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Description
Long before the Shokan gained their reputations as masters of Kombat and became archenemies with the surface-swelling Centaurs, they were just subterranean denizens living under the shadows of their 4-5 feet tall armored felid/draconic cousins, the Mantikore who voraciously guarded the most precious gem mines in all of subterranean Outworld. But it was not the underlings that the Shokan feared, but their sadistic leader, King Mantikore.

Standing 12 feet tall and 30 feet long on his four feet, King Mantikore was the largest beast in all of subterranean Outworld even dwarfing the former Dragon King Onaga. He is adorned with the strongest armor in all of Outworld, hugely linked up in a huge exoskeleton. Everything including the underbelly and ears is encased in bony dermal armor. The head of Mantikore is divided into armored facial sutures and is fused into a gigantic helmet-like skull. It is able to withstand even large bursts of Dragonfire and Earthrealm firearm bullets. The dorsal side of the armor is also decorated with two huge mobile spikes in case King Mantikore faces a larger opponent from the surface as well as being present on its hind legs. All of these spikes can be curled downward when King Mantikore wraps its body into a rolling ball like an armadillo as a way to avoid self-injury to himself when performing his attack. He also has four black eyes and a pantherine nose for detecting his Shokan prey. His head is also adorned with a small mane.

The horns signify his sole status as leader of his race like a "king." He is also equipped with steel-laden claws able enough to cut through solid concrete and bone. Plus the claws are also useful for deep burrowing when he is in contact with soft to moderately hard substrate to perform ambushes on his opponents below. But the most versatile weaponry is his venomous telson. It is used for a variety of attacks such as clubbing, retractable spikes, and a black stinger for impalement. He will usually burrow his tail underground and pop out it behind the opponent while he/she is distracted on attacking Mantikore's body. Like his Shokan cousins, he has the ability to blast fire from his maw to burn his victims alive slowly.

King Mantikore, unlike all of his race is actually well-versed in language and will usually flaunt a royal persona around him. Unlike the Shokan who fight for survival and honor, King Mantikore kills other denizens for pure pleasure to satisfy his sadistic bloodlust and will sometimes cannibalize on his own puny brethren when he's in the mood for a voracious appetite. He likes striking fear in the hearts of his enemies and enjoys toying around with them before slaying them. He is extremely confident in his strength and abilities and boasts pridefully during battle though he is not stupid for the most part.

Bio: For millions of years, the Shokan race were confined to the city of Kuatan, the only fortress safe from the Mantikore onslaught and its enormous leader. Only a few dared to venture into the heavilly guarded gem mines and take the Mantikore bounty as a way to establish trade with the Outworld surface world. None came back alive. A young King Gorbak knew well of the constant raids his people had to endure from their monstrous cousins. He decided he had enough and vowed to end King Mantikore's reign of terror on the Shokan people. With whatever contact he had with the outside world, Gorbak contacted the realm of Edenia who sent a small envoy of Edenian mercenaries to assist a large Shokan militia in launching a surprise attack on the Mantikore stronghold. The attack was successful, but many Shokan and Edenians lost their lives in the Mantikore Lair especially more when King Mantikore arrived on the scene. King Gorbak was caught in the crossfires and was nearly killed by King's infamous stinger if it weren't for the arrival of two secret weapons the Edenians brought with them; the sons of Argus Taven and Daegon who were volunteering in their first ever monster hunt, appyling their training under the dragons Orin and Caro into this situation. After taking Gorbak to be carried to safety, Taven and Daegon confronted King Mantikore head on who was rather impressed with two fearless warriors kombating him.

His battle with the two demigods was in his favor as the brothers were unable to pierce his armor with both their blades and their Dragonfire. Tired of the lackbuster action, King Mantikore took advantage of a frustrated Daegon charging straight toward him and stabbed his telson blade through the demigod's abdomen. King Mantikore thought the nearly fatal blow on Daegon would make Taven more suspectible to fear thus making him more easily vulnerable to be slain like the rest of King's pathetic Shokan relatives. However he never faced the wrath of a demigod before. Taven channeled into his inner power, unleashing his Edenian magic in his fists and started physically assaulting King's carapace with repeated punches, creating internal fractures in the monster's armor. The Mantikore was taken surprise by Taven's godlike strength which shattered the 13-foot tall behemoth's lower jaw, sending the beast crashing into one of the cavern walls. King Mantikore did manage to poke a deep wound in Taven with his stinger, but by then Taven had enough of the King's constant insults and attempts to cave the halfgod into fear. With brute strength, Taven tore off King's stinger and blasted off the open wound with a burst of Dragonfire, blowing up the entire telson. Then Taven moved up to Mankitore's vulnerable eyes and continued assaulting the emerging fractures on Mantikore's armor. When Mantikore was distracted, insulting Taven's mother with him pinned down under his foot for a moment, Taven took the opportunity to blast an opening in Mantikore's neck and physically tore out the monster's voicebox to shut his blasphemous mouth for good. Despite being poisoned, crushed, slashed, and burned Taven's fury and constant attacks turned the tide of the battle in his favor against a severely wounded and frustrated Mantikore. After a small kink opened in one of King's armored legs, Taven channeled his Dragonfire to harpoon straight into the open wound, amputating Mantikore's leg in a fiery explosion. The King of the Mantikore was for the first time afraid as he tried to retreat with his bleeding stump, but Taven grabbed him and lifted the monster's weight to the latter's shock. Taven then threw King Mantikore into a cavern pit where the monster fell on a bed of sharp crystal gems, impaling him through multiple open wounds in his carapace. Still furious that King Mantikore was still alive after the fall, Taven found a straggling ladle of molten cobalt hanging on the cavern ceiling and blasted one of the chains off the ladle, casuing the pot to pour its molten contents all over King Mantikore. This was what finally killed the underground tyrant.

Satisifed, Taven returned back to retrieve a dying Daegon and brought Mantikore's voicebox to King Gorbak for the Shokan to keep as a remainder of the day's events. It wasn't long as Taven collapsed from the poison's effects, but was awakened from his three-week coma back home in Edenia where his mother Delia cared for him and Daegon (who survived) during that time. The Shokan back in Outworld praised the brothers for their efforts and started calling them Drathani, warriors sent by their patron god Drathon to aid them in times of distress; the first ever non-Shokans to be ever given that title. After King Mantikore's fall, his puny brethren collapsed into anarchy and were then driven into extinction by the Shokan who exacted their revenge for years of oppression. In the aftermath, the Kuatan warriors seized the gem and cobalt mines, becoming the richest race in subterranean Outworld and thus began trading with the surface dwellers, soon to come in contact with the Centaurs. From the fall of the Mantikore, came the rise of the famous Shokan "only the strong survive" code to honor their great victory. This was the culture under which Prince Goro grew up with the larynx of King Mantikore nailed high above Gorbak's throne as his father retold his tale countless times, praising the Dragon brothers. However, Taven courteously wanted King Gorbak to take credit for befalling King Mantikore as he wanted nothing to do with it. The monster nearly killed him, but most of all his brother. From that point, Taven was mainly focused on protecting his brother from anything that could kill him again. As for Daegon, he felt embarassed for having lost to King Mantikore and felt inferior to Taven even though both brothers were praised for their efforts thus began Daegon's descent into darkness.

Years have passed and King Mantikore's spirit resided in the 9th plane of the Netherrealm and the monster turned his obession toward killing Taven for his humilating defeat. Then Shinnok took an interest in him and made the Mantikore an offer to serve him and in return allow the King to revive his undead army of Mantikore to take back the kingdom of Kuatan from the newly crowned King Goro and have his revenge against Taven. Luckilly for King, Taven was in the Netherrealm, hunting for his now-rogue brother Daegon who murdered a close friend of him. The demigod arrived just in time for the Festival of Death, which was accompanied by the Death Games, a no holds barred tournament showcasing the Netherrealm's best fighters in a gruesome spectacle to the death, hosted by none other than the fallen Elder God himself. Shinnok told Taven that he would have his fight with Daegon if he managed to fight through the ranks and arrive at the final standings to face off his brother. King Mantikore would finally have his opportunity to exact his revenge on Taven by participating in a surprise match with his newly resurrected body embedded with Netherrealm magik while having an uneasy alliance with Daegon who wants to kill Taven as well; the feud which of course annoys Shinnok to threaten both of them to keep them focused on their roles. After he ambushes and murders Taven in the intermediate match as planned, King Mantikore is given the approval of Shinnok to slay Daegon as well before rising to the land of the living and exacting his final solution on the Shokan people with his undead army. Now all Mantikore has to do is wait for Taven to finish off the best of the realm's fighters and bide his opportunity to strike...

Description
Long before the Shokan gained their reputations as masters of Kombat and became archenemies with the surface-swelling Centaurs, they were just subterranean denizens living under the shadows of their 4-5 feet tall armored felid/draconic cousins, the Mantikore who voraciously guarded the most precious gem mines in all of subterranean Outworld. But it was not the underlings that the Shokan feared, but their sadistic leader, King Mantikore.

Standing 12 feet tall and 30 feet long on his four feet, King Mantikore was the largest beast in all of subterranean Outworld even dwarfing the former Dragon King Onaga. He is adorned with the strongest armor in all of Outworld, hugely linked up in a huge exoskeleton. Everything including the underbelly and ears is encased in bony dermal armor. The head of Mantikore is divided into armored facial sutures and is fused into a gigantic helmet-like skull. It is able to withstand even large bursts of Dragonfire and Earthrealm firearm bullets. The dorsal side of the armor is also decorated with two huge mobile spikes in case King Mantikore faces a larger opponent from the surface as well as being present on its hind legs. All of these spikes can be curled downward when King Mantikore wraps its body into a rolling ball like an armadillo as a way to avoid self-injury to himself when performing his attack. He also has four black eyes and a pantherine nose for detecting his Shokan prey. His head is also adorned with a small mane.

The horns signify his sole status as leader of his race like a "king." He is also equipped with steel-laden claws able enough to cut through solid concrete and bone. Plus the claws are also useful for deep burrowing when he is in contact with soft to moderately hard substrate to perform ambushes on his opponents below. But the most versatile weaponry is his venomous telson. It is used for a variety of attacks such as clubbing, retractable spikes, and a black stinger for impalement. He will usually burrow his tail underground and pop out it behind the opponent while he/she is distracted on attacking Mantikore's body. Like his Shokan cousins, he has the ability to blast fire from his maw to burn his victims alive slowly.

King Mantikore, unlike all of his race is actually well-versed in language and will usually flaunt a royal persona around him. Unlike the Shokan who fight for survival and honor, King Mantikore kills other denizens for pure pleasure to satisfy his sadistic bloodlust and will sometimes cannibalize on his own puny brethren when he's in the mood for a voracious appetite. He likes striking fear in the hearts of his enemies and enjoys toying around with them before slaying them. He is extremely confident in his strength and abilities and boasts pridefully during battle though he is not stupid for the most part.

Bio: For millions of years, the Shokan race were confined to the city of Kuatan, the only fortress safe from the Mantikore onslaught and its enormous leader. Only a few dared to venture into the heavilly guarded gem mines and take the Mantikore bounty as a way to establish trade with the Outworld surface world. None came back alive. A young King Gorbak knew well of the constant raids his people had to endure from their monstrous cousins. He decided he had enough and vowed to end King Mantikore's reign of terror on the Shokan people. With whatever contact he had with the outside world, Gorbak contacted the realm of Edenia who sent a small envoy of Edenian mercenaries to assist a large Shokan militia in launching a surprise attack on the Mantikore stronghold. The attack was successful, but many Shokan and Edenians lost their lives in the Mantikore Lair especially more when King Mantikore arrived on the scene. King Gorbak was caught in the crossfires and was nearly killed by King's infamous stinger if it weren't for the arrival of two secret weapons the Edenians brought with them; the sons of Argus Taven and Daegon who were volunteering in their first ever monster hunt, appyling their training under the dragons Orin and Caro into this situation. After taking Gorbak to be carried to safety, Taven and Daegon confronted King Mantikore head on who was rather impressed with two fearless warriors kombating him.

His battle with the two demigods was in his favor as the brothers were unable to pierce his armor with both their blades and their Dragonfire. Tired of the lackbuster action, King Mantikore took advantage of a frustrated Daegon charging straight toward him and stabbed his telson blade through the demigod's abdomen. King Mantikore thought the nearly fatal blow on Daegon would make Taven more suspectible to fear thus making him more easily vulnerable to be slain like the rest of King's pathetic Shokan relatives. However he never faced the wrath of a demigod before. Taven channeled into his inner power, unleashing his Edenian magic in his fists and started physically assaulting King's carapace with repeated punches, creating internal fractures in the monster's armor. The Mantikore was taken surprise by Taven's godlike strength which shattered the 13-foot tall behemoth's lower jaw, sending the beast crashing into one of the cavern walls. King Mantikore did manage to poke a deep wound in Taven with his stinger, but by then Taven had enough of the King's constant insults and attempts to cave the halfgod into fear. With brute strength, Taven tore off King's stinger and blasted off the open wound with a burst of Dragonfire, blowing up the entire telson. Then Taven moved up to Mankitore's vulnerable eyes and continued assaulting the emerging fractures on Mantikore's armor. When Mantikore was distracted, insulting Taven's mother with him pinned down under his foot for a moment, Taven took the opportunity to blast an opening in Mantikore's neck and physically tore out the monster's voicebox to shut his blasphemous mouth for good. Despite being poisoned, crushed, slashed, and burned Taven's fury and constant attacks turned the tide of the battle in his favor against a severely wounded and frustrated Mantikore. After a small kink opened in one of King's armored legs, Taven channeled his Dragonfire to harpoon straight into the open wound, amputating Mantikore's leg in a fiery explosion. The King of the Mantikore was for the first time afraid as he tried to retreat with his bleeding stump, but Taven grabbed him and lifted the monster's weight to the latter's shock. Taven then threw King Mantikore into a cavern pit where the monster fell on a bed of sharp crystal gems, impaling him through multiple open wounds in his carapace. Still furious that King Mantikore was still alive after the fall, Taven found a straggling ladle of molten cobalt hanging on the cavern ceiling and blasted one of the chains off the ladle, casuing the pot to pour its molten contents all over King Mantikore. This was what finally killed the underground tyrant.

Satisifed, Taven returned back to retrieve a dying Daegon and brought Mantikore's voicebox to King Gorbak for the Shokan to keep as a remainder of the day's events. It wasn't long as Taven collapsed from the poison's effects, but was awakened from his three-week coma back home in Edenia where his mother Delia cared for him and Daegon (who survived) during that time. The Shokan back in Outworld praised the brothers for their efforts and started calling them Drathani, warriors sent by their patron god Drathon to aid them in times of distress; the first ever non-Shokans to be ever given that title. After King Mantikore's fall, his puny brethren collapsed into anarchy and were then driven into extinction by the Shokan who exacted their revenge for years of oppression. In the aftermath, the Kuatan warriors seized the gem and cobalt mines, becoming the richest race in subterranean Outworld and thus began trading with the surface dwellers, soon to come in contact with the Centaurs. From the fall of the Mantikore, came the rise of the famous Shokan "only the strong survive" code to honor their great victory. This was the culture under which Prince Goro grew up with the larynx of King Mantikore nailed high above Gorbak's throne as his father retold his tale countless times, praising the Dragon brothers. However, Taven courteously wanted King Gorbak to take credit for befalling King Mantikore as he wanted nothing to do with it. The monster nearly killed him, but most of all his brother. From that point, Taven was mainly focused on protecting his brother from anything that could kill him again. As for Daegon, he felt embarassed for having lost to King Mantikore and felt inferior to Taven even though both brothers were praised for their efforts thus began Daegon's descent into darkness.

Years have passed and King Mantikore's spirit resided in the 9th plane of the Netherrealm and the monster turned his obession toward killing Taven for his humilating defeat. Then Shinnok took an interest in him and made the Mantikore an offer to serve him and in return allow the King to revive his undead army of Mantikore to take back the kingdom of Kuatan from the newly crowned King Goro and have his revenge against Taven. Luckilly for King, Taven was in the Netherrealm, hunting for his now-rogue brother Daegon who murdered a close friend of him. The demigod arrived just in time for the Festival of Death, which was accompanied by the Death Games, a no holds barred tournament showcasing the Netherrealm's best fighters in a gruesome spectacle to the death, hosted by none other than the fallen Elder God himself. Shinnok told Taven that he would have his fight with Daegon if he managed to fight through the ranks and arrive at the final standings to face off his brother. King Mantikore would finally have his opportunity to exact his revenge on Taven by participating in a surprise match with his newly resurrected body embedded with Netherrealm magik while having an uneasy alliance with Daegon who wants to kill Taven as well; the feud which of course annoys Shinnok to threaten both of them to keep them focused on their roles. After he ambushes and murders Taven in the intermediate match as planned, King Mantikore is given the approval of Shinnok to slay Daegon as well before rising to the land of the living and exacting his final solution on the Shokan people with his undead army. Now all Mantikore has to do is wait for Taven to finish off the best of the realm's fighters and bide his opportunity to strike...