Peryton

Cryptologic Name: C. cervidaves
Planar Origin: Materia
Habitat: Temperate forests
Diet: Carnivorous, preying on a variety of animals, including humans

Appearance & Morphology
The peryton is a large half-cervine, half-avian creature with the head, forelegs and torso of a deer and the hindquarters, wings, and tail of a large bird. Despite having a head normally seen on an herbivore, these creatures are voracious predators and have long, razor-sharp fangs in their otherwise unassuming mouths. All perytons have antlers regardless of sex, much like reindeer, and will use them to gore larger prey.

Behavior & Magical Abilities
Perytons are very unusual creatures; they cast a humanoid shadow despite their shape, but their shadow will return to “normal” by eating the heart of a human being. The intrinsic magic in this is not remotely understood and, given the ethical implications, this is a difficult subject to research. What we do know, however, is that perytons can only reproduce when their shadows have returned to their own shape. Young peryton are cared for by their mothers; unlike nonmagical deer, fawns do not drink milk, but rather will lap blood from the doe’s kills while she consumes the majority of the meat.

Field Notes

• Despite being hybrid creatures that could feasibly fall under the griff umbrella, perytons are a naturally-occurring species. While it is possible for alchemists to create a griff that resembles the peryton, such a creature is unlikely to be a carnivore, given the arrangement of features. While I am not familiar with any alchemists who have created a creature of this type, the hippalectryon (horse front and rooster rear) is a similar enough creation to draw some inferences.

Occamy

Cryptologic Name: Poulicephalos badhatana
Planar Origin: Materia
Habitat: Jungle
Diet: Carnivorous

Appearance & Morphology
Occamys are long, serpentine creatures with a mix of traits from both snakes and birds. The occamy’s head mostly bird, with a strong beak and bluish-purple feathers and it has golden eyes with slitted pupils, resembling a snake’s. The feather’s transition to scales down the creature’s neck, and back to feathers at the tip of its tail which ends in a colorful tuft. They also possess powerful wings which allow them to soar quite adeptly.

Behavior & Magical Abilities
The occamy’s most notable magical ability is choranaptyxis, meaning it can grow or shrink in size in order to fit its available space. It is unclear if this ability has a strict limit; we rarely see occamies grow larger than 5m in length or shrink to smaller than 15cm, but because we don’t entirely understand the mechanism of this magic we can only speculate as to whether there are limits to the creature’s range of sizes.

Occamies are carnivorous and quite dangerous; while they eat mostly insects, rodents, and small birds, their ability to grow in size means that they can easily injure or kill an unprepared mage if one happens upon them. What’s more, they are fiercely territorial and protective of their nests, as well as having a strong sense of smell, so nesting sites should be avoided.

Field Notes

• Cryptozoologists have observed that occamies never expand past the boundaries of their immediate environment when in an enclosed space; for example, if an occamy slithered into a shoebox, it wouldn’t expand in size to break/be free of the shoebox. There are two possibly explanations for this, one being behavioral and one being magical. It is possible, since we still don’t fully understand how these creatures’ magic functions, that this is a limit on the magic itself, meaning they are incapable of growing beyond the boundaries of an enclosed space. Alternatively, the behavioral possibility (i.e. they simply don’t do this, even though they are able to) may be explained in terms of preventing injury to themselves. For example, if an occamy was contained in a metal box and expanded, it may cause serious injury to the occamy before the box broke (assuming it did ultimately break).

• Occamy eggs are widely sought-after because their shells have an outer layer of pure silver.

Griffin

Cryptologic Name: Felidaves s.
Planar Origin: Materia
Habitat: Highly varied
Diet: Carnivorous, they are voracious hunters (most of them anyway)

Appearance & Morphology
Griffins (alt. griffon or gryphon) are a widely varied genus if chimeric creatures that posess the body, hindquarters, and tail of a a feline and the head and wings of a bird. The forelegs are often bird talons as well, but in some variants they are also feline in morphology. Coloration, size, and shape are all dependent upon the core species of the creature, and as such an extensive variety of species exist within this genus.

Magical Abilities
As stated above, griffins are chimeric creatures; this means that they were created using alchemy to fuse different animals together. While the process of their creation is purely magical in origin, they don’t possess any particular magical powers of their own, unless their component creatures are magical in nature, and then the crafted griffin with generally possess similar abilities.

Griffins are rather unique amongst chimeric creatures as they can breed with others of their species. It is unclear how this is possible when most chimeric creatures cannot breed. This does mean, however, that there are now wild populations of griffin species in the world.

While they may not possess any magical abilities in their own right, some of their components have use in potion-making in a way that their predecessors do not. It is unclear why this is, but the theory is that it has something to do with the alchemical process of their creation. Griffin claws (from the feline hind legs) are used in many curative potions and the feathers are used in a special potion that allows blind people to see for a limited duration.

Behavior
Griffins, being such a disparate and varied group, have similarly varied behavior patterns. Most of these creature’s behaviors are reasonably linked to their base species, thus a traditional griffin crafted from a lion and eagle is likely to be a voracious predator, whereas a griffin crafted from a house cat and a songbird is more likely to be fairly docile. The general trend is that the avian half of the pair tends to influence the expected behavior more than the feline half, likely because the head, and thus brain, are avian.

There are a few traits seen across species that are worth noting. First, is that griffins mate for life, and will care for their young through adolescence. Courtship among griffins is rather unique in that they seem to have inherited their avian ancestor’s flair for courtship rituals. Many griffins will display their plumage, sing, or perform elaborate dances in an attempt to attract a mate. This does suppose, however, that other individuals of their particular species exist, which is not always the case.

Field Notes

• The first and most important note I feel should be made is related to the welfare of the species used to create griffins. While early alchemists did use a living lion and eagle to create the first griffins, modern alchemists no longer use living animals in their work. It does require DNA from the species and a collection of other organic matter, but the lives of two living animals are no longer combined into a single being to create these creatures.

• The first griffins, created by alchemists millenia ago, were all crafted from the same set of creatures: a lion and an eagle. This had great cultural significance at the time as the lion was considered the “king of beasts” and the eagle the “king of birds,” thus the union of the two was an especially powerful symbol, not to mention an exceptionally fierce creature. It wasn’t until more recently in history that alchemists began to branch out and experiment on their own, combining any odd combination of bird and cat they were so inspired to. This makes for rather odd ecology for these creatures, as some species only have single individuals existing at any given time, and thus will never form wild populations. This is somewhat vexing for cryptozoologists like myself, as a great deal of information can only be gleaned by observing creatures in the wild. Admittedly it has tempted me to learn alchemical techniques such that I could create my own griffins, but there are enough wild species of cryptids in our world that my work is cut out for me without needing to create more for myself.

• Presently there are six species known to have wild populations on earth:

  • F. aquileo: “True griffin,” created from a lion and eagle, living in mountainous regions around the world. These are the most prolific species.

  • F. corvatus: “Black griffin,” created from a common raven and domestic cat. Much smaller than true griffin, they generally live in temperate forests and human-inhabited areas, and are scavengers much like their avian ancestors.

  • F. tytocal: “Owl griffin,” while there are a number of owl griffin species, only one has a wild population, and it is a species consisting of a barn owl and a caracal. These creatures are found throughout Africa and Europe.

  • F. domesticus: “Sparrow griffin,” the smallest wild griffin species, these consist of a house sparrow and domestic cat. This species can be found across the northern hemisphere.

  • F. pardarauna: “Parrot griffin,” consisting of a blue-and-yellow macaw and a leaopard, these are the most colorful wild griffin species, as well as the only species found in South America.

  • F. jugrinus: “Swift Griffin,” crafted using two of the quickest of their respective species, the peregrine falcon and the cheetah. This species is found primarily in northeastern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

• The griffin pictured here is under my personal care, and is not a wild owl griffin, but a related species, F. nebucola, created from a great grey owl and a domestic cat. He was given to me by an alchemist friend of mine, who was experimenting with different griffin breeds. He is quite playful and loves hunting squirrels in our back yard. He is a recent addition to the menagerie and as yet doesn’t have a name, so I welcome any suggestions.