Gryphon-Rider of Riphaea (TROIKA! Background & Creature)

According to Pliny the Elder, savage gryphons and a tribe of one-eyed Scythians battle endlessly over gold in the mountains of Hyperborea.

Also according to Pliny the Elder, it's a good idea to sail one's fleet into the toxic fume cloud of an erupting volcano while suffering from a chronic respiratory condition. So, grain of salt and all that.

But there is a kernel of truth to the stories reported by Pliny and others. Once upon the time, the nations of Grypes and Arimaspoi did fight a long, endemic war against each other. A tribe of Scythians was pushed into the Riphaean Mountains by their belligerent neighbors, as so often occurs in nomadic politics. That cold, hard land was unsuited for their traditional equestrian lifestyle, but it soon revealed to them an alternate source of wealth; gold. The mountains were struck through with gold deposits, as well as many agates, though those were often overlooked.

Though the gold was plentiful, it was not free for the taking; it all laid within the territory of the endemic gryphons, who reacted defensively at the despoliation of their land and the disturbing of their nests. Many Scythians were mauled, and many gryphons were downed by javelins and arrows. Yet little gold was earned, and few interlopers were driven away for long. The two peoples settled into a long, ugly stalemate.

This continued until the younger generation looked upon the evils they had inherited from their forebears and decided "no more".

A camp of wounded veterans, bereaved families, and the occasional opportunist selected as their leader a princeling named Arimaspos. They overthrew his hidebound, warlike father and installed him on the throne of gold, bronze, and gryphon bones from which one last decree would ever be issued before it was dismantled; make amends.

Arimaspos led a delegation into the Riphaeans, where after much peril and precarity they came face-to-face with the Clutch Mother, eldest and wisest of the surviving gryphons. She listened to their petition for peace and considered it at length, surrounded by her bristling and wary children. Then, she leaned forward and plucked Arimaspos' eye right out of its socket, sucking down and devouring it in one lightning-fast snap.

After a tense, uncertain moment, both sides let out a cheer of relief that rang out across the mountains. For the Clutch Mother had been promised his eye as part of the treaty, his blood her signature. His people had done the first harm by invading their home, after all. It is said that he smiled when it happened, through all the screaming and crying. The Clutch Mother in her great magnanimity even permitted him to ride upon her back down to his people, woozy from blood loss as he was.

In return for his eye and the friendship of his people, the gryphons would permit the newly-dubbed Arimaspians to settle and live in the Riphaean lowlands. Again in turn, the Arismaspians would defend the gryphons and their nesting grounds from all other humans who would try to ransack them for their riches. Never again would a pickaxe fall upon Riphaea.

Finally, the compact made between Arismaspos and the Clutch Mother would be renewed with every generation.

Somewhere along the line there, more and more people came to have their eyes plucked out as a demonstration of friendship, emulating the bond between chieftain and paramount gryphon. From those grizzly dainties emerged a radical new class of people who've completed the bridge between their cultures: the gryphon-riders.

Finial: Apollo on Griffin, 4th Century BCE, Scythian, Bronze.
Found at the Slonovskaya Bliznitsa kurgan archaeological site,
Housed in the State Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg.

You carried an agate decoy egg to your companion's home roost, symbolically filling the place you've taken them from and vowing to return them home one day. They gazed deep into your eye, waiting patiently for the last vestiges of fear and hesitation to dissipate from it. You nodded and stroked their plumage, and then that razor-sharp beak descended.

Now you are as one, patrolling the Riphaean skies together in a lethal fusion of bronze and feathers. With your good eye and strong bow-arm you make pincushions of threats from afar, and with beak and claws your beloved eye-bearer makes short work of any who would dare get close.

Possessions

• One Eye (luckily it's your best one)
• Four-Bolstered Gryphon Saddle
• Composite Bow and 2d6 Poison-Tipped Arrows
• Hemp-rope Lasso

Advanced Skills

3 Bow Fighting

3 Ride
2 Awareness
2 Language - Gryphon
1 Tracking

Special

You are an accomplished gryphon-rider with a reasonably loyal companion. So long as a gryphon is willing to bear you, you can loose an arrow from midair without penalty and perform all manner of aerial stunts without risk of falling out of your saddle or succumbing to altitude sickness. All other risks from using the Ride skill are still fair game, however.

Additionally, you lack binocular vision. You've been living without it long enough that it doesn't affect depth perception beyond 5 feet or so, though.

Riphaean Gryphon

Skill 13
Stamina 16
Initiative 4
Armour 1
Damage as Modest Beast

Workhorse-sized amalgamations of lion and eagle who make their home in the cold north beyond the steppe. They have a reputation as territorial people, being unwilling to let others mine their mountains for gold. They peck chunks of agate into egg-shaped decoys with their diamond-hard beaks and place them in their nests to deceive ovivores, leading to the myth that their eggs are actually chalcedonous.

Contrary to popular belief, gryphons don't actually like human eyes all that much. They enjoy a diet of reptiles, smaller winged creatures like birds, certain fruits and nuts, and occasionally horseflesh.

Special

If a Riphaean gryphon strikes the same target twice in one Round it attempts to peck out their eye. They must Test their Luck (or Skill for NPCs) or lose one eye. Needless to say, failing the Test twice results in complete blindness.

MEIN
1	Napping
2	Hungry
3	Playful
4	Regal
5	Defensive
6	Preening