Griffons

Ferocious predators boasting both the brutal speed of a bird of prey and the raw might of a big cat, griffons are equal parts majestic and terrifying. Though they are too large to seek out people as prey under normal circumstances, wild griffons are still a bane on rural towns because of their hunting habits: prides of griffons will ambush and pick off whole herds of horses left unguarded.
Because of how willful and high-spirited-- not to mention dangerous-- griffons are, they are quite difficult to train, but training a griffon is possible. Griffons have never been truly domesticated, so all are wild at their core, but the vast majority of trained griffons are those taken from their nest as an egg and raised by people. A griffon raised by a person will come to see that individual as its pride and will remain fiercely loyal throughout its life. However, a loyal griffon is not the same as a trained griffon; it takes years of careful trust-building and instruction to truly train a griffon, and even the most well-trained griffons are prone to be occasionally stubborn and fickle. When a griffon is successfully trained, however, it forms an lifelong bond with its trainer and can serve as an unparalleled flying mount.
All the effort that goes into training a griffon is worth it when the need arises for the one purpose a griffon serves best. In times of war, a griffon-and-rider pair (or, even better, several griffon-and-rider pairs) are the best answer to cavalry. Using griffons as anti-cavalry plays upon both the griffons' ravenous appetite for horse and the horses' instinctive fear of these aerial predators; even the best warhorses trained to press on in the face of fear are well-known to break formation when faced with a griffon. A superb griffon-and-rider pair can disrupt a cavalry charge without the griffon even laying its talons on a single horse, though it takes a remarkable rider indeed to ensure the griffon exercises that kind of restraint. For this reason, trained griffons are in high demand for many military powers.
The natural habitat of griffons are relatively limited: they are most common in mountain ranges, such as the Spine of Aotra and the Serpentine Mountains, though the Red Mesas of Ceryx are also host to many griffon aeries. However, because of the practice of raising griffons from eggs away from other griffons, the places in which griffon-flight warfare is popular are not limited to griffon habitat zones. One of the most well-known users of griffon-flight warfare is the nation of Solisvar. Solisvar, however, imports both its griffons and its griffon-riders from Oristhane: the Djarka orcsof Oristhane have long traditions of griffon-keeping in the Serpentine Mountains, for they traditionally use griffons to hunt large game. The Djarka people are among the most highly-sought-after griffon-keepers in the world because of their unique expertise in griffon handling.