Roc as a flying mount

[Benomatic]

Just wondering if anyone else would like to see roc mounts?

A roc or rukh (from the Arabic and Persian رخ rokh,[1] asserted by Louis Charles Casartelli[2] to be an abbreviated form of Persian simurgh) is an enormous legendary bird of prey, often said to be white.

The roc had its origins, according to Rudolph Wittkower, in the fight between the Indian solar bird Garuda[3] and the chthonic serpent Nāga. The mytheme of Garuda carrying off an elephant that was battling a Crocodile appears in two Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata (I.1353) and the Ramayana (III.39). The roc appears in Arabic geographies and natural history, popularized in Arabian fairy tales and sailors' folklore. Ibn Battuta (iv. 305ff) tells of a mountain hovering in air over the China Seas, which was the roc.[4]

Western expansion



1690 painting by Franz Rösel von Rosenhof showing two roc-like birds carrying a deer and an elephant
Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela reported a story reminiscent of the roc in which shipwrecked sailors had themselves carried off desert islands by wrapping ox-hides round them and letting griffins carry them off as if they were cattle.

[5] In the 13th century, Marco Polo (as quoted in Attenborough (1961: 32) stated "It was for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size; so big in fact that its quills were twelve paces long and thick in proportion. And it is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces; having so killed him, the bird swoops down on him and eats him at leisure". Marco Polo explicitly distinguishes the bird from a griffin. Doubtless it was Marco Polo's description that inspired Antonio Pigafetta, one of Magellan's companions, who wrote or had ghost-written an embroidered account of the circumglobal voyage; in Pigafetta's account[6] the home grounds of the roc were the seas of China.

Such descriptions doubtless captured the imaginations of later illustrators, such as Johannes Stradanus ca 1590[7] or Theodor de Bry in 1594 who showed an elephant being carried off in the roc's talons,[8] or showed the roc destroying entire ships in revenge for destruction of its giant egg, as recounted in the fifth voyage of Sinbad the Sailor. Tommaso Aldrovandini's Ornithologia (1599) included a woodcut of a roc with a somewhat pig-like elephant in its talons,[9] but in the rational world of the 17th century, the roc was more critically looked upon.

[spelle]

whats a Roc? is it some sort of eagle?

[Deleted]

Its a huge bird from Arabic mythologies, also knowns as Rukh. It was said to be so big it could carry an elephant with its talons.

[Immitis]

whats a Roc? is it some sort of eagle?

its basically a giant as bird. imagine a bird a bit bigger than a proto drake

and yes, i wants dem

---------- Post added 2013-04-20 at 07:03 PM ----------

HAY BLIZZ

you should totes use this as "inspiration" for the roc mount

[Benomatic]

Could even be a new playable race flying mount akin to wyvern and hippogriff

[Prancing Minstrel]

http://www.wowhead.com/npc=5430
Those things? Adds to variation I guess.

[Benomatic]

Or closer in theme with those seen in the hobbit and lord of the rings

[willtron]

i feel like everything that can fly in the game is being turned into a mount.

[Benomatic]

But rocs have been used as mounts in other literature and other media, why should wow be any different?

[Deleted]

i feel like everything that can fly in the game is being turned into a mount.

I want a zeppelin mount!

[Shedeo]

i feel like everything that can fly in the game is being turned into a mount.

WTB Blood Queen Lana'thel mount pst

[Z3ROR]

i feel like everything that can fly in the game is being turned into a mount.

I want a wasp/firefly mount!

[Sett]

I wonder how many people are going to come in this thread yelling that you can't fly on a large boulder.

( A roc would have been cool in Cata with all the elemental stuff going on. )

[checking facts]

WTB Blood Queen Lana'thel mount pst

I support this

also: WTB succubus mount. they have wings

[Hyde]

Just wondering if anyone else would like to see roc mounts?

Two headed vultures as rook for ogre's mount!