Highbeast

Highbeasts are the primary means of transportation used by nobles. By dyeing a specially prepared feystone with one's own mana, it can be morphed into the shape of an animal, that will move according to the user's will and fly through the air. The changes are according to the user's imagination.

Currently there are two types of highbeasts -- the traditional type that takes the shape of winged animals, and the drivable type pioneered by Rozemyne.

Nobles generally turn their highbeasts into a mount reminding of animals like pegasus', griffins or some other animal with wings. A few of the more eccentric individuals also use feybeasts like shumil or Bahelm with wings as their mount. Since the banner animal of Ehrenfest is the Lion, only members of the archduke's family are allowed to model their highbeast after the regal animals. Generally the Archduke's family created winged but otherwise regular lions, with the Aub using a three-headed one. Despite what many nobles believe, the wings are not actually part of the mechanics that lift a highbeast into the air. Rozemyne is the first person known to create a wingless beast, in her case an automobile with the head and tail of a red panda, often mistaken for the feybeast Grun. She calls her highbeast a pandabus and gave it the name Lessy. Rozemyne's highbeast is considered revolutionary because it has the following advantages:


 * The size can be increased and decreased to accommodate the user's needs, which makes it possible to carry more passengers or luggage.
 * It does not have wings, which allows it to move easily in tight spaces like corridors and forests.
 * Since the rider doesn't have to ride on a steed, s/he is able to sit on a chair. Female users will be able to wear their finest dresses while riding, instead of changing into their rider costumes.
 * As the internal is an enclosed space, the user is unaffected by the weather outside. The windows are covered with transparent mana membranes.
 * Since it is created from the user's mana, anyone with less mana than the user cannot destroy the highbeast and harm the passengers inside. If the user has an exceptionally large mana capacity, it is nigh-impenetrable in terms of defense.

However, the practicality and advantages do not come entirely free, since such a highbeast requires more mana than the traditional variant. It is also ill-suited for knights, who need to use their weapons in airborne combat.

When Rozemyne showed her pandabus at the Royal Academy, its practicality and particularly the fact that women could keep wearing their regular clothes rather than having to change into riding gear made professors and students alike very interested in the concept.

Professor Hirschur was the first person to successfully change her highbeast into a drivable one inspired by Rozemyne's Pandabus, though modelled after a shumil instead of a panda. Since she was already used to the more traditional way of controlling a highbeast, she replaced the steering wheel seen in Lessy with reigns and was able to successfully control her new drivable shumil highbeast with ease.

With several of the female students attempting to create drivable highbeasts of their own, mostly modelled after shumils like the one Hirschur made, there are signs for these kind of highbeasts to become a new trend among those with a sufficiently high mana capacity to sustain them.

The following table details nobles with known highbeasts: