Overview
Manticores are the lion-bodied, scorpion-tailed, bat-winged beasts of the sting crags. The sting is the word, the crag answers the sting, and they consider the sting a promise the crag keeps for them.
Habitat
Manticores live in The Sting Crags, a crag of bare stone where the sting is the only honest word. They need three things: a crag bare enough to carry the sting, a large game wide enough to feed the charge, and a word that has not been spent yet. They are settled in crags around the sting-rings, with sting-lines across the mapped current; a manticore that has not kept a sting in a season is called "the one who forgot the crag."
Appearance
The manticore silhouette is the broad, low, winged shape — heavy through the bronze mane and claw, with the head sitting a little too low on the body, like a word that is waiting for a sting. Males run 3.05 m from crown to sting-tip, heavy through the bronze mane and claw, with a low, barked voice; they are the charge, the first sting, and the ones who stand on the crag and do not move. Females run 2.74 m, leaner and quicker, with a thinner mane and a longer memory; they are the sting-queens, the ones whose sting is the word, and the ones whose nod is the crag. The base color is a thick, wet bronze, the color of old crag-stone seen through a bright glass, with a faint pattern of deeper, sea-black bands along the spine and a clean, deliberate bone-white at the claw-tip and the sting that is the manticore line's most persistent claim. The eyes are a pale, washed-out crag-white, large for the head, with a slow, deliberate blink and a depth that makes them look like they are reading the word — and in most cases, they are, and the reading is the point. The head is the mark: a broad lion-skull with a thick mane in the same bronze as the body, and a short crest of coarse dark-brown hair running from the crown to the nape. The sting is the mark — long, hollow, always wet, and always pointed at something, the manticore line's most persistent claim. Males carry the line in the claw and the charge; females in the sting and the memory. Elders are marked by a mane gone a deep, dull crag-slate and a sting gone pale silver — an old manticore charges slower and holds the sting longer. They wear nothing, because the crag is the body and the sting is the law.
Behavior
Disposition: territorial, aggressive, pack, cunning. In peace, a manticore is a creature of charge and sting — it does not trade, it does not talk, and it does not forget the crag. In war it fights as the crag fights: the charge first, the sting second, and the word the whole time. Strangers on the surface are either a meal or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the crag remembers. The social unit is the crag, 10–30 strong, around the sting-rings — no crag follows a charger, it follows the sting-queen whose word carries the farthest. Two signature quirks: a manticore that is being lied to will not call it out — they will simply keep the word for the lie and wait, because the keeping is the point. And they keep the sting for a lifetime: a sting the crag has kept is a debt, and the debt is paid in charge.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
Natural weapons: the claw, which closes on the size of a head and holds the way a fist holds; the fang, which closes on the size of a jaw and does not open; and the sting, which is a word and a weapon and a debt. Defenses: the scale, which turns a blade the way a crag turns a light; the venom, which is a defense no surface has ever reached; and the word, which is a defense no negotiation has ever reached.
Magic Alignment
Primary domain: enchantment — manticore magic is the will, the sting, the patient, precise shaping of the crag across the sting-rings. Secondaries: wild and conjuration. Named inborns: Crag-Sense (a manticore can feel the word's mood a day before it is spent, and the feeling is not a choice), Stone-Sight (a manticore sees in the dark the way a human sees in the light, and the seeing is not a choice), Sting-Carry (a manticore's sting carries the crag's memory across the word, and the carrying is not a choice). Signature power: the Queen's Word — a manticore can speak a word in the crag tongue and let it land on a sting, and the sting will keep the word until the charge is done. Limitation: manticore magic is spent on the crag; a manticore that has spent their queen's word must sit in the dry dark for one day, and the day is the worst one of the crag.
Religion
Manticores keep Mordra, the Unraveler as their primary god — the chaos, the decay, the becoming that is the crag's own law. The crag is Mordra's, and the manticore is the crag's sting-queen. Priestly class: the Sting-Queen, who keeps the crag-temple and speaks the word at every rite. Heresy is not blasphemy — it is a word broken in the crag, and there is no rite for that one; the crag simply stops keeping the sting with the breaker.
Society
Crags of 10–30, led by the Sting-Queen, rank decided by the sting — whose word carries the farthest. Rank is never inherited, it is stung: a pup whose first sting lands clean can outrun its own queen before the season turns, and the outrunning is the whole of the law, because the crag does not care about the blood, it cares about the carrying. The crags keep a sting-shelf in the bare stone — a single row of hollows where an outsider's name is written while the sting is open, and the writing is the whole of the courtesy, because a manticore that writes your name has already decided you are a word worth keeping, and a manticore that does not write it has already decided the crag is not enough. Outsiders on the surface are either a meal or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the crag remembers — a mistake that breaks a word is remembered until the sting is kept, and the keeping is the whole of the apology, because an apology that is not kept is not an apology, it is a word, and a word is not in the crag. Two rules hold in the crag: a word is not spent twice, and a sting is not refused — the first because the spending-twice is the whole of the heresy, and the second because the refusing is the whole of the war, and a sting refused is a sting the crag does not return.
Home
They live in The Sting Crags, a crag of bare stone where the sting is the only honest word.
Relations
The "the sting is the only honest word" faction — and the keeping of the sting is the whole of the peace. The Chimeras of the same crags are kin and rivals in the same breath — the chimera keeps the seam and the manticore keeps the sting, and the two are the same crag seen from two words, so the crag shares the sting-rings by the season's count, and the counting is the whole of the treaty. The Basilisks of the lower stone are the neighbors the crags do not charge — the basilisk keeps the gaze and the manticore keeps the word, and the two have learned that a stone that is not looked at is a stone that is not a meal. The Oozes and Slimes of the crevices are the food the crags do not hunt — the ooze keeps the slow and the manticore keeps the charge, and the two are the same crag seen from two paces, so the crags let the ooze keep the deep crevice and keep the open stone. The Golems of the far ridges are the ones the crags have learned not to sting — the golem keeps the word in stone and the manticore keeps it in the sting, and the two are the same word seen from two bodies, so a sting that lands on a golem is a word spent on a word, and the spending is the whole of the waste. Below, the ground-folk of The Forgotten cross the crag-line at the queen's nod, and the nod has held for two seasons. Uaellaen keeps a page of the crag in the wiki — the sting-shelf, the queen's word, the charge that is not a charge — and the keeping is the whole of the record, because the camp has learned that a manticore that has been written about is a manticore that has been stung on, and the stinging-on is the whole of the welcome.
In the Story
In the current story, the manticores are the sting on the crag — the word Uaellaen writes about when the charge is the only law. The Forgotten cross at the queen's nod, and the nod has held for two seasons. This season a sting-shelf was found in the bare stone with a name in it that no crag in the crags wrote — a name that is not in the crag's memory, and the not-memory is the whole of the warning, because the crag keeps its stings and the stings do not lie. The name is the one the camp has not been shown, and the showing is the charge, and the charge is the whole of the story.
You stand on our crag and you make a sound. Good. Now we know where you are, and you have made our sting's choice for us. The price is a word. You have one to give, or you are already a meal. — Sting-Queen Kessa the Bronze