Saurosphinx

Saurosphinxes are one of the less intelligent sphinxes. They're not stupid, but merely have intelligence comparable to that of an average human. Regardless, they're one of the nicer examples of the sphinx-type monster. While they're still carnivorous beasts, they generally refrain from attacking humans, preferring to engage them in conversation instead. Some saurosphinxes have been known to approach universities and lesser schools to listen to any interesting lectures going on at the time.

The Monster Manual has four sphinxes in it (lady-head, dude-head, sheep-head and hawk-head), but  Sandstorm, D&D's desert rules book, adds four more. The saurosphinx isn't the only reptilian one either, as it's immediately preceded by a crocodile-headed sphinx. Seems kinda redundant, but they make the point of making one of them nice and the other one vicious.

There's no illustration of this creature in Sandstorm, and I get the impression that they're supposed to be kinda dragony or otherwise lizard-like, but I couldn't help giving this dude a snake head. Snakes can have such jolly little faces.

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Saint

The path to sainthood is a difficult one, requiring years of sacrifice, self-reflection and utter dedication to your holy path. Though sainthood is not the same as godhood, it does grant abilities to the saint that allow them to stay alive for longer to spread the word of their god.

"Saint" isn't a creature, really, but a template that can be added onto any PC after level 6. Feels like that's kinda early to get the holiness required to be a saint but whatever. It's kinda up to the DM's discretion whether you qualify for the template anyway, and it does essentially require you to sacrifice two levels of progression for the sake of power balance. But you do get a lot of abilities that are essentially free that make you really hard to kill, so there's that.

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Logokron Devil

Much like certain angelic beings use truename magic, so do some devils. As one might imagine, the logokron devil's use of truemagic is meant to cause pain. Their long tongues are marked all over with magic symbols which are painful to look at, causing one to seize up and shake with insurmountable agony. Other devils are unaffected by this symbol, allowing the logokron to incapacitate enemies whilst bolstering the other soldiers in its army.

The know the true words of agony and wounding, and blending them with a person's name can cause that person to be forever tormented, long after the devil has left their sight.

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Elven Hound

Elven hounds are the canine companions of the Good People. Used as guardians, assistants in the Hunts, mounts and friends, these green dogs are loyal servant to their masters. Even when transformed to look like a mortal dog, the elven hound always sports a greenish hue. Like other fairy creatures, the elven hound has a strong resistance to enchantments.

I spent a good while trying to decide how to draw this little fella, especially since I didn't want it to look too much like some of the other hounds I'd done. For a long while I kept messing about with something that looked like a borzoi, because if there's a dog that's going to belong to a fairy, it's gonna be the one that looks like a cloud / hornless unicorn.

But then I read something about how's there's a story saying that the darker fur on a corgi's back is supposed to be from the saddles pixies use to ride them, so here you go. So fierce, so dangerous.

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Green Hag

Don't go into the woods after dark.

Make offerings at the temples of the travel gods, hold onto your talismans, wear your shirt inside out and carry a hazel stick.

Don't got into the woods after dark.

Do not acknowledge cute little old ladies, beautiful women or lost children. Do not heed the weeping in the trees, or the laughter, or the cries for help. Do not follow the swaying of lanterns in the darkness. If your friend left the path, they are gone. That is not their voice you hear.

But most of all don't go into the woods after dark.

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Storm Elemental

Storm elementals are pretty much perky air elementals. They may be slower, but they pack quite a bit of zap, especially when you get to the bigger ones of the bunch. The little fellas can be pretty useful as a summoned ally, since their attacks actually deal sonic and electric damage at the same time. If one bit of hurt can't get through, the other one probably will.

They may well be the reason why airplanes and such never quite took off in fantasy worlds. Magical airships maybe have some kinda magical protection against storm elementals coming along and puncturing their balloons.

I like to think of these guys hanging around blue dragons, thunderbirds and the other big electric beasties of the sky, just hanging around them like remora on a shark.

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Spectral Mage

Okay so you can have ghost, but what if the ghost was, like, magic? I mean, I guess you could just tack on some spellcaster levels onto a standard ghost. Or you could use the somewhat superfluous spectral mage template!

Honestly there isn't that much difference between the two types of ghosties. Except maybe that spectral mages are a bit more consistent as poltergeists since they don't have to take breaks between levitation spells.

Mostly I like the idea of a wizard spending just, like, ages trying to figure out the elixir of life, or how to become a lich or worm that walks, only for them to accidentally blow themselves up and become a ghost.

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Hopping Vampire

 

Here's Mr. Vampire himself! Mr. Hopping Vampire. Don't laugh, coz he'll get ya.

So while they're called vampires and have the teeth to back it up, they're not your typical suck-your-blood types. They're psychic vampires, breathing on you and draining your chi. The big ol' claws are just a good way to make you stay put while they do that sweet chi draining. 

Also, unlike regular vampires, they don't have that whole shape-shifting thing to make themselves look sexy. It's the moldy rotting corpse look that they've got going on. Not that they could lay some seduction on you with words either, because they're not too bright either. These dudes are also completely blind, and detect their prey by sensing their breath. But they're reeeeaaallly good at sensing breath, can feel it from quite far away, so you'd better put some distance between you and Mr. Vampire.

So that should make them easy enemies, yeah? Well, sunlight doesn't harm them, so you can't just whip aside some curtains or come back to their hidey-holes after sunrise to kill them. They'll be awake and they'll be waiting. Or maybe they'll just be following you. And don't let them get you with the claws either, because pretty soon after you'll feel your muscles seizing up until you can only move at a hop-hop-hop.

Hop-hop-happy Halloween to you.

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Deep Dragon

As one would expect, deep dragons are found deep, deep in the earth. It's not completely certain whether deep dragons are their own species, or some kind of mutated version of a true dragon. Regardless, they're just as powerful as true dragons. Surface dwellers may now give a sigh of relief as it's made known that deep dragons have no interest in leaving their dark world. They sometimes make pacts with drow, but that's mostly to keep an eye on them and make sure that whatever the drow do, it won't interfere with the deep dragon's well-being.

Deep dragons cannot be trusted. They’re especially tricky creatures, and similarly difficult to fool. Even a wyrmling is born with innate true seeing, making them immune to the effects of illusions and invisibility. Older deep dragons become more attuned to their cavernous and stony environment. They start out being able to easily burrow through stone and worm their way though small cracks. By the time end of their lifespan, deep dragons can command the stone to open, close and warp as they please.

Why fight some repugnant humanoid skulking in the tunnel you've left behind when you can simply command the tunnel to seal itself, crushing the intruder?

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Hell Hound

Hell hounds are the canine companions of the servants of the denizens of Hell. Bred for size, viciousness and trainability, hell hounds can grow large enough to be used as mounts in the eternal wars between Hell and the Abyss. Wild hell hounds can also be found in wandering in packs throughout this evil plane, and while they're scrawnier than their tamed bretheren, they're also much more cunning.

Evil wizards and warlords will often summon or otherwise procure a hellhound for their own destructive needs. However, the hound's fiery breath and sulphurous smell makes them extremely hazardous to the very flammable Material Plane. Summoning, though only short-term, is probably the more sensible option if you have the means. Otherwise be ready to build stone pens. And make sure that you use good lucks; though beastly, hell hounds are smart enough to work out simpler locks.

Other wizards, fervent seekers of higher truths, also summon hell hounds in an attempt to answer a frustrating question:

Can this hound be a Good Boy when they are, by definition, a Very Bad Dog?

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Shedu

The shedim are a group of chimeric beasts somewhat related to sphinxes and the lamassu. Though not holy in the planar sense, shedim will often work with clerics and help them with their questions. Some suspect that shedim were kings in the past, which the creatures neither confirm nor deny. These days they spend a good deal of time hopping between the Ethereal and Material planes, guarding the world from Chaos.

So shedu/lamassu are kinda interchangeable folklorically, though some people will argue that lammasu are leonine, that shedu are bovine, that lammasu are female... But they exist more as artwork than in stories. You'll see them as these absolutely massive reliefs and statues from Mesopotamia. These statues are really neat because they have a little bit of trickery going on. The shedu is carved with five legs, but not in a way that implies that it actually has five legs. Looking at it from the front, you only see the two front-most legs, showing that the shedu is standing there, guarding. From the side, you see four legs, showing the creature walking instead of standing (one of the front legs is hidden by the profile).

(The shedu in the Fiend Folio is supposed to have five legs, but I couldn't make it look good, so the drawing only has four).

Like I said, there aren't that many stories about them that I've found. Apparently they show up in The Epic of Gilgamesh, but I've only been able to find mentions of bulls without specifying whether they have wings and human heads. But they seem to be associated with celestial bodies. So I made the shedu out of space.

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Yuan-Ti Mageslayer

Yuan-ti hate hate hate hate hate anyone who isn't a yuan-ti. Especially any other creature who have the disgusting physical defect of not having scales. These Scaleless Ones are becoming increasingly troubling, what with their insistence on learning magic. This has forced that hands of yuan-ti lords, making them train elite groups of mages which expand on the race's natural spellcasting capabilities. Thus were created the mageslayers.


While the mageslayer has a couple of offensive spells (namely fireball, burning hands and acid splash), most of it's magic is geared towards espionage and quick, deadly takedowns. Yuan-ti favour sneak attacks over anything that calls attention to themselves. Take out the enemy slowly, one by one. If this is impossible, retreat. So the yuan-ti mageslayer will disguise itself, either as a disgusting Scaleless One, a pitiful but graceful small viper, or simply condescend to blend into their surroundings. Disenchant enemy weapons and block the abilities of any spellcasters. Lure them down wrong paths with invisible hands. And when the last intruder is left alive, grab him, and teleport away with your soon-to-be precious sacrifice.


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Pennaggolan

The pennaggolan is a type of almost exclusively female vampires. Like most vampires, they are nocturnal, but are immune to the dangers of sunlight. By day, the pennaggolan appears as a normal woman, but at night the head detaches itself from the body, dragging its entrails along with it and flies away. It often stalks lonely roads and houses, throttling travellers and feeding on their blood.

The best way to defeat a pennaggolan in to find its vacant body. The body can be destroyed, leaving the vampire permanently exposed in its gory from. Alternatively, the body (currently hollow) can be filled with thorns or broken glass, so that the pennaggolan's guts are lethally shredded when it tries to re-attach itself.

This creature come from Malaysian mythology. In the Malaysian tales, the pennaggolan (alternate names pennanggalan, hantu pennangal, balah-balah...) is usually a midwife. Some legends I've found say that the midwives make deals with spirits for supernatural powers, but fail to hold up their part of the bargain and get cursed to become these monsters. The pennagolan perches on the roof of a house containing children, pregnant women or women in labour, and feeds on their blood with an invisible tongue. Like in other vampire tales, the victim eventually contracts a wasting disease and dies.

When the pennaggolan returns home, she soaks her guts in vinegar to shrink them, so she can squeeze back into her body. Getting out is easy, but you try squeezing lungs and metres of intestines back in through a narrow neck-hole. Since the darkness can hide the face of a pennaggolan, sometimes the best way to tell if a woman is a monster or not is if she smells really strongly of vinegar.

There are a lot of variants of this monsters across East Asia. The Phillipines have the manananggal (detaches its upper body from its lower body), Bali has the leyak (way scarier face, also feeds on corpses), and Thailand has the krause (cursed with hunger; feeds on blood, flesh and poop).

I remember first reading about this monster when I was really young. I think it was maybe in some spooky Halloween edition of a kids magazine or something. I was quite struck by how weird it was. And also the whole protecting yourself by sticking a bunch of thorns and pointy leaves around you window. Them dangling guts don't wanna get tangled up in that mess.

Pretty reminiscent of the vargouille.


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Corruption Eater

The corruption eater is a type of aberration that feasts on the festering evil that wears down the soul. Encountering a corruption eater is both a good and bad thing. Good because it can cleanse you of the aforementioned festering evil; bad because getting cleansed still really really hurts and it can get mad when there's no more food left. The corruption eater uses it's stretchy tentacles to immobilize its target, then wraps the victim up in its hole-filled tongue to feed.

So you know how the other week I was talking about all the alternate magicky-magic things that D&D has? Well the Heroes of Horror book introduces the concept of taint: the corrupting influence of evil magic which wears you down both mentally and physically. As the taint increases, you weaken gaining a number of penalties that can result in death or complete madness (essentially death since the DM takes over your character).

However, certain feats, prestige classes or types of magic are only available to characters that are suffering from taint. This can result in a delicate balancing act of making sure that your taint stays above a certain level without actually being killing you.

Taint can be cured with certain spells, but a lot of them are quite high-level or expensive, so I like to think that maybe some smaller towns have a corruption eater locked away for medical purposes. Kinda like a leech. Or evil chemo. Just stick your hand in this hole. It'll hurt for a while, but we'll pull you back out once your eyes regrow and you stop craving human flesh.

Of course having a corruption eater holed up in your town would probably increase the ambient taint of the area, since you're harbouring an evil creature. Six and two threes.


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Totem Giant

Totem giants are a particular race who are especially good at manipulating incarnum, the magical force that powers everything. Avid worshippers (and hunters) of magical beasts, totem giants tattoo themselves with symbols of their favourites. These same tattoos are clues as to what kind of powers they are likely to manifest in combat. Totem giants can be found anywhere in the world, since they often use their incarnum powers to be able to survive in environments that would otherwise be deadly.

Okay, so D&D has soooo many different kinds of magic in it. Most people just stick to the ol' arcane-divine group because magic is already complicated enough and there's twelve bajillion spells without adding an oh but my magic works THIS way and bluhhhhhhh. I haven't that much into how incarnum works, but it honestly sounds kinda cool? The amount of spells you have to choose from (and are able to cast) is limited compared to the rest of the stuff, but it's kinda nice that way.

Basically you shape incarnum (this blue Force stuff) into this quasi-physical stuff called soulmelds. They're kinda like spells but also kinda like magic items you wear. But you can still use non-spell magic items you're wearing. Unless you super-bind them to you then you can't use magic items, but the incarnum spell is extra strong and give your a lot of cool stuff. And you can have a bunch of them active at the same time. It's complicated.

Okay. For example. The totem giant in the book has the Frost Helm spell. If they just manifest the Frost Helm normally, it basically allows them to live in super-cold environments and get resistance to cold. If you were wearing some magic item on your head (ex: circlet that grants you telepathy) you'd still be able to use the telepathy. But if you super-bind the Frost Helm spell you can get a buncha cool abilities (a cold breath weapon or a stunning sonic shriek), but the power of the spell overrides the power of whatever magic item you have at the time.

Like I said, it's complicated.

But I kinda wanna play this system and use this giant chick? I probably wouldn't be able to use her since she's a giant and that's not a playable race. I guess I could use a half-orc or a goliath but it's not the saaaaame. I wanna be huuuuuge.

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Nymph

Nymphs are a type of female spirit that acts as the fairy guardian of wild places. They're all generally described as beautiful, sweet-voiced and fickle. While nymphs can inhabit any natural place (trees, rocks, etc...) your standard nymph tends to live near freshwater pools or rivers.

As with many other fey spirits, nymphs prefer to remain hidden from mortal eyes, but that doesn't make them harmless. If they feel their territory is in any way damaged or disrespected, the nymph's revenge is swift. Animals, plants and the weather are her allies, and she won't hesitate to use them. However, calling attention to yourself by being especially reverent isn't the best course of action either. While you may receive blessings from the nymph, she can also become possessive and demanding, or inspire such love and pity in her that she will try to capture you to keep as a pet.

Some nymphs have been known to make their homes in dangerous, rocky places, and take delight in luring mortals to their deaths. These tend to be the favoured daughters of powerful nature spirits, who can count on their father's magic and rage to protect them from any retribution that may come to them.


I know nymphs are good aligned creatures, but a nymph can totally make a decent final boss for a low-level campaign. The D&D nymph has some pretty great and pretty crippling abilities. Besides a number of defensive and offensive spells, nymphs can't be looked at directly, since doing so can result in a character being permanently blinded by how crazy pretty they are. A thing that seems a bit weird is that they don't actually have charm person or any of those enchantments, but whatever.

I don't think this particular nymph would be considered blindingly gorgeous by anyone, but you don't know what fairy magic can do to the mind.

I went for a slightly more insectile look with this gal. Specifically dragonflies. Dragonflies are pretty.

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Redspawn Firebelcher

Like the bluespawn godslayer, the redspawn firebelcher is a mutation brought about by Tiamat's magic. Entirely lacking the dignity and majesty of true red dragons, the redspawn firebelcher is the stupidest of Tiamat's spawn. That doesn't make them any less dangerous, since the firebelcher is driven entirely by hunger. Other spawn might be able to control the firebelcher to use them as mounts and warbeasts, though they risk being eaten themselves. Despite the danger, Tiamat's spawn purposely starve the firebelcher in order to guarantee maximum ferocity.

Like all of Tiamat's more animalistic spawn, they exude an aura which protects nearby spawn from certain effects. In this case, it provides immunity to fire. This makes them potentially excellent mounts for whitespawn, since it can cancel out their weakness.

It's been a while since I've done anything for Dungeons & Drawings. I've been having a really really bad art block for the last several months. I didn't seem to like anything I drew. And while I still don't feel like I'm completely back to my comfort zone, I am gradually liking the last few things I've been drawing more.

Anyway, the firebelcher. Their entry describes them as often swimming around in lava pools. Well the first thought that came to my mind was crocodiles, but I really didn't want to go in that direction. The old red dragon illustration was vaguely mammalian anyway, so I went with basing this guy off a hippopotamus. Because hippopotami are horrendous nightmare beasts.

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LeShay

The LeShay are to elves what elves are to humans. Which is what this game needed: a more hoity-toity elf. It's possible that LeShay are even the true ancestors of elves, having seeded the Material Plane with their progeny. They're adept shapeshifters, able to appear as any humanoid, but their true form is that of a white elf-like creature with deep black eyes. And despite the unsettling appearance, looking at them give one a strange sense of longing and camraderie. 

LeShay are not put off by locked doors. They will get in.

LeShay cannot be stopped by armour. They will get through.


I've been a little ehhhhhh about drawing lately. Artist's block. It happens somethings. Nothing I've drawn recently I've especially liked in anything beyond the thumbnail stage. The Halite animation I did was pretty much because I just couldn't make myself design and draw something new, so just animate something that somebody else has designed. Sometimes this loosens up my brain, sometimes it doesn't. I'm still kinda stuck, but it'll stop eventually.

I've been using Manga Studio for a while but mostly stuck to the same pen (the turnip pen does really nice crispy lines). After several attempts attempts on this I accepted that no matter what I did I wasn't going to be happy with it as a proper illustration. So experiment a bit with other styles of colouring. The colouring in this is mostly done with the flat marker tool for a more smudgy look. It's probably not something that I'm gonna add to my usual drawing style probably, but at least it looks kinda interesting.

Also I treated the LeShay like a little bit as a fairy fantasy version of what the Engineers were in the Prometheus movie. The illustration in the Epic Level Handbook is a little bit boring. Just a grey elf in some brown clothes. But I liked how the description had a bit of that alien-y fairy feeling.

(Not included in the image, but these dudes can manifest +10 keen brilliant energy weapons out of their own life force.)


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Cavvekan

Cavvekan is the Undercommon name for the cavedog or bat-faced dog. Despite this name, it's likely that cavvekans are not canids at all, but a type of large rodents. Regardless, they fill a similar niche that jackals or coyotes would; they're small onmnivorous mammals who hunt tiny prey and fungi, or scavenge food from more capable predators.

As subterranean creatures, their sense of sight is so diminished that they are practically blind. They instead rely on their sense of smell and hearing. If regular clicks are heard in a dark cave, it's likely that what you're hearing is them using echolocation. The cavvekan is completely hairless except for it's whiskers, though the dark, velvety skin on its body can be confused for fur.

They're very skittish creatures, perfectly aware of their position as a possible lunch to the large predators that live underground. However, the drow occasionally manage to capture enough cavvekan pups to start breeding programs. They're good guard animals, but not often used as attack beasts. The drow tend to have access to more lethal options.

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Firenewt

 

Firenewts are relatives to lizardfolk, but their environment and behaviour is different enough for them to be confused with salamanders. Unlike lizardfolk, firenewts thrive in environments of extreme heat, with some tribes even living near or in active volcanos. Oftentimes, a creature so comfortable with fire would be a native of the Plane of Fire, but firenewts are completely native to the Material Plane.

Firenewts are extremely aggressive to both other firenewts and non-humanoid races. If a warband of these creatures is spotted, it's a sure thing that they're participating in a raid, possibly to smash the eggs of another firenewt tribe. They're also a highly religious people, with the most important members of society often being clerics in service to evil fire gods.

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