Junior Officer Joseph Caine, on the force for 4 years. Joe is a well-liked member of the force, but he was made to take an enforced vacation when he broke his leg on the job. He is a powerful man, and at times it seems he thinks that he is as invulnerable as his commander Chief Steele is called. He has a strong competitive streak in him, but he is good on his word and takes orders well enough.

At 27 years old, this clean cut light-skinned man has often come under scrutiny for his habit of dyeing his hair new and interesting colors. He enjoys being looked at, though he is faintly jealous of Heller's good looks. His clear light blue eyes always look as though he's plotting something.

Joe has a girlfriend of 2 years, a nurse he met when he was in the hospital with his broken leg. Sylvie is protective of him, but not more so than any other patient she's tended. Joe's family all lives in Talon City, though in a different district so he is not directly responsible for their safety. He has both parents, three out of four grandparents, and one younger brother who is a graduate student at Talon City University. He has plans to marry Sylvie, but she is not finished with her nursing degree and both are rather busy and haven't actually had time to plan it out.

Joe really wasn't sure what to do with himself. He decided early on that if given the choice he'd compete with the guys on a different level than just 'what flavor of dragon would they come home with'. And certainly, he'd never be able to garner a huge testosterone-giant like Steele and Temple did. No way. First of all, he didn't feel mature enough to handle that kind of responsibility. The sheer size of those dragons was another problem for him. Caine was not truly 'afraid' of the dragons, but their huge bulk did intimidate him.

It also reminded him of the rig that had toppled over onto him, that one fateful day... The day before he met Sylvie and the day he almost lost his leg. Should one of those dragons accidentally step upon anyone, they'd just be crushed!

So he stuck to another idea. In flipping through the slick 'advertisements' for the dragonries, he spotted one which others seemed to disregard. It was at an established dragonry, known for its sizable and durable dragons. Certainly. But it wasn't a dragon hatching he was seeing. It was for gryphons!

He knew that at least one gryphon had paired up with another member of the team, Dooley and her amazing fire-ash gryphon. She called it something else, t-something, but he wasn't sure. When he saw the examples of parents at this gryphon festival at Tripaldi though, Caine was positive he'd want to go there.

Besides, didn't Sylvie have some decorative doodads in her house with such things on it? She'd be happy if he didn't come home with a scary monstery-dragon. That was sure. But a gryphon would make her really happy.

And presumably, they were a bit smaller than dragons...

So off he went, with Dee and Doom on his shoulders bobbing up and down in time with his strut. Sometime soon, he hoped, he'd be the proud rider of a nearly-unique (well, Dooley'd already done it) gryphon...