Questions from "The Black Gryphon" Quiz

Answer: Generations would cycle quickly, allowing defects to be weeded out

The makaar were Ma'ar's answer to Urtho's gryphons. They were smaller, clumsier, and stupider than the gryphons, but could overcome a gryphon by sheer numbers and brute force.

Answer: Ka'venusho

Urtho's tower sat at Ka'venusho, which is now the precise center of the Dhorisha Plains. Most of the tower was melted by the intense energy of the Cataclysm, but part of it was intact, which proved beneficial to Karal and the others at the end of "Storm Breaking."

Answer: Kaled'a'in

After the Cataclysm, the clans of the Kaled'a'in that were still at Ka'venusho split due to a difference in opinion over how magic should be handled. The Tale'edras, or Tayledras, or more commonly, the Hawkbrothers, believed that magic should still be used to heal the land.

The Shin'a'in believed magic should not be used. The Goddess, Kal'enel, sent the Tale'edras into the Pelagirs to repair the damage done by the Cataclysm, and made the Shin'a'in guardians of the Dhorisha Plains and the ruins of Ka'venusho.

Answer: Velgarth

Interestingly, this name is not mentioned very much in the novels themselves. It WAS mentioned in "The Black Gryphon", and there are extensive maps of Velgarth in "The Valdemar Companion." These maps show places that have not been mentioned as yet. Kinda makes you wonder what Misty's got up her sleeve!

Answer: kestra'chern

Amberdrake began his training as a chirurgeon, but his gifts of Healing and Empathy weren't being trained. He was extremely unhappy, and eventually ran away. He encountered the kestra'chern Silver Veil, and she gave him what training she could, but she wasn't going to Ka'venusho, so she gave him to someone who could train his gifts.

He eventually ended up as senior kestra'chern in Urtho's forces, and trondi'irn to a very egotistical black gryphon, Skandranon.

Answer: Winterhart

Winterhart had many personal problems, and was eventually sent to Amberdrake because of a back injury. Over the course of the book, Amberdrake manages to win her trust and find out why she took a Kaled'a'in name. Eventually, when Winterhart breaks off her relationship with the Mage Conn Levas, she and Amberdrake fall in love.

Answer: The secret to the reproduction of Gryphons

After Zhaneel's dressing-down of Winterhart, Skan was venting a lot of anger in the presence of Amberdrake. They were joined by the Mage Vikteren, and the subject of gryphon reproduction came up. Skan and the rest of the gryphons thought it was something magical that Urtho did to make them fertile.

After conferring with the Healers Tamasin and Lady Cinnabar, they decided that this secret was one the gryphons themselves should hold, not Urtho.

Answer: A "misborn" Gryphon named Kechara

When Skan and his friends were stealing the secret to gryphon fertility, Skan was struck with the notion that there was something in the next room he should know about. He hung back when Amberdrake, Tamasin, and Lady Cinnabar left, and set about exploring.

It was then that he found Kechara, a misborn gryphon, the first of the "gryfalcon" type, like Zhaneel. Kechara had extremely powerful mindspeech, so powerful that Skan said it was like the mind-presence of several adult gryphons.

Answer: K'Leshya

Amberdrake's clan, K'Leshya, was the only clan without a totemic animal. K'Leshya means "Spirit Clan" in Kaled'a'in. K'Leshya was the clan that volunteered to gate with the gryphons just before the Cataclysm.

Answer: Exposure to massive mage-energy while trapped between gates

After detonating Urtho's device in the Kiyamvir Ma'ar's throne room, Skan, Aubri, and Kechara gated back to Ka'venusho, to find a dying Urtho. Urtho managed to open the gate to the place where the gryphons and K'Leshya had gone, and Skan got caught between the gates. When he emerged on the other side, he was bleached white except for a few black markings.