In ancient days, and even modern days in more than a few parts of the Dragon Empire, it’s not uncommon to take trophies of all sorts from the body of a dangerous beast which has been slain. Equally common was breaking down the body of the beast to use or take advantage of those physical traits which made the beast so dangerous. Blood might be taken for potions, meat might be cooked and eaten, bones turned into components for weapons or armor, and so on.

So it’s no surprise that someone who killed a golden sphinx would skin the creature and turn its hide into armor. After all, the hide of a beast like that is already amply resistant to blade and arrow. What likely was a surprise was the fact that some of the sphinx’s fabled mental fortitude would linger in the skin and be passed down to the wearer of the armor.

In recent times, a true suit of the Armor of the Golden Sphinx is rare. Golden Sphinxes themselves are not common and more than capable of defending themselves from most would-be armorsmiths. In addition, master enchanters have found ways of imbuing other sorts of armor with the same magical trait as the Armor of the Golden Sphinx so there’s been even less need to create the real thing.

For those actually looking for the real thing, a suit of the Armor of the Golden Sphinx looks similar to most other hide or leather armors in most respects. The main difference is that even the typical process of curing hide couldn’t remove all the hair from the skin and this hair still glints like gold in the sun though far less than the original sphinx did. The color of the armor is a lighter brown/beige even without the golden hairs, however, and this tends to set it apart from those wearing more common leather armors.

In order to make it more unique, the original armorers would make decorations like hanging the fangs of the sphinx from the pauldrons or using part of the mane with the chausses. On older suits, these decorations have frequently been lost or damaged and as such do not appear outwardly exceptionally different from mundane armor.