Manticore Miniature

cults3d

This is a digital 3D printable model of a Manticore miniature for tabletop games. It was modelled based on the diary entries of Giles Grafton. Here is one of the entries concerning this model: He had a pet manticore! Even now as I am writing these lines I cannot control my excitement – and I am compromising my usual writing style, disclosing the details about the creature that is the hero of this chapter in the very first sentence, but OH MY GOD HE HAD A PET MANTICORE! Very well, allow me to start again. Baron Cesare Contarini was without a doubt one of the richest and most influential noblemen I have ever met (though to be fair – I haven’t met many noblemen in my life), so you can imagine my surprise when I received an invitation to meet him at his palace. Baron met me in a small but opulent salon, and we shared a bottle of wine that was probably awfully expensive and definitely wasted on me since I know next to nothing about good wines. But it wasn’t my knowledge of wines that baron was interested in – it was my knowledge of rare and mysterious creatures. Baron explained to me that it is a good habit nowadays amongst his fellow noblemen to sponsor extraordinarily talented artists – painters, poets, composers and such. Yet, he himself isn’t much of a fan of such arts. He cares more about the beauty of dangerous animals and wishes to be a patron to scientists and adventurers dedicated to studying these fascinating beasts. Long story short – he offered me a huge amount of money to basically keep doing what I have already been doing anyway. But that wasn’t even the best part! When we drank all the wine, baron asked me to join him for a walk in his garden. There, he showed me cages with all kinds of exotic pets he owned – tigers, lions, hyenas and finally – a manticore. Even though it was a very young female, the manticore was bigger than any other predator in baron’s collection. Spikes on her back and tail were already quite sharp and I knew that as she will grow older, they will only get more and more dangerous. Yet, when baron entered her cage, she seemed relaxed and even allowed him to pet her. Of course, I could not get close to her myself – baron told me it took him over a year to earn her trust – but it didn’t matter. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a manticore up close and not get, well, eaten by it. I made several sketches and asked baron a ton of questions. Luckily enough, he was quite pleased to have somebody to talk to about his favourite pet (I imagine other noblemen preferred to talk about art these days) and politely asked me to leave only after about two or three hours. And sure – I generally don’t approve of keeping animals in cages, but baron really cared about his pets and took great care of them. Also, he gave me a lot of money, so I can’t really criticise him here, can I?