Spelljammer - Xixchil

For Day 24 of the Alphabetical Challenge... another D&D monster.  This is the last one.  (But there are only two days left of the challenge, so... I guess that’s not saying much at this point.)

The xixchil is an intelligent, spacegoing mantis creature from the D&D space fantasy Spelljammer setting.  Xixchils are experts in surgery and body alteration, both of themselves and of others, and often get carried away with it; if you ask a xixchil for some physical augmentation, they’re likely to give you what you ask for, but also give you a little more besides...  Anyway, I’ve always thought the xixchil seemed like a really fun monster with a lot of possibilities, even though I’ve never used a xixchil in a campaign (but then I’ve never played or run a Spelljammer campaign)... but hey, maybe someday I still can.

I almost gave the xixchil antennae, but none of the pictures of xixchils I could find in canon sources showed antennae (not that there are many pictures of xixchils in canon sources), so I guess they don’t have them.  I also couldn’t find any mention in those sources of what color xixchils are (all the pictures were in black and white), but given their penchant for body manipulation I think it’s a reasonable guess that they can be whatever color they want to be.  Apparently this guy wanted to be bright magenta.  Good for him.

Yeah, “xixchil” only has two Xs, but I unsurprisingly couldn’t think of any words with three Xs (not that I strained myself too hard trying).  There is, however, at least one more D&D monster that also has two Xs (including an initial X)—the xixecal, an immensely powerful creature of ice and cold that mistakenly arises from gods in some misfired process of corrupted birth.  But I figured I’d rather draw a xixchil.