Gryphons are cool.
When I was 13, I was part of my first D&D campaign. I played an 18-STR, 8-INT human fighter named Harlond. She was redheaded, honorable, and, from how I played her, destined to be a strong-but-not-very-bright Paladin, a warrior for truth and justice.
Harlond was reaching her second level (we played VERY slowly) and, in our storyline, was about to take an oath to defend the innocent and fight for righteousness. (Basically I was being offered a Paladin level.) Our Dungeon Master also handed me a gryphon miniature, and a challenge: “Paint that, and Harlond can have it in-game as a mount.”
Now, being that this DM was also my first really bad crush (I’m talking crying all night listening to sad songs and pining kind of crush), I devoted myself to earning that gryphon for my character. It turned out that I actually wouldn’t finish painting that damn gryphon for 10 years, but that is another story.
Much later, I actually used that little miniature as a model for creating the lineart for the Gryphon Troop for Calling All Heroes. In fact, I’ve used a lot of miniatures as models for art; it’s pretty easy to draw something when you have a 3D model to draw from. But the Gryphon is probably one of my prouder moments. I’m not sure what happened to that miniature, honestly, but his spirit lives on in the Calling All Heroes Gryphon.
If you’d like to try your hand at recruiting the Gryphon and other troops, click here to play Calling All Heroes in your browser, or here to download the .apk for your Android device.
Much gratitude to everyone playing and holding their breath with me as we wait for the finishing touches to be put on this game!…
-Taylor