I'd have to pick gryphons, for a variety of reasons:

  • Lions are badass, eagles are badass, making gryphons badass squared
  • Historically associated with strength and protection
  • They're often portrayed as having human-level intelligence and how fucking cool would it be to talk to one
  • They would give the absolute best cuddles and you cannot convince me otherwise
  • a_little_red_rat [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 days ago

    I'm gonna sound basic, but dragons. Seems like almost all cultures have come up with their own ideas of dragons, from vile monsters to wise sages. Often with fantastical powers, like fire breathing and the like.

    I especially like stories with dragons as villains, but working off some humanly inscrutable motivation, just intelligent, powerful beings seeing us as ants.

    Also, dragon-adjacent creatures like wyverns, wyrms, drakes and others, there's a lot of diversity in dragon folklore.