The Strange
Golems were summoned to mobility by Incarnations during the Age of Myth to serve as soldiers, couriers, and banner-bearers. Now that those wars are over and the Incarnations are gone, many golems remain without purpose or master. Most have ceased moving, becoming statuary posed in unexpected places—stained, eroded, and forlorn. Sometimes one will wake if disturbed, and depending on the state of its remaining mind, could either attempt to communicate, or try to smash those responsible for waking it once more to a purposeless existence.
Because golems were the creation of the Incarnations, most are heavily inscribed with symbology related to a particular Incarnation, and they may have a shape that recalls that Incarnation as well. As a result, a golem of War or Death can be quite imposing, though a golem of Silence might go unnoticed.
Motive: Seeks dissolution or purpose
Environment (Ardeyn | Magic): Anywhere
Health 18
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (6 points)
Armor: 5
Movement: Short
Modifications: Intellect defense and resistance to trickery as level 3; Speed defense as level 4 due to speed.
Combat: Skilled with large two-handed weapons, golems inflict an additional minor wound (2 points) (total of 8 points) when using them. Golems cannot be stunned or dazed. They are immune to most poisons and disease, and 2 of their 5 points of Armor protect against ambient damage (environmental damage, heat, cold, falling, and so on).
A golem can stamp the ground with its prodigious weight, creating a shock wave that causes all creatures in range to take 3 points of damage. In addition, theyfall down or are pushed out of immediate range.
Some golems have the ability to freeze in place, becoming as still as a statue. When one does so, its Armor increases to 10 (and Armor against ambient damage increases to 5), but it can take no actions, including purely mental actions. Unless something can damage the golem through its Armor, it remains frozen indefinitely.
Even if a golem is completely destroyed, the rubble of its form slowly reassembles over the course of three days, unless that rubble is ground to the finest gravel and spread across recursions.
Interaction: Most golems are mournful, and a few have become cruel in their isolation, but at heart, all are lonely. Many are also tired of their stone existence, where they can move but not really feel, and they wish for some sort of final end.
Use: Powerful sorcerers sometimes seek out golems and press them into service with spells, or with the promise of release from their long lives in return for a few favors. Such golems prove to be tough bodyguards, but sometimes the futility of such service overcomes a golem and it turns on the sorcerer, breaking free of the binding spells in its rage over being denied the peace of death.
GM Intrusion: The PC is grabbed by the golem and headbutted for a moderate wound (6 points). The PC must break or slip free, or else she remains in the golem's grip.