I considered throwing these in with Western Dragons in Skin Deep, but nah it’s more fun if they’re their own thing. Don’t call them dragons, they don’t like that.
I considered throwing these in with Western Dragons in Skin Deep, but nah it’s more fun if they’re their own thing. Don’t call them dragons, they don’t like that.
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Given the name, my head went to them being a type of Chinese Dragon, but they originate from Mesopotamia, most notably Babylon.
Funny coincidence, given that Mushu in Mulan was apparently named after a traditional Chinise dish.
Go to China/Japan every single Avalon has one of these guarding the doors. They aren’t even disguised Most people think they are statues.
Granted that would be one way to show culture differences. Having them be known but hidden in the world in those two places. Mostly to keep them safe.
Like imagine A chinese village out in the middle of nowhere that has several mythics and humans just chilling. they don’t even try to hide unless rumors of western people in the area. then its just cover the river dragon with twigs and hope.
Or just about any ‘remote’ region that’s been relatively untouched by the prejudices. Course, it would be for the ones seen as ‘benevolent’.
I mean, I don’t see them accepting a LongZhi.
Fu dogs on the other hand…
Dishonor on you! Dishonor on your cow!
Looks a bit like a komodo dragon or some real big lizard.
Having Avalons in other parts of the world raises the question of how far could one travel before most of the “mythicals” don’t have medallions?
As I understand it, there are only medallions for “most” of the European mytholos. In the places that were colonies or trade partners of one European country or another, there are large numbers of Euro-mytholos alongside native species that rarely have medallions. (Many, but not all, of the natives are shape-changers or illusionists.) Ratios will vary wildly from place to place, of course.
Also parts of Africa and the middle east (Egyptian sphinxes and all that.)
Mushussu! Mushussu! I love mushussu so much I’m so glad they escaped the dragon purge.
gryphon suggestion – Hawai’i monk seal and Laysan albatross !
I never would’ve thought that the construction work would prompt withdrawal symptoms. :-P
(Gee, who wrote that text? “The dark-blue wall surfaces are adorned with depictions of lions, bulls and dragons” booo!! ;-)
(Ah yes, I forgot that ever since the redesign of this website, hyperlinks in the comments remain effectively invisible … please see https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/vorderasiatisches-museum/collection-research/about-the-collection/ .)
I really love all those sneak-peaks at different creatures from around the world and also all those gryphons!
Also, I collected some thoughts over the time this Q&A is now going…
If a BIG gryphon mates with a very small one, both in human form, could there be children? Or wouldn’t it work because in thier natural form they are way too different in size?
Also, so far the gryphon suggestions where relatively fitting for each other, like smol birb + smol mammal or both from a smiliar environment. But what would happen if two very different get mixed? Like a little humming bird with a polar bear or an emperor penguin with a lion?
The RQ gryphons are all non-canon so you won’t actually encounter a scenario of mismatched breeding.
The medallion circumvent any genetic compatibility issues, so they could easily have human-looking kids, but fullform births or eggs might be a bit weird. Like hatchlings being really tiny or oversized if the kid end up not being the mom’s species, possibly with viability issues. So it might be safest to just be in human disguise for the pregnancy. Really small gryphons aren’t sapient anyway, so no medallions.
Hm, now I’m wondering if there’s genetic shuffling going on when uncommon or pygmy gryphons have kids with one another. Like could a lynx/kite and a serval/honeybuzzard produce lynx/honeybuzzards and serval/kites, or just their own combos?
I just had a thought. Theres those big trash gyres. it turns out there less trash in them than their should be. do we think that might be some aquatic mythical creatures doing that?
(in real life they think it might be new bacterias evolving to digets them)
Sooooo… You’ve already shown that this topia has cryptids in it; how about a cryptid that’s common on near-Sasquatch levels, your average lizardman? They’re EVERYWHERE in urban & rural mythology– gotta have some love for these working-class reptiles! All these fancy scaled types with their frufru godlike myths and draconic spine-ridges must consider them background noise– are they part of this world?
If this Muushuu isn’t a dragon, what IS their fursona?