Aetrimonde

I’m back with another post on golems (continuing a series that I started early this year and then put on hiatus). This time around, it’s stone golems: massive walking statues, with the strength and durability of stone.

Stone Golem

The basic stone golem is a bog-standard Brute: big, tough, strong, but slow and limited to melee-range attacks. It still has a handful of quirks:

Firstly, while the Stone Golem can’t run (making it even slower than its 4 speed suggests), it also can’t be slowed or immobilized. This negates one weakness of typical Brutes, which is that immobilizing them makes them more or less helpless. A Stone Golem may take a while to get to the PCs, but it can’t be stopped and will just get closer and closer each round…

Secondly, the Stone Golem has what is essentially a trample attack: it can move through the PCs’ spaces, attacking them in the process. If the Stone Golem sets its sights on one of the PCs, other PCs aren’t going to be able to stop it by getting in the way. Its Topple attack complements this, allowing the golem to, well, topple forward onto a group of PCs and crush them under its bulk. (Of course, a prone golem makes for a good target for the next round…

Finally, the Imperishable Stone trait means that a Stone Golem’s usefulness doesn’t end when it finally gets bashed to bits: it just turns back into inanimate stone, becoming a lasting obstacle that can complicate the rest of an encounter by blocking line of sight and effect and acting as difficult terrain.

One great use for a Stone Golem is to have it pursue the PCs through a narrow passageway or tunnel filled with obstacles, with a bunch of other enemies hanging behind it. The PCs are thus forced to pick locks, smash down doors, lift portcullises, and so on to stay ahead of it, while the golem can just walk through them. When the PCs finally bring it down, then the other enemies push past its immobile remains and begin a more traditional fight.

Dwarven Ancestor Golem

I’ve previously mentioned dwarven ancestor golems, the giant animated statues that are a focus of veneration for certain traditionist dwarves. And yes, they do make an appearance in the Bestiary, as a variant of stone golem:

A Dwarven Ancestor Golem lacks the standard Stone Golem’s ability to knock its enemies every which way, but (thanks to being actually armed and armored) deals even greater damage…and as a Brute/Protector, it also has a few interesting tricks up its sleeve to support a group of other enemies.

Replacing Ponderous Advance, Inexorable Advance allows the Ancestor Golem to plod forward pushing the PCs out of its way…and with a whopping +5 bonus to AC during this movement, this puts it at far less risk from the opportune strikes it provokes entering enemies’ spaces.

Secondly, the Protective Ancestor trait allows the Ancestor Golem to stand over a handful of other creatures, shielding them with its stony body. And if it joins a fight alongside a bunch of dwarves, its mere presence inspires them and instills them with courage and Composure. I think there’s something iconic about the image of a Dwarven Ancestor Golem leading a (very slow) charge at the head of a throng of dwarves, who cluster around its feet firing crossbows and using its stony bulk as cover.

Now, the actual nature of a Dwarven Ancestor Golem is, as I hinted when talking about golems earlier, a bit unclear. This is another question I don’t intend to answer…but I’ve got a few suggestions if you want to run with this as the core of an adventure or campaign.

• The Inoffensive Answer: Ancestor Golems are perfectly ordinary stone golems, animated by a bound spirit, with no special connection to their namesakes except for what the dwarves believe they have. The special veneration given to them is a cultural tradition that accomplishes nothing except to help dwarves feel closer to their ancestors.
• The Unusual Answer: Ancestor Golems are mostly ordinary stone golems animated by a bound spirit…or rather a pair of them. One is the typical elemental stone spirit, but the other is an ancestor spirit, carefully shaped by dwarf shamans as a representation of a venerated ancestor. The veneration given to ancestor golems helps to keep this spirit stable as an accurate representation of their namesake…because a ten-ton stone statue is a dangerous thing to give a mind of its own.
• The Blasphemous Answer: Ancestor Golems are blasphemous stone golems, animated by the actual soul of a venerated ancestor dragged back from the Underworld and bound into a statue. This started out as a desperate practice aimed at preventing the greatest of dwarves from being lost forever, preserving their knowledge and wisdom, but gradually became a tool of societal control used by the Stonekeepers who create the golems and carefully guard access to them. If the truth got out, it’s a toss-up as to who would tear the Stonekeepers limb-from-limb: angry dwarves incensed at their ancestors being used as a political pawn, or angry priests incensed at the dead being ripped from the afterlife.

A question that has occurred to me while I was writing this is: what’s the difference between a stone golem and an earth elemental, aside from the cosmetic? Well, I’ve got an answer for that…which I’ll get to when I get around to writing about elementals more generally. Stay tuned!