Hippogriff

A legendary chimera, part horse, part eagle, part lion; their peculiar lineage makes appearances in the wild a once in a lifetime encounter.

(13 and 14) hands, (132 and 142) cm

(330-380) kg

The hippogriff is covered entirely in feathers. The most obvious places are the head and wings where they look like traditional bird feathers. The body has much finer, almost fur-like feathers, lacking barbicels.

They share their aggressive and territorial nature with the griffons. Due to their natural territory being almost nearly inaccessible to most humans without aerial aid, they rarely encounter interlopers.

Methods of attack usually revolve around the lion claws and beak. They trade the ability to scratch with their back claws for kicking with their powerful horse hindquarters. Hippogriff will dive from great altitudes, either crushing their prey under their weight or scratching. The beak is also a great tool for ripping into soft tissues.

Sight

Touch

Mountainous areas

Preferred hunting grounds are mountainous regions. They will occasionally make the journey inland to the plains during the spring and summer, following the migration patterns of the grazing mammals.

Griffon

Like Griffon, their preferred prey are large herbivores like reindeer or horses. In leaner times, they will chase after small prey animal on the plains or birds.

All hippogriffs are, in fact, sterile therefore do not have an age where they reach sexual maturity.

A griffon and a horse must mate to create a hippogriff. Due to their antagonistic nature, the chance of this happening is few and far between.

By virtue of their mammalian bodies, hippogriffs are birthed live after an incubation period that depends on their mother. For the griffon, the gestation period will last 110 days. The mare will have a gestation period of 11-12 months.

Regardless of the parentage, the griffon will always take over the care of the offspring. Should the offspring be left with the horse parent, they will inevitably end up consuming the horse parent.

The offspring is taken back to a nest immediately after birth and is started on a meat diet. The horse parent lacks the mechanisms to properly feed the offspring.

Interestingly enough, hippogriffs who have a griffon/mare parentage seem to have a lower mortality rate than the opposite stallion/griffon. This has been observed in fossil records, which show an overwhelming count of female infants. The most agreed upon explanation, is that the gestation period of the griffon mother is simply too short for the offspring to properly develop the digestive system.