Cliffsbane Academy

Cliffsbane’s purpose is to produce gryphon fliers; Navarrian tactical writing treats the academy as a concentration point where years of future flier strength could be eliminated in a single strike.

The academy’s knowledge base includes Captain Lera Dorrell’s Guide to Vanquishing the Venin, a Cliffsbane-owned text that covers practical anti-venin doctrine and strategic analysis of the venin war.

A cohort of one hundred displaced flier cadets from Cliffsbane survives under Tecarus’s shelter after the academy is destroyed. Tecarus wants Aretia to take them in, protect them, continue their education alongside rider cadets, and teach them to work with dragon riders.

Cat is among the fliers who fought their way out of Cliffsbane, and she uses that experience to argue that the displaced fliers have already seen battle.

Cordyn shelters a large displaced Cliffsbane-linked flier population after Zolya becomes untenable, with the gryphons reporting that a third of their ranks have taken refuge there.

Dark wielders are Cliffsbane’s direct enemy after they destroy Zolya and take up residence at the academy.

Cliffsbane’s flier bonding ritual sends candidates to the edge above a river while gryphon drifts pass below. A candidate who lands on a gryphon, climbs into position, and holds on is bonded; one who misses swims ashore and chooses another service branch.

Failed bonding at Cliffsbane is not treated as a death sentence, in contrast to Basgiath’s lethal Threshing.

Navarrian tactical writing regards Cliffsbane as a strategically valuable target because destroying it would wipe out years of gryphon-rider development at once.

Cliffsbane’s anti-venin guide treats failed gryphon-bonding candidates as a group vulnerable to venin recruitment.