Hi everyone.
Here’s a question I thought I’d put to you, since you’re the people who read my books.

I’ve been considering doing a trilogy with a griffin as the protagonist. There would be human co-stars, but the main character would be a griffin. It’s definitely true that, generally speaking, readers like my griffin characters the best. The only snag is that they aren’t hugely sympathetic creatures, since they’re inherently selfish by nature.

But d’you think you’d like to read a book with one as the protagonist? I’ve been considering selecting one of the humans instead, but what would you prefer? Your input might help me reach a decision.

Since it was my birthday recently, here’s a small treat for you. And by a treat, I mean a couple of pictures I drew. But one of them is a sneak preview!

To wit:

If you read Bran the Betrayer, then you’ve met baby Laela. Here’s a picture of her when she’s a good bit older.

(Yeah, she has an attitude. If you’re wondering, that’s Bran’s sword. And it’s not supposed to be bloodied; it’s just in a sheath).

And here is a picture of Arenadd looking typically well-adjusted, which I just thought was cool.

Laela got her daddy’s jawline, dontcha reckon?

Today is my 26th birthday!

I’m hoping to get the new Nightwish album. Maybe that’ll inspire more books.

And finally, as promised, the remaining contest entries!

Wanamore
This is the other entry that came without art, so again, I drew some! Wanamore once fought in an Arena, so I added shackles to his legs.

I would like to introduce you to Wanamore, a 26 year old Griffin that makes his home on the east edge of the coppertops. He has grey fur and dark green head and scales with his wings being a combination of both and eyes such a light green they seemed to glow. He is small by Griffin standards half the size of the larger of his breed, but being so small has given him a ferocity that is rivaled by few others. His mother and siblings had all chosen humans but Wanamore couldn’t imagine trying to fly with someone on his back. After making his mind up that he would not pair with a human and realizing the chances of being chosen to mate with was slim, he decided to leave the Eaglehlom hatchery where he was born. Though he missed the fights that allowed him to use his superior speed to have his revenge on those who liked to tease him, it was not a total loss though the bears in the area put up quite a fight.

Serathi
I really like this one’s name, and the storyline as well! Serathi was designed by the same person who created Pip, and since Pip was selected as a winner I didn’t feel too mean about not giving Serathi a prize as well. Nevertheless, an interesting entry with a surprisingly detailed backstory.

Name: Serathi

Age: 36yrs old

Gender: Male

Magic: He can call create snow, from soft snow fall to full on blizzards within a certain radius. The more magic he uses the larger the radius.

Origin: Coppertops; Cymria

Backstory: Serathi’s parents came from the Amorani lands, though Serathi himself was born in the Eagleholm Eyrie and at the age of 12yrs was partnered to the Master of Law a generation before Rannagon’s reign. This griffin though had a bit of an oddity; a birth defect. Unlike most of his kin, he was born with actual ears versus the concealed ear holes his brethren had, this adding to his semi colorful plumage made him stick out more so than the others. Yet with his human partner, his status grew and no other griffin dared to speak of his ears when he was in listening range.

When the Master of Law passed away due to a sudden illness, the griffin was enraged of the others not believing it was poison rather than a simple sickness, he left the eyrie and set out to the coppertops near the fringe of the wild country with his former friend’s body. No longer caring about the humans and their greedy mindset he became a wild creature. His partner’s body entombed within a huge mountain of perfectly placed rocks, the griffin thrived in the mountains environment.

The mountains were the best place for Serathi, where he was free to fly, to roam and to hunt without any humans trying to control his actions. Calling forth great snow storms that covered the peaks, using the cold as a deterrent to keep humans and other wild griffins away from his territory. His thick feathers and fur allowing the creature to take on the harsh cold the winter bestowed on the lands he called home.

Travelers and other griffiners would come through on occasion in hopes to discover more in the wind country, yet most would give the coppertops a wide birth for fear of agitating the griffin who turned his back to the humans. He never would eat them like most of the wild griffins, but his distaste for humans was as plain as day whenever he had to deal with one, most of the time giving them a single warning to leave and if ignored he would use his magic or his brute force to be rid of them. Though on rare occasions he would respect a human enough to leave them and allow safe passage but that was only if he saw worth in them, not rich bloodlines.

So he goes on living the the coppertops without any real care as to what the humans are doing, as long as he is left alone he goes about being wild, retired from any political position, always watching his partner’s tomb in case of tomb robbers and his mind lost at times to the memories of what once was and what was now.

Forever alone in his domain, a guardian of the mountain peaks.

Seltharia the Surly Griffin
Behold, the world’s only roller skating griffin! He’s a mascot for a roller derby team, and his creator was kind enough to invite me to a match. I should take her up on that. Actually, I think I recognise the background to that picture.

Name: Seltheria the Surly Griffin

Physical Appearance: Green feathers with silvery accents, a silver beak with yellow eyes.

Power: Physical strength and endurance, good communication and the ability to knock others over while wearing roller skates.

Seltheria does not have a human partner, but has worked with a certain group of humans on occasion. Seltheria is a little on the wild side, but is by no means uncivilised.

We’re a roller derby team that is part of the Canberra Roller Derby League (www.canberrarollerderbyleague.com). I’m in the picture – the one in the back right with the hood but no glasses. Aunty Aggro (the one kneeling down on the far right) is an artist and created our griffin. I believe it’s made of cardboard, some foam and paper mache. We use it in our rollouts before bouts.

That’s right; the decision is made and you didn’t have to wait nearly as long this time! Unfortunately my fellow judge from last time seems to have gone missing, but I had her comments on each entry to go on and those were a help. But all in all the runners up were chosen by me alone. These three are all very fine creations, and only didn’t win because other entries were (only in the opinions of myself and my fellow judge, mind you) even finer. Either way you still get a prize so pat yourselves on the back!

Runner Up Number One

Akroya
This entry didn’t come with art, so once again I’ve drawn up some of my own – I hope it’s not too far off what you had in mind!
I chose this entry myself, because I thought it was a clever idea. My fellow judge felt that this griffin’s powers didn’t fit with established canon, but believe it or not, it’s time for a minor spoiler: this griffin is so scarily close to an actual griffin coming up in a future book that I’m very glad I had already submitted the manuscript before the contest started, lest I be accused of plagiarism! But I swear to you, hand on heart, that it’s a complete coincidence. So the first runner up goes to Akroya, for being a design so clever that I already came up with it myself!

Physical Appearance: He has a reasonably plain appearance, and is slightly small for a Cymrian griffin. His feathers are a very dark brown, and his fur is just a slightly lighter brown. He doesn’t really stand out, which suits him well.

Power: Akroya has the ability to manipulate people’s thoughts and feelings, though only slightly. However, using this over an extended period of time, he’s capable of totally manipulating a victim into doing anything that he wants them to. He usually exploits this, as he ultimately just desires political power and control.

Home: Originally he came from Malvern, but he has fled to parts unknown with his partner.

Wild/civilised: Civilised

Human Partner: Yes. He has actually had two, as he abandoned the first because he felt that his first partner did not hold enough sway in the Eyrie.
Runner Up Number Two

Longwing
I really liked the artwork with this one, and the powers are a neat idea. My judge felt that every griffin seen so far in the series had a “breathweapon” power, and this may be true, but it’s not universally true, so Longwing’s powers are technically possible. All griffins have an organ called a magic gland in their crop, which is of course in the throat (the crop is no longer used for its original purpose; griffins do not have the ability to regurgitate food as they presumeably once did). So when they do use magic, it generally comes out of the beak. But it’s not always visible, and it isn’t always a weapon.
Anyway, without further ado, here’s Longwing! I particularly like the way the tail feathers are arranged on this one.

Runner Up Number Three

Koen
This entry has far and away the best artwork of them all, and I suspect may be the work of one of my illustrator Arthryn’s DeviantArt friends. It’s clear that whoever it was put a great deal of work into this entry, and I felt a bit mean not giving it a prize, which was my knee-jerk reaction on seeing this amazing art. As it was, my judge felt that Koen’s powers were a bit too science fiction rather than fantastical, and I felt they were a little too similar to Skandar’s powers. Regardless of that, this entry is truly astonishing and most definitely deserves recognition, and in fact was a major factor in my decision to have runners up.

I’m so sorry that the text on the image here doesn’t show up; I was unable to display it here without severely shrinking it. Perhaps if the original artist can provide a link to the original somewhere, that would be fantastic. However, he or she did provide a detailed description of Koen’s powers, which I will paste in below.

A more detailed explanation of atomisation:

Atomisation allows Koen to turn himself into a coloured gaseous substance that glows softly, in his case; it’s a dark rust colour. In this form he can travel large distances in a fraction of the time it would take using some other mode of transport, it’s not instantaneous like teleporting, but it comes fairly close. The main skill atomising allows him is known as shape and size control (not shape-shifting) that allows him to use his atomisation power to change the way he looks to some extent. However, the rule is that he must always be made up of the same amount of matter. And he can’t atomise just one part of their bodies (like an arm or leg and leave the rest of his body solid). Generally, Koen won’t increase their body size with this power, because in spending atoms to make his form bigger, something else has to decrease in size. The same goes the other way too. When he gets smaller, some decoration (like a feathered crest or wings) must get bigger. However, he must retain the same basic shape they were born with, so as he was born with wings can’t just get rid of the atoms making up those wings in favour of growing a pair of horns. The same basic shape must be held. He also can’t have missing limbs and spare atoms (or floating limbs but no body) that breaks the rules too. Atomisation only allows alterations. Basically, the rule goes like this: every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so it is with atomisation.

An example would be this: Koen shrinks his body to fit in a small space, but in order to do that, he gets extra fluff making him look like a walking puff ball. In this instance, the smaller he gets, the less convenient it would be to walk around with ever expanding amounts of fur. He could also make his tail longer, or grow extra feathers in his crest.

Bear in mind that he could make himself denser to get smaller and thus maintaining the same shape, but it would make him heavier, slower and render him flightless. Conversely, if he made himself less dense in order to get larger, he would have to be careful that his bones, muscles and organs weren’t compromised too much or he would become unable to move. Being crushed under his own weight is also something he would need to be careful of when altering his density. Generally, Koen is smart enough not to do that because of all the potentially fatal things that could go wrong. However, sometimes it is helpful for him to make himself lighter, especially when flying (fleeing from an enemy for instance) as he would then be able to go faster. Increasing density would also help to break through things. But then, these benefits have to be weighed back against the dangers and need to be considered thoroughly. Playing with density is not something to be done lightly.

And that’s that! I hope you’ll all join me in congratulating our runners up for their great work! I have sent notification emails to the first two winners, but was unable to find the address of Koen’s creator, so if he or she could contact me at beachcombe – homepage @ yahoo . com . au that would be great. Remember, the prize is any one of my books, published or upcoming, signed and mailed to you wherever you are in the world. Well done!

In a moment I will post the remaining entries as promised, and the contest will be officially over. Let’s do it again sometime!

Well! Finally the time has come to announce the three winners of the K.J.Taylor.com Design Your Own Griffin Contest, here at KJTaylor.com! And let me tell you, this was not an easy contest to judge. We had some absolutely fantastic entries for this contest, and some amazing artwork as well. I confess I was pleasantly surprised, since I had deliberately designed the contest rules so that entries would be as easy as possible to put together, and I half expected to get some lazy entries as a result. Au contraire! Every entry, whether it came with artwork or not, showed signs that its creator had put some proper thought into what they were doing, and the number of half-arsed entries stands at zero! I’m both impressed and flattered that so many people were prepared to put work into something for which they would not be paid, and might not win with either!

Anyway, thanks to that and the large number of entries I had to call in a friend to help with the judging – the friend in question shall remain nameless, but I know she’ll be reading this, so I’ll take the opportunity to thank here here in public. Her input was invaluable, and without it I would not have been able to get the winners up before I leave for my holiday on Thursday. So if you could, please do take a moment to thank her, either in a comment here or in the privacy of your own head. After all, it is the thought that counts – sometimes literally!

Anyway, without further ado, it’s time to announce the winners. I will be posting up their entries below, and later – tomorrow, probably – I will post up the other entries as well. As mentioned in the contest rules, if you didn’t want your entry to go up here you were asked to say so when you submitted it, but nobody did. If you don’t want it to go up here but just haven’t said so yet, drop me a line and let me know.

In the meantime, here are the winners!

Winner Number One

Pip the Finch Griffin
A wonderfully original idea, with an extremely cute picture! If the creator of this one chooses the plushie prize, this will be the first time I’ve sewn a griffin to be larger than life-size rather than smaller! I’m afraid I simply can’t sew something as small as this little guy; I’m not a miracle worker!

Name bestowed by his human: Pip

Age: 7 years old

Gender: Male

Magic: Unlike the bigger griffin breeds, Pip’s race all have the same magic. Their magic is their songs. Singing makes the energy from any living being from plant, ground, water to living being glow/sparkle, the colors changing with the moods of the living beings.

For example; the little griffin would hum a song to a pear and it would shimmer showing the griffin its alive and give on the color would also show if the fruit is good to eat or not. Singing at the edge of a river/lake and seeing if it is good water or stagnant and/or if any creatures that prey on their small forms was nearby.

Origin: Fruitsheart; North

Bio:  Pip’s breed was discovered in the pear orchards in Fruitsheart by the Northerners after the conquest of the north. They range no bigger than a common house finch and unlike all the larger griffin breeds they all hold the same magic. Seeing this ability the northerners used them as poison detectors; also helping out with the crops during harvest making sure all or at least most of their crop was matured enough to gather up. Though with how small they are most viewed them as a nuisance or common pest seeing their intelligence was not near as abundant as the bigger griffins, they could speak fractured griffish but cannot learn any other tongues. Though if a human were to partner with a small griffin, they were still a griffiner but with reduced stats thus most stayed to their farms or simple lives seeing most would laugh at the small griffin.

The griffins all look alike. The females are all gray with a white belly, orange beak as well as forearms and black/white stripes on their tail feathers.

Males are gray with a brown patch of feathers on their sides with white spots, their belly is white as their beak and forearms are a much brighter orange than the females. There is a redish orange circle on their cheeks as well.

Their main diet consists of fruit and insects mostly, though if offered or easy to get to they do consume seed and fish.

The griffins tend to nest in the pear trees that they eat the most of.

The life span of these little griffins range 20 – 30 years

Pip’s history: He was the runt of his family and his nest mates like common finches rejected him, fighting off his chance to eat like the rest of them. Near the final days in his nest when he was just beginning to get his adult feathers, there was a scuffle with his siblings that shoved him out of the nest into a gathering pear basket of a northerner. Having discovered him, the girl who was no older than 10yrs old took him to her home and tended his wounds, raising him to his adult form.

Having not been use to the kindness she showed he attached himself to her. For five years of his life he stayed with her, having a simple life and helping her with the daily chores on the orchards and farm lands. When she got older though the other griffiners acknowledged her being one of them and gave her a job of being a scout and messenger, from then on she would roam the lands on foot with Pip, testing new water/food sources for possible new locations for a village and passing messages between the different villages and cities.

Winner Number Two

Takora, the Plant Growing Griffin
Since this entry did not come with a picture, I took the liberty of drawing one myself from the description the entrant sent in. I hope she doesn’t mind!
My fellow judge and I particularly liked this griffin’s power, feeling that it fit in very well with the universe, and I like her physical design as well. We also both liked her backstory, and felt it worked nicely and was well thought-out.

Name: Tarkora
Physical appearance: All over grey, in all different shades. Starting at the head, she is a lighter grey, and it progressively darkens through the feathers until the fur becomes a mid-tone grey, looking almost blue in some lights. Her wings are mottled grey and black. Her tail and underbelly are such a light grey they are almost white. Her eyes are blue.
Power: Unknown for quite a long time – almost as if she didn’t have a power. Then, as she was eating one day, the food in front of her started to grow a type of fungus. Starving, she kept eating and didn’t react badly, so she thought nothing more of it. Some days later, after a long flight she hit the ground hard, puffing and out of breath, and flopped down amongst some trees to rest in the shade. Her huffing breath hit the grass below her and flowers grew at an accelerated speed around her. So, it seems, her power is to assist with the growth of flora and fauna.
Other: Quite cautious and has lost food to other griffins because of this. She likes to look around, think, evaluate, and then act.
Territories: I have only read the first book (it’s hard to find the second and third where I live…) and so I’m not too sure where would be sensible. Wylam Lands looks nice to me
Nature: She is wild, though if caught would settle into the lifestyle easier than most. She’s quiet (whilst still being undeniably wild) and would eventually enjoy a life of being warm and fed without having to fight and struggle for it each and every day.
Human: None, as of yet, but again, would take to one with more ease than other wild griffin’s would – if they matched, of course.

And finally…

Winner Number Three

Hakree, the Griffin With a Facebook Page!
I must confess that this was the first entry, and when it arrived I took one look at it and immediately decided that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, this one was going to be a winner. My fellow judge concurred, and so it is my great pleasure to announce Hakree and his partner Red Jones as the third winners of the contest!

Where do I even begin? First of all, the level of work this entrant put in is astounding; rather than send me the entry straight off, she has continually updated and expanded it from the beginning of the contest up until quite recently. Initially she said she was going to take the page down once the contest was over, but I personally emailed her and asked her not to on the grounds that I didn’t think anyone would want to see it go! I certainly didn’t. This entry is funny, creative, and clever. This page has everything, from album covers to Plants Vs Kraeae Kran Ae and Angry Griffins.
Congratulations, Hakree and Red!

(Click the picture to see Hakree’s Facebook page for yourself!).

And that’s that! Congratulations to all our winners, and I hope you’ll join me in saying so. I’ve had a great time with this contest, and hope that you all have as well. As I said, tomorrow I’ll be posting up the other entries, so if you don’t want yours to go up, let me know. If you’re one of our three lucky winners, then contact me at beachcombe – homepage @ yahoo . com . au (remove the spaces of course) whenever it’s convenient for you. I’ll need a postal address, and you’ll have to tell me which of our two fabulous prizes you would like which are, in case you’ve forgotten:

An IOU for the next three books in the series, which shall be personally autographed and mailed to you once they’re published,

OR

A plushie of your winning griffin, designed and hand-sewn by me, which I will mail to you as soon as it’s finished.

Choose wisely!

Me! Among others, to whom I offer my congratulations!

Also, entries for the Design a Griffin Contest close today, and the three winners will be announced shortly.

The first of the short stories is now up at the Eyrie, and I’m offering the opportunity for you – yes YOU! – to choose the subject of the next one. Vote now!

Hey hey kids!*

Finally, I have some news for you, and I think you’re gonna like it.
Those who’ve hung around the Eyrie for long enough will recall that some years ago, before The Dark Griffin came out here in Australia, I posted some short prequel stories there as a pre-release marketing stunt way of giving you guys some introduction to the world and so forth.

Well, a couple of days ago I was going for a walk, and as often happens while I’m walking, an idea occurred to me. Namely, you guys have to wait for more than six months from today for another installment, and twenty years elapses between trilogies, so why not do some more short stories to keep you all going in the meantime?

So I asked my publisher for permission, and not only did she give it, but she asked to have the other short stories I did before so she could see if there might be some use for them. I’ll let you know if anything comes of that. But in the meantime, free stories ahoy!

As last time, I’m going to fill in a few gaps that the upcoming trilogy won’t cover in much detail – backstories, things that will only be mentioned fleshed out – that sort of thing.

So here’s the deal. Right now I’m really hyped to start working on the first one, but I have assignments to do.
But university will end for the year on the 18th of November, when I hand in my final assignments. After that I’ll have a lot of free time, so I’m going to resist the temptation and start work in about a fortnight. It’ll be good to have something to do.

I’ll be posting the stories at the Eyrie, not here, so look out for them there!

I thought I would break the news now and then make you wait, seeing as how it’s been so uneventful lately, and also because I’m evil and I like making you suffer. Accordingly, I will now tell you what the first story will be about and hopefully make it worse for you.

It will be called The Death of a City and will deal with what happened to old Roland the hatchery owner after the events of The Dark Griffin. I like Roland, so it’ll be nice to write about him again.

One final note before I go: this is the piece of music I was listening to when I came up with the idea, and I consider it to be one of the finest pieces of music ever composed, ever. Listen to it, and verily, ye shall hear the voices of the gods.

No, it’s not classical. Stop looking suspicious.

*For those of you wondering if I say that to actual kids, the answer is yes. Yes I do.