D&D 5E Sphinx

[bogmad]

Well, while i do like the picture on its own merits, it's just a lion with wings. I do wish it had a more humanoid female face.

Agreed. Cuz when I think of a sphinx I actually have a pretty good example to pull up in my mind, even if it happens to be missing a nose...

 

[Scott DeWar]

"The Sphinx, she is 5 tousand years old, She is a made of alabaster, Napoleon he a try to steal her to Paris and brek her nose!"

These are the words of the egyptian tour guide when I saw the sphinx and pyramids in person. It was truly awesome!

 

[pemerton]

The further ones down on the list are certainly cool, but I wouldn't want to play in a campaign where the GM started reading that list and let the fiddly initiative reroll get them into a tactical mindset.

<snip>

I think that would come across a lot better if the initiative option wasn't there. There's never a cool time to use that power. Potentially some useful times, sure, but never a cool time.

Fair point, although [MENTION=1288]Mouseferatu[/MENTION] does suggest the foreshadowing use.

This is an occasion (not the only one) where the failure of the D&D designers to actually speak to the GM at the meta-level, and explain what they had in mind, undermines their presentation of their own work.

 

[Perun]

I seem to remember there normally being 3 types of sphinxes in D&D. I guess they dropped the 3rd one.

There were four types of sphynxes in previous editions, andro-, gyno-, cryo- and hieracosphinx. Cryosphinx has a ram's head and hieracosphynx a head of an eagle. Both were evil, IIRC, although one might have been neutral in alignment, and both were less powerful than either the gyno- or andro- variety.

Regards.

 

[Keldryn]

Nah, go look at a photo of a lion. This guy has the high forehead and chin of a humanoid. Even has the phaoronic (sp?) beard. It's got a lion's nose, yes, and so he looks more like a wemic than a human, but it's a humanoid face.

Yes, definitely a combination of human and lion features on the head, leaning more towards the lion than the human.

I would guess that the artist started with a more human-looking head and kept tweaking it until the creature looked more majestic than goofy. The human head on a lion body looks okay in simple line drawings and ancient carvings, but doesn't exactly convey a vibe of "majestic guardian of divine treasures" when rendered in a more realistic style.