There's plenty of fantasy settings with humans riding on gryphons so what other creature would you like human faction to have as a flying mount? I feel like gryphons became the default flying monster in fantasy games, the safest option for humans.
>>96872604>gryphons >safest Anon, they giant massive birds that can tear you to shreds the second you give them the wrong look but I guess it depends on the setting at the end of the day but I'm pretty sure a pegasus is more safer for your average human to fly
Flying fish are cool.
>>96872604How many animals do humans ride across all of Earth? Even in a fantasy world, I'd be surprised to see more than two species of flying mounts, and as a fact, even more exist in most games if you go looking.
>>96872604The key thing to establish first is what flying mounts even CAN be domesticated? Not every animal can be.Essentially, any animal that is small enough to effortlessly overpower can be effectively domesticated against its will via confinement and breeding. It takes a long time and many generations to show benefits, but because you can exert total control over them you can force the issue.But larger animals, like a mount would need to be, are a different story. You are entirely dependent on those creatures having an existing social structure that you can co-opt for your own gain. This is why HORSES could be domesticated (they have a herd structure with a strict hierarchy, so long as you can tame the boss mare the rest of the herd will just naturally follow her) but ZEBRAS cannot be domesticated despite looking like pallet-swapped horses. Why? Because Zebras don't have a herd structure. There is no hierarchy to co-opt, no Zebra is out for anyone but themselves. So, what flying animals have a clear social structure? What would it take to co-opt that structure? Thats your starting point. The logistics of actually doing so are your next big hurdle (there's a reason we never domesticated Bison, no way to keep them penned up) but without the social element first there is no point trying.
>>96873958So, Gyphons being mostly lion are probably a bad fit for domestication, but a Hippogriff is probably doable? Pegasus being mostly horse should be fine, though taming them in the first place when they can fly and you can't is going to be a problem for anything on this list.
>>96873958So Dragons or Wyverns are a no go likely. Didn't know that about horses, neat.
>>96873958Adding to clarify: taming and domesticating are not the same. Making a wolf your mostly-kinda-pet is taming, turning wolves into dogs is domestication.>>96874006Lions have a herd/pack structure. On the other hand, keeping enough large predators around for long enough to run a breeding program is going to be very, very costly in terms of food. And that's just lions, a gryphon large enough to carry a rider through the air is going to eat absolutely preposterous amounts, and I can't see the addition of eagle bits to a lion making for a less meat-based diet. (Of course, this issue is probably going to be a big thing for most candidate monsters here and may thus perhaps have to be ignored for the sake of the fantasy.) Cows, horses and pegasi have a major advantage here in that they eat stuff we can't eat, and so you won't be throwing a village's worth of human food at one to keep it alive. (The issues of matching the very low energy density of grass and the heavy weight intestines necessary to orderly digest it with the extreme energy requirements of flight and the low weight you want for that are perhaps best ignored. It isn't for nothing that canada geese shit as copiously as they do.)
>>96874014Wyverns are probably a no-go, I think they are generally treated as just mindless animals and given their nature its not likely to be friendly. Dragons that are intelligent enough to communicate with are probably something that you can make a deal with, but you didn't domesticate that dragon. It is letting you ride it because you can have contract or a friendship or something, you have to treat it as an equal not something you own.
>>96874141All valid points. Lions obviously have a pack structure, but I'm not sure its one that lends itself well to co-opting. Lions are dicks.Oddly enough, Tigers are surprisingly friendly and Cheetah are absolute sweethearts. Cheetahs are such social animals that they have deep anxiety if you try to raise one alone in a zoo, to the point that they have to give them a dog to live with so they have a buddy.
>>96874156I'd have to think of a service in my world where you can purchase a dragon to ride.>Extra cost for battling>Greater Wyrms running the show>Trade wars between dragon types
>>96874197> Blackskull the Dread descends from the skies in a rush of wind and smoke. He drops to the ground with a heavy crash, and he screams fire at the sky in a jet of flame to announce his presence. > The dragon lowers his head and glowers at the crowd with eyes that burn like embers. > "Who among you," he speaks with a voice like a rockslide "called for an Uber?"
>>96874229I'm more thinking:>"Who among you will pay me the most to kill the others?"
>flying animal>clear social hierarchy>easy to breed and maintain>can be guaranteed to rest at a specific location>not-strictly carnivorousGiant Geese.
>>96873677>How many animals do humans ride across all of Earth?Horse, mule, donkey, reindeer, cattle, water buffalo, yak, elephant, llama, and camel are the ones that have seen serious, consistent use. The Soviets tried moose cavalry but didn't get all the kinks worked out before the Second World War. Ostrich riding is a way that some people choose to spend an afternoon.
>>96875139>>not-strictly carnivorousGeese are assholes. If they got big enough, they would absolutely adopt carnivorous diets out of pure spite.
>>96872604I use dinosaurs
>>96873958No, the thing to establish is which animals are sick as fuck and would be fun to have in a game
>>96874014no they aren't, you can do whatever you want
>>96872604Why do you want other flying creatures? gryphons are great.
>>96875465dies to removal
>>96875489
lol
>>96872604>>96873958Giant Pidgeons would fit, considerig that Pidgeons are already domesticated breed of bird.Though depending on how you do it, they may not be freely controllable and you'd just be able to tag along on specific routes like certain messages.I could see Crows working as well given their level of intelligence, ability to learn and their swarm structure.
>>96873958>no way to keep Bison penned in>he doesn’t know that Great Plains niggas be ranching Bison on the regularFrankly the meat is just worse than beef, cows are way gentler, and you need way stronger fencing than a single line of barbed wire, that’s why it’s not more widespread.
>>96875839That image is so rad.
>>96877912>considerig that Pidgeons are already domesticated breed of bird.Huh. Now THAT raises an interesting possibility... what if the flying mounts sidestep the domestication limitations by being artificial creatures in the first place?Aka, instead of capturing and taming a powerful and dangerous wild animal you have to figure out how to control, instead make their origin that they are a magical/alchemical chimera using animals we have already domesticated as a base so that the resulting creature is naturally predisposed to us already. Aka, you make a pegasus by making a pigeon-horse. Poor thing is probably dumb as a box of rocks, but its a mount that can fly.
>>96877912The idea of having carts carry giant passenger pidgeons out to their starting points amuses me somewhat.
>>96878156That or domesticating an animal and then breeding it with magical help to grow it to a size you can ride?
>>96878012Rad wizards are the best, kinda make me wish these sort of wizards were more common these days
>>96873488Are rays fish?
>>96872604I lean more towards pegasus for humans, then hippogryphs and I think 3rd gryphons for humans.Probably partly because I was into 2 franchises who seemingly independently tied gryphons to dwarves, but also because there's more of a horse connection with pegasus and hippogryphs.
>>96877912>Giant Pidgeons>Basically, giant flying rats.Sure, it fills the entire kingdom with bird poop.
>>96872604>the safest option for humans.If you're smaller than a bird, you're fair game to them. Now imagine for a lion-eagle the size of an elephant. Possible? yes. Safe? Not even if docile.
>>96884597As opposed to Horses who never leave poops everywhere.
What is the optimal intelligence level for a flying mount?
>>96874014If you go by the idea that they're related to crocodiles, it might be possible to tame them to some degree. Crocodilians can form bonds with members of other species, such as the birds that clean their teeth and have pattern recognition ability on par with a dog. It's possible, though difficult, for humans to teach them tricks. They're not hierarchical the way dogs are, though. They'll sometimes cooperate to kill large prey, but they're just as likely to eat each other if they get too hungry. What this says to me is that dragons might be trainable as something akin to a flying donkey, comfortable enough around humans to give rides and do other tasks as long as they keep getting food and grooming out of it, but too stubborn to be suitable as a front line cavalry mount risking their lives just because their owners tell them.
>>96885861Crocodile riding? Sweet. I might do that for my next BBEG or at least his cronies.
>>96873958>The key thing to establish first is what flying mounts even CAN be domesticated? Not every animal can be.Pretty sure Belayev showed pretty definitively you can select for pretty much any trait you want, contingent on being able to build a captive breeding population (see his failure with river otters, where this was cited as the reason to discontinue the efforts).Any animal where you can build a stable, captive breeding population can be domesticated. Whether it is worth doing so is a different question. If someone TAMED any flying mount and was able to use it in battle effectively, there is now sufficient motivation to try a breeding program for that mount. If you're worldbuilding and want flying mounts, you have presupposed it is/was worthwhile, and so yes you can have domesticated flying mounts.
>>96884245Yes, cartilage fish. So technically not the same type of fish as most other fish (bone fish), but then again, so are sharks. Technically, the majority of fish are more closely related to whales than to sharks.
>>96875839The DMPC>>96878012The DM's self-insert villain>>96878235The DM's girlfriend's character
>>96874196>>96874141>>96874006>>96873958This seems like a strong argument for a variant gryphon candidate that's Lion/Corvid instead of Lion/Eagle.
>>96874006No, gryphons are a perfectly fine fit. They have whatever properties you imagine them to have.
A domesticated Gryphon would be a housecat/pidgeon combo, rather than a lion/eagle combo.
>>96887697Unless, of course, you imagine it as being something else.
Wheres that pic of the elderly/featherless griffonI know one of you has it
>>96874196>Cheetahs are such social animals that they have deep anxiety if you try to raise one alone in a zoo, to the point that they have to give them a dog to live with so they have a buddy.I believe that some African cultures (Egypt has ancient depictions of "pet" cheetahs) even managed to partially domesticate them as hunting animals. The issue with them is that their courting behaviors require a massive amount of space.
>>96872604Dragons.
>>96889266Honestly, Cheetahs would probably be better off getting domesticated. They're constantly getting outcompeted and even outright attacked by lions and other large predators, their population has hugely bottlenecked more than once and the general concensus seems to be that they're one of those species like pandas that would be on the road to extinction in the foreseeable future even without humans messing up the environment.
>>96873958For those who aren't familiar with it, it is *generally* agreed that there are 6 criteria for domestication of an animal. These are:1) the animal must be able to survive on food readily available to human society. Table scraps, vermin and local plants are fine. Whole wild animals and specific rare plants are not. In other words, the animal must not be a picky eater, because otherwise it becomes too burdensome to raise in quantity. 2) The animal must breed in captivity. If it won't breed, then you can't selectively breed it to improve the usefulness of its offspring, and thus it can never be domesticated, only tamed on an individual animal basis. This is a very common problem, because many animals are strongly territorial, and breeding behavior that revolves around territorial instincts rarely play well with captivity.3) The animal must reach adolescence quickly. Animals that mature slowly are too expensive to take care of before they become useful, and are too difficult to selectively breed when it takes a large chunk of an adult human's life to breed a single generation.4) The animal must be docile by nature. Animals that lash out unpredictably against perceived threats are too dangerous to raise long term. In other words, it must be possible to raise generations of animals without most of the animal rearers being severely injured or dying in the process.5) the animal must not be excessively skittish and flight prone. An animal that escapes captivity or injures itself in the process of trying every time it is frightened cannot be raised in captivity.6) The animal must conform to a social hierarchy dominated by strong leadership. Domesticated animals need to be compelled to behave in a way useful to their rearers, and the only way to do this against the animal's normal behavior is to compel them via exploiting their social instincts, and this requires useful social instincts to exploit.1/2
>>968893652/2Note that these criteria are specifically for a pre-modern human society with no magic or unusual technology. Pre-modern humans don't have the spare resources to spend generations breeding animals that are uncooperative for one reason and another, and they lack the knowledge or technology to get around those problems. Some or all of these caveats may not apply to a fantasy society, and different civilizations may have more or less problems with some of those 6 criteria. A civilization of long lived beings may have much less of a problem raising an animal that grows slowly and lives an equally long life. A setting with mind affecting magic may have domesticated creatures with undesirable behavior that are simply suppressed or altered via magic. A race which has a very different diet or natural habitat to normal humans may find it inconvenient to raise some animals but easier to raise others. Oh, and a world where labor is very efficient, like a modern industrial civilization or any fantasy equivalent, can spare far more effort and expertise for domestication projects that are challenging or aren't immediately useful.>>96889333Cheetahs run long distances as part of their mating courtships and thus fail criteria 2 (breed in captivity). Which is a shame because Cheetahs are otherwise very good domestication candidates.>>96887697Ironically, the cat part of that housecat/pidgeon gryphon might prove to the bigger part of the problem. It is debatable whether housecats are domesticated at all, since they largely just choose to hang around humans and can't be readily compelled to behave in a useful way that they aren't already predisposed to (as any cat owner can attest to). That said, they might still be useful mousers, just like housecats are, regardless of whether this counts as true domestication.
>>96872604...why do you keep specifying "humans?" What exactly are you, OP?
Double cheeked up Dragonhawks
