vrdantwind | IC Inbox

"Hey, this is Claude! Pretty sure I'm doing this correctly. You can leave me a message here, and I'll get to it as soon as I can. Talk to you soon~."

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From:

vrdantwind

Oh? I don't know if I'd claim to be an expert on pegasi, but I've grown up around wyverns, so I can definitely speak to those from experience. What did you want to know?

[Claude's pleased Geralt is actually willing to talk to him. He's also not planning on bringing up any mentioning of Geralt's presence at fight club to Jaskier. He's sure Geralt heard about it one way or another, but if his name wasn't attached, he doesn't want to piss the man off. And it's not like he knew Geralt was keeping his presence a secret from Jaskier, so he doesn't think he deserves to get resented for letting that cat out of the bag...]

From:

lovelybottom

[He's almost disappointed that Claude isn't as familiar with the pegasi. For purely practical reasons, of course-- Geralt knows about wyvern, but pegasi are a new species.]

Physical characteristics, first. I'm under the assumption that the basic structure is the same, bipedal winged draconid, correct me if that is not the case. Otherwise: size, flight capability, venom potency. Species variations. Behaviors.

[Be thorough, Claude, he's taking notes.]

From:

vrdantwind

No, that's correct. They...definitely don't have venom in my world, though. You've got winged draconids that need venom in your world? You'd think the fangs and claws and wings would be enough...

As for size, they can be anywhere from about 25 to 30 feet from snout to tail tip. Wingspan about the same. Flight capability is pretty good, though ground takeoffs can be a little rough; they're less speedy and maneuverable than pegasi, but much tougher defensively. All wyverns seem to belong to just one species, but you get some distinct regional variants at times - most wyverns bred in captivity are pretty interchangeable with each other, though. You mostly only se the variants in the wild populations. They're not domesticated, but they're not too hard to tame when they're raised from eggs. In some countries, selective breeding for certain rare colors of wyvern happens, which is probably the biggest variation you'll see among tame wyverns.

In terms of behaviors, they're surprisingly laid-back when raised from eggs. Much more so than pegasi, which can be...'high-strung' is an understatement. It's a mistake to think of pegasi as horses with wings - they're more like horse-sized geese with hooves. Which should tell you everything anyone would ever want to know about them, honestly. But anyway...wyverns in the wild behave a bit like hawks, or owls. They fly around, spot prey from above, then drop on it, ideally before their prey even realizes they're there. They don't tend to hunt things much smaller than gazelles. They're pretty patient in their approaches; they know how to exploit things like blind spots and the position of the sun to make them harder to see. They're probably more intelligent than you'd expect from a big lizard, maybe comparable to a horse.

You mostly find them in warmer regions of the world, at least the wild ones. Tame wyverns have spread even to colder countries, but you don't find much in the way of wild populations there; without human care and shelter, it's hard for them to stay warm enough to stay active enough to support themselves.

Supposedly wyverns used to hunt humans, but it's been ages since then. They're weak to magic, and their wings are pretty vulnerable to arrows, so once humans developed those enough to defend ourselves, we stopped being prey they really wanted to risk themselves against. Humans are probably the biggest threat to wyverns, as far as that goes...pegasi mob them sometimes, but they have a hard time doing any real damage to wyverns. It's usually just territorial behavior.

From:

lovelybottom

Wyvern have venom glands in their mouths and barbed stingers on their tails. Usually fatal for humans, painful for witchers.

[Maybe wyvern don't really need venom when they have perfectly serviceable claws and teeth, but it's certainly useful for them. And nature doesn't really take fairness into account when deciding what creatures are best fit to survive, anyway.]

[Geralt takes meticulous notes of everything that Claude offers, and surprise! He's found the one topic that actually gets Geralt talking. Or texting, anyway, in this case.]

They have no such range limitations, to my knowledge. Draconids can be found as far north as Kaedwen, and survive the winter by going into dormancy. Wild behaviors otherwise seem comparable. Attacks directly on humans are rare, but the bolder ones will take livestock or harass caravans. Hunter will occasionally stumble on a nest. That's usually when I get a contract.

[If humans didn't encroach on wyvern territory and hunt the forests out of all their large prey, of course, there wouldn't be these kinds of encounters. Wyvern would generally be content to avoid human settlements entirely, unless driven to them by need. But no one is interested in hearing about nature conservation from a witcher.]

Are wyvern kept in groups or do they become territorial in close quarters? Are they primarily in use as war mounts?

From:

vrdantwind

They have broad ranges where I'm from, and are somewhat territorial in that they don't tend to live in groups. They don't come too much into conflict if territories overlap unless food is scarce, though.

Their primary use is mounted battle, yes, although obviously people use them for things like travel and carrying messages as well. Naturally the prevalence of what they're used for depends on, say, how much conflict a region is experiencing - they can be and are put to more peaceful use in peaceful times.

Tamed wyverns are considered extremely valuable, even more so than horses, simply because of how versatile a flying mount can be. That said, they're also considerably more resource-heavy to keep, and have a much more intensive training process, than either horses or pegasi. You usually find some wyvern-riders in any army or militia, but there aren't many places in the world so well provided for that they can maintain a lot of wyverns at once. Most militias will rarely have more than half a dozen for an entire noble's territory, and as for a country's army, there may only be a single company of them.

From:

lovelybottom

Resource-heavy. You've a talent for understatement. The feeding requirements alone for a creature of that size would be immense, to say nothing of space and other specialized care. You mentioned selective breeding, so there must also be facilities for incubating the eggs and raising the hatchlings until they're grown enough to be safely integrated. I doubt you know the particulars of hatching? I know of no successful attempts, nor of anyone who has observed it in the wild. A firsthand account would be useful.

From:

vrdantwind

They're certainly harder to provide for than horses, but not quite as much as your description would make it sound. They have slow metabolisms. They need to eat a lot, but certainly less frequently than horses do. A wyvern can go weeks between feedings.

That said...well, the truth is there's only one type of selective breeding I know of, and it's on a very limited scale. There's a certain country in my world where a very rare and specific color of wyvern is reserved for royalty. So there's rarely more than two or three at a time in existence. It's not what you'd call an extensive breeding program. Definitely not comparable to the way people breed horses.

As for hatching, I don't know many particulars. My wyvern was hatched shortly after I myself was born, so I wasn't really in a position to take notes. But successful integration, as you put it, isn't really a thing - at least, you make it sound like hatchlings are raised to be integrated with older wyverns. But hatchlings are raised very closely with humans as part of the taming and acclimation process, and it's a process that can take a decade or more. Usually it's either the person to whom the wyvern belongs - where I'm from, it's not at all uncommon for a person and their wyvern to grow up together, and that's what happened with mine - but for mounts meant for more general use than personal ownership, there are people who specialize in that rearing process. It's important for wyverns to develop that strong bonds with humans.

Besides, as I understand, they're not particularly social or nurturing with each other in the wild, so they don't exactly miss the company of their own kind.

From:

lovelybottom

I am making assumptions. I had assumed that wyvern would be kept in a centralized facility, even if there aren't many of them in an army. In a similar manner to horses in a stable or soldiers in barracks. (A vivarium? Aviary?) Hence a need for some socialization, so that they don't become hostile to other members of their own division. It seems as though it would be difficult logistically for each individual wyvern to be kept with its rider, especially when they reach maturity.

If the breeding program is limited solely to these royal wyvern, are the rest simply sourced from the wild? That's an unenviable job. Even if they aren't social, I've yet to meet a brooding female that won't defend her clutch.

From:

vrdantwind

In my own experience, wyverns tend to be kept in stables not too unlike horses...although the boxes are obviously a lot bigger. The stables tend to be kept warmer than a horse stable, as well. Wyverns don't wear blankets nearly as well, both because their scales are more like large, overlapping plates and they're kind of pointy at the joints, plus the obvious matter of the wings. They take a lot less regular exercise than horses, too; as long as they're well-fed, they're generally happy to relax. Slower metabolisms again. They definitely don't get frisky or restless like horses do. And of course, there's a big difference in maintenance and feeding between a wyvern that isn't being actively flown much and one that is. It's one of the things that makes maintaining wyverns as part of a standing army viable in the long term.

So, since they're kept in relatively close quarters, like horses are, I guess you could say they get accustomed to the presence of other wyverns by proximity.

Ah, I think I might've explained myself badly. I meant that breeding for special colors of wyvern is the only effort to breed for anything specific in wyverns that I'm really aware of. But we do breed wyverns in captivity over trying to hunt down wild clutches or, even worse, trying to tame wyverns from the wild. That said, we really only breed them for up and coming wyvern riders 0 which is to say, kids who are going to be riders or soldiers. Wyverns take long enough to come for maturity that there's no point giving a young wyvern to an adult; they need to either be at maturity already, or come to it at about the same time as their rider.

One of the bigger challenges of wyvern riders in war is finding new wyverns for riders who lose their mounts, or new riders for wyverns who've lost their riders. Obviously those problems seem to solve themselves - just pair them up - but both rider and wyvern tend to develop pretty strong bonds with their particular mount. It's tough on both sides to adjust to a new partner. Some riderless wyverns have to be released because they won't accept any other rider; fortunately, even tame wyverns seem to take back to the wild life pretty quickly. I guess it's because they're not really fully domesticated. Humans tend to adjust to such losses better, but I've heard of men with big personalities becoming withdrawn for years because of a lost wyvern partner. It's obviously the worst with partners like myself and my own wyvern, who were raised together.

Older teenagers and adults who are paired with stable-raised wyverns manage those losses better, which is why you mostly see stable-raised wyverns among the rank and file of armies, where you expect to see those losses incurred more regularly. It's really only high-ranking military families, nobility, or those who maintain wyverns for travel and recreation that raise their own wyverns - and not even all of them do. You get much smarter, more responsive, more loyal mounts that way - but it's a big time and effort investment, and not everyone who reasonably make it necessarily wants to.

From:

lovelybottom

Interesting. I would not have anticipated that wyvern would bond so closely with humans, even if raised together since hatching, considering their solitary natures. Though that may very well be a trait that was selected for in the breeding process, whether intentionally or not.

[In the margins of his notes, Geralt writes something down that's a separate observation from the things that Claude has been telling him: humans will pack bond with anything. It is a remarkable and persistent trait of humanity, the desire for companionship from creatures that, by all rights, should want nothing to do with them. They did it with wolves, and apparently in Claude's universe, with fucking wyvern.]

[The lifespan of a wyvern could be quite long; enough so that a man could have one of them for his whole life, from cradle to grave. Geralt has dealt with the loss of his mounts before, horses that served him well and had been more a friend to him than most other creatures, and they only lived a few short decades. Those farewells were difficult, even though each Roach only lived a fraction of Geralt's life. A companion that had lived the entirety of it...]

You were raised with your wyvern from a young age. What is its name?

From:

vrdantwind

Entirely possible. I've heard that Almyra was the first country to truly tame them, and they have the longest history of wyvern-riding being a major aspect of their culture, so presumably they'd be the ones to have records of what the very first tamed wyverns were like...but they're also a country with a strong oral tradition. Such records likely wouldn't exist in written form - or, if they did, they were probably written up centuries after the actual events by scholars concerned with more material records, and who knows what changes or omissions to that knowledge might have occurred before it was ever committed to paper.

[Claude isn't quite sure how much he wants to tell Geralt about himself, including the fact that he himself is Almyran. Not necessarily because he thinks Geralt would - or could - use that information against him, but because Claude has some friends he hasn't really...told the truth about himself yet. He doesn't want a careless word from someone who doesn't know who has or hasn't been told to reach their ears.

Not that Geralt really lets many words at all past his lips, careless or otherwise...but the best guard for a secret is one's own self. If Claude controls the information, he doesn't have to worry about such things at all.]

His name is Mori. It means 'horse' in an ancient language. Which, well...I named my horse Wyvern. I thought it was funny back when I was a kid...okay, I admit, it's still funny. Especially the looks on people's faces when I tell them that.

From:

lovelybottom

I have known of some oral traditions to be remarkably well preserved through generations, that's a discussion you'd likely prefer to have with the bard. It is something of his wheelhouse.

[When talking about stories and songs that get passed down from person to person, it's probably best to consult with the person whose literal job it is to make said stories and songs. Jaskier would have studied this kind of thing at Oxenfurt, though Geralt has no idea how much of it he retained; the witcher is aware that Jaskier spent, for instance, his geography courses with a demijohn of vodka hidden behind the textbook. And this is why he doesn't consult Jaskier for directions.]

[Claude named his horse Wyvern and his wyvern Horse. Geralt, a man who has named every single horse he's owned after a fish, finds this amusing.]

One of my brothers has named all of his horses Horse. All of mine are named after a fish. I would have little room to criticize your naming conventions.

From:

vrdantwind

Hah! Your brother sounds less than inventive...or perhaps scared of getting too attached to his mount. But what about your horses? Can I ask why a fish?