First Blog & Info Dump · 8:19pm Jan 3rd, 2013
Whelp, figured I'd do a bit of an info dump for chapter three on some of the stuff in it and it’s looking like chapter 3 is going to be the largest chapter yet. So far I’ve finished three scenes and have started on the fourth, but I haven’t even hit the three year time skip yet, which will happen after the fifth scene. Anyway, I’m going to go ahead and give a description of griffon cities and a basic understanding of gender roles and how a flock works in this, the color ranking will be explained in the chapter three, but I’ll add a little bit here too (along with the fact that I’m using the modern RGB color wheel).
All griffon cities are built in mountainous areas so a natural defensive structure can be carved from the rock around it. I know it sounds strange, but the cities are all designed with the next hundred years of population growth in mind (which is another thing that is also planned), so they rarely have an issues with space. It also helps that buildings are made in the style of tall, wide pillars from the remnants of the mountain the city was mined from and can also be added to if the need arises (basically build up, not out). These pillars are in 24 foot tall sections divided into 2 floors, each one hollowed out, inscribed with runes to lighten them (among other things), and stained a rank color on the exterior. They are then lifted into place, sealed onto the section below, and then a runed, like-colored, spiral staircase is mounted on the outside. Every time a piece is added, the lower sections are reinforced with runes, these runes are then touched up by assigned artisans yearly.
From above these cities tend to look like colorful, dotted targets, in a three layer ring design (except for the capitol which is four rings), from tallest to shortest, the hues of color transition outward from the center. Except for the capitol, the center pillar is the color of the highest rank by what the city was made for. For example, If it’s an artisan city, the center pillar will be orange, then change to yellow, then to chartreuse, then to green.
When it comes to nesting, or how living quarters work, it’s a little hard to explain. Think mildly territorial groups of colors, whose main goal is the wellbeing of the entire flock. Basically, even though they are in competition with each other (for mates, status, or whatever), they will help one another, no matter what color a griffon’s feathers are. Unfortunately, that hospitality only extends for those in the flock, so if an unknown being flew into a griffon city, they would pretty much be ignored, unless a griffon thought they were useful, like if they were selling wares. I'll move on to gender roles at point.
I’m stating it here, Gilda is weird, she doesn’t act like most female griffons, but don’t take that the wrong way. This isn’t a patriarchy nor is it a matriarchy, all genders, no matter sexuality, are equal. It doesn’t help the flock for either gender to be higher than one another, and the same goes for all the other social problems humans tend to have, but those issues will be briefly touched on in the story. Now, back to gender roles, males and females are found in all of the lower color ranks, mostly in the first two ranks, but there are areas that they prefer more than others.
Females tend to prefer working in the areas of administration but not so much the military, which is the opposite for males who prefer the military but not administration. Both genders are nearly equal in the area of artisans. Now the reason why the genders prefer what they do is by how they live. Males, mostly unmated ones, live in the clouds above these cities where the majority of military exercises are held, while unmated females live near or on the ground, where they are exposed to more political atmospheres. Now, there are exceptions to every rule, it’s only in the higher ranks (which are controlled and only change in the event of succeeding, retirement, and/or death), that are highly likely to be only of one gender (high ranking artisans are the only area where it fluctuates regularly).
Okay, I think that wraps it up for now, if there are any questions (or I screwed up some wording (please tell me!)), ask away and I’ll answer as best I can. I’m hoping to have chapter three out sometime this weekend, and oh gosh, I hope I pulled off the character dialogue.
Sorry about it being a wall of text, that's kinda the reason I can't put it all in the story.
Oh and, TL;DR: they be crazy birds, with birds ways and bird brains, oh, the colors!
Sooooooooooooo... the gryphons are Vikings? Or Nordic druids?
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If I had to match them up to a human society, they would've been Viking-like in the past but still are to a certain respect. Unfortunately, since there really isn't any actual proper data on Vikings (other than hearsay), I've basically made junk up. It's really only the runes (and I would use Viking runes to descried them), and how griffons used to be nomadic, and still are a bit, the females tend to stay in one place while males will travel around.
I'm also sort of assuming that all creatures in the MLP universe have some kind of innate magic to them, and inscribing runes is what the griffons do.
Wish I could have a better explanation, but I kinda wanted them to have their own little society, like with how colors are very important to them or how they all live in pillars made of rock, or for the males, clouds.
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To each, his own.