A kingfisher-otter miniature gryphon by  SandySchreiber and posted by permission. From the February 2018 Art Jam.

Known to human biologists as Morgan's Gryphlet and to the citizens of Rescue City as the gryphott, these bold and much beloved minigryphs are, unusually, fish-eating divers. They nest in burrows in sandy banks and sometimes other shelters of opportunity. The similar Tan-Bellied Gryphlet is now believed to be a recessive color phase of the same species.

Baron Skreescander informs me that his people revere these little fellows, as do all the other High Gryphon civilizations of the Three Continents. Their name for them translates as "Soul diver;" in other languages the name translates as something similar, or some variation of "soul messenger," "messenger," etc.

High Gryphons have a fear and hate for water which makes that of terrestrial felines look like the mildest of dislikes. This hatred is logical, given their catlike and hawklike characteristics; a gryphon in the water will become waterlogged almost instantly, and will drown if not rescued within a few minutes. In their religion and legend, lakes and seas are the Land of the Dead; in a real sense, water really is the Land of the Dead for them as well. The gryphotts, with their habit of diving into water and coming back out again unharmed, are seen as messengers between the living and the dead, carrying prayers, visions, and love between this world and the world of the ancestors.

Or so Skreescander told me. After a few beers one night he also said his people just like the gryphotts. Gryphotts are bold, beautiful, playful, and rather cute, after all.