davids4250 wrote:I hope we get to see the griffins at the zoo.
That would be great - I'd love to see how Paul portrays them.
They're almost never seen, even in fiction... quite rare. In fact, they're a highy endangered Mythic species, very close to extinction, and it's all our fault (humans, that is).
Back in the Midde Ages, military strategists were looking for quicker ways to beseige and conquer walled cities throughout Europe. The old "encircle, blockade, cut off their food and water supplies and starve them out" method took months or years... expensive, often as hard on the invading army as on the city. They tried catapulting burning bundles of wood and oil to start fires, and the bodies of plague victims to start epidemics, but these didn't always work.
Then, they thought of griffins. They'd capture griffins when they were asleep, tie them up securely, load one into a catapult or trebuchet, and launch it over the wall... the ropes would be cut when it was launched, and the griffin would land in the city, terrified and angry and capable of killing many city dwellers before it was finally slaughtered. The griffin rarely escaped alive.
The invading generals even figured out a way to launch two, three, or more griffins at once, tied together... they'd come down in the city in multiple locations at the same time, and overwhelm the defenders' fighters with dispersed violence.
This method of Mythic war rapidly wiped out the entire breeding stock of griffins in Europe, with only a few surviving in distant mountain regions, and the armies had to go back to older methods of warfare. The MIRV griffin show was off the air.
(drops a rare LP of the Fifth Army Chorus singing "It's Not Easy Being Green" into the Pun Jar)