Line #1 Main/OurPerytonsAreDifferent


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10	[[quoteright:350:[[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/peryton5e_6.png]]]]
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12	Perytons are [[MixAndMatchCritters chimeric creatures]] that combine the features of deer and birds; they are usually depicted with the forequarters and head of a deer and the hindquarters and wings of a bird, but the ratio of cervine to avian can vary between portrayals -- perytons may range from deer with {{Pegasus}}-like wings to giant birds with deer heads.
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14	Perytons are rarely pleasant company -- they are often depicted as rapacious, dangerous carnivores, and are often actively malevolent or alien beings. They also tend to be associated with [[CastingAShadow shadows]]: often, they cast human shadows instead of their own and only begin to cast a peryton-shaped shadow after they kill a human being.
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16	Unlike many other fantasy creatures, perytons [[NewerThanTheyThink probably do not have any true mythological roots]]. Rather, they seem to originate from Creator/JorgeLuisBorges' 1957 ''Literature/BookOfImaginaryBeings'', where the author purports to have learned about them in a (fictitious) long-lost medieval document. Over time, perytons percolated into broader popular culture to join more ancient myths in Western civilization's roster of fantastic beasts and monsters.
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18	Compare {{Pegasus}}, for another cross of birds and ungulates. Contrast TheMarvelousDeer. Also see TheJerseyDevil, which is often depicted as resembling a peryton.
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20	!!Examples:
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23	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
24	* ''Manga/PandemoniumWizardVillage'': Peryu, one of the villagers, has a deer-like head with antlers and the body of a humanoid bird. However, beyond her strange appearance, she's [[FaceOfAThug a normal person]] like the rest of the villager.
25	* ''Manga/{{Toriko}}'': Chako Bird, a one-shot creature [[AllThereInTheManual whose name and description are expanded in extra material]], is a "bird" seemingly covered in fur with a deer-like head and a dragon-like tail. Furthermore, it can sprout healing leaves from its antlers.
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28	[[folder:Card Games]]
29	* ''TabletopGame/WeirdNWildCreatures'': The fact card for the ''Perytons'' states that they were formerly the human inhabitants of Atlantis. It also states that they only attack humans; with a preference towards Romans, and only have to kill once, with said kill putting their soul at ease.
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32	[[folder:Fan Works]]
33	* ''Fanfic/AManOfIron'': In book 3, [[spoiler:Shireen Baratheon]] has one as her mount. It is winged stag version.
34	* Perytons show up from time to time in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfiction:
35	** ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/265916/the-sun-the-moon-and-the-hunt The Sun, the Moon, and the Hunt]]'': Perytons are strange, immortal beings who cast no shadows until they take that of another creature in a coming-of-age ritual. In the ancient past, they were a powerful and arrogant people who cast their own shadows and lived in a vast forest to the south, and unlike all the other species cruelly rebuffed Luna and Celestia's offer of friendship. They possessed extremely powerful [[CastingAShadow shadow magic]] until [[spoiler:Luna burned their shadows away with moonlight in punishment for their humiliation of her sister]], leaving them shadowless and forced to steal those of other beings.
36	** ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/383344/to-perytonia To Perytonia]]'': The perytons live in a collection of city-states across the ocean west of Equestria that Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are sent as ambassadors to. Rather than being malicious monsters, they are a civilized people with a very rich culture and a complex religious system that Rainbow and Rarity often struggle to understand.
37	** ''Fanfic/UnderTheNorthernLights'': Perytons are winged deer with the legs and tails of birds, and come from a distant archipelago far to the south. As a result, they're very rare in the lands around Equestria. They can transform their shadows as they please, and interact with the physical world using them; the one in the story is seen transforming his shadow into a mass of razor-edged tentacles during a fight, and later into a large web to hold on to his ship during a storm.
38	** [[https://www.deviantart.com/quantumbranching/art/Planet-Equestria-510439477 One fanmade map]] plotted on the outlines of real-life geography places a peryton nation on the northwestern shores of Africa. The description notes that, as flying carnivores, the perytons get along a lot better with the [[OurGryphonsAreDifferent griffons]] than with their fellow ungulates.
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41	[[folder:Literature]]
42	* ''Literature/AcrossTheGreenGrassFields'': Perytons are carnivorous, monstrous, skinless deer with wings like giant barn owls.
43	* ''Literature/BookOfImaginaryBeings'': The TropeMaker; Creator/JorgeLuisBorges describes a medieval manuscript talking about the creatures, but both the source and the perytons are Borges' invention. According to the book, perytons originated in {{Atlantis}} and fled the island-nation's demise by flight, cast the shadow of a human being until they kill one, and were prophesized by a Sybil to someday cause the fall of Rome.
44	* ''Literature/{{Fablehaven}}'': Perytons with golden fur and poisonous antlers are among the creatures living in Wyrmroost, a FantasticNaturePreserve home to creatures too powerful, dangerous or unruly for other preserves to house.
45	* ''Literature/ForgottenRealms'': In Literature/TheMoonshaeTrilogy, the BigBad summons a flock of perytons -- here described as enormous birds with deer skulls for heads and mouths full of fangs -- to hound the protagonists.
46	* ''Literature/GoblinSlayer'': A peryton encountered by the characters is a mass of living smoke with the body of a giant bird and just the head of a stag. [[spoiler:It's also actually a LivingShadow guise or projection of a demon or warlock.]]
47	* ''[[Franchise/MyLittlePonyGeneration4 My Little Pony]]'': In the fourth book of the ''Literature/PonyvilleMysteries'' series, ''Peryton Panic'', the Cutie Mark Crusaders track down a peryton described as an indistinct, shadowy deer-like creature with the wings of a bird, which was summoned by the Princesses to guard Nightmare Moon's helmet. As it is a creature of shadows, and actively shuns the light, it is never fully seen.
48	* In ''Literature/TheUnicornSonata'', by Creator/PeterSBeagle, perytons are cat-sized, fanged and winged deer that move in swarms and are the natural enemies of {{unicorn}}s.
49	* ''Literature/WhiskeyAndWater'': A murderous peryton named Orfeo is one of the novel's main antagonists.
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52	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
53	* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': Perytons resemble enormous eagles with the heads of stags and the fangs of predators. They're ChaoticEvil as a rule, and are gluttonous eaters of hearts -- especially human ones. There's a great deal of in-universe debate about the nature of their shadows -- some believe that a peryton casts the shadow of the last creature whose heart it ate, in a reversion of how Borges had it, while others say that they always cast human shadows and yet others that they only cast their own shadow after killing a victim but before devouring it. "Ecology of the Peryton", in ''Dragon'' #82, describes a colony of perytons having invaded an island-nation named Atlantis on a far-off world before it sank beneath the waves, and as being fated to some day bring about the fall of the great city of Roma.
54	* In ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}} Fantasy Bestiary'', perytons are winged deer that attack humans on sight, diving on them from the air in attempts to gore them with their antlers and fighting mercilessly and to the death. Because they cast human shadows, and because of their habit of only killing one human each in any given attack and wallowing in the remains, they are thought to be the souls of particularly bloodthirsty humans, and that killing a living human is the only way they can regain their previous forms.
55	* ''TabletopGame/PalladiumFantasy'': Perytons, also known as demon deer, are winged deer of mysterious origins that cast human shadows instead of their own. They are vicious predators and particularly enjoy hunting intelligent humanoids -- one of their favorite tactics is to attack a ship in numbers and destroy its masts and sails, crippling the vessel and allowing them to pick off the sailors at their leisure -- although they go after {{unicorn}}s, {{pegas\|us}}i and other beautiful and benevolent creatures as well.
56	* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': Perytons are evil, ferocious monsters with the wings and hind legs of birds, the front legs and antlers of stags and the heads of wolves. They are fond of eating humanoid flesh, especially hearts. They are also known for their extremely violent mating rituals, which usually result in the male peryton's demise.
57	* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'': ''Paranormal Animals of Europe'' has peryton as winged deer as tall as a man at the shoulder, and found throughout Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. They possess enlarged incisors and claw-like hooves and both sexes have antlers, although the males' are larger. They're omnivorous and take prey as large as sheep, goats and lone humans. They don't hunt smaller animals because their favored hunting strategy, a headlong antlers-first divebomb, doesn't work too well with prey below a certain size, but they're smart enough to experiment with alternative hunting methods. Most people in their range consider them dangerous livestock thieves and potential man-eaters and go out of their way to hunt them down.
58	* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'' has Preytons, monstrous bat-deer hybrids possibly born from Beastmen sacrificing [[TheMarvelousDeer Great Stags]] to Chaos. They possess bat wings instead of forelegs, and are savage meat-eaters -- it's common for them to become distracted from their actual targets in battle as they stop to savage the corpses of the dead.
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61	[[folder:Video Games]]
62	* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasy'': Perytons appear as enemies in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'', although here they're simply [[CallAPegasusAHippogriff recolored wyverns and rocs]], respectively, in the games. Another peryton has a minor role as a boss enemy in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV''.
63	* ''VideoGame/FlightRising'' has three different-colored peryton familiars that look like deer with wings that also have feathers elsewhere and which can bond with a user's dragons. They can be obtained by various means, but battling in the Coliseum is not one of them. Out of the three, only the flavor text for the Rosy Peryton acknowledges the dangerous part of their mythology, but states that "this species has learned to live harmoniously with dragonkind."
64	* ''VideoGame/KingdomRushOrigins'': Perythons resemble large black birds with the heads of stags. As flying enemies, they cannot engage most units in battle and instead try to reach the stage's exit as quickly as possible. Some of the airlift Gnoll warriors into battle.
65	* ''VideoGame/LaMulana'': A peryton with the body of a bird and the head and legs of a deer serves as a miniboss in the Twin Labyrinths. It casts human-shaped shadows, and the game speculates that it might be tied to the downfall of {{Atlantis}}.
66	* ''VideoGame/ShadowHeartsCovenant'': Perytons appear during the climax of the Russia arc and are described as a creature with the body of a bird and the head of a deer whose antlers are on fire. The bestiary claims that, every year, perytons flock from the Mediterranean Sea to Africa, inspiring terror on all that they meet.
67	* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': The Hippogriffs of ''Warcraft'' resemble perytons far more than their namesakes: they are a hybrid of stags and ravens, with taloned forelimbs, wings and a raven's head, a feathered front-half of their body but antlers, a furry hindquarters, hooved hind legs and a bushy tail. They are relatively peaceful, fully self-aware creatures who work with the Night Elves to protect their forest homelands, often willingly acting as mounts for flying cavalry.
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70	[[folder:Webcomics]]
71	* ''Webcomic/SkinDeep'': Adelle Noir, a minor character, is a peryton resembling a roe deer with the wings and forelegs of a bird. Her son and husband are both [[TheMarvelousDeer white stags]] -- cross-species couplings are not normally viable without the help of powerful magic, but their shared nature as primarily cervine creatures makes perytons and white stags close enough for it to work.
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74	[[folder:Web Original]]
75	* ''Art/BeastFables'': [[https://www.deviantart.com/nazrigar/art/Beast-Fables-Griffon-vs-Peryton-995071278 Perytons]] are deer chimeras that develop avian traits in the form of the tails, wings, and beaks of raptors. They are clumsy flyers are best, especially the stags weighed down by their heavy and decidedly non-aerodynamic antlers, but are capable fighters and retain hooves on their wings that can be used as efficient pummeling weapons. Like all chimeras, they spend most of their time in their natural form but can take on their hybrid form at will, and mostly use it to defend themselves and their herds from predators.
76	* ''Blog/CodexInversus'': Perytons are monsters that roost among the floating islands of Emuna, in the Angelic Unison. Before the Collapse, they were beautiful winged stags that appeared to offer encouragement and help; during the great war that ended the previous world, some now-unknown entity twisted them into bizarre monsters, with pterosaur wings and tails, hand-like antlers, and a thirst for blood. They use their hand-antlers to cast spells, disguising themselves as clouds, flocks of birds, or chunks of rock when hunting; when making a kill, they are savage and messy eaters, dismembering their victims to create gory spreads of viscera and blood as displays for potential mates.
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79	[[folder:Wikis]]
80	* Website/TheOtherWiki has [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peryton its own article on the subject]] discussing the peryton's origins and some of their uses in popular culture.
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Context Main / OurPerytonsAreDifferent