#welkynars

[fortunatto]

"Siroria said that if she had to stay another minute in bed, she'd set it on fire. I take that as a good sign." (I really love the cloudrest trial but i wish there were quest and explorable city instead ;-;)

[akaviri-dovah]

(making my own post for this as to not derail the art of the original post this was from)

@caliblorn you'll be pleased to hear that I do, in fact, have some Welkynar oc's. two for now, and only one of them named, though at the very least I'm planning to have the four top members at the very least.

(i refer to them as such because I have adopted the headcanon that there are in fact way more. for more elaboration look here)

and yes, this is in 4E, I am planning for them to show up in one of the sequels to my Skyrim fic, set in Alinor. I would think the Thalmor/Dominion army would find them useful, and that some (but not all) Welkynar members would serve their interests. that and they're just too cool to pass up, no?

now this is where that oc I mentioned earlier, Lady Kythasanwe of Cloudrest, comes in. she's both a Thalmor officer and a Welkynar commander, surprisingly high-ranking given her age of a mere 64 years in 4E 201. being a veteran of the Great War as well as her general tendency to scare people into respecting her factored a lot into this.

her personality and philosophy are more Thalmor than Welkynar: ruthless, cold and calculating, and sadistic. she frequently abuses her power and reputation in both factions to get away with horrible things, and cares for no one aside from her equally intimidating gryphon, Ceynaril (whose name aptly translates to "final shadow"). she does not suffer those who cross her gladly, and is more than willing to weed out those considered unworthy of being Aldmeri - born outside the Summersets, and/or having an appearance deviating from the standards of superior breeding.

not even her comrades in the Dominion ranks, or her own family is spared from her wrath. in fact, one of her first victims was her own sister whom she tormented to the point of making her run away from home, for having an appearance so different from the rest of the bloodline that "proved it to be impure". this kind of thing starts out young, and her parents only encouraged it. and her grudge is as long as her memory, so when the mer she wished was dead returns not only alive and well after decades, but also with allies of her own, Kytha vows to finish what she started...

[snowberry-pie]

whatever you do, do not think about how despite being under z’maja’s control, the welkynars still get hella pissed when you harm their gryphons. don’t think about it

[seimone-schell]

I finally saved all the Welkynars.

[morgiah]

taking a break from my morrowind brand to talk about how much i adore welkynars and how so unbelievably cool i think they are like. a prestigious order of altmer knights who ride griffons they’ve raised since birth and are bonded to? genuinely one of the coolest original ideas that i’ve ever seen in tes and it came from eso and i’m so in love with them

[balcaps]

I was surprised to find Olorime in Shimmerene. I haven’t noticed the devs putting any sort of indicator outside of the trials themselves that a trial has been completed, and seeing the completion of a trial affecting the world (or at least seeing evidence of the events of said trial having happened outside of the instance) is refreshing.

Also, the thought of Olorime spooking some sense into some stubborn nobles with her gigantic fucking gryphon is hilarious. Zos pls. We need this. I’d like to attend that meeting.

[snowberry-pie]

been reading about welkynar stuff for my vestige and i came across this bit

which got me thinking. what happens when a welkynar or their gryphon dies?

past the grief and the mourning process, do they find themselves missing something they didn’t even know they had until it was too late? does the knight without their steed feel heavy, chained to the ground, forever longing to once again feel the rush of flight and hear the powerful beating of wings as they reach out to touch the clouds? does a gryphon without its rider become as wild and ferocious as others of its kind, however always chasing the feeling of simplicity—of humanity, the paradoxical yet ever-present feeling of wanting to want?

or maybe when one goes so does the other. maybe their worlds fade to black at the same time. perhaps, even though their bodies lay beneath twin tombstones, their souls live on in aetherius, finally soaring higher than the skies they’d traversed in life.

[snowberry-pie]

assorted gryphon headcannons

have i done this yet? maybe? doesn’t matter im putting my experience caring for both birds and cats to good use. also some obligatory welkynar stuff thrown in. sorry if i got any anatomy stuff wrong @unerringherring please feel free to correct me

gryphons will groom each other as a social bonding activity. their mouthparts are suited for both fur and feathers; they use their beaks to pluck out old feathers and align new ones and their comblike tongues to brush out fur. if bonded to a welkynar, they will often try to groom them by plucking at their hair/licking their fur.

gryphons are raised by their parents til they are old enough to survive on their own, which is when they leave the nest to go and find a flock of their own.

flocks aren’t big: they usually consist of three to five members at a time, plus any hatchlings. they hunt together and help care for each other, but each has their own separate nest.

gryphons mate for life. the courting process takes over a year, involving bringing the other gifts in an attempt to one-up each other. when they are finally ready to mate, they do a “death spiral”. most couples raise three eggs at a time. if the couple is of the same gender, they will raise abandoned hatchlings as their own.

they have a wide array of vocalizations. each individual has their own unique call which acts as a name of sorts. they also have separate vocalizations that are used to locate flock members, offspring, mates, etc. A Welkynar and gryphon that have bonded together have their own unique call as well, which the knight can either learn and perfect themselves or fashion a whistle that mimics the sound.

speaking of vocalizations, gryphons sing!!! some better than others. the most melodic “songs” come from the Skald-Muse, the first of which was a gift from Dibella herself to celebrate the opening of the bards’ college in Skyrim.

eggs are often abandoned. never hatchlings, just eggs. if the parents feel like it would grow up to be weak, they remove it from their nest and set it somewhere else on the cliff edge. these eggs are often the ones found by Welkynars, and with the use of magic and training, grow up to be as strong as their siblings.