Medusa snakes and symbiosis

[Libertad]

Are the snakes which comprise a medusa's hair independent organism living in a symbiotic relationship with the medusa?  Or are they merely extensions of the medusa herself with no minds of their own, like how our arms are extensions of our bodies?

[Craiconn]

I've never envisioned them as anything but extensions of the medusa. I'm pretty sure Ed Greenwood authored an old "Ecology of the Medusa" article in Dragon Magazine back in one of the 1980s issues. It would probably be worth Googling as he tends to delve into the minutiae of such anatomical & physiological aspects of a given creature.

On a related note, Pathfinder has a spell called Entangling Hair (and is easily backportable to 3.5) that I gave to a Medusa spellcaster in a prior campaign. It was a pretty cool thematic combo ...

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Or similarly a Beholder's Eye Stalks.

idk if the Savage Species racial prog would shed any light here.  Maybe?
I don't think Lernaean Hydras are any help here.

I'd say if you have a still living single hair-snake
and you have a specific/tricky enough Epic Spell,
the answer would have to be yes.


Are there any monsters that have an Appendage
(or thingy) that after being severed for the "Parent",
the appendage still lives ??

[Craiconn]

Also to note, I use to own the D20 supplement called "The Slayer's Guide to Medusas" by Mongoose Publishing.  A friend took it ... and I never saw it again.  Here's some folks at EnWorld reviewing it:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?118171-The-Slayers-Guide-to-Medusa

Here's WotC's "3.5 Elite Opponent" on variant Medusas:

https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20060324a

And the Wikipedia entry for Medusas in D&D:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)

....

The latter one confirms my suspicion that Ed Greenwood did indeed write an article on them back in the 80s.  Albeit, it was about male medusas or Maedar.  Plus, Paizo's 2012 release called "Mythical Monsters Revisited" has one of its showcase monsters as Medusa.  I'll have to track that one down.