Wyvern

Large, flying lizards, wyverns are well known as terrifying flying hunters, but even more well known as elite flying mounts that carry fearless and deadly soldiers into battle.

Basic Information

Anatomy

The wyvern is a large, two legged, winged lizard. They come in a slight variety of colors, their scales ranging anywhere from tan to black. A fully grown wyvern weighs around 600-800 lbs, and has a length from head to tail of 10-14 ft, and a wingspan of 18-30 ft. Their scales are thicker and tougher on the top and sides of the wyvern, and their underbelly scales are lighter and smaller. Wyverns are capable of lifting up to 500 lbs, but for sustained flight are limited more closely to 250-300 unless trained.

Genetics and Reproduction

Wyvern females seek a mate roughly every five years, while males will seek out partners at any time. A female's scales will change to vibrant blues, greens and purples when she seeks a mate. When a female encounters a male, the two will come to the ground, and fight. The two will wrestle, attempting to pin the other. If the female can pin the male, she will reject him, and fly away. The process of searching for a mate begins again. If the male manages to pin the female, however, the two will mate. The female will spend the next two weeks gorging herself to prepare to deliver the eggs, during which time the brilliant colors that signaled her readiness to mate will fade. The males simply leave, having fulfilled their biological imperative. Once fattened up, the female will lay her eggs, each over a foot long and half a foot wide, and begin the long wait for them to hatch.
Wyvern eggs are laid in clutches of two or three (four being an uncommon but not unheard of result), and take eight months to hatch. For the first few weeks after they are laid, the mother will not spend even moments apart from them, and she eventually slims down to her pre-mating weight. By the end of the first month, the mother is forced to leave her eggs to hunt, though usually for only hours. She will kill her prey, and carry it back to her roost, if possible. In the case of particularly large prey, they will tear it into pieces and take the largest with them.
After eight long months, the eggs will hatch. The mother will hunt for her young, but only for a scant two months.

Growth Rate & Stages

Hatchling wyverns are only a foot long, with weak wings that drag along the ground. As they grow into immature wyverns, their wings become stronger and stronger until they can support flight after about ten weeks after hatching, allowing them to hunt on their own. From there, their growth explodes as they hunt on their own, at first picking from their mother's kills until eventually targeting their own prey as their mothers begin to fight them off of their kills. Wyverns are considered fully mature at four years, but continue to grow until they are about ten years old. At this final stage of development, wyverns will persist for up to another thirty years, for a sum total life expectancy of forty years.

Ecology and Habitats

Wyverns in the wild are most partial to the mountains of central Lerulious, and rest anywhere high up and away from insects that can burrow into their scales to live as parasites. This is especially important for female wyverns, who will make roosts in preparation of their mating season and must contend with egg thieves.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Wyverns subsist on meat, and occasionally fish when they are around the ocean, though this behavior is rare. Wyverns will not hunt every day, and will usually only hunt and eat every few days. The upkeep for a wyvern is enormous, as they can require an average upwards of twelve pounds of meat per day, meaning that to keep a single wyvern requires the equivalent of 3 large cows every year. As such, wyverns are a rare sight on the field of battle, and even rarer for a mercenary, though certainly not unheard of.

Additional Information

Domestication

The domestication of wyverns as a process has been lost to history, though breeders and scholars suspect that it's very likely that there was an exploitation of the imprinting process. When a wyvern hatches, the hatchling will bond with the first creature it sees. It's very likely that this was the method used by the first breeders of wyverns- Taking unattended wyvern eggs and hatching them personally. This must have carried with it serious risks, such as angry mothers hunting down the egg-thieves, but domesticating an adult wyvern carries different and significantly deadlier risks.
The modern domesticated wyvern is slightly smaller than their wild counterparts, and much more even tempered. As well, domesticated mother wyverns care much less for their offspring, and take little exception to leaving their eggs or returning to find them missing. It is possible- simple even- to breed

Uses, Products & Exploitation

Wyverns are primarily used as combat mounts. Their temperament is much more suited to combat compared to the pegasus, and they can climb to greater heights than pegasi, even if they cannot fly as quickly. Rarely, a wyvern will be used as a messenger steed, but pegasi are much better suited to the task and it is unusual to see.

Average Intelligence

Wyverns are somewhat intelligent, to the degree of a hunting dog. Wyverns can be trained to understand simple commands and speech, which can be very useful for their riders.

Symbiotic and Parasitic organisms

Scalemites are a form of tick that will sometimes manage to latch onto a wyvern while they eat or rest on the ground. These small, black bugs are often a source of ills and ailments for domesticated wyverns, as they not only suck the blood from their hosts but can easily expose them to disease.

Lifespan

40

Average Weight

600-800 lbs

Average Length

10-14 ft, 18-30 ft wingspan