The Erovast Codex

The Menagerie#

Summary#

The Menagerie is the tournament tier above the Proving Grounds: a gladiatorial “fantasy bullfighting” arena where captured monsters are released into the ring for champions to fight, in front of thousands of spectators—far larger crowds than the Proving Grounds draws. Source: 2026.08.11.

Notes#

  • Posters advertise past creatures fought here: a steel-plated gorgon-bull, a medusa-type monster, and a griffon.
  • Judged on spectacle, daring, and mastery, not just on killing the beast—per Holt: “any butcher can kill an animal.”
  • A bloodied, stretcher-carried adventurer was seen leaving the tent area, underscoring the increased danger over the Proving Grounds.
  • Cassian’s Crushing Crusaders advanced here after completing the Crown Gauntlet. Their bout is scheduled the day after 2026.08.11 at 5 PM, assigned the red tent, bracketed near a House Wulfhelm-affiliated opponent (red vs. blue tent). House Oswall also registered several unarmored entrants this year.
  • Bouts here pit champions against released monsters rather than other champions directly. On 2026.08.25, Cassian’s Unseen Servant scouted the previous bracket match—four black knights fighting a beast with a deep, lion-like roar, sketched by the servant as a manticore. The party then walked out to face a fresh manticore of their own; Odine’s opening Intimidation check failed to faze it, and combat/initiative was deferred to the next session. Source: 2026.08.25.
  • The manticore bout ended in an unprecedented way on 2026.09.08: rather than killing the beast, Cassian talked it down mid-combat, discovered it was a captive controlled by a trebuchet-and-net failsafe, and freed it—flying it to disable the trebuchet and letting it fly off unharmed. The arena’s crowd-approval mechanic (a per-round d20 group check against a hidden DC) turned against the party as the fight dragged on without a kill; officials could not agree on how to score the bout, and the paying crowd largely booed, though peasants watching from a nearby cliffside outside the arena cheered the party as heroes. See The Freed Manticore.

Relationships#

Linked mentions 3