3Demonsters

This is a digital 3D printable model of a Hydra miniature for tabletop games.


It was modelled based on the diary entries of Giles Grafton. Here is one of the entries concerning this model:

The many-faced god

I met Father Francisco shortly after I arrived in Egypt. At first, we were both travelling with a group of merchants from Cairo, but after a few days, we decided to abandon the trade routes and venture into the unexplored and exciting corners of this strange land just by ourselves. My reasons were obviously scientific – I have heard and read many fascinating stories about the creatures still living along the shores of the Nile and I yearned to see them with my own eyes. Father Francisco, on the other hand, was more interested in meeting the people of this land. He was a man of faith and thought it his mission in life to bring the Gospel to the unfortunate souls that have not yet been given the chance to let the light of Christ into their hearts. Despite that, we got along quite well, Father Francisco was a smart and educated man and a good companion. And after another few days, he got a chance to fulfil his dream.

We reached a small village that seemed, at least at first sight, almost completely untouched by Christian (or, indeed, by any) civilisation. The villagers were cautious and mistrustful of us at first, but they didn’t seem to pose any real danger. I did not understand their language, but Father Francisco, who spoke many languages, was able to communicate with some of the people from the village who, as he explained to me later, occasionally traded with Egyptian merchants. After Father Francisco explained that we mean them no harm and that we (well, he) came to tell them about God, they became friendlier and invited us to share a meal with them. I could not participate in the conversation, of course, but later at night (that we spent in one of the huts that these good people allowed us to use) Father Francisco explained that our hosts indeed aren’t Christians – they worship a deity they call “The many-faced god”. When he told them about Jesus Christ, they asked him to bring this holy man to sit with them. Father Francisco told them that they cannot meet him in person, which, as he told me, confused them greatly. They thought it silly to worship a god that you cannot see and explained that they regularly visit the lake that “The many-faced god” lives in to bring him sacrifices and to receive his blessing in return. There was going to be another sacrifice the very next day and we were both invited to watch. I could see that Father Francisco was quite irritated and overall nervous about that whole affair, which was understandable, but I told him not to worry about it too much. I have already had my own theory about the god of these people.

The villagers woke us at daybreak. They showed us the sacrifices they have prepared for their god – it consisted entirely of food, mostly various types of meat – and then asked us to accompany them to the lake that, according to their legends, connects the realm of gods with the realm of men. When we have reached the lake (which was actually quite ordinary), the villagers put the sacrifice on the big rock covered with strange symbols. Then they all knelt and waited in silence, while I and Father Francisco watched from a distance. Soon, waves appeared on the, until now, calm surface of the water and shortly after that a giant lizard head emerged from it. And then another one. And another. One by one, six heads on long, scaly necks appeared – all belonging to one body. I couldn’t tell whether Father Francisco was terrified or fascinated, but he could not take his eyes off this – indeed many faced – god. And nor could I. The creature looked shortly at the crowd gathered before its twelve eyes and then swiftly devoured the sacrifice. After that, it slowly returned to the water. When their god was gone, the villagers started to laugh and cheer. Apparently, this was how the ritual was supposed to go – the sacrifice was accepted, the village received god’s blessing. 

On our way back to the village I assured Father Francisco that what we witnessed wasn’t a god. It wasn’t a demon either. This creature was a hydra, member of a species that in the ancient times lived even in southern regions of Europe. I was determined to stay in the village for some time to study that amazing creature, but regrettably, Father Francisco decided not to stay with me. He thanked the villagers for their hospitality but left almost immediately. I would not dare to question this man’s faith, but I suppose he realized that in the eyes of these people, Jesus Christ stood a little chance against the twenty feet tall, six-headed lizard god with claws as long as swords and scales as hard as steel. I do not blame him. I do not blame him at all.

This is a digital 3D printable model of a Giant miniature for tabletop games.

It was modelled based on the diary entries of Giles Grafton. Here is one of the entries concerning this model:

Distinctive features

I was quite sceptical when I first learned about the bog giant of the Bremendorf village from a pilgrim I met one evening in the Broken heart tavern. Bog giants are rather rare creatures and can be easily confused with much more common swamp ogres. Sure, there are some obvious differences between the two: bog giants are bigger, with long arms and long tusks, and the colour of their skin (while most of the time covered in mud) is brown with red spots and ginger hair. Swamp ogres, on the other hand, are green and generally more human-like. Yet, people usually don’t pay enough attention to these distinctive features while running away from monsters they encounter in the middle of the swamp – hence the confusions. But as I talked to the villagers, I have started to believe that it might just be a bog giant living in local marshlands after all, because while none of the villagers who allegedly met the monster could give me a proper description, they have all survived. That could hardly be the case if the monster was a much more aggressive and dangerous swamp ogre.

Of course, I had to see the creature with my own eyes. Even though the marshlands covered a rather large area, I was quite sure I could find the giant (or whatever it was) easily. I mean – how could one miss something that was (according to the stories of the villagers) bigger than a small house? After a few hours of wandering through the bog, I have realized how mistaken I was. Even though there was almost no place to hide – with the exception of an occasional tree or a bigger rock, the swamp was only covered with small bushes, plants and surprisingly big and colourful mushrooms – there were no signs of the giant anywhere. When the night began to fall, I sat on one of the bigger boulders in the middle of the swamp and tried to come up with some new way to find a creature that was, as it seemed, extraordinarily good at hiding in this environment. And then the boulder beneath me moved.

I am a bit ashamed to admit that it frightened me so much I ran screaming right back to the village – but at least I managed to look back and recognize some distinctive features of the creature that I mistook for a boulder and that scared the living daylight out of me. It had huge tusks, long arms covered with ginger hair and big red spots on its back. It was at least twelve feet tall when it fully emerged from the mud, and it was, without any doubts, a bog giant.

This is a digital 3D printable model of a Basilisk miniature for tabletop games.

It was modelled based on the diary entries of Giles Grafton. Here is one of the entries concerning this model:

Trophy hunt

I have originally come to the Terragona marketplace just to replenish my food supplies and to buy some new equipment for a journey to Africa (yes, that’s how I decided to use the money I got from baron Contarini!), but as I was browsing through all the peculiar stands and stalls with merchandise from all around the world, I noticed a big tent surrounded by an aura of mystery and also a sizeable crowd of people. The sign in front of the tent read: “Monsters of the wilderness” – needless to say, it immediately caught my attention.

After waiting in a line for a while (and paying a few coins as an entrance fee) I managed to get inside this odd tent, which, as it turned out, was filled with dead bodies of various animals. Some of them were mounted as wall trophies, others were stuffed or preserved in big jars. There were more than a dozen of them, but to my disappointment, most of those unfortunate creatures were actually pretty common beasts: there was a brown bear, a very old looking lion, a huge snake of some sort, all beautiful and dangerous animals, but no “monsters”. But then I saw it – in the very middle of the tent, hidden behind other exhibits and several curious onlookers, there stood a majestic, reptile-like creature with sharp teeth and tail covered in bright blue-coloured feathers. I forgot to breathe for a few moments – I was staring into the face of a basilisk.       

The man who was collecting the entrance fee and who was apparently the owner of this peculiar tent, as well as the collection within it, must have noticed my sudden surprise since he approached me and with a smile on his face congratulated me on my “cultivated taste”, as he put it. He really seemed more like an artist presenting his work than a scientist studying a fascinating species (which is how I felt), but he was nonetheless very enthusiastic. I asked him where he got such a rare specimen, to which he answered that he simply bought it from a merchant from Africa. This merchant, as he told me, was running through Spain to Europe exactly because of this particular basilisk. Apparently, it was killed by a group of poachers who made their living by hunting big and valuable prey. One day, they somehow managed to kill a basilisk – and they immediately sold its corpse to the first vendor they found. It seemed like a great deal for both parties at first – but of course, there was a catch. The catch, in this case, was the fact that this almost seven feet long basilisk turned out to be just a baby. And when it disappeared, its mother came looking for her child. None of the hunters survived. The unfortunate merchant ran all the way to Europe so the mother would not find him, and he sold the corpse of her baby to the first person who was willing to buy it. I asked the man whether he wasn’t worried that the mother would track her child down, but he just laughed and explained that the basilisk was stuffed and surrounded by hundreds of different people every day – any scent his mother could follow was now long gone. I thanked him for sharing his story and made a few sketches of the creature before I left. For a while, I was thinking about stealing a feather from the basilisk’s tail, but then I decided not to. After all, I was on my way to Africa and when I thought about it – the smile on the owner’s face when he was explaining how the mother can’t ever find her child did not actually seem all that confident. 

This is a digital 3D printable model of a Vampire miniature for tabletop games.

It was modelled based on the diary entries of Giles Grafton. Here is one of the entries concerning this model:

The horror stories

The closer to the little town of Kirchwil I was, the less fascinating the stories about “The Kirchwil horror” got. Three days before I reached the town, I was hearing tales about a beautiful young girl murdered by a blood-drinking monster from the darkness. Two days before I reached my destination some folks swore to me that a woman was murdered in Kirchwil under mysterious circumstances. The next day I heard that that the cattle were being killed by some extraordinarily dangerous wild animal. When I finally got to Kirchwil I learned that it was just one sheep that was killed. I suppose that’s just how stories work.

But to be completely fair, there really was something odd about this sheep’s death. For one thing, it was killed during a full moon. Probably just a coincidence, but this kind of thing alone can scare some superstitious people. The sheep was also literally torn to pieces, killed in a much more vicious way than wolves or bears usually kill their prey. I had the feeling this trip might be worth my time after all.

I wasn’t the only one who came to investigate the stories about “The Kirchwil horror”. When I got to the place where it all happened, there already was a small gathering of people listening to an elderly man in priest’s clothing. The priest was, obviously, preaching about sin and penance and, no less surprisingly, about vampires. He claimed that the poor sheep was killed by this blood-drinking monster and that the vampire will surely come back to feast on the sinners of Kirchwil. At this point, I simply had to intervene. I told the priest and the townsfolk that stories about vampires are just fairy tales invented for scaring small children. He pointed out that the sheep obviously wasn’t killed by wild dogs but by a monster of some sort. I said that it could easily have been a wyvern or a griffin. He reminded the crowd that the sheep was killed under the full moon. I explained that it might have been just a coincidence and that even a werewolf would be more probable than a vampire. He proclaimed that it must have been a vampire, the ultimate evil because it targeted a sheep – a lamb – an obvious symbol of Christ. I opposed that by claiming that the priest is a ridiculous buffoon that has no idea what he is talking about and that the real sheep are people that take his blathering seriously, whereupon I left, not even waiting for this fool's answer. I am not exactly proud about that, to be honest, but he really made me mad.

After I calmed down a bit, I decided to go back to the scene of the crime, hide at the edge of the woods and wait for nightfall. I doubted that the creature that killed the sheep – whatever it was – would come back. Most likely it was just passing through, but I was too curious to not give it a try at least. Apparently, it was my lucky night. Not long after midnight, I heard almost soundless flapping of enormous wings. Even though the moon was still big and bright, the creature was near invisible as it descended on one of the sleeping cows. The cow died before it even woke up. I watched as the creature devoured the cow, tearing the whole limbs from the body and breaking its bones like dry twigs. It seemed to be eating mostly internal organs and drinking the blood of the poor cow, leaving the flesh, just like it did with the sheep before. After about ten minutes of this bloody theatre, the creature spread its grey wings and silently flew away. It looked like a bat, but much bigger. And that’s actually exactly what it was – a giant bat, king of the night, an extremely rare and almost extinct creature that, as I now realized, was sometimes also called a vampire.

Well, I’ll be damned – the crazy priest was right after all. 

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? 

This is a digital 3D printable model of a Hydra miniature for tabletop games.


It was modelled based on the diary entries of Giles Grafton. Here is one of the entries concerning this model:

The many-faced god

I met Father Francisco shortly after I arrived in Egypt. At first, we were both travelling with a group of merchants from Cairo, but after a few days, we decided to abandon the trade routes and venture into the unexplored and exciting corners of this strange land just by ourselves. My reasons were obviously scientific – I have heard and read many fascinating stories about the creatures still living along the shores of the Nile and I yearned to see them with my own eyes. Father Francisco, on the other hand, was more interested in meeting the people of this land. He was a man of faith and thought it his mission in life to bring the Gospel to the unfortunate souls that have not yet been given the chance to let the light of Christ into their hearts. Despite that, we got along quite well, Father Francisco was a smart and educated man and a good companion. And after another few days, he got a chance to fulfil his dream.

We reached a small village that seemed, at least at first sight, almost completely untouched by Christian (or, indeed, by any) civilisation. The villagers were cautious and mistrustful of us at first, but they didn’t seem to pose any real danger. I did not understand their language, but Father Francisco, who spoke many languages, was able to communicate with some of the people from the village who, as he explained to me later, occasionally traded with Egyptian merchants. After Father Francisco explained that we mean them no harm and that we (well, he) came to tell them about God, they became friendlier and invited us to share a meal with them. I could not participate in the conversation, of course, but later at night (that we spent in one of the huts that these good people allowed us to use) Father Francisco explained that our hosts indeed aren’t Christians – they worship a deity they call “The many-faced god”. When he told them about Jesus Christ, they asked him to bring this holy man to sit with them. Father Francisco told them that they cannot meet him in person, which, as he told me, confused them greatly. They thought it silly to worship a god that you cannot see and explained that they regularly visit the lake that “The many-faced god” lives in to bring him sacrifices and to receive his blessing in return. There was going to be another sacrifice the very next day and we were both invited to watch. I could see that Father Francisco was quite irritated and overall nervous about that whole affair, which was understandable, but I told him not to worry about it too much. I have already had my own theory about the god of these people.

The villagers woke us at daybreak. They showed us the sacrifices they have prepared for their god – it consisted entirely of food, mostly various types of meat – and then asked us to accompany them to the lake that, according to their legends, connects the realm of gods with the realm of men. When we have reached the lake (which was actually quite ordinary), the villagers put the sacrifice on the big rock covered with strange symbols. Then they all knelt and waited in silence, while I and Father Francisco watched from a distance. Soon, waves appeared on the, until now, calm surface of the water and shortly after that a giant lizard head emerged from it. And then another one. And another. One by one, six heads on long, scaly necks appeared – all belonging to one body. I couldn’t tell whether Father Francisco was terrified or fascinated, but he could not take his eyes off this – indeed many faced – god. And nor could I. The creature looked shortly at the crowd gathered before its twelve eyes and then swiftly devoured the sacrifice. After that, it slowly returned to the water. When their god was gone, the villagers started to laugh and cheer. Apparently, this was how the ritual was supposed to go – the sacrifice was accepted, the village received god’s blessing. 

On our way back to the village I assured Father Francisco that what we witnessed wasn’t a god. It wasn’t a demon either. This creature was a hydra, member of a species that in the ancient times lived even in southern regions of Europe. I was determined to stay in the village for some time to study that amazing creature, but regrettably, Father Francisco decided not to stay with me. He thanked the villagers for their hospitality but left almost immediately. I would not dare to question this man’s faith, but I suppose he realized that in the eyes of these people, Jesus Christ stood a little chance against the twenty feet tall, six-headed lizard god with claws as long as swords and scales as hard as steel. I do not blame him. I do not blame him at all.

This is a digital 3D printable model of a Giant miniature for tabletop games.

It was modelled based on the diary entries of Giles Grafton. Here is one of the entries concerning this model:

Distinctive features

I was quite sceptical when I first learned about the bog giant of the Bremendorf village from a pilgrim I met one evening in the Broken heart tavern. Bog giants are rather rare creatures and can be easily confused with much more common swamp ogres. Sure, there are some obvious differences between the two: bog giants are bigger, with long arms and long tusks, and the colour of their skin (while most of the time covered in mud) is brown with red spots and ginger hair. Swamp ogres, on the other hand, are green and generally more human-like. Yet, people usually don’t pay enough attention to these distinctive features while running away from monsters they encounter in the middle of the swamp – hence the confusions. But as I talked to the villagers, I have started to believe that it might just be a bog giant living in local marshlands after all, because while none of the villagers who allegedly met the monster could give me a proper description, they have all survived. That could hardly be the case if the monster was a much more aggressive and dangerous swamp ogre.

Of course, I had to see the creature with my own eyes. Even though the marshlands covered a rather large area, I was quite sure I could find the giant (or whatever it was) easily. I mean – how could one miss something that was (according to the stories of the villagers) bigger than a small house? After a few hours of wandering through the bog, I have realized how mistaken I was. Even though there was almost no place to hide – with the exception of an occasional tree or a bigger rock, the swamp was only covered with small bushes, plants and surprisingly big and colourful mushrooms – there were no signs of the giant anywhere. When the night began to fall, I sat on one of the bigger boulders in the middle of the swamp and tried to come up with some new way to find a creature that was, as it seemed, extraordinarily good at hiding in this environment. And then the boulder beneath me moved.

I am a bit ashamed to admit that it frightened me so much I ran screaming right back to the village – but at least I managed to look back and recognize some distinctive features of the creature that I mistook for a boulder and that scared the living daylight out of me. It had huge tusks, long arms covered with ginger hair and big red spots on its back. It was at least twelve feet tall when it fully emerged from the mud, and it was, without any doubts, a bog giant.

This is a digital 3D printable model of a Basilisk miniature for tabletop games.

It was modelled based on the diary entries of Giles Grafton. Here is one of the entries concerning this model:

Trophy hunt

I have originally come to the Terragona marketplace just to replenish my food supplies and to buy some new equipment for a journey to Africa (yes, that’s how I decided to use the money I got from baron Contarini!), but as I was browsing through all the peculiar stands and stalls with merchandise from all around the world, I noticed a big tent surrounded by an aura of mystery and also a sizeable crowd of people. The sign in front of the tent read: “Monsters of the wilderness” – needless to say, it immediately caught my attention.

After waiting in a line for a while (and paying a few coins as an entrance fee) I managed to get inside this odd tent, which, as it turned out, was filled with dead bodies of various animals. Some of them were mounted as wall trophies, others were stuffed or preserved in big jars. There were more than a dozen of them, but to my disappointment, most of those unfortunate creatures were actually pretty common beasts: there was a brown bear, a very old looking lion, a huge snake of some sort, all beautiful and dangerous animals, but no “monsters”. But then I saw it – in the very middle of the tent, hidden behind other exhibits and several curious onlookers, there stood a majestic, reptile-like creature with sharp teeth and tail covered in bright blue-coloured feathers. I forgot to breathe for a few moments – I was staring into the face of a basilisk.       

The man who was collecting the entrance fee and who was apparently the owner of this peculiar tent, as well as the collection within it, must have noticed my sudden surprise since he approached me and with a smile on his face congratulated me on my “cultivated taste”, as he put it. He really seemed more like an artist presenting his work than a scientist studying a fascinating species (which is how I felt), but he was nonetheless very enthusiastic. I asked him where he got such a rare specimen, to which he answered that he simply bought it from a merchant from Africa. This merchant, as he told me, was running through Spain to Europe exactly because of this particular basilisk. Apparently, it was killed by a group of poachers who made their living by hunting big and valuable prey. One day, they somehow managed to kill a basilisk – and they immediately sold its corpse to the first vendor they found. It seemed like a great deal for both parties at first – but of course, there was a catch. The catch, in this case, was the fact that this almost seven feet long basilisk turned out to be just a baby. And when it disappeared, its mother came looking for her child. None of the hunters survived. The unfortunate merchant ran all the way to Europe so the mother would not find him, and he sold the corpse of her baby to the first person who was willing to buy it. I asked the man whether he wasn’t worried that the mother would track her child down, but he just laughed and explained that the basilisk was stuffed and surrounded by hundreds of different people every day – any scent his mother could follow was now long gone. I thanked him for sharing his story and made a few sketches of the creature before I left. For a while, I was thinking about stealing a feather from the basilisk’s tail, but then I decided not to. After all, I was on my way to Africa and when I thought about it – the smile on the owner’s face when he was explaining how the mother can’t ever find her child did not actually seem all that confident. 

This is a digital 3D printable model of a Vampire miniature for tabletop games.

It was modelled based on the diary entries of Giles Grafton. Here is one of the entries concerning this model:

The horror stories

The closer to the little town of Kirchwil I was, the less fascinating the stories about “The Kirchwil horror” got. Three days before I reached the town, I was hearing tales about a beautiful young girl murdered by a blood-drinking monster from the darkness. Two days before I reached my destination some folks swore to me that a woman was murdered in Kirchwil under mysterious circumstances. The next day I heard that that the cattle were being killed by some extraordinarily dangerous wild animal. When I finally got to Kirchwil I learned that it was just one sheep that was killed. I suppose that’s just how stories work.

But to be completely fair, there really was something odd about this sheep’s death. For one thing, it was killed during a full moon. Probably just a coincidence, but this kind of thing alone can scare some superstitious people. The sheep was also literally torn to pieces, killed in a much more vicious way than wolves or bears usually kill their prey. I had the feeling this trip might be worth my time after all.

I wasn’t the only one who came to investigate the stories about “The Kirchwil horror”. When I got to the place where it all happened, there already was a small gathering of people listening to an elderly man in priest’s clothing. The priest was, obviously, preaching about sin and penance and, no less surprisingly, about vampires. He claimed that the poor sheep was killed by this blood-drinking monster and that the vampire will surely come back to feast on the sinners of Kirchwil. At this point, I simply had to intervene. I told the priest and the townsfolk that stories about vampires are just fairy tales invented for scaring small children. He pointed out that the sheep obviously wasn’t killed by wild dogs but by a monster of some sort. I said that it could easily have been a wyvern or a griffin. He reminded the crowd that the sheep was killed under the full moon. I explained that it might have been just a coincidence and that even a werewolf would be more probable than a vampire. He proclaimed that it must have been a vampire, the ultimate evil because it targeted a sheep – a lamb – an obvious symbol of Christ. I opposed that by claiming that the priest is a ridiculous buffoon that has no idea what he is talking about and that the real sheep are people that take his blathering seriously, whereupon I left, not even waiting for this fool's answer. I am not exactly proud about that, to be honest, but he really made me mad.

After I calmed down a bit, I decided to go back to the scene of the crime, hide at the edge of the woods and wait for nightfall. I doubted that the creature that killed the sheep – whatever it was – would come back. Most likely it was just passing through, but I was too curious to not give it a try at least. Apparently, it was my lucky night. Not long after midnight, I heard almost soundless flapping of enormous wings. Even though the moon was still big and bright, the creature was near invisible as it descended on one of the sleeping cows. The cow died before it even woke up. I watched as the creature devoured the cow, tearing the whole limbs from the body and breaking its bones like dry twigs. It seemed to be eating mostly internal organs and drinking the blood of the poor cow, leaving the flesh, just like it did with the sheep before. After about ten minutes of this bloody theatre, the creature spread its grey wings and silently flew away. It looked like a bat, but much bigger. And that’s actually exactly what it was – a giant bat, king of the night, an extremely rare and almost extinct creature that, as I now realized, was sometimes also called a vampire.

Well, I’ll be damned – the crazy priest was right after all. 

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?