Editing Sphinx

The sphinx is a mythical monster from Egypt, Greece and the Asiatic regions of Earth, taking the form of a large cat (lion, specifically) with the head (and tits, if female) of a human, and sometimes with eagle wings. It has also appeared in a number of fantasy settings. Because the most famous form of the sphinx is the Greek one, almost always depicted with big tits to go with her human face, she is often held up as one of the real-world [[monstergirls]], though, like [[centaurs]], female sphinxes do elicit complaints of "too [[furry]]!" since, y'know, you're fucking what is basically a she-cat with a human's head.

==Mythology==
The Egyptian sphinx, from little we know, is always portrayed as a lion with the head of a human. Rather like the Lamassu and Shedu of Sumeria, it is a protector spirit. There are several kinds of spinx from Egypt; the human-headed ones, falcon-headed ones (hieracosphinxes) and ram-headed ones (criosphinxes).

The Greek sphinx is the most famous version. This is the version that sometimes incorporates eagle wings, and is always female. Set itself up on a rock leading to Thebes and demanded that people guess the answer to her riddle or be eaten. If they got it wrong, she ate them anyway. Finally, Oedipus answered it correctly, whereupon she got pissed and killed herself. Because of how popular Greek myths are, everybody's heard the riddle - "what goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs in the evening?" For those of you who've been living under a stump, the answer is "man", since he crawls on all fours as a baby (morning), walks upright as an adult (noon) and uses a walking stick as a third leg as an old geezer (evening).

The Asiatic sphinx, like the Egyptian sphinx, is a protector spirit, but may have wings like the Greek sphinx.

==D&D and Pathfinder==
Okay, to begin with, one has to remember that spinxes appeared in [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]], when monster manuals liked to try and be "realistic", but tended to fail hilariously - witness the absurdity of [[medusa]]/maedar mating outcomes.

D&D basically throws together the Greek and Egyptian sphinxes, ending up with four seperate kinds.

Gynosphinxes are your standard Greek sphinx with some Egyptian thrown in. Winged lionesses with human heads and tits. Highly intelligent, love riddles, natural spellcasters. Drawn to guarding sacred spots. Don't usually eat people, but won't hesitate to do so if hungry, bored or insulted, especially if a person is a moron.

Androsphinxes are the male, more good-natured equivalents to gynosphinxes. Even smarter and more magically powerful. Don't like company much, and pretty prudish.

Criosphinxes are fairly dimwitted ram-headed winged lions. Some minor [[druid]]ic abilities, but mostly just beasts.

Hieracosphinxes are savage, rapacious, totally evil eagle-headed winged lions.

So, here's the weirdness: only gynosphinxes are female, and all others are male. Gynosphinxes are only born to androsphinx fathers - but androsphinxes don't like sex. So you have a species where the females desperately try to get laid from the one set of menfolk that can give them daughters, whilst the other sets have to rape the womens if they want to have sons. Seriously, the fuck? Was this cooked up by bitter nerds with a furry streak or some shit?

Pathfinder basically keeps the same setup, but makes the species of sphinx depend on the relationship between parents (love causes andro/gyno mixed gender fraternal twins, lust causes crio, rape causes hieraco) rather than father's species and adds a ''fifth'' race, the jackal-headed malevolent necromancer crinosphinxes.

==MGE==
In the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], sphinxes are dusky-skinned, blond-furred, brown-haired catgirls (goddamit, KC! Way to make the case for your critics who call your girls ''cosplayers''!) who live in the desert region. They ask riddles of men; those who fail get pounced upon and fucked, those who win are charmed by her magic to try and compel them to fuck her anyway.

[[Category: Monsters]] [[Category: Monstergirls]]