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Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of IHeart Radio.

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 and 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 manteree in the game,

the cloak of the manterey, 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 in a speed of 60 feet per turn. That's compared to the

typical adventures 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 wear to just polymorph into the form of a Manta, which would of course be even more exciting.

But what of the creature itself? While the Manta Ray's 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

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