So I had a sudden revelation today, which is that the hekoskeri on vortex are probably modelled after the Greek hecatoncheirs, many-handed beings of the same origin as some of the divine that were discarded for being hideous monstrosities. The name kind of adds up too. While looking this up I also discovered that the cyclopes had the same thing going on, so that kind of accounts for the spix.

So I was curious as to whether the ribbachi or morrible have any equally cool origins I just hadn't noticed. The original description of the ribbachi kind of reminded me of triskeles but that's probably not related. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Can we get some descs up here for comparison?

All I know is that in the Greek myths they could throw mountains, and in D&D they are THE scariest creature I am aware of (from the Epic level handbook, rules 3.0).

And your claim seems reasonable.




Never been to vortex, but the Greek myth version were claimed to have fifty heads, one-hundred arms, and were strong enough to throw mountains. There were three, and were the children of a titan. Each had a name, but I don't remember them and my mythology book (which usually details silly little things) doesn't seem to mention them.
And no one liked them.

Yeah, I encountered them in the 3E epic handbook too, but I was vaguely aware from the name formation that they were probably Greek in origin and checking it on wikipedia revealed that they were the children of Uranus and Gaia, which isn't quite the same as being born from the fleshpots but it's similar enough to count for me in combination with the hand thing.

EDIT: I think there were beastlier things than the hecatoncheirs in terms of CR, but my friends borrowed that book back in sixth form and I never got it back, so I can't check. Regardless, they were pretty scary. I had to wonder why the hekoskeri had the position in Vortex that they do, which I don't want to go into detail on cause the Illuminati deserve some small secrets, but it makes sense in the context of everyone being scared of the hecatoncheirs.

Force dragon Great Wyrm. CR 59.

Prismatic dragon Wyrm. 61. Great Wyrm. 66.

Those were what I could find at least.

Also, Thorciasid look a little like cave fishers. Especially the mutated ones.

Hanging in the air several feet above the ground, a floating spix is here.

Nothing more than a large, floating eye, this spix is a grotesque looking
creature. Dark crimson veins lace the side and back of the bulbous, spherical
organ, worsened by its oddly bloodshot appearance. With a sudden constriction
its humanoid iris shifts through a chaotic mishmash of colours, as if unable to
settle on one for its own gain. A tangled network of nerves and muscle tissue
hang from the back of the sensory organ, hanging halfway to the ground,
twitching compulsively.
A floating spix seems to be unafraid.
He weighs about 26 pounds.


Lying completely still, a bulbous ribbachi is here, its head tilted up slightly.

Entirely lacking in features, this bulbous ribbachi is, at first glance, a
formless wad of flesh with legs, lacking in eyes, mouth and nostrils. Very
rarely does the creature move, yet when it does, four, oddly jointed legs allow
it to silently hop a few inches at a time before going still once more. What
could pass for a head occasionally shifts, revealing a circle of tightly drawn
skin rimmed with small scales on each side of the pointed fore part of the
creature. Each leg bears three-pronged feet complete with webbing, drawn
tightly between the toes.
A bulbous ribbachi seems to be unafraid.
He weighs about 100 pounds.


Hopping from foot to foot, a screeching morrible is here, waving its strange digits in the air.

A squat looking, vaguely humanoid creature, the morrible is completely bald and
made of soft, malleable flesh. Its gangly arms and scrawny hands wave about
violently in the air, loose skin hanging off the limbs with the consistency of
raw dough. Its face is almost entirely featureless, looking like the work of a
child artist - two, pinprick eyes that look like little more than black dots
set against a smooth, socketless head, its mouth a few inches lower and nothing
more than a small black line, lending it the appearance of some sick drawing
come to life. Its fingers, each many times longer than would see normal, end
not in the rounded nubs of normal digits, but instead in open, sucker-like
organs, the orifice at the centre of them opening and closing compulsively.
A screeching morrible seems to be unafraid.
He weighs about 15 pounds.


A squirming sludgeworm is here, writhing in a pool of flesh-toned, half-congealed fluid.

Almost a foot long, the ribbed body of this sludgeworm twists about violently,
spewing the fluid it writhes in from its mouth as well as a multitude of
clenching and unclenching orifices all along its body. Completely blind and
lacking of any apparent sensory organs, its sucker-like mouth sits just below
two slits at one end of its long body, through which it sucks hungrily at the
air, often taking in much of the filth that it rolls about in. A calloused
layer of skin coats what might pass for the head of the creature, the ridge of
which is lined with pulsating veins of red and blue that spiderweb across its
body, lost from sight beneath the offal in which it rolls.
A squirming sludgeworm seems to be unafraid.
He weighs about 171 pounds.


A mass of arms and eyeballs, a tangled hekoskeri shifts compulsively from palm to palm.

Built about a mass of malleable tissue, the hekoskeri is a hideous aberration,
little more than a tangle of flailing arms, hands and eyeballs. The arms
themselves are decidedly humanoid, ending in hands that possess five digits
each, each distinct from its neighbors. No single gender is represented upon
the hekoskeri, its limbs always shifting through the broad spectrum of male and
female with many decidedly indistinguishable from both. Between the shoulder
joints of the many limbs great eyes stare out, some more humanoid than others -
irises from all spectrums of colour, some even a metallic gold or silver. Each
of the hands take turns holding the body aloft, the rest twisting and grabbing
at anything nearby, their nailless fingers clenching and unclenching.
A tangled hekoskeri appears to be extraordinarily strong.
He weighs about 625 pounds.

That spix description would benefit from a rewrite imho. Creative writing needs elegant variation!

I love/loathe the spix. I just can't stand it at feeding time.