are thinking about bb griffon Assan giving Davrin lil kitty headbutts. We are thinking about him “preening” Davrin’s armor’s collar with his wee beakie. We are thinking about him making biscuits while being scritched between his wings. ❤️❤️❤️ cat-dad Davrin 😻😻😻