What They Don't Tell You About Griffons - D&D

half lion half eagle griffins are ferocious avian carnivores that prey upon horses and their kin so before we start talking about what they don't tell you let's of course first start with what they do tell you let's check out the monster manual and see what they say so they of course tell us that they are half lion half eagles something that we can also see pretty clearly here in the picture as well here they tell us that they hunt in small prides they haunt herd animals and horses who they crave the most that includes of course hippogriffs for those of you who do not know hippogriffs are like griffins except that they are part eagle part as you can also see from this picture now those riding or hurting horses dread the griffin's piercing cry preparing themselves for the bloody fight that inevitably follows a griffin ignores a horse's rider when possible and a rider that abandons its mount or herder that releases one or two horses can escape unharmed while the griffin targets its chosen prey riders who attempt to protect the horses attract the full fury of an attacking griffon now down here we're told that they layer in high rocky cliftups which are considered their territory and they only leave a territory once foot supply has been exhausted they are very territorial of their areas and will brutally defend it a strategy that they use is to block people from the mountain and then drop them to their deaths now training a griffin is a very difficult prospect and he says here that you can only do so when the griffin is raised from an egg the process is time consuming and expensive and of course dangerous but once trained a griffin is a fierce and loyal steed it will bond with one master for life fighting to the death to protect that rider keep in mind though that it keeps its ravenous taste for horse flesh so one has to be careful even when the griffon is tamed now the mustard sheet for the griffin is interesting for a variety of reasons we can see that it is actually fairly bulky and in fact stronger than the animals that it is a part of here you can see the stat sheet for the lion and the stat sheet for the eagle it is stronger than the lion far more vigorous too however it actually has less intelligence somehow the eagle side is probably more interesting because a normal eagle is actually not that big certainly not the size of a full grown gryphon even though a lot of the stats in the sheet here match the gryphon at least in terms of the intelligence charisma and dexterity it is actually far more likely that the griffins instead have lion a half giant eagle a giant eagle is actually a whole different thing they are first large which matches the size of the gryphon but also second more intelligent than the normal eagles which griffins are kinda supposed to be generally speaking in denison dragons a giant version of a normal actual animal tends to be far more intelligent a giant elk for example is far more intelligent than a normal elk to put it into perspective an insect a crustacean or a small mammal like a bat will have an intelligence of one you can't really train them effectively and they exist on a level far beneath us even if you could communicate with them what you would get would be basic and instinctual this is the lowest intelligence that you could be intelligence of two is actually a massive massive jump from one animals with intelligence of two can actually make sense of you as a being you could train them all bait perhaps poorly most big-sized animals would fall in here including particularly dumb breeds of dogs and cats a smart breed of dog or any particular intelligent mammal would instead have an intelligence of three animals known for their intelligence like maybe dolphins and ravens would also typically fall in here though you could probably argue successfully that a dolphin might actually even be a four intelligence of four is when we hit the monkeys and the apes so for example baboons in here are considered to have an intelligence of four whereas a generic ape has an intelligence of six now that you have that perspective you can see that the intelligence given to the giant eagle and really any other giant animal is fantasy it's not real it's part of the magic of the world and that would be the case for most of the giant creatures now why do i bring this up because in the lore the gryphon is not supposed to be a dumb animal at least not as dumb as a camel in first and second edition an intelligence of two was the lowest that a griffin could be yes but the average was three and you could actually find griffins with an intelligence of four as well and in third edition griffins had an intelligence of five so seeing an intelligence of two here is rough because that puts them on the lowest end possible mechanically you would imagine that some of the giant eagles intelligence would have seeped through in the combination of the two animals and lore wise you will see that the griffin is actually a bit more intelligent than your average run-of-the-mill dog but to prove that to you i'll have to go into it so let's go ahead and talk about what the mastermind did not tell you about the griffin that is after we talk about how great grim hollow is this video is brought to you by grim hollow the player's guide this book has exploded on kickstarter their project was funded in nearly 19 minutes that's how excited people were about this thing and why because their last book was incredible and they know that this one will be as well grim hollow the player's guide brings to the table a ton of extra features that anyone in their game can use in order to enhance their table from new spells like highly requested blood magic to new magic items to new subclasses and of course my personal favorite new addition to dnd transformations if you ever found yourself in a situation where one of your players turned into a ghost what would that look like how would his stats change what sort of abilities would he get well this book has that what about if you stayed too long in the feywild and started to turn fae how would that look like what if you were a druid or ranger or a warlock and made a pact with a mighty powerful elemental and now you yourself were turning into one how would that look like grim hollow the player's guide tells us exactly how those transformations would happen they give you feats that unlock when you transform and of course there are multiple layers of transformation you don't just immediately turn instead you go through a process that progressively makes you into what you're turning into no joke this is the coolest new addition that i personally have seen for fifth edition like look xanathar's and tasha's had some really great features but frankly literally nothing compares to the transformations from grim hollow their last book grim hollow campaign guide had transformations for vampires liches aberrations angels and more they literally answered the question of how would my character turn into a werewolf a question that fifth edition hadn't truly answered effectively until now it's rare to see good quality source books out there and so i'm glad to promote these guys because they really do great quality work their new book grim hollow player's guide is currently on pre-order at their website if you want more info about the book feel free to go into the kickstarter the link is also in the description and in the comments but enough of that now let's go back into the video so we see the picture of the griffin and we know that it is half lion half eagle but we were not given an actual description in actual descriptions we're told that indeed the front side is eagle and the backside is lying however the caveat is that the head also possesses tufted ears something that not just the 5th edition master manual didn't tell you but shockingly this is also that something second edition and third edition somehow left out you can see the art for the griffin in first edition and how it clearly shows the ears you can also see from official forgotten realms art for some of the comics here you can see also art from source books and an actual description of the ears in dragon magazine it seems to be pretty easy to miss out since presumably the ears you would imagine would go down into the feathers while the gryphon is flying so not surprised that a lot of art missed this though it is interesting for sure now their body colors range from golden bronze to dark brown with the colors darkening as the gryphon grows old sometimes you will find tufts of red feathers in the chest for males who are generally more vibrant females do tend to have duller colors in general while standing on all fours the overall length from beak to rump measures seven to ten feet an adult male may weigh up to eleven hundred pounds while females typically weighing about a third less quote the eyes of the griffin have been said to resemble living flames usually being ruby red burning yellow or icy blue end quote now that's as far as the look is concerned so now let's talk about abilities what can these guys do being part eagle grants them tremendous vision as one would imagine if you ever saw the barbarian path of the eagle totem feature where the barbarian can see clearly something that is like a thousand feet away or something and thought man that's kinda out there isn't it well it's actually not out there not out there at all just that's just eagles for you a griffin's eyes can see a horse from two miles away in the air to put that into perspective if you had griffin's eyes and you could read a book from 100 feet away without any issues further the eyes are so great that he can see in the dark by absorbing the faintest amounts of light this is not dark vision mind you dark vision is essentially the ability to see without light the griffin's eyes do need light even if it's just a tiny amount this power would be useless in the underdark where there is no light but outside in the world at night it's perfect the eagle can see you just fine from two miles in the air in the middle of a pitch black night very scary stuff as far as the other senses are concerned their sense of smell is actually fairly average nothing out of the ordinary there and maybe a bit stronger than a human but nowhere near closed out of a dog while it's sense of hearing on the other hand is also off the charts we're told that griffins can hear hoof beats unpacked earth from at least a mile altitude which is wild gryphons have also learned to distinguish and hear the sounds that horse trainers use to call their horses again even up to a mile of distance away now griffins are also crazy strong being able to fly carrying loads as great as their own body weight though not for a long time when a griffin kills a horse it most certainly can lift it in the air using his front talons in order to carry it back into its lair a very gruesome sight indeed and also something that requires tremendous amounts of strength which they do have now those front talons of the griffon are mega buff because they need to be to be able to carry those horses in the air they are so strong that they can literally bend metal bars i mean this scenario might literally never happen but your griffin could literally break you out of prison by just bending those bars it can do that a griffin's claw attack also for example comes down so hard that it can just kill a person with a single hit very similar to that of the owlbear though of course with slightly less force alberts are just on another level this incredible amount of muscle as you can imagine requires a tremendous amount of food to sustain as a griffin is an average of about 30 pounds of fresh meat a day the meat also has to be fresh since griffins are very picky eaters which means they do a lot of hunting to keep up with it now absorb that and then realize that that amount of food is only for when the griffin is passive if the griffin does a lot of flying for example or a lot of combat then he might end up eating just about twice that amount 60 pounds of fresh meat in a single day potentially and you don't want to be anywhere near a griffin when it is hungry because they get very pissed off and their standards of what's appropriate to eat starts dropping quite rapidly when they are pissed off and if they get just enough pissed off you actually might become their next meal now all of that is pretty basic griffin anatomy nothing necessarily magical about any of it just what happens when you combine a massive lion and a massive eagle however there is a chance that you will find a gryphon with a dark tuft of feathers in their chest a very rare type of gryphon these gryffins if you ever find one have a special ability to be able to sense gold this sense doesn't stretch too far only about 10 feet around them but they can most certainly tell apart fake gold from real which can come in really useful what's cool about this though is that this power actually comes from the dark tops of feathers in their chest as in if you were to pluck those feathers out then the griffin would lose that power at least until they grow back which would take just about a year gaining possession of said feathers though would allow you to craft gold sensing items which of course would be extremely valuable however that power to be transferred to the feathers for you to use them as magical components you would have to remove the feathers from the gryphon while the creature was still alive this magic dies alongside the griffon so good luck with that now that we have covered their abilities let's take a little bit of time here to talk about their day-to-day which as we mentioned before is it's really mostly haunting the griffins are so powerful that they generally don't have much to worry about when they are out and about the things that would kill a griffin would stand out greatly and it itself would be haunted probably by adventurers in no time i mean you would have to be like a rock demon or a dragon or something like that to be out there hunting griffins partly because you know griffins are of course very powerful but mostly because griffins go out to haunt as a pride the griffins are very social creatures and when they're out there in the wild they hunt in pride of sometimes up to 12. so start eliminating those preconceptions that you are a tough adventuring party and that there is no way that you would ever lose to griffins you cannot fight 10 griffins unless you are truly decked out and frankly well griffins don't actually want to fight you either when griffins hunt they favor herd animals obviously mostly horses the monster manual mentioned it that griffins really do like eating horses but i do want to make sure that this point is set hard griffins really and i mean really like horses it takes a lot of training for example for the water deep riders to be able to fly above the city and not have their griffins just dive down to snatch a horse from the street but even with all the training in the world nothing will stop a griffin doing that if it ever gets hungry a good analogy would be to compare for example a gryffin and a horse to maybe a human and cigarettes it's almost like an addiction for them you could probably cut it out if you work really hard but you really have to work really hard now going back to the pride of griffins attacking you if this ever happens all you have to do is let go one or two of your horses and simply keep moving away the griffins do not want to fight you they just want to eat your horses if you let them go the griffin will simply take their meal and leave but if you fight back to protect the horses then the griffins will fight to the death when it comes to anyone getting in between a griffin and a horse only death will follow now smarter older griffins who have survived for a long time will understand the danger of diving on an adventuring party or a strong group of warriors those griffins might avoid tangling with such force but younger griffins who haven't fought them before will not they will attack until they have what they want if the encounter proves to be then too difficult or if the griffin barely survives then the griffin will learn from his mistake and will adapt for its next battle if the lord describes it that learned griffins can get so smart by simply adapting in this fashion that some even wait until the warriors fall asleep at night in order to quickly and quietly kill a horse with a well-placed neck brake attack and then simply leave knowing that the warriors will be forced to leave the dead horse behind when they depart at which point the griffins would then come back down to eat the still fresh corpse they get pretty smart even though griffins are very well suited for aerial fighting they focus mostly on ground herd animals but that doesn't stop them from dominating the air when they need to what makes griffins especially as mounds so particularly impressive is that no other mount can challenge them in the air a griffon will destroy both a hypogriff and a pegasus in air combat they don't stand a chance and both of those happen to also be the only aerial creature the griffins will periodically haunt if they get the chance for obvious reasons both the hippogriff and the pegasus are technically horses or at least half horse in the case of the hippogriff now one of the coolest things is to see a griffin do land hunting which is very rare to see if this happens typically when some magic or natural circumstance has prevented the griffon from flying or because of injuries of course quote when acting as a land hunter it will behave much as a big cat though it shows some flexibility in adjusting its hunting technique it may stalk in pounds like a leopard or stalk in charge like a tiger if there are two or more griffins a group charge as per the lion might be used if the griffin's wings are partially functioning it is then able to drop onto its brave from a tree or cliff end quote the lore also describes it that when a griffin loses his wings and is forced to land hunt it typically becomes a man hunter since it finds it much easier to hunt than horses now the lair of griffins typically is found atop hard to reach hills and mountains and generally you will find an entire pride of griffins there together so a griffon layer will typically have four or six or maybe more different nests spread out throughout these high places are great for griffins because it allows them to get great vantage points where they can scout entire massive areas remember just how good their eyesight is they can literally just see anything two miles around them they are like a horror radar up in there now this is provided of course that food is plentiful if food is scarce then you will start to see griffins be less gregarious and their nest will be found much more farther apart these families are actually quite cute for the griffins all work together to find food and will protect each other's nest from enemies griffins also only ever get one mate and they mate for life a big deal since griffins live for a very very long time out of everything that we have talked about here and will talk about in this video i think this might be the most shocking part just because i feel like it is just not what one would expect at all but griffins have an average lifespan of at least 150 years though do keep in mind that average is for griffins out there in the wild so that average deals with griffins out there just dying in combat or getting diseased a healthy and well taken care of griffin can live for several centuries 300 years or more and even still they will pick one mate and that's how they will be for the rest of their life these devoted parents will take great care of their children who they would of course die to protect the young in these nests are always fed first whenever a hunt is completed the griffins will bring the carcasses of the horses or animals that they slay into the nest and they will feed their babies first before anyone else gets a chance to eat in the pride in these hunts it is typically the males who go out to hunt while the females guard the nest a feature of the eagle who appears to have overpowered the lion genes as far as reproduction goes there is not much that's different from just two lions reproducing except for the interesting part where they don't give birth to life babies and instead they deliver eggs a notorious different from the hippogriff who instead does deliver life babies now the griffin eggs are agate colored and they take about 4 weeks to hatch typically you will see around 2 eggs being delivered at a time when these babies are born they will eat their weight in food a day for the first 3 months of their lives at 4 months they would have already grown up so much that they would be the size of large dogs and at this point they are ready to begin ground hunting it does take a bit for the parents to feel comfortable teaching their babies how to fly so typically you will see them practice flying at around six months of age and then it'll take another six months for them to truly perfect it flying comes naturally to griffins but they require a lot of parental motivation to get them started a baby griffin will not fly unless it is coaxed and sometimes even just thrown by the parents this is actually a big mistake that trainers sometimes make when trying to train griffins and sometimes you do literally have to throw them they're not just gonna fly on their own a young griffin will leave the nest at around h2 at which point it will set its own nest far away or stay with the family if the food is plentiful griffins in general rarely ever fight amongst themselves they either work together or go their separate routes they can be very loyal to one another and in some degree it is believed to even feel a sense of duty to one another quote on occasion two or more griffins usually males typically brothers team up and hunt together this may last for a short time a lifetime or until one finds a mate less cautious than mated pairs these bachelor groups are more likely to be seen than others and are the bases on which most people form their impressions of griffins intensely loyal to each other these griffins will back each other up in almost any situation end quote it is this instinctive sense of discipline and loyalty that can make a griffin actually bond with its rider and in a sense become brothers at least with the impressions of the griffin so now let's talk about training which is one of the most important parts when people think about griffins they typically think of one of two things one how can i sell that really expensive egg i just found in this nest and two how do i mount that so let's talk about that a griffin egg sells for about 2 000 gold pieces in the open market while a griffin fledgling goes for just about five thousand that is because of course many people want those babies to train them so that they can then mount them the thing is it is very difficult to train these gryphons as mounts much easier than say trying to train an owl bear not to kill you or to train a yeti to protect you the two things that we've actually talked about in the past but still fairly hard something that you should most definitely leave to an actual professional the problem with attempting to raise a griffin by yourself is not even anything particularly technical the general animal handling check you should be looking at here is one with a dc of 20 to 25 it's hard but just not impossible the problem actually lies in the fact that griffins just eat too much feeding a baby griffin is just a nightmare since they eat their body weight for the first three months of their lives there are gonna be weeks where you will be forced to literally be giving this little guy over 80 pounds of food a day it is literally insane and you can't just be lazy and just buy this food the baby has to help you hunt it or it will start getting depressed remember griffins feel a sense of duty and pride if you don't do things the right way they will get depressed plus there is more to it too quote fledglings must be captured before their first feathers grow in at three months of age in order to bond with an owner if taken later the griffin will not readily accept its new family and has a 10 chance per month of deserting if mistreated 20 per month confinement is considered mistreatment training the young must include hunting in order to make the fullest use of the griffin's abilities and to maintain a balanced mind here the outdoor skills of the trainer become the common ground between ryder and griffin although flying is instinctive the fledgling must be coaxed into flight during the training a trainer may teach the griffins special skills to be used on an adventure such as dropping bombs or grabbing ground-based objects from the air unlike the gryphon any adventurer will find learning how to fly competently very difficult the time required is usually about 11 to 16 weeks use of speak with animal spells or the like will lessen the time by another two to five weeks those with less than normal agility and dexterity cannot fly with any competency but they may be tied on and carried on as baggage characters with low endurance will not be able to fly without becoming helplessly ill from motion sickness griffins bob up and down a great deal in their flight unlike pegasi making riding one rather like being a jockey in a steeple chase a large part of riding one lie is not merely in being strapped down but in hanging on resisting the wind and moving with the animal to make it easier on both parties end quote now these things are important it is a slow process that requires patience and a lot of work you can't just take shortcuts here wait well there is actually a shortcut if you save a griffin from a trap or from death or something like that the griffin can instantly bond with you and provided that it is an adult then you wouldn't technically have to go through any of that nightmare but that is still pretty rare that doesn't happen very often anyways normally there are no shortcuts you need to also keep in mind that a griffin is not a horse and you will not be able to subject it to the indignities that horses typically go through like being tied up on a tree or being put in a coral a gryphon that is confined in an area gets depressed and then will stop eating so you can't just force it either because the gryffin will literally just kill itself if it has to and it is important to also keep in mind that the griffin will eat you if you are abusive to it it is a very very prideful creature that being said much in the same way as a griffin will pick a male or a female to mate for life with or how they may bond with a brother or sister and be together forever with they can indeed bond with a person in much of the same way if you raise the griffin since it is a baby or if you happen upon riding one and you treat it with respect and love the griffin might then bond with you and if it does it will be with you for all of your life it will protect you with its life and more importantly it will not eat you if it's hungry which is a kind of a big deal for a gryphon so you have to keep in mind and this is hilarious the lore very explicitly states that this bonding does not stretch over to your companions so even though the griffin will not eat you if it's hungry it might still eat your lover or adventuring companions or your dog so make sure that it does not go hungry for too long also don't use horse leather for literally anything that you might be carrying like boots or gloves or bags because the the griffin is gonna eat it now there are reasons why you wouldn't want to either tame a griffin or kill it in spite of the fact that griffins do continuously eat the horses of the region they also do quite a bit of good in the environment the gryphons regularly kill manticores in the area which is a great boon for settlements nearby but they also kill many harpies by the coast it turns out that griffins are actually completely immune to the luring song of the harpies or at least it seems that the song has a different effect on them instead of being captivating to the griffins it actually enrages them forcing them to go in a rampage against the harpies who stand no chance at defending themselves the only way to avoid dying at that point for the harpies would be probably to go swim down into the water the griffins can indeed swim just how lions can but a wet body would prevent them from flying since it weighs them down considerably but that's not too much of a concern for them in fact they do enjoy it being very neat and tidy almost compulsively so griffins love to clean themselves as much as they can and so they take a lot of bats whenever they can the one thing that adventurers realize very early on after they have spent countless fortunes racing and training at griffin is that after a hard day of adventuring in a dungeon the griffin will not accept you as a rider if you are dirty they do not like to get dirty that being said if you're not at all dirty under griffin mount still randomly just refuses to be ridden there's typically a very good reason for it griffins have the ability to naturally sense whether they know if a storm is brewing or if there's something wrong in the air so if your griffin does not want to be ridden then you better listen to it alright guys thank you so much for watching thank you guys so much for being here i would like to just wish you all a very happy holidays and merry christmas we're going to be releasing i believe another video before christmas hits uh but then we're obviously taking a little break for christmas and hopefully we can be back with some more videos for you guys maybe just about mid-january or so i will hopefully be doing a lot of streaming on january so that'll be fun and uh hopefully we can also restart lore play on january as well so look forward to that but anyways thank you guys for being here and being awesome i would like to personally thank my patreon supporters barry maskan 5e magic shop morgan johnson rusty rayne biotechnofrag daniel luna duck feeder brat salazar walker motley terry kolp the great kodini omega scales karates the bulwark ozol ariel nelson alex cookson fulkey 951 benjamin bosters thomas hunt tesla coil the role-playing junkies podcast prince daylight morning crown sabine kurshab solarensis or dorek nathan mccomb silent choppa bushido burrito werewolves and games soulless rider roleplay with advantage stalia lost crusader tython treb909 olaf cleb tony arsey garrett minnick jd grin kaiser sky famine 52 georg fotland trevor hess sovereign mind larian's folly one fox 2 fox 3 fox seal and syrian king for supporting me on patreon at the 25 level if you would like to support me as well then please head over to patreon.com mr rex to support and with that said guys thank you for a third time and i'll see you all next time bye

Channel: MrRhexx

Views: 238,411

Keywords:

Id: TlHadHR6HC8

Length: 28min 46sec (1726 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 23 2020