The Clash of Claws

An illustration of a Dragon and Gryphon battling, with the Gryphon being metaphorical for the Atreans.

## The Clash of Claws

Even in their early days, the Atreans were a proud and stubborn people, known to stand fast and fight to the bloody death over the land they settled. None more so than the ones who first settled in the warm coastal region that would become modern Atrea.

Of course, this area of Andarus already had occupants; Gryphons. Great creatures with the head, wings, and claws of an eagle, but the body, hind legs, and tail of a lion. The first issue that the future Atreans faced was, of course, these equally territorial and stubborn beasts. The fight between man and Gryphon lasted three years, ending only when a young soldier, Titus Cominius Labienus, stumbled into the nest of a brooding mother while being chased by the alpha Gryphon. Instead of attacking the young soldier, the mother took him under her and brutalised the alpha. Titus was effectively "raised" by the brooding mother, during which time his fellow soldiers were unable to retrieve him due to the female Gryphon. Once hatched, his Gryphon "siblings" bonded with him, seeing him as their elder, and when Titus returned to the old city of Atrea, it was with four Gryphons at his back. He used them to quell most of the other Gryphons, with those that didn't fall under them being hunted by man and beast alike.

Thus came to be the connection between the Atreans and Gryphons. Aside from Titus' four, the adult Gryphons kept to themselves upon the higher cliffs, but there were many cases of abandoned Gryphon chicks being taken in by the Emperor and his children over the centuries, and their offspring eventually spread through the city until most of well-off families had at least one.

The second, and most prominent, issue the early Atreans faced was the Dragons; a mighty, unbreakable foe that they still face to this day. While their tamed Gryphons were fierce and strong, they were all too easily vanquished by the Dragon's hellish breath. Special armour was crafted for man and beast alike, soaked in special flame-resilient liquids and concoctions, but the Gryphon's wings were still vulnerable, and while the flames themselves could be held back from doing much damage, the heat alone could kill. It was only ever through sheer, bloody determination that the Atreans drove the Dragons back time and time again, rebuilding what was destroyed and refusing to leave their home. This continuous warring and back-breaking work of repairing and rebuilding shaped the Atreans into the proud, hardy warriors and artisans they are today.

In the five-hundredth and seventy-seventh year of the Aria Dynasty, a particularly large group of Dragons swept down upon Atrea. A pitched battle between winged beast and man began in earnest, during which Legionary Numerius Octavius Arius discovered a better way to ground a dragon than merely aiming to cripple its wings through, tethering a Dragon to a defensive wall using three ballista and chains. Firstly, he fired one bolt into the wall itself, attached another bolt to the other end of the chain, and fired it at the Dragon. Having prepared two other ballista similarly, he got the next two shots off quickly, firmly chaining the beast. With the Dragon's manoeuvrability severely limited, the soldiers and their Gryphons found it easier to avoid the searing flames. This resulted in the first Dragon death in two-hundred years, and soon many more followed. Numerius Arius was raised to the rank of Centurion for his part in the battle, and gifted a special set of armour that featured a Gryphon clutching a ballista bolt in its front talons carved into the breast plate.