#Griffons

[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

[shewolfofvilnius]

HOW IT STARTED:

HOW IT'S GOING:

[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)

[gingerwort-truffls]

Assan and two of his siblings

[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.)

[yellingaboutmasseffect]

Griffons are not Long Termed Fucked: Real Life Animal Conservation Success for your Fantasy World Building

So the Dragon Age AMA sure was a thing. I am not going touch on any of the rest of it besides the future of the griffons, especially as someone who just played Inquisition and Veilguard. The reason I want to touch on the griffons is because animals are an interest of mine and I greatly admire the work that has gone into conservation and breeding programs across the world. Hopefully, y'all enjoy me theorizing about griffons with what I know.

Before we get into it, I would like to thank @ellstersmash for screenshotting the AMA and posting it here. Below the cut is going to be a screenshot from their post. Beyond the cut is spoilers for Veilguard so beware if you are avoiding those.

Ok, let's get the first thing out of the way, is 13 individuals ideal? Of course not but that does not make the situation impossible. I am going to go at this from "what would be most ideal" in the scenario that the game presents.

Aren't Assan and the other griffons siblings?

I think it is important to remember that Davrin is the one who says this. None of the Wardens involved in finding or raising the griffons would know that information. In fact, the only person that would know that is Isseya, who hid the eggs.

The wardens and Davrin were concerned in raising and training these young griffons. At that age, it didn't seem like they were thinking of the breeding possibilities in the future and considered them "siblings" because they were found and hatched together.

There is some visual cues that could point to the griffons not being from the same clutch. When you go back to the Hossberg Wetlands after rescuing the griffons, they can be found hanging amongst the wardens and they are surprisingly colorful and each seem to be inspired by different birds when it comes to their colors. While it is completely possible that is just how griffons were, it could point to a situation where Isseya stole an egg from 13 different clutches. It would make sense that when the griffons were wiped out, Warden command would have noticed if entire clutches disappeared but what about just an egg from each clutch? While this is the best case scenario, I do feel it's entirely plausible and would mean each griffon of our 13 have different parents.

In short, they could very well be siblings but there is no reason they couldn't be eggs from 13 different mated pairs of griffons. Hopefully Bioware goes with the later.

EDIT: As @siderealtide very helpfully pointed out in their reblog, we do know they are all siblings from one clutch from the story, Last Flight, as Isseya did cut them out of 1 dying griffon.

Given.... everything it could get retconned or as Siderealtide also pointed out as well they could be more mammalian like cats and have multiple fathers if their mother was especially frisky ( that would be fantastic for the situation. Not ideal but not insurmountable). Or magic but I did not feel knowledgeable enough on what is possible with magic in Dragon Age to theorize on that for this post. Back to the original post.

2. But isn't 13 griffons still too few?

Now there are ideal situations, which this isn't, but that doesn't make it impossible. It would make the griffons susceptible to a falling prey to a disease or scenario that deceased griffons might have had the genetic diversity to combat but none of the surviving 13 have the genes to weather through. That is not guaranteed to happen (and this is a fictional scenario.)

There are also some remarkable examples of animals coming back with similar odds.

The California Condor, my beloved. By 1982, only 23 individuals remained so they were all taken into captivity by the California Condor Recovery Program for a captive breeding program. In such programs they can arrange for mating pairs for ideal genetic diversity and hand rear individuals to ensure as many of the young live to adulthood. Today, there are over 500 California Condors in the wild and in captivity combined.

The Black Footed Ferret's program started with 18 individuals and 1000 are now in the wild!

In short, not ideal but not impossible. Even if you make a certain choice in game.

3. Ok, so how would the griffon breeding program work?

So I do believe both the Dalish/Veiljumpers and the Wardens would be capable of doing such efforts depending on your choice in game. They don't have as many tools at their disposal for optimal pairings or detecting genetic makeup, but they could do pedigrees to track who mated with whom and when.

Ideally, there would be more female griffons than males since the female griffons can lay eggs (hopefully more than one at a time). You could then pair a female and male griffon together until they produce a clutch/or clutches successfully before rotating in another male partner to repeat the process. From there, you would keep track of their ancestry to produce ideal mating pairs going forward and keep it as genetically varied as possible. In this ideal scenario, griffons don't mate for life and if there is lore about that, refer to my earlier disclaimer about my dragon age knowledge.

4. What about that 50/500 thing?

That came from Google AI summary. I admit I have never heard that rule before but it's more complicated than saying these numbers are required across the board.

5. Why did you make this post?

Like I said, it's a special interest of mine. I love watching Nat Geo shows about accredited zoos and learning about their conservation efforts. Environmental doomerism serves no one. Yeah, there will be times where we can't save species but people have shown time and time again that it is possible even under very bleak circumstances. So yeah in part this was about hope for these fictional griffons but I also if you got a little hope about real life conservation efforts, that's nice too.

[astralarias]

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

[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.

[feyrianedoesart]

A very good boy - Assan !

[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

[feyriane]

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

[shewolfofvilnius]

i always always base my dragon age romance solely, 100%, on vibes only.

She's a city elf, he's dalish, both bailed for the Wardens. Davrin has a griffon. My Rook is a Grey Warden named Isseya ffs. Could it BE any more obvious.

Besides just the name, the griffons as Warden iconography are an important part of her own history