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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Lava Ooze

The lava ooze is generally to be found deep in areas with plentiful volcanic ability, as well as any of the warmer outer dimensions. While oozes generally feed on flesh, the lava ooze subsists on minerals, with any minerals with a melting point higher than its body being excreted. Because of this, the lava ooze is relatively non-aggressive. However, they are able to sense especially rich minerals, meaning that those wearing armour or precious stones may find themselves targets. But it's not that big a threat, since you can just amble away from the ooze. They are slow.

Me and Joe went to NYC recently and during our stay there I started doodling some oozes in my sketchbook. I've always found the ooze monster type really difficult to draw. Well, difficult to draw in an interesting way. There's only so many ways you can draw a blob. But I've recently been seeing a lot of really interesting sea slugs and I started using them as inspiration. I know most oozes are supposed to be kinda amorphous, blind, blobbity blobby blobs, but I kinda went for a half barnacle half snail thing here.

We fought a little pack of these guys in our current campaign. We mostly ran away from them. We've been running away from a lot of creatures.

It's honestly kinda fun to flee.

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Werecrocodile

I know when I first saw the Werecrocodile in all its goofy glory in the pages of Sandstorm I was all pshaw running out of ideas are we Wizards and here I was thinking Weretigers were dumb. But after some research it came to my knowledge that Werecrocodiles are a legit thing (along with Weretigers and other Were-big cats), though not in the sense that were used to here in the modern West.

We've done the Werewolf before, arguably the poster boy for all werebeasts. It's a man who under the light of the full moon becomes a wolf hybrid type thing. The moon rule is followed with all the lycanthropes (an erroneous term, since the term lycanthope can only be linguistically tied to the werewolf), regardless of whatever creature you turn into. But the moon thing is a relatively new invention. Though some werewolf legends talk about transformations under certain stages of the moon, werewolves were more often described as willingly transforming through magic, usually by wearing a pelt, part of a pelt, reciting a spell or applying a potion.

So it is with Werecrocodiles. The folkloric key to becoming a werecrocodile is usually either an incantation or the wearing of a fetish.  Finding specific stories and legends is a bit tricky. I've found a lot of sites claiming that they appear in legends of Indonesia, Thailand, Zambia, Egypt and the Bakongo people. Basically anywhere where the crocodile is an apex predator. The person would transform into a crocodile and then lurk in rivers to eat people who wronged them / sexy bathers. Cannibalism is a recurring theme across the world when it comes to werebeasts.

 There's the Thai legend of Krai Thong and Chalawan (which is also a Thai film), but I'm unclean whether Chalawan is a giant/demon who can turn into a crocodile or a demon crocodile that can take on humanoid form. In Indonesia, the magical incantation/formula to take on human form is said to be tiang maleh rupa, and those who use the spell are known by the same name. In the 88th chapter of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, there's a spell invoking Osiris to give you the form of a crocodile, though the spells of the Book of the Dead are meant to aid the dead in the trials they face in the afterlife rather than affect still corporeal mortals.

Speaking of Egyptian mythology and Osiris and turning into crocodiles, you should totally buy Pantheon by Hamish Steele. It's a comic telling the creation myth according to the Ancient Egyptians. And boy I tell you I learned something from the book. Mostly that the Greek gods aren't the only ones with weird drama.

Cursed Cold One (Gelun)

The Cursed Cold Ones may once have been humans. Once. Now they're translucent humanoid creatures entirely dependant on heat. Any temperature below searing hot causes them to freeze into a block of ice and enter an agonizing state of hibernation.

To counter this, they live primarily in hot deserts, where they're guaranteed long days of extreme heat and sunlight. But desert nights are notoriously cold and the Cursed Cold Ones must find a heat source of risk becoming blocks of ice for the next few hours. Because their bodies are natural heat sinks, their touch is much like the attack of an Ice Serpent, freezing their victims as they drain them of their heat. Even their gaze can cause an enemy to reel with sensations of deep cold.

Tried to get some sketchy shading with this image. Sometimes I really like the scratchy dark shadows I do in my sketchbook.

Porcupine Cactus

Standing in its ripened state no higher than a halfling, the Porcupine Cactus is so called for its bizarre method of seed dispersion. Rather than relying on its fruit to be digested, rainwater instead causes it to swell to an enormous size, whereupon any disturbance of the plant will result in its body rupturing, sowing the thornlike seeds in all directions. The Porcupine Cactus' detonation also serves a more greusome purpose - should the source of the disturbance be another creature, the volley of thorns may kill it, providing a fresh source of nutrients for the next generation.

This is another "blind" pick - Blanca chose the creature, then gave me nothing more than the text description, with the name blacked out. It's fun! I think I'd have probably gone for something more deliberately cactus-like if I'd known, which might have been a bit predictable. Its face - well, the eye, anyway - is part artistic flourish (ie I just like the way it looks) and part a response to the fact that the plant apparently possesses Low-light Vision. I know this is probably more a representation of the plant's ability to "sense" things around it but I just liked the idea that it would have a big eyeball. WELP

My posts have been pretty few and far between lately. I'm fairly busy! I promise I'll get back into the swing of things, though.

ALSO you can drop by the MCM Anime Expo in Birmingham next week and see Blanca and I! I'll be hawking my lame comics, too. Look for us in the Comic Village!

- Joe

Giant Banded Lizard

The Giant Banded Lizard is not a creature of legendary intellect. It doesn't plot; it has no minions; it doesn't hoard treasure; it has no magical abilities. That's because it's literally a big stripey desert lizard of huge size. But it'll still rip your shizzle because this here's a CR 7 creature with a nasty poison attack.

I like to think that those two guys in the bottom have been sent on a quest by the cooking lady so she can make some really lovely striped omelettes. Thems will be some good omelettes.

This monster's from Sandstorm, one of my favourite settings, as I've mentioned before. The monster section can be a little bit disappointing, since it can get a bit samey. Dried up undead monster with dehydrating attack, monster with sand attack, some sandworms, such and such... But there are some other quite interesting beasties there which I shall do in the future.

GOD MONTH: Azul, Lord of Rain

Azul rules over rain in the desert. He's a favourite deity of travellers not out of any true love or reverence, but out of necessity. This is a fickle god, happy to withhold his bounty until he's given a blood sacrifice (by drowning), and cause terrible droughts when offended. His temples are built on springs and oases, which are ferociously guarded by his priests.

This god exists outside the usual D&D patheon, belonging instead of the group of optional gods used in the Sandstorm setting. Even though I haven't illustrated any creatures from Sandstorm for this blog, it's probably my favourite setting; I really love deserts. There's just something about long stretches of arid, lifeless, deadly nothing with small settlements trying to survive that I find incredibly interesting.

And out of all the gods listed for Sandstorm, I think Azul is the most fascinating. I like the idea of a god whose domains include Water and Plant, and who farmers and travellers rely so heavily on, should be such a petty, selfish god who demands the life of something (usually an animal, but will take a sentient creature) in exchange for his life-sustaining services. Using ironic sacrifice. I'm not sure whether he has a rivalry with Solanil and Tem-Et-Tu (goddesses of oases and rivers, respectively), or whether they're also afraid of offending him because if he stops raining, their own domains would dry up.

It's always something I like in mythology. A god that's worshipping it isn't so much as admiring it as much as it is begging it not to hurt you.