Flying Mounts

Boats powered by Heart Trees are not the only way for the common man to fly and get around. Even before the split of Zephyr there were three major races used for the purposes of mounted flight, with varying rarity, place of origin, and difficulty to fly. These are popalo bird, griffin and wyvern. Though they can’t carry as much as a boat in areas like the Viveret Archipelago and the Tropicaz they have been invaluable in the ways that they have helped humans move and transport long before skyships were introduced to these regions.

Popalo Bird

One of the three animals that are mounted for flying along with griffins and wyverns. It is the cheap and more easily accessible of the three, and the most colourful! In certain areas Popalo birds are about as common as horses used to be back in the dark ages on Gaia. It’s expensive to have a big pet like the Popalo especially in areas with little rain but the bird is still less expensive and less complicated than owning a ship and more reliable than flying on a kite. There’s two main races of popalo bird, the rainbow Tropicaz popalo and the dawn Viverete popalo. In both these regions the popalo are seen everywhere and the inhabitants treat the birds as part of the family, taking people between the islands with their elevation differences and going between the islands and to the larger continents below each of the two regions.
Popalo birds are omnivores and have been domesticated since ages passed making them more attuned to living with humans. They eat bread as well as mice, fruits and smaller birds. They have fairly strong talons, a nasty beak and wings powerful enough to knock out an adult human but don’t have many other defences. Rainbow popalo birds are more accustomed to wet woodlands and jungles. They eat more varied diets, drink more water and are more social than their dryland counterparts. They take great pride in their colourful feathers and can create big social circles. Dawn popalo on the other hand are lighter and more efficiently use their water and are more territorial and pack oriented.

Griffon

An apex predator with a head and wings reminiscent of a harpy eagle and the body of a lion. They are ferocious avian carnivores that hunt in packs to take down large herd animals like buffalo, or to the detriment of humans, cattle and horses. They are highly intelligent creatures with intricate social networks within and between packs, having special names and shrills to give complex commands. Griffin's lair in high rocky cliff top aeries, building their nests from sticks, leaves, and the bones of their prey. Once griffons establish a territory, they remain in that area until the food supply has been exhausted or if challenged and driven out by other griffons. Even though they have a partial bird-like appearance, griffons are the only of the flying mounts to not lay eggs and females have breasts that produce milk for their young.
As for their contact and use of humans most types of griffons are wild, with the greyish mountain griffon being the most common and are like the wolves of the griffon world. As for the “dog” variants there are the very friendly and high energy golden griffons with yellow and dust coloured feathers. They are usually used by noblemen and officers who can afford to pay the heavy price of food and accommodation that a griffon requires and are given a flying steed to count on. The red tailed griffon is instead bred to be companions for soldiers and hunters, keeping their keen eyes, hearing and hunting instinct that makes for a more demanding and harder to handle companion but an impeccable hunting companion.

Wyvern

Wyverns are bipedal winged scaly creatures with a poisonous spit and a deadly stinger at the end of their tails. They are said to be descendants of the dragons, powerful earth spirits and beings of energy swimming through the sky and earth alike, though there are no official records of dragons and are seen as myths. Wyverns are deadly and strong. The only way to get a wyvern that you can fly is to raise one from birth and even then it takes a skilled trainer to make sure the wyvern does not see you as food. These winged scorpion lizards have their habitats around volcanoes and hot springs. They eat rocks of different kinds as they can draw energy from earth spirits, but they also hunt larger prey alone by striking down and poisoning their targets. Bones are also part of their diets, meaning there is usually nothing left after a wyvern has had their meal.
It’s only in the last 300 years that humans have been able to train and keep wyverns as flying mounts. With the breaking of the world wyverns natural habitats have been largely taken from them making some of them act strange. Some rampage and just kill anything that moves on sight while others have become more calm and tried to adapt to the sand dunes of Sharila, the sky continent that used to be filled with lush forests and volcanoes that became mostly arid desert. A dedicated group of people who believed the wyverns sacred took it upon themselves to become wyvern knights that serve a small kingdom. Wyverns being so deadly and sturdy flyers has become sought after as key military mounts and being a wyvern rider is seen with much respect. With the long lifespan of a healthy wyvern once you have one who accepts you they are your partner for life.

Popalo Bird
Lifespan
25-30 years
Diet
Fruits, Nuts, Rodents, Small Birds
Variants
Rainbow, Dawn
Mounted By
Common Folk, Racers

Griffon
Lifespan
50-60 years
Diet
Horses, Cattle, Antilope
Variants
Wild Mountain, Golden, Red
Mounted By
Nobleman, Officers, Hunters

Wyvern
Lifespan
80-100 years
Diet
Red Meat, Bones, Rocks
Variants
Scorpio, King’s Scale
Mounted By
High Ranking Military, Specialized Riders