The Imperial Manticore
Height: 16' to 20'
Weight: 18,000-26,000 Lbs
Length: 32' to 40'
Diet: Carnivorous
Rarity: Rare
Tier: Tier 5
Taming and Training: Master Animal Handling, Master Animal Husbandry, Pups Only
Appearance and Biology
It's hard to say what parts of the Imperial Manticore aren't some form of natural weapon or defense mechanism. Still, a wonderful coat of black-and-white tiger stripes covers most of its body, fur coarse and short in most areas. The area around its mane gets softer, long and shaggy, as well as everything along the belly and groin area. The hide beneath this fur is, however, several inches thick and has been compared to sheets of metal.
With an excellent sense of smell and hearing, the manticore is capable of swiveling its wolf-like ears in whichever direction it needs to catch faint, distant sounds. Their sight is also keen, and almost hawk-like, their reflexes fast and instinctual. The pupils of their orange-citrine eyes will expand as they see into the distance, narrowing down to feline slits as they focus on prey a few feet away from them. Meeting the gaze of one of these beasts is often met by a loud, blood-curdling growl, one that many have found themselves frozen in the face of. Death or impalement swiftly follows.
Within each manticores maw is a row of wickedly sharp and slightly curved teeth, perfect for rending and scouring flesh from bone. Powerful jaw muscles are a boon to this great beast, capable of crunching a man in two between enormous jaws. If a blade is caught in its maw, the manticore can snap even magically enhanced metals between its teeth to a certain extent. The manticore's long, fang-like incisors can be sunk into flesh to create a bite that is difficult to escape from without surrendering the limb entirely. Within that weaponry is a long, prehensile appendage of slick muscle. It can extend about ten feet from its maw, covered in sharp, bony spines and a final sharp spike as devastating as a magically durable steel spearhead. Using this tongue, they can rip away fur, clean a bone of leftover food, harpoon victims several feet away, or play with their food by licking still-living prey until they bleed.
Beginning from the base of the neck beneath the mane and trailing down the spine before finally curving out from the tailbone, there are bulbous ridges of carapace, a durable material capable of withstanding a blow or two from most forms of basic weaponry such as common steel swords and arrows, but continued direct hits will fracture and eventually crack open the natural armor, making the tail more sluggish or outright injuring it into uselessness. The tail is highly flexible and can be used to restrain, often held high behind the beast as if poised to strike: there's a large, venomous stinger on the end, capable of lashing out in the blink of an eye. Upon the base of that stinger are four fleshy nubs arranged in a square pattern; bulging venom glands. Because the tail can be squeezed, a subdued manticore is easily milked of its venom, but the cost in keeping one captive is not something any have dared trying as of yet.
These beasts seem to live very long lifespans, with the oldest known seemingly unchanged since the Raiders began living near it. The initial estimate was twice that of an elf, and so they are thought to live perhaps six hundred years, though they will reach maturity and reach their full size in less than ten.
Habitat
Found denning within old ruins deep inside the Imperial Badlands, the Imperial Manticore is an entirely solitary beast. Occasionally it will leave its den to hunt, but it prefers to harpoon weak victims with it's sharp tongue and drag them to these ruins as sustainable food sources. Their numbers are very few, and those that do exist anywhere near Raider settlements tend to never be seen beyond the warnings signs carved into arid rock or even outright erected by the local populace. They prefer areas that are safe from corrosive rain, often large ruins with high ceilings.
Temperament
The Imperial Manticore can be compared to a tiger in the way that it views prey. While being wolf-like visually, it has many feline instincts, but the similarities end when it comes to engaging prey. They are ruthless, swift, and have no regard for anything else, even other Manticore. It is a creature entirely absorbed with its own survival, and if it wants something it knows it can take, it will. The beast is not entirely sadistic, but being captured by one will feel that way. They are lax and calm with their movements once they have prey subdued, but otherwise they are entirely wild and aggressive at the sight of any sort of threat--they cannot, and will not be dominated. They are, in their mind, the apex predator in any situation. A Manticore does not know fear, and it will fight to the death without fleeing, making it especially dangerous. Taming one from a pup would be the reserve of a true master of animal handling, or perhaps a mage holding magical sway over animals.
Life Cycle
Since the Imperial Manticore has been known of, only one has been slain, and it took the entire might of the Daravinic military to lay a trap for the creature. What they found within its den both appalled and fascinated everyone. Every manticore maintains a 'brood wall' so-to-speak, of victims covered in a magically regenerative jelly capable of stabilizing most fatal wounds and slowly regenerating them over a season. The manticore utilizes this to both feed on captured victims perpetually using its barbed tongue, and more rarely will stab the victim with its tail, injecting paralytic venom as well as eggs that will then gestate over the course of three seasons before eventually erupting from the abdomen as vicious pups--bizarrely, the victim often survives this. Every manticore is considered 'female' for this reason, though they lack traditional genitalia.
Only the strongest manticore pup will survive, as the parent will eat its young. It is often the pup that is born while the brood mother is away that will survive, wandering deeper into the ruin before escaping to the wider world. For this reason, there are only perhaps a few dozen fully grown Imperial Manticore in existence.
Abilities
The Imperial manticore possesses three types of venom and one specialized solution for mending, which it accesses by changing the pressure in the glands within its tail, which is armed by a reinforced stinger-tip as durable as its claws and teeth.
- The Antivenom: Used to prevent the death of prey it intends to perpetually harvest.
- Paralytic Venom: Used to immobilize prey. The paralytic venom can bring down an elephant in less than a minute, and will completely immobilize a person in seconds.
- Corrosive Venom: Drizzled from the tail above a victim, the corrosive venom will begin to sizzle, eating away at even solid steal, melting it into a hot, bubbling pool. Flesh follows a similar fate. Only certain organic chitin materials are immune to the chemical, and the manticore generally refrains from using this, as it prefers to capture prey alive--threats will, however, be treated to a dousing of this fascinating compound.
- Amnion: Secreted by the stinger, Amnion is a fast-acting stabilizing compound that will stop the bleeding of any wound very quickly, accepted by the flesh and allowing for near-instant coagulation. It dries quickly, forming a hard, scab-like material that can fully subdue a victim, encasing them in a very difficult to break prison. This is usually only applied to captured prey, or the manticore's own wounds as it heals. The Amnion is somewhat magical and will regenerate flesh using the Ether of its victim, but repeated use will create large tumors of nutritious flesh for the manticore to consume from its prey much like the berry of a bush made from live, captured victims. Amnion will satisfy the nutritional needs of those it is applied to.
The main weakness of the manticore is its tail--the chitin is capable of being severed, causing the beast great pain. It is thick and bony, but no more durable than traditional insect chitin of some other large beast. Further, the underside is softer, with only perhaps a couple inches of hide to pierce.
Uses
The mane fur of the Imperial Manticore is collected, as are secretions of corrosive venom. While they do not slay the beast, there are dangerous methods employed by local gangs to trick it into employing its weapons, and then harvesting the results. The fur is used to torture victims, and the corrosive venom is used as a potent weapon, squirted onto enemies--often they do not have enough, so it is watered down and not as potent as the source. Scholars and mages prize the corrosive venom as it can eventually melt most magical materials into their base components, said to be capable of dismantling even powerful magical artifacts. Mane-fur and watered down corrosive venom can be found within the black markets of the Imperial Badlands.
The teeth and claws of the manticore are also famed for their durability and size, said to be twice as hard as steel and capable of holding an edge. However, such items are exceedingly rare, and the only weapons made from such are typically owned by Daravinic higher nobility, hewn into instruments of war. These items are not sold on the market.
While the chitin has few uses, the hide is exceedingly thick and somewhat more durable than traditional leather. It is lightweight, feeling like air, while providing similar protection to perhaps iron plate with only an inch of material. Plied this way, enough leather could be harvested and treated to outfit perhaps a dozen men, though protective wear must be used when skinning to avoid damage from the mane fur. These items and materials are not sold on the market.
Amnion in particular is prized, with many scholarly medical practitioners seeking to create reserves of this material for study. However, it must be used quickly before it dries, and there is no known method of preserving it. There are only perhaps a handful of people on Atharen maintaining a reserve through magical means, and as such this material can be seen as priceless. This is the main reason Daravinic nobility will fund expeditions to capture Manticore pups or harvest a brood wall.
Created By: Nuraku
