The Monstrefact: Manta Rays of Dungeons & Dragons
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Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is The Monster Fact, a short-form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.

I cover various creatures from Dungeons & Dragons here on The Monster Fact, and given that we just started a series of core Stuff to Blow Your Mind episodes about real-world manta rays, I thought it might be fun to dive into the fictional and fanciful treatment of these amazing fish in the pages of the world's most famous tabletop role-playing game.

I'll start with what's probably the most famous invocation of the Manta Ray in the game: the Cloak of the Manta Ray. A stylish, but ultimately very simple, wondrous magical item that's been around since I believe the second edition of D&D.

While wearing the cloak, which is implied to be either made from or in the style of a manta ray, the wearer gains the ability to breathe underwater and swim at a speed of 60 feet per turn. That's compared to the typical adventurer's 30 feet per turn walking speed. Again, pretty straightforward and in a limited way true to science. Manta rays are fish. They have gills. Also, they swim underwater and are capable of short bursts of speed to evade threats.

Apparently some variations of the cloak of the manta ray also enable the wearer to just polymorph into the form of a manta, which would of course be even more exciting. But what of the creature itself?

While a manta ray stat block is seemingly absent from the current and most recent editions of D&D, the creature did make a statted appearance in the first, second, and third edition. Indeed, if you pull up a copy of the original 1977 Monster Manual, you will find stats for three different varieties of ray. Manta rays, sting rays, and something called pungi rays. The first edition manta ray is, I'm sad to say, extremely biologically inaccurate.

The text describes a giant predatory ray that hides on the seafloor and then tries to swallow whole any non-giant creature it encounters. We're also told that it will defend itself with its tail stinger if threatened. The Monster Manual also describes how an adventurer might stab their way out of the manta's belly, liberating themselves and perhaps a little treasure from the creature's gullet.

As we've already discussed on Stuff to Blow Your Mind in our core episodes on the manta rays, these creatures are filter feeders and have no interest in swallowing even gnome or halfling-sized prey.

And they boast no stingers at all. You're thinking about stingrays. They also don't hide on the seafloor. They may go down on occasion to feed close to the seafloor, but for the most part, they live in the open water. But I don't mention all of this to shame the architects of D&D. This was the 1970s after all. And while Westerners were emerging from a fog of superstition about the supposed threat of the devil fish,

the complete transition to a new popular understanding of the creature's harmless nature would obviously take some time. Plus, the adventure RPG Dungeons & Dragons was based on various pre-existing fantasy and adventure stories which would have included threatening mantas. The idea seemed to have been dropped by the time of 2008's fourth edition, by which point the idea of a killer manta ray was clearly, clearly too ridiculous even for fantasy.

Fortunately, D&D also boasts another variation on the ray, dating all the way back to the first edition as well, and that is Ix-Zit-Zachitl, or demon rays. Small, evil rays created by their demon patron, the Demogorgon. They, of course, boast barbed tails like a stingray. Some of them are actually clerics, despite being fish, and they are capable of casting demonic spells. Yet others are actually vampiric Ix-Zit-Zachitls.

which have regenerative powers and a vampiric bite. All three of these variations factor into the 5th edition campaign, Out of the Abyss, which I'm happy to admit I have played through in its entirety. And this campaign also features at least one dead proper manta ray as well, for what that's worth.

Let's get back to this name, though. Iqzitzichitl. I realize the name itself sounds vaguely Mesoamerican. Its creator, game designer Steve Marsh, has apparently weighed in on this. I believe this was a Q&A that he participated in on dragonsfoot.org back in 2020.

Apparently, he lifted this name from the 1914 book, The Myths of Mexico and Peru by Lewis Spence. In the 1914 text, however, and you can find PDFs of this online, the name Exit Zichitl is that of a cited, quote, native chronicler who flourished shortly after the Spanish conquest of Mexico and not the name of a manta ray monster from Aztec mythology or anything to that effect.

Again, none of this to shame early D&D. I think it's all fabulous. I'm a big Dungeons & Dragons fan, obviously. But it is interesting to see how

early 20th century Western ideas of the manta ray were then reinterpreted into early Dungeons and Dragons. And how, you know, maybe we've gotten away from some of the misnomers and the myths about manta rays, but we've still found room for the idea of a monstrous manta ray. And that remains with us in the form of the evil spellcasting. And sometimes vampiric exits the chittles.

Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact, The Artifact, or Animalius Stupendium each week. As always, you can email us at contact at StuffToBlowYourMind.com. Stuff To Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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