Not having done much hobby related during the holidays I finished assembling the knights and demi gryphs yesterday. At first I wasnt sure I would include any DG in the army but they do bring something extra to the army so I will use 4 as it looks now, 3 of the normal ones and the Theodore Bruckner one from FG. There is a matter of size difference though, as will be evident when I post some pictures (hopefully soon).
Meanwhile I will add some fluff related to said DG, and also to introduce some of my characters, English not being my first language so bear that in mind.
-”A demi gryph?”
-”Yes yes, demi gryph” the trader exclaimed enthusiastically, making it sound like the most obvious thing in the world, “It’s all the craze in Altdorf you know, surprised you say you do not have any!” “yet” he added with a charming smile.
“Yeees” Kazan said slowly, trying to make it look like he was considering the offer he was actually racking his brain, “what the hell is a demi gryph”? Sure he wasn’t the most avid hunter or explorer, but he had been around, and liked to think he had an at least half decent idea of what could be encountered in the form of huge flightless birdlike creatures in the Empire in general, and its armies in particular!
“So how do you actually come about these beasts?” he asked, trying to sound casual. “Oh, they can be found in many areas of the Empire, mostly around, you know, the edges” the trader explained with a vague gesture across the courtyard. That wasn’t much help Kazan thought, Nordland certainly made up an edge of the realm according to almost all people, backwater according to many, and he surely never seen any of those things. He had even made a brief visit to the great zoo in Altdorf some years back and never seen one, a “normal” Gryphon yes, with wings though.
He decided to consult his council on the matter and turned slightly to his left, and immediately regretted it. Johann Adalbrecht had been the appointed first knight for some time now, a fierce fighter, excellent horseman and a generally imposing figure, and a total moron. Kazan wouldn’t dream of taking any counsel apart from how to best bash someone’s skull in from that man. In any case Johann seemed barely able to communicate at the time, a small trickle of drool was snaking down his chin and his sight firmly fixed on the largest of the beasts. Remembering Johanns earlier requests to acquire all kinds of exotic mounts to improve his fighting ability Kazan wasn’t much surprised.
His eyes next fell on professor Wilhelmus, who made sure to look horribly busy with some advanced schematic of what would no doubt prove to be a deadly apparatus, for all involved. “Well” he mumbled “considering all parameters, such a component of the army, though organic in nature, could surely shift the power balance under certain circumstances in a favorable manner. But that is of course not my field of expertise”. Kazan had long given up hope of trying to make sense of half of what the professor was saying, and always tended to feel a slight headache even trying that.
Next in line was the court wizard Liutbalt, Kazan had always looked upon the whole concept of magic with a healthy distrust, and Liutbalt had not done much to improve on that. Not that he didn’t sometime appreciate having the wizard around, he seemed to have done a fair job in protecting the army from foul sorcery in the past and occasionally even managed to cast some spectacular spell upon the unfortunate enemy, which undoubtedly could help boosting the morale of the men. But Kazan always had the feeling that the wizard was hiding something from him behind that superior smirk, some secret that Kazan would never know or understand. Actually he looked exactly like that now, seemingly not intent on saying anything on the matter.
With a resigned sigh Kazan finally turned to his ecclesiastic duo, he normally referred to them simply as the “brothers”, or “bothers” if they weren’t close. He wasn’t sure whether they actually where brothers by birth or simply of the same religious order, and he didn’t much care.
Kazan was not a very religious man, he understood that his people needed some guidance in their faith, and that he wasn’t the one to give it, but he had always taken an almost perverse pleasure in making the life for the two bald zealots in front of him as hard as he could. If his wizard had been decidedly sparse with advice the same could not be said of the brothers.
They were very clearly against the whole thing and argued their point feverishly, referring to numerous obscure religious text and prophecies with at best vague connection to the matter at hand, assuring Kazan that these chaos tainted monstrosities was sure to bring doom most horrific to them all. Kazan listened long and hard to the two, occasionally nodding or grunting something intelligible. When they seemed to have finally lost steam he turned to the waiting trader.
“I will need four of your most savage specimens!”
“Splendid” the trader said rubbing his hands together, “now, maybe I’m wrong but I haven’t seen a single Hurricanum since I got here”
