Imagine a lion bodied and eagle winged Alex Trebek who eats your face if you answer questions incorrectly

This is another of those: “how have we not done a sphinx yet?”. Well dammit we’re about to fix that!

Lots of ancient cultures have some form of Sphinx, most notably the Greeks and Egyptians, but there are most definitely asian and middle eastern versions as well. At its core, a Sphinx has the head of a human, the body of a lion and the wings of an eagle. The general temperament of the beast seems dependent on the source of origin of the tale. Greek sphinxes were merciless and bloodthirty, Egyptian and Middle Eastern sphinxes more reserved in their actions and represent potential power, and your asian sphinxes are often content with more interaction and routine activities like eating people’s sins as they pass.

Most of us familiar with the Sphinx, know it for it’s legendary riddle. First appearing in greek myths but repeated over and over again in young adult fantasy… the story generally plays out like this: A traveler needs to get to somewhere, that location is guarded by a giant human headed, lion bodied, eagle winged beast. Said beast says something along the lines of, “hey no problem, you can go past as soon as you solve my riddle”. Then proceeds to lay out some complicated sounding but generally easily solved with reason sorta riddle (the most famous being two sisters, one gave birth to the other, who later gave birth to the first, who are they…. answer being moon and sun duh!) In young adult fantasy, the riddle is almost always solved.. in ancient greek legends… not so much. And in the case of an incorrect answer… well you get to be a sphinx snack!

For those who never read the above, here’s your bulleted descriptors:

• Sphinx have a human head, sometimes male sometimes female, sometimes something in between and generally with the addition of some sort of headdress and occasionally breasts on the females
• Possesses the muscular body of a lion, occasionally with a snake headed tail
• Has the wings of an eagle just in case you can run faster than a lion
• Enjoys riddles, wordplay and human flesh

 





So long story short…

I hung with a whole bunch of the original beast drawing crew saturday night… the plan was for us to come to a consensus on sphinxes… as for most plans that involve hours of booze consumption… sometimes original plans get sidetracked and it becomes a helluva lot easier to just give the win to the new guy! And even though I’m pretty sure that’s a belly button and not a cloaca… just making me imagine it was a cloaca is good enough for me!

Disagree if you must but know that judgement is law and to the winner a shirt will go…. And even though the contest is done we’ll always welcome new Sphinxe drawings for the archives! So draw on and remember, 25 beasts drawn earns you a shirt!