iconic flying beasts/steeds

[AFGNCAAP]

This is a "in my campaign" question, but might provoke some fun thought for others. My world is not generally a hugely-varied world of races and monsters where the 500+ beasts from the Monster Manuals and their variants all have little niches. I do have some contesting nations, and I want to have winged beasts as a fairly rare and high-prestige steeds and monstrous warriors.

* The good paladins of the Goddess of War and Fire have an elite group of griffon-riders.
* Our heroes have flown near the Gnoll capital city and been harrassed by Wyverns (some of half-fiendish nature and oversized growth). As such, I really enjoyed seeing the "Elite Wyverns" on the WotC site, which inspired this question.

Now I need another set of opposite groups or so. One nature-focused, one perhaps lawful-evil-war focused, one orcish-ogrish-chaos focused, and one goblin-sorcery-focused. Or heck, what cool flying thing have you made up?

I've avoiding dragons since as far as the players know, there are precisely four dragons that have every been - one was slain in legendary times and one they have briefly seen and fled from (while swearing to come back later...)

anyway, what kind of flying beasties do you enjoy using? That scream airborne danger to you?

john

For the nature-focused group, I'd suggest pegasi, asperi, giant eagles, or giant owls--essentially, any creature that accepts/allows a particular rider.

For the LE-war-focused, how about hippogriffs (for the majority of riders)? Nightmares and manticores would work for the really powerful members.

For the chaos-focused, orcish-ogrish steeds, creatures like pterodactyls or other brutish, natural beasts would work great.

As for the sorcerous-goblin steeds, the yeth hound seems good for high-ranking goblins, while some sort of magically-created winged worg seems ideal.

 

[fnork de sporg]

Hippogriffs, pegasus, nightmare, chimera, manticore, dire bat, spider eater, giant eagle, giant owl. These are all the obvious suspects and have all already been mentioned. They are, however, iconic. Well, maybe not the spider eaters as much, but they kind of are. Oh yeah, and Roc.

Rocs could be very good for the ogres. And perhaps the orcs on Heiracosphinxes?

The Yrthak and Elder Arrowhawks are both very aline looking flying creatures with projectile attacks. Perhaps the Nature types with the Arrrowhawks and the LE with the Yrthak.

The sorcerous goblins might just have a variety of half-fiend or half-dragon creatures large enough to serve as mounts. Those winged worgs might come from such a union. Or how about Ravid? Or yeth hounds, like above, but they only ever come out a night.



Some other ideas; Lammasu, Couatl, Nightwing,

 

[Greybar]

Wow.

Such great ideas. I like fnork and AFGNCAAP's ideas of the goblins creating all sorts of unholy unions for steeds. That would fit my idea for them very well. All of the goblins are of a half-fiendy kind of varient anyway. Don't mock the little goblin in my game!

The evil pegasi is good (thanks PC) - evil twists of things is particularly valid since this world doesn't have the established norm - so a fiendish couatl wouldn't be a "fallen" creature - that's the way they all are!

The giant animals for the nature folk is spot-on. (Thanks Olgar)

And the dinosaur breeds for the orcs/ogres could also work well.

Now the Nightwing (CR14!) is too nasty for general use, but I do know of some people who could use those... *rubs hands together*

Nice and many thanks folks.

john

 

[Shallown]

I have a Half Silver dragon advanced wolf rider in my game. I just advacned a wolf to Large size and then applied the half dragon template which grants wings.

The wolf was a decendent of a silver dragon who helped gaurd the eleven lands and was known to have a Large (both in size and number) wolf pack that protected its lands. So I needed a mount and decided to breed one for the player. The half dragon template can make for some serious nastiness without upsetting the campaign balance too much.

Later

 

[Aeolius]

...what kind of flying beasties do you enjoy using? That scream airborne danger to you?

Flumphs

For transportation, how about filling a massive net with 47 gas spores and making a hot air balloon out of it?

 

[Greybar]

Shades of MTG goblin balloons. I remember liking those back in the day...

john