Puck, The Traveling Sprite
While I was teleporting around aardwolf, I found an
ancient sealed room in Old Thalos. In it was the remains of
a library. I discovered a book that seems to have been
written by the creator of the Half-griffin race. The
transcript follows.
I do so love griffins. They make interesting pets,
but they are so hard to train. I have worked to make them more intelligent so that they may do tricks, like begging, and rolling over. However, there have been MANY problems with my experiments. I hope to document them here, so that future scholars may learn about the race I created.
Madness: One of the main problems is the Griffin's natural inner conflict that comes from it being both a cat and a bird. This conflict seems to be only increased as the intelligence is increased, leading to slight madness. I was able to alleviate some of this conflict by making the griffin only a half-griffin. This caused its own problems which I will address later.
Courage: The Griffin is, by definition, both pussy and chicken. This is a failing that I will never be able to remedy. It really *is* funny seeing the beautiful griffins run from rainclouds though...
Movement: To make a griffen be able to move like a man yet keep it's beautiful form and balance it's wings, I have come up with an ingeneous method. I when on land, the griffins walk on two legs in a 'penguin-like' waddling motion. I feel that this is a wonderful way to allow the griffion inside buildings.
Landings: Bird landings are so slow and inefficient. So, for my Griffin race, I used the cat's natural abilitys. When the half-griffin wishes to land, it simply stops flying and drops. Usualy, the griffin can harness it's natural instincts to land on it's feet. I believe that the times it is thrown off by its wings and crashes are more than made up for in the speed and simplicity of the landings.
Eggs: I had considered a market for the infertile eggs of my half-griffins, but the taste is really ...well ...imagine a taste somewhere between that of brussel sprouts, dirt, and new coke...
The other half: To offset the madness of the griffins, I mixed in another animal. I needed one that qould balance th two halfs. It also had to be smart, reliable, loyal, and (just for kicks) slightly hairy. In short, the only choice open to me was a llama. This mix, while unusual, makes the Half-griffin race
quite unique. One quarter bird, One quarter cat, and one half llama. This combination gave me qualitys of humans I was trying to attain without all the bother of those new-fangled 'human rights'.
A Few Schematic Drawings:
Flight Mode:
Llama ears
| ___________
| / _____/ <-- Flight enabling wings
-> _yO / / (make slight squeaking noise
/ / / / when in use)
Beak <==@ ||||||||||||===
/_)|||||||||||| / <-- Broom tail
||||||||||| / (left on for cleaning purposes)
Shaggy --> ||| ||| M
llama (|| (||
coat ||| |||
-=== -=== <-- Talons (dulled for safety reasons)
Waddle Mode:
__()
/@@ / _____
<==| ) / // <--- Hard to manage wings
^ / / / / /
Cute -> | | | / // /
Dagger | _____/ / / /___>
(=)_______/ /__/
| |
| |
/ |
| |===
| | /
| | / <--- Note sweeping action
| | /
-=====) /|/
I hope this document will be read by many in the future, so
that all may recognize the brilliance of my creations.
Sincerely,
Ipsquitch the Mauve Wizard
That's the whole transcript, hope you found it interesting as I did.
