Deploying Golems In The Campaign

[mmadsen]

Do you like Golems?

Yes and no. Like most people, I love animated statues -- they're a staple of the genre -- but I don't necessarily like the wacky abilities D&D's golems get. Magic immunity? Wound? Haste? Slow? Breath weapon? They just don't fit. And why aren't stone and iron golems immune to piercing weapons when clay golems are?

I'd prefer to see animated objects spelled out in more detail. We could probably fill a whole book with just statted-out animated objects.

 

[mmadsen]

I'm not personally a big fan of Steam Fantasy, but I'm surprised no one's mentioned steam-powered automata yet. Anyone running a Steam Fantasy campaign?

 

[barsoomcore]

A sorcerer out to destroy the party (or, more precisely, the vampire goddess hiding out with them) sent two ruby golems to attack them.

While they were sailing across the Inner Sea.

There are very few places to hide on a small trading vessel, especially from attackers who don't care if they sink and are thus perfectly willing to completely dismantle the ship in search of you.

Heh, heh, heh...

NoOneOfConsequence, I'm SO stealing that one. And Fenes2, you are sick. "The golem stayed in waterdeep and became a cook." That's brilliant.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

I tend to keep golems rare; Most are artifacts of by-gone eras only found in ruins or in the most ancient cities (which either have their founding in by-gone eras or are built around the still-standing defenses of a former city). Some constructs are known culturally, but these aren't often the more powerful ones.

 

[War Golem]

<snip> ... and War Golems well good in theory are destined to be destroyed...

Indeed. It's why we are all afflicted with an unshakable melancholy.

Although I've noticed that those of us who've been around for at least a millenia or so find the melancholy eventually replaced by profound existentialism.

 

[barsoomcore]

Although I've noticed that those of us who've been around for at least a millenia or so find the melancholy eventually replaced by profound existentialism.

"Profound existentialism" -- isn't that sorta oxymoronic?

 

[dave_o]

I think it'd be really rad to have a golem become sentient, and realize that it's the only one.

I can imagine the scene:

"I am...alive?"
"Yes - yes, it appears as if you are."
"Where is my family?"
"It appears as if you are the only one, as well."
"So I am alone?"
"Yes. You are alone."

Tear.

 

[War Golem]

"Profound existentialism" -- isn't that sorta oxymoronic?

Perhaps. But any more so than being "destined to be destroyed [in the short term]" and yet living for countless generations beyond your maker?

I don't know. I'm a War Golem, not Confucious.

 

[Tonguez]

I think it'd be really rad to have a golem become sentient, and realize that it's the only one.

I can imagine the scene:

"I am...alive?"
"Yes - yes, it appears as if you are."
"Where is my family?"
"It appears as if you are the only one, as well."
"So I am alone?"
"Yes. You are alone."

Tear.

There was a comic series about Monster heroes I read once in which Frankensteins Monster was depicted in this way - a lonely melancholy figure who knew that he was a tribe of one.
Now what was that comic called?

 

[shilsen]

There was a comic series about Monster heroes I read once in which Frankensteins Monster was depicted in this way - a lonely melancholy figure who knew that he was a tribe of one.
Now what was that comic called?

I don't know the comic series, but that is precisely the way Frankenstein's monster was in the original novel. Mary Shelley emphasizes that one of the monster's primary complaints is that it is the only one of its kind.

For a more humorous, but arguably even more profound (as always) treatment of the subject, check out Terry Pratchett's "Feet of Clay" (already mentioned above).