The Manticore is one of many great characters in one of my favorite books I read to my daughter, “The Voyage of the Basset”, written and richly illustrated by James Christensen. Anyone who likes myth and fantasy creatures will love this book. Its take on Medusa is my all time favorite!!!
I thought that this was just join to be another regular Monstrum episode. But when the audio of Mr Rhexx playing, I litterally squeed with delight! 😆 He's one of my all time favorte youtubers of all time along with Monstrum! I absoltely *LOVE* irl mythology and D&D lore, especially when the cultural roots, real or fictional, are explored! Please do more videos together, Dr. Z & Mr Rhexx!
I've always adored the manticore due to Piers Anthony's spell for chameleon. The whole bit about the good magician and, "if such conglomerate evil could have a soul, what could be condemned as evil?"
I noticed that Power Rangers reference and I'd like to say that Goldar from MMPR is also a manicore (but for some reason people think he's a flying monkey)💯💯💯
While there may be no written Persian record of the Manticor, there is a carved rock stela with a very manticor like creature. I believe it's one of king Darius's victory reliefs and it shows him tusseling with a lion that i believe has a scorpion tail. Now the creature in the picture is supposed to represent Darius's victory over the many rebellious cities that cropped up after his rise to power
Personally, the Beast from the Disney movie (Beauty and the Beast) has an upper body similar to a manticore and a lower body similar to a werewolf (some say he has a face similar to a minotaur?).
Any time there is a discussion of medieval bestiaries, I get excited. I have loved studying them over the years and showing how belief in them influenced people's actions and desires 🙂
The manticore doesn't have wings! Wings are a very recent addition to the creature, which it might have inherited due to being similar to the Greek sphinx.
@@NickLavic I prefer my manticores wingless as well, but "wrong" is pretty subjective when it comes to mythical creatures. The very first descriptions of the manticore probably bear little resemblance to the "correct" image you have of them, and I'm sure there were hundreds of differing accounts, no one of which was more valid than the other. For example, my image of a manticore depicted "correctly" involves not a scorpion's tail, but a tail ending in a morning-star-like array of venomous spines that it shoots at its prey. As with all monsters, the manticore's description has varied and evolved from teller to teller, and that tradition continues even to today. To suggest that at some arbitrary point it became a _true_ manticore and that any description that diverges from that one (whether it came before or after) is foolish.
I don't see it honestly. What part of a tiger reminds you of a scorpion-like tail, wings, and spike armour? Even the humanoid face is just weird when you know that humans were already familiar with lions, domestic cats and wouldn't describe them as particularly humanlike faces.
That's funny, Swedish Wikipedia states that the Manticore was most likely based on the Caspian Tiger (the flat face, the curled tail.) Caspian Tigers were declared extinct in 2003.
What source does it provide for that? Caspian Tigers may have had a flatter face compared to other mainland Asian Tigers, but it would still look very similar to other Panthera or felines. Besides, where do the bloody dragon wings and scorpion tail come in?
Dreams in mythology would be a good topic for Fate and Fabled. Now that they've done trees, the sun, cats, music, and tricksters, they should do dreams.
Hey, it’s political season. Would you mind doing a video about Lizard People? If you think about it it’s the one monster people still believe in. Also, they are a creature in dungeons and dragons too. :P
and fear & hunger and zelda witht hem Lizalfos and argonians from Elder Scrolls and like 80% of the cast from the web series Sauria and spiderman and TMNT (if you count the turtles)
I always thought it could have been an African Lion. I noticed you didn't mention Grimm or Onward. Have you considered an episode about the Star/Lizard People? It is truly facinating.
Indian traders embellishing the traits of the tiger to make it sound more exotic doesn't seem so farfetched when you think about the stories told about drop bears today.
I love how humanity holds on to the memory of these legendary creatures. Recently got into DnD in the last year or so. It amazes me how the creators use inspiration from real life mythology.
What a coincidence! I'm working on a novel/TableTop RPG with the manticore as the first boss. Anyway, according to my research, the DnD manticore is not the first time they appear as female.
‘Manticore’ is also a not-half-bad SyFy movie from 2005. It stars Robert Beltran (Star Trek Voyager), Heather Donahue (Blair Witch Project), Farhan Tahir (Iron Man),and Chase Masterson (Star Trek Deep Space 9). It’s set during one of the conflicts in Iraq and features a violent manticore with animal intelligence versus a US Army unit. The old stories made new again.
The manticore appeared in several Fighting Fantasy gamebooks - Creature of Havoc (1986), Deathtrap Dungeon (1984), Knights of Doom (1994), Legend of the Shadow Warriors (1991), Stormslayer (2009), and The Shamutanti Hills (1983). It was also in d20 ttrpg module of the same title in 2003. As for Advanced Fighting Fantasy ttrpg, it was mentioned in Beyond the Pits (2014), Out of the Pit (1985, later reedited and republished in 2011), and Return to the Pit (2019). It was also in video games Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! Part 1 and 2. Author Neil Gaiman used the manticore in his writings such as The Books of Magic (1990) and Unnatural Creatures (2013). In Smite video game, the Manticore was used as an AI opponent for players to practice on. In 2023 they brought in a new playable character as a part of the Greek pantheon named Martichoras the Manticore King.
During the bloopers when she said "Help us tell compelling stories" I thought "I bet she could do a mean GLaDOS impression! Then it got me interested in hearing about a more modern monster. "The AI Super Computer" like GLaDOS and HAL9000
Manticores are my absolute favorite mythical beast! One thing to note though is that the one in Dante’s Inferno was able to speak. D&D did not invent that part of their lore. Otherwise, great video! Very informative!
Real Talk: In the D&D adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak, one of the first three available quests involves visiting a woman who resides in an old windmill far out of town, and you find her being menaced by a manticore. Yes, your party of level 1s can run into a flying monstrosity with a CR higher than your party level at the very start, without any advance warning. My party of three lost their bard in our first 5e game because of that encounter. And this is with two experienced players, one of which had been playing since 1e AD&D. This seems like a difficulty spike out of nowhere, right?
Compare to Lammasu, and of course the Sphinxes. Similar creatures after a sort yet very different in their make up and behavior. Of course these beings are from other cultures across time and location but they all have a certain... heraldric quality. They share that with great birds (Phoenix, Roc,Thunderbird, eagles and falcons, etc.) and Gryphons(Griffins) lions and etc..
My first glimpse of the Manticore was on the album cover of the Emmerson Lake and Palmer album TARKUS. The title character is hatched from an egg in an active volcano. He's part biological and part machine and looks like a WWI British heavy tank crossed with an armadillo. He wanders a post-apocalyptic landscape encountering various part-machine monsters until he is defeated by the Manticore. He then crosses the river Styx. The album was released in 1971.
Another interesting take on the Manticore is fellow RUclipsr ThoughtPotato who creates alternative universe takes on biologically plausible cryptids. His Manticore is reimagined as a distant relative of the baboons who have become dedicated carnivores and have evolved a poisonous tail quill. They are extinct in the wild but are kept alive by a wealthy Indian family who revere them and keep a few surviving specimens in their private menagerie. It’s definitely worth checking out his channel.
Eyes like coal, head of a wolf, ears of a cat, claws like knives, body like a bear in golden armor, tail of a dragon, with a poison breath. ...must be how people described the shy harmless pangolins.
In Sounheim's "Into The Woods", the witch (from Nextdoor) says Manticores are imaginary. (After the intermission, the group were trying to figure out what huge creature was flattening everything and the manticore was one of the suggested culprits.... sadly, she also said gryphons are extinct).
In _Monster Hunter,_ the fiery elder dragon Teostra resembles a manticore. As a visual design, the "modern" manticore (not necessarily D&D, just with the bat/dragon wings) is one of my lowkey favorite mythological creatures.
So, if both have wings, a lion's body plan, and a human's head, what's the difference between a Sphinx and a Manticore? Aside from the scorpion tail, would they be considered different species from a DnD perspective? And from a mythological standpoint, do they come from different or similar sources?
Another fine episode, though speaking of compelling stories it's a shame you didn't mention Lord Juss's battle with a manticore in the mountains of Impland in E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ourboros (1922) - an explosive, fabulous high point in one of the twentieth century's most underrated novels.
The cook channel confronted me with the food nightmare of my childhood: snert. It’s creepy. Snert is a typical Dutch soup. And my mom loved it so much, she couldn’t believe I didn’t. (But I had my revenge, I cooked chicory for her when she came to eat)
SO nice to see MrRhexx!!!! The Manticore always fascinated me in the old D&D Monster Manual. I got in a ton of trouble for coloring in that book, but I so wanted to see the vibrant colors in the descriptions that I took after the books with markers and colored pencils... And I remember really being challenged by the Manticore in particular since its description and the sketch in the book are just so WILD. Also love the mention of the Manticore in "The Last Unicorn" (the film) - just a toothless old lion; a captive and a victim in a way but also another example of the weird, back-handed tenderness of the witch. She exploits her creatures, but at least in the movie it's left open to interpretation whether or not she takes good care of them. I sometimes think maybe she fed and cared for them quite well... I also wonder sometimes if that first Greek writer struggled with translation and unusual words - or if the people telling him stories about wildlife were struggling. Of course the prankster angle is very possible too - "hey let's tell this silly foreigner a story, how ridiculous a creature can we get him to believe in?" But what if they were struggling to describe the sudden attack of the tiger? I've seen footage of the way the big cats can lunge, especially since they favor ambush tactics. If you got lucky and the cat's claws "only" grazed you - you could be forgiven for thinking someone had thrown javelins or spikes at you! And given how filthy cat claws are (no matter what kind of cat), I bet plenty of people DID die from such wounds due to infection... leading to the logical enough assumption that the monster's weaponry is poisoned. There's also the possibility that someone tried to draw a picture of the tiger and was not exactly a professional artist, haha. But we'd have little way to know, since a "back of the envelope" quick doodle or sketch wouldn't be preserved!
If you love metal, then one of the best hidden tracks is quest for the manticore by 3 inches of blood ruclips.net/video/b3Y-bVJTXVE/видео.htmlsi=Y9DMj1PVucGIsmy8 Also a song about the Nuckelavee by Hellripper ruclips.net/video/4rry7l5msjQ/видео.htmlsi=0dUudQ1yShNuN2pP Enjoy🤘🏻
Robertson Davies is a Canadian author. We had to read the whole trilogy. The Manticore was the middle book I think. Come to think of it, it was grade 13 Canadian Literature. Yes we had 13 grades. Also, a separate grade 13 English credit. Lots of reading!
I had always assumed that the manticore was a second-hand memory of the shedu, the male version of the protective lamassu from Mesopotamian mythology & folklore. Aside from having eagle (maybe vulture?) wings instead of bat/dragon wings, they’re fundamentally identical.
First time I ever heard of a Manticore was in 1981 playing a DND module "White Plume Mountain" had no idea they were based on ancient mythical beasts. Very cool 😎
Thank you for covering something so fun. If you're reading this, I hope you learned something cool from the video. Now go play D&D, tame this beast as a sidekick, and watch Onward.
I have always liked the manticore design in Final Fantasy 11 and 14. There's also a dungeon and gearsets in FF14 seemingly named for Ctesias; treasure chests in the Ktisis Hyperboreia dungeon (where you fight all kinds of chimeric monstrosities) have Ktiseos equipment rewards.
Mr Rhexx is the revelation here! Therianthropes! Next up on Monstrum perhaps, Dr Zarka, be Tiamat? Also, it's pronounced "churros"in honor of PBS's Pan Pals.
Thank you for another fascinating episode. I hope that you will one day do one about the Scandinavian “Myling”. Its origins will send chills down the spine all the while giving us a whisper of insight into the hardship women faced back in the day (And still do in some places) For those who don't have sleep on the schedule I recommend diving into the literature. Also related is “Ängla makerskor” (Eng: Angel makers)
Love that episode on the manticore, Dr. Z! By the way, think you can do a future video based on a monstrous creature with this clue that I have given you? "Riddle me this....Riddle me not....What has four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?"
The very first time I heard about the Manticore was a reference in the movie "The Last Unicorn", in which the titular unicorn ends up being the only genuine mythical creature in a decrepit old witch's traveling zoo. The witch has cast illusion spells on animals too weak to fight back in some way to make them look like monsters, bragging about her mastery of such beasts by being cruel.
Before the first Monster Manual came out I encountered manticores in James and the Giant Peach ("It's a manticore!") and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, where the Wonka-Vite recipe includes "the hoof of a manticore" and "the front tail of a cockatrice."
The Manticore of Persian mythology is pretty cool, but not nearly as cool as the Star Kingdom (later Star Empire) of Manticore's preeminent naval officer, Honor Harrington. David Weber has written or co-written over 40 books set in his Honorverse. Some of those books are prequels set before Honor was born or focus primarily on characters other than Honor. Anyone who enjoys military science fiction and/or space opera will almost certainly enjoy reading about Honor Harrington and her Star Nation of Manticore.
The most deeply impactful manticore portrayal, for me, was in the _The Books of Magic: Bindings_ TPB. The manticore is not just a terrifying antagonist, but also a deeply creepy character and an excellent, if not entirely subtle, metaphor for a certain kind of smug cynicism that has only gotten more noxious as we moved into the internet age.
Great video! My favorite manticore is Skittles from the web comic Darwin Carmichael is Going to Hell. Such a cutie. 😀 I need to find my copy or see if its still online. It's time for another read.
It's very amazing to see a video about such a fierce and cunning creature. The manticore is my third favorite monster of mythology. I'm just so happy. Can't wait for Changelings to be up too.😃
From what I could tell when I researched the Manticore's origins it seemed that the creature was a Caricature of the Assyrian Lamassu created by ancient Greek authors. The Lamassu was an ancient protective deity in Mesopotamia, Persia, Sumeria, etc.
the Manticore is also the the main subject of an old NSP song, going off the song the Manticore is a MENACE also Teostra & Lunastra from Monster Hunter look very much like one of these beasts
The Manticore is such an iconic creature of myth which I can list some of my favorite depictions like: - One Piece they are just small lions with human like faces that comes from the South Blue that are placed in level 2 of the great prison Impel Down & can mimic human voices but they just say underwear & food - Grimm they are extremely powerful wesen at first seem like humans that can transform into lion like humanoid with a scorpion tail - Tiny Manticore (voiced by Tom Kenny) is an minor character
Hi, love your content and way the old beliefs are presented and explained. I've got a quick question - what is the relation between Sphinx an Manticore? They seem to have somewhat similar features of human and lion, is it possible that they have common origins?
A Spell for Chameleon... man I haven't seen that book in ages! I was so obsessed with Piers Anthony's works back in middle school. That was one of the books my local librarian had a heck of a time getting it, lol!
MrRhexx awesome!!
I thought I recognized his voice !
I love his channel.
Holy crap MrRhexx face reveal!
Mr Rhexx! Very cool and unexpected
Seeing MrRhexx here is a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
So, at 5:35, am I the only one going “uh, that’s a chimera, not a manticore.”
No, you certainly are not.
Same
Yeah, same
The Manticore is one of many great characters in one of my favorite books I read to my daughter, “The Voyage of the Basset”, written and richly illustrated by James Christensen. Anyone who likes myth and fantasy creatures will love this book. Its take on Medusa is my all time favorite!!!
That's cool. I first heard about them from the Xanth series.
Love that book
@@cartoonraccoon2078A Spell For Chameleon
Definitely adding this to my wish list!
Great to see Mr Rhexx!
Am I the only one who thinks of the Ninja Sex Party song "Manticore"?
You are not
Nope.
speaking of dnd, can you do a video how kobolds in dnd differ from kobolds in german folklore?
I thought that this was just join to be another regular Monstrum episode. But when the audio of Mr Rhexx playing, I litterally squeed with delight! 😆 He's one of my all time favorte youtubers of all time along with Monstrum! I absoltely *LOVE* irl mythology and D&D lore, especially when the cultural roots, real or fictional, are explored!
Please do more videos together, Dr. Z & Mr Rhexx!
We hope to! So grateful for @MrRhexx and his insights!-*Dr.Z*
I've always adored the manticore due to Piers Anthony's spell for chameleon. The whole bit about the good magician and, "if such conglomerate evil could have a soul, what could be condemned as evil?"
I noticed that Power Rangers reference and I'd like to say that Goldar from MMPR is also a manicore (but for some reason people think he's a flying monkey)💯💯💯
I thought he was a gryphon, because the Japanese character he was based on was named Griffozer.
@@AdamYJHe's a manticore with a name similar to a griffin
And he is married to Lami (Scorpina) who has the scorpion theming of the manticore, though she is named after the lamia (or the scorpion in English).
You can also find them as flying mounts in World of Warcraft where they are mistakenly called wyverns.
In the 1966 Rankin Bass Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, the king of the island of misfit toys was a manticore.
The manticore feels happiness whenever you feel sad
because you got kicked in the junk
The manticore is glad
Just tell let you, you forgot to add an “s” to Dungeon in the title
🤦♀️ Thank you!
Dungeon & Dragon /s
manticore : 🇮🇷 iran Persia night forest lion head half body dragon wing tailed scorpion tooth claw creature stinging poisonous attack man-eating
Is the Sphinx related while being distinct? It has the face of a man and the body of a lion....
it seems like a very similar creature at the very least, i'm sure in some sort of family tree people would put manitcores & spynxes as relatives
Makes me think of Mirrormask, where they're very similar, just two different sizes and one is more verbal.
In the novel The Voyage of the Bassett a manticore and a sphinx join the crew of the titular crew and eventually fall in love.
4:19 Part of me is saying 'the Indian traders were messing with Ctesias when they told him about the stinger tail and whatnot'
Yooo! Shoutout to my Piers Anthony fans!
While there may be no written Persian record of the Manticor, there is a carved rock stela with a very manticor like creature. I believe it's one of king Darius's victory reliefs and it shows him tusseling with a lion that i believe has a scorpion tail. Now the creature in the picture is supposed to represent Darius's victory over the many rebellious cities that cropped up after his rise to power
Just checked and the carving is called the "Battle of Shariar and Lion"
I think that's a chimera at 5:39, not a manticore but regardless loved your vid!
Editor zoomed in on the wrong critter. Pull back to 5:28
The manticore in the “Books of Magic” graphic novels was the scariest.
Tiny Manticore from Adventure Time went so hard, so funny.
Personally, the Beast from the Disney movie (Beauty and the Beast) has an upper body similar to a manticore and a lower body similar to a werewolf (some say he has a face similar to a minotaur?).
Any time there is a discussion of medieval bestiaries, I get excited. I have loved studying them over the years and showing how belief in them influenced people's actions and desires 🙂
The manticore doesn't have wings! Wings are a very recent addition to the creature, which it might have inherited due to being similar to the Greek sphinx.
Thanks for repeating what they say in the video
I could tell that they were "related"!
@@thomas261989 No, the first description of the manticore in the video mentions wings, which is wrong.
@@NickLavic I prefer my manticores wingless as well, but "wrong" is pretty subjective when it comes to mythical creatures. The very first descriptions of the manticore probably bear little resemblance to the "correct" image you have of them, and I'm sure there were hundreds of differing accounts, no one of which was more valid than the other. For example, my image of a manticore depicted "correctly" involves not a scorpion's tail, but a tail ending in a morning-star-like array of venomous spines that it shoots at its prey.
As with all monsters, the manticore's description has varied and evolved from teller to teller, and that tradition continues even to today. To suggest that at some arbitrary point it became a _true_ manticore and that any description that diverges from that one (whether it came before or after) is foolish.
I never knew the Manticore was inspired by mistold descriptions of tigers and now I cant unsee it.
Maybe the chimera at 5:34 partially is as well
Not that far-fetched. Leucrota are strongly connected to myths about Hyenas and the Catoblepas was inspired by the Gnu.
Man Ti(ger) Core.
I don't see it honestly. What part of a tiger reminds you of a scorpion-like tail, wings, and spike armour? Even the humanoid face is just weird when you know that humans were already familiar with lions, domestic cats and wouldn't describe them as particularly humanlike faces.
@@NewAge374 exaggeration and mistranslation.probably
Manticore is such a metal creature to look at from a lot of tabletop RPG art I've seen.
That's funny, Swedish Wikipedia states that the Manticore was most likely based on the Caspian Tiger (the flat face, the curled tail.) Caspian Tigers were declared extinct in 2003.
What source does it provide for that? Caspian Tigers may have had a flatter face compared to other mainland Asian Tigers, but it would still look very similar to other Panthera or felines. Besides, where do the bloody dragon wings and scorpion tail come in?
@@NewAge374The original depictions of the Manticore does not feature wings.
Dreams in mythology would be a good topic for Fate and Fabled. Now that they've done trees, the sun, cats, music, and tricksters, they should do dreams.
Here we go.. Spooky season is creeping up... I expect to see some fun around here!
You forgot the story of "Tarkus" by Emerson, Lake, & Palmer.
Also in "The Worm Ouroboros"
Novel by E. R. Eddison
The third Fantastic Beasts movie butchered the manticore, didn't it?
Hey, it’s political season. Would you mind doing a video about Lizard People? If you think about it it’s the one monster people still believe in. Also, they are a creature in dungeons and dragons too. :P
Even doctor who has silurians and the elder scrolls series has argonians. Multiple options to go with.
Just be ready to hear about the unfortunate fact that the old lizard people conspiracy is an antisemetic dogwhistle
Only if the channel goes into the ways the lore is just a reskinning of some pretty horrible ancient conspiracy theories.
and fear & hunger
and zelda witht hem Lizalfos
and argonians from Elder Scrolls
and like 80% of the cast from the web series Sauria
and spiderman
and TMNT (if you count the turtles)
Even Call of Cthulhu the rpg has lizard people and snake people @@arthurmartin4616
AT 1:30 The video game SMITE has a playable character named "Martichoras, the Manticore King".
Bruhhhhhhhhhh it's Mr rhexx I love his channel
Have you ever done a video discussing what kind of myths inspired the Capricorn creature?
Isn't it pretty much just Ea's symbology that was imported by the greeks?
I always thought it could have been an African Lion. I noticed you didn't mention Grimm or Onward. Have you considered an episode about the Star/Lizard People? It is truly facinating.
An Amazing mythical creature that combines the fears of early civilizations such as lions, scorpions, bats, and cannibalism.
Indian traders embellishing the traits of the tiger to make it sound more exotic doesn't seem so farfetched when you think about the stories told about drop bears today.
What she calls a manticore appears to be no more than a shabby, toothless lion.
But the harpy, she's real. Stay the hell away from her.
I love how humanity holds on to the memory of these legendary creatures. Recently got into DnD in the last year or so. It amazes me how the creators use inspiration from real life mythology.
I learned about the Manticore thanks to Adventure Time, iykyk lmao
4:31
Gotta love the medievals putting the sythian cap on the creatures man face head
Tiny Manticore from Adventure Time is the best manticore.
The description of the Manticore reminds me of Grograman for some reason
Now do the terrasque please.
MrRhexx! Sweet.
If you played Dungeons and Dragons? What about us who don't know about it and yet still know about the Manticore through Greek Mythology
What a coincidence! I'm working on a novel/TableTop RPG with the manticore as the first boss. Anyway, according to my research, the DnD manticore is not the first time they appear as female.
‘Manticore’ is also a not-half-bad SyFy movie from 2005. It stars Robert Beltran (Star Trek Voyager), Heather Donahue (Blair Witch Project), Farhan Tahir (Iron Man),and Chase Masterson (Star Trek Deep Space 9). It’s set during one of the conflicts in Iraq and features a violent manticore with animal intelligence versus a US Army unit. The old stories made new again.
> Like in the Witcher VIDEO GAME series
I think I just heard Andrzej Sapkowski explode from anger lmao
The manticore appeared in several Fighting Fantasy gamebooks - Creature of Havoc (1986), Deathtrap Dungeon (1984), Knights of Doom (1994), Legend of the Shadow Warriors (1991), Stormslayer (2009), and The Shamutanti Hills (1983). It was also in d20 ttrpg module of the same title in 2003. As for Advanced Fighting Fantasy ttrpg, it was mentioned in Beyond the Pits (2014), Out of the Pit (1985, later reedited and republished in 2011), and Return to the Pit (2019). It was also in video games Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! Part 1 and 2.
Author Neil Gaiman used the manticore in his writings such as The Books of Magic (1990) and Unnatural Creatures (2013).
In Smite video game, the Manticore was used as an AI opponent for players to practice on. In 2023 they brought in a new playable character as a part of the Greek pantheon named Martichoras the Manticore King.
Awesome 👌 👏 Video 😅The Manticore 😮 and 🙏 from Raleigh North Carolina 🙏 😀 👌 👍 🙌 👏 🙏 😀 👌 👍 🙌 👏 🙏 😀
During the bloopers when she said "Help us tell compelling stories" I thought "I bet she could do a mean GLaDOS impression! Then it got me interested in hearing about a more modern monster. "The AI Super Computer" like GLaDOS and HAL9000
WHAT!!!! MrRhexx?!?! I remember watching that dude's videos about The Elder Scrolls all the time when I was just a wee little guy!!!!
Manticores are my absolute favorite mythical beast! One thing to note though is that the one in Dante’s Inferno was able to speak. D&D did not invent that part of their lore. Otherwise, great video! Very informative!
If you guys just go through the whole Monster Manual 1) that would be awesome and 2) I would watch each episode many times.
Real Talk:
In the D&D adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak, one of the first three available quests involves visiting a woman who resides in an old windmill far out of town, and you find her being menaced by a manticore. Yes, your party of level 1s can run into a flying monstrosity with a CR higher than your party level at the very start, without any advance warning.
My party of three lost their bard in our first 5e game because of that encounter. And this is with two experienced players, one of which had been playing since 1e AD&D.
This seems like a difficulty spike out of nowhere, right?
Instead of Charmed. You should've referenced them from the movie Onward. One of the supporting characters is a Manitcore!
Compare to Lammasu, and of course the Sphinxes. Similar creatures after a sort yet very different in their make up and behavior. Of course these beings are from other cultures across time and location but they all have a certain... heraldric quality. They share that with great birds (Phoenix, Roc,Thunderbird, eagles and falcons, etc.) and Gryphons(Griffins) lions and etc..
My first glimpse of the Manticore was on the album cover of the Emmerson Lake and Palmer album TARKUS. The title character is hatched from an egg in an active volcano. He's part biological and part machine and looks like a WWI British heavy tank crossed with an armadillo. He wanders a post-apocalyptic landscape encountering various part-machine monsters until he is defeated by the Manticore. He then crosses the river Styx. The album was released in 1971.
Another interesting take on the Manticore is fellow RUclipsr ThoughtPotato who creates alternative universe takes on biologically plausible cryptids. His Manticore is reimagined as a distant relative of the baboons who have become dedicated carnivores and have evolved a poisonous tail quill. They are extinct in the wild but are kept alive by a wealthy Indian family who revere them and keep a few surviving specimens in their private menagerie. It’s definitely worth checking out his channel.
Eyes like coal, head of a wolf, ears of a cat, claws like knives, body like a bear in golden armor, tail of a dragon, with a poison breath.
...must be how people described the shy harmless pangolins.
In Sounheim's "Into The Woods", the witch (from Nextdoor) says Manticores are imaginary. (After the intermission, the group were trying to figure out what huge creature was flattening everything and the manticore was one of the suggested culprits.... sadly, she also said gryphons are extinct).
In _Monster Hunter,_ the fiery elder dragon Teostra resembles a manticore.
As a visual design, the "modern" manticore (not necessarily D&D, just with the bat/dragon wings) is one of my lowkey favorite mythological creatures.
So, if both have wings, a lion's body plan, and a human's head, what's the difference between a Sphinx and a Manticore?
Aside from the scorpion tail, would they be considered different species from a DnD perspective?
And from a mythological standpoint, do they come from different or similar sources?
Another fine episode, though speaking of compelling stories it's a shame you didn't mention Lord Juss's battle with a manticore in the mountains of Impland in E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ourboros (1922) - an explosive, fabulous high point in one of the twentieth century's most underrated novels.
This was an unexpected cameo
I NEED MOOOOORRREEEE
The cook channel confronted me with the food nightmare of my childhood: snert. It’s creepy.
Snert is a typical Dutch soup. And my mom loved it so much, she couldn’t believe I didn’t. (But I had my revenge, I cooked chicory for her when she came to eat)
SO nice to see MrRhexx!!!!
The Manticore always fascinated me in the old D&D Monster Manual. I got in a ton of trouble for coloring in that book, but I so wanted to see the vibrant colors in the descriptions that I took after the books with markers and colored pencils... And I remember really being challenged by the Manticore in particular since its description and the sketch in the book are just so WILD.
Also love the mention of the Manticore in "The Last Unicorn" (the film) - just a toothless old lion; a captive and a victim in a way but also another example of the weird, back-handed tenderness of the witch. She exploits her creatures, but at least in the movie it's left open to interpretation whether or not she takes good care of them. I sometimes think maybe she fed and cared for them quite well...
I also wonder sometimes if that first Greek writer struggled with translation and unusual words - or if the people telling him stories about wildlife were struggling. Of course the prankster angle is very possible too - "hey let's tell this silly foreigner a story, how ridiculous a creature can we get him to believe in?" But what if they were struggling to describe the sudden attack of the tiger? I've seen footage of the way the big cats can lunge, especially since they favor ambush tactics. If you got lucky and the cat's claws "only" grazed you - you could be forgiven for thinking someone had thrown javelins or spikes at you! And given how filthy cat claws are (no matter what kind of cat), I bet plenty of people DID die from such wounds due to infection... leading to the logical enough assumption that the monster's weaponry is poisoned.
There's also the possibility that someone tried to draw a picture of the tiger and was not exactly a professional artist, haha. But we'd have little way to know, since a "back of the envelope" quick doodle or sketch wouldn't be preserved!
If you love metal, then one of the best hidden tracks is quest for the manticore by 3 inches of blood
ruclips.net/video/b3Y-bVJTXVE/видео.htmlsi=Y9DMj1PVucGIsmy8
Also a song about the Nuckelavee by Hellripper
ruclips.net/video/4rry7l5msjQ/видео.htmlsi=0dUudQ1yShNuN2pP
Enjoy🤘🏻
Robertson Davies is a Canadian author. We had to read the whole trilogy. The Manticore was the middle book I think. Come to think of it, it was grade 13 Canadian Literature. Yes we had 13 grades. Also, a separate grade 13 English credit. Lots of reading!
I had always assumed that the manticore was a second-hand memory of the shedu, the male version of the protective lamassu from Mesopotamian mythology & folklore. Aside from having eagle (maybe vulture?) wings instead of bat/dragon wings, they’re fundamentally identical.
First time I ever heard of a Manticore was in 1981 playing a DND module "White Plume Mountain" had no idea they were based on ancient mythical beasts. Very cool 😎
00:44 Ok cool that is a manticore alright
00:47 LMAO WHAT IS THAT?! WHERE DID THE HUMAN FACE GO?!
Thank you for covering something so fun. If you're reading this, I hope you learned something cool from the video. Now go play D&D, tame this beast as a sidekick, and watch Onward.
I have always liked the manticore design in Final Fantasy 11 and 14. There's also a dungeon and gearsets in FF14 seemingly named for Ctesias; treasure chests in the Ktisis Hyperboreia dungeon (where you fight all kinds of chimeric monstrosities) have Ktiseos equipment rewards.
Mr Rhexx is the revelation here! Therianthropes! Next up on Monstrum perhaps, Dr Zarka, be Tiamat? Also, it's pronounced "churros"in honor of PBS's Pan Pals.
Thank you for another fascinating episode. I hope that you will one day do one about the Scandinavian “Myling”. Its origins will send chills down the spine all the while giving us a whisper of insight into the hardship women faced back in the day (And still do in some places) For those who don't have sleep on the schedule I recommend diving into the literature. Also related is “Ängla makerskor” (Eng: Angel makers)
Love that episode on the manticore, Dr. Z! By the way, think you can do a future video based on a monstrous creature with this clue that I have given you?
"Riddle me this....Riddle me not....What has four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?"
The very first time I heard about the Manticore was a reference in the movie "The Last Unicorn", in which the titular unicorn ends up being the only genuine mythical creature in a decrepit old witch's traveling zoo. The witch has cast illusion spells on animals too weak to fight back in some way to make them look like monsters, bragging about her mastery of such beasts by being cruel.
Before the first Monster Manual came out I encountered manticores in James and the Giant Peach ("It's a manticore!") and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, where the Wonka-Vite recipe includes "the hoof of a manticore" and "the front tail of a cockatrice."
The Manticore of Persian mythology is pretty cool, but not nearly as cool as the Star Kingdom (later Star Empire) of Manticore's preeminent naval officer, Honor Harrington. David Weber has written or co-written over 40 books set in his Honorverse. Some of those books are prequels set before Honor was born or focus primarily on characters other than Honor. Anyone who enjoys military science fiction and/or space opera will almost certainly enjoy reading about Honor Harrington and her Star Nation of Manticore.
The most deeply impactful manticore portrayal, for me, was in the _The Books of Magic: Bindings_ TPB. The manticore is not just a terrifying antagonist, but also a deeply creepy character and an excellent, if not entirely subtle, metaphor for a certain kind of smug cynicism that has only gotten more noxious as we moved into the internet age.
Great video! My favorite manticore is Skittles from the web comic Darwin Carmichael is Going to Hell. Such a cutie. 😀
I need to find my copy or see if its still online. It's time for another read.
Computer game Age of Mythology has Mantivires, as well as other Awesome Chimeras, Beasts, Heroes, and Epic Odessies!
Absolutely nothing about the manticore's relationship with armadillo tank hybrids
Didn't read the title carefully and was very surprised to hear MrRhexx start talking, an awesome collab!
Monstrum AND MrRexx? The chimeric combo I never imagined! Y'all making my worlds colliding.
It's very amazing to see a video about such a fierce and cunning creature. The manticore is my third favorite monster of mythology. I'm just so happy. Can't wait for Changelings to be up too.😃
NERRDDDDSSS
From what I could tell when I researched the Manticore's origins it seemed that the creature was a Caricature of the Assyrian Lamassu created by ancient Greek authors. The Lamassu was an ancient protective deity in Mesopotamia, Persia, Sumeria, etc.
the Manticore is also the the main subject of an old NSP song, going off the song the Manticore is a MENACE
also Teostra & Lunastra from Monster Hunter look very much like one of these beasts
The Manticore is such an iconic creature of myth which I can list some of my favorite depictions like:
- One Piece they are just small lions with human like faces that comes from the South Blue that are placed in level 2 of the great prison Impel Down & can mimic human voices but they just say underwear & food
- Grimm they are extremely powerful wesen at first seem like humans that can transform into lion like humanoid with a scorpion tail
- Tiny Manticore (voiced by Tom Kenny) is an minor character
Hi, love your content and way the old beliefs are presented and explained. I've got a quick question - what is the relation between Sphinx an Manticore? They seem to have somewhat similar features of human and lion, is it possible that they have common origins?
There's a part dealing with a Manticore disguise, in the movie The Last Unicorn. Also an episode of Class Of The Titans involves a Manticore.
Warcraft 3, somewhat confusingly, use the traditional design of the manticore for their wyrverns.
A Spell for Chameleon... man I haven't seen that book in ages! I was so obsessed with Piers Anthony's works back in middle school. That was one of the books my local librarian had a heck of a time getting it, lol!