Sphinxes and gryphons

Sphinxes and gryphons
General morphology	Humanoid/Feral/Taur
Avg. height	~2.30 meters
Avg. weight	~ 227kg
Zalmi scale	15m to 21m
Longevity	Unknown
Diet	Carnivorous

Sphinxes are carnivorous winged felines that are known to have an important place in the history of almost all feline countries.

Social hierarchy

Sphinxes are distinguished by 4 main social hierarchy classes.

The snake tail

Sphinxes and gryphons have in common a snake tail with its own consciousness and personality, the inside of which is anatomically connected to their host's stomach, allowing the host to feed through them.

The interpretation of the role of the snake's tail is based on the premise that all animals become violent, irritable and irrational the more they are hungry, and that the lively, spontaneous snake tail symbolized for the sphinxes the savagery caused by intense hunger, in contrast to the host, who had to remain calm under all circumstances. Sphinxes felt they had to maintain self-control because, unlike other species, they had tails to express their frustration with food, and this has contributed enormously to the non-violent, intellectual image that sphinxes have today.

The interpretation of the tail's role and behavior has evolved over the centuries, and its original meaning has now disappeared. Sphinxes have come to understand that their tails are simply individuals in their own right, with moods and desires just like them.

Shamanism

Some gryphons practice shamanism, a godless religion whose main dogma is that magic does not impregnate blood and flesh, but the bones of animals, which they believe explains why flesh rots while bones do not.

These beliefs impact the way practitioners hunt, consume and interact with their prey, trying as little as possible to injure them in combat, thanks to weapons made paradoxically to damage as little as possible, and an overemphasis on magics that immobilize the enemy without harming their flesh, such as sleep magics, or magics that allow the swallowing of the victim's soul, the culmination of their magic. They also wear the bones of their prey as ornaments, believing that this increases their magical power.

Scientific progress has shown that it is indeed the blood that circulates magic, and in response, shamanism has been considerably reduced over the years. Today, shamanism is seen as archaic by the vast majority of sphinxes and gryphons.

One of the counter-arguments of the remaining adepts is that the gryphon shamans of their time were much better at magic than the gryphons of today, and were therefore in the right, which science counter-argues with the fact that their whole culture was centered on magic at the time, which helped them develop their powers, and that this has nothing to do with whether magic is in the bones or not.

Shamanism has been gaining popularity in recent years among some gryphons, who would like to see more gryphons among the megafauna and believe that the overpowering magic of shamans would help reach such a level, and some others, who see shamanic philosophy as a non-violent method of hunting or even a way to honor the memory of prey by sanctifying their remaining bones once they've been eaten.