Barded Manticore

Barded manticores are treacherous and dangerous beasts, and the only known member of the manticore species with the innate ability to cast spells. Luckily, these creatures are incredibly rare, mostly found near battlefields and other sources of worked metal, though stories tell of a particularly clever barded manticore attempting to make herself a home deep under the Magaambya.

Unlike the other members of the species, a barded manticore has a face that resembles a human's and a torso coated in scales of varying metals, the exact composition depending on their diet. Thanks to these materials, most barded manticores are able to fend off just about any being attempting to encroach upon their territories, especially fiends and other creatures with weaknesses to specific metals. Barded manticores sift through metals obtained from their victims, whether that be local villagers coerced into giving them tribute or unlucky travelers, and seek the rarest, most valuable types to make part of their next meals.

This also includes armor and weapons inscribed with runes that grant a barded manticore the ability to cast spells, though these spells vary depending on the region the beast inhabits and what type of runes they consume. In rare areas where magic is suppressed, a barded manticore will be unable to grow their runed scales, rendering them less powerful than others of their kind. Pointing this out to such a barded manticore often ends in one's untimely demise at the manticore's claws and spines, no less sharp for the lack of enchantments.