Flesh Golem

Flesh Golem

Species	construct
No. Appearing	1
Behaviour	servant
Range	rural, subterranean, urban
Size	6 ft. 8 in. tall
Weight	340 lbs.
Intelligence	13
Armour Class	9
Hit Dice	7
Action Points	5
Max. Stride	{{{stride}}}
THAC0	17
Hp/Die	2d4
Attack Forms	fist/fist
Damage	2–16/2–16
Special Attacks	magic to hit, natural immunities, resurrection, strength (19)

Flesh golems are constructed, animated beings created from the corpses of humanoids, most commonly human. The method of their creation is detailed under the sage study, golems. Unlike other constructions, however, the flesh golem is highly intelligent and able to think for itself. Once created, it must be educated, which requires some resolve on behalf of its creator ... but if this can be accomplished, the flesh golem will become the creator's loyal follower. This will enable the creator to rely upon the golem as an ally, while the golem acts on its own in support of the creator.

Form

Due to the materials of their construction, flesh golems are horrifically ugly, possessing a charisma that varies between 0 and 2. This is not sufficient to invoke the effects of horror, but it will force others to cringe with distress and alarm when obtaining a full view of the creature. For this reason, the golem will almost always cloak itself, hiding its face, or addressing others in dark places. Due to its intelligence, the flesh golem is erudite; and so long as it cannot be seen, it is able to be commonplace when communicating. However, there will remain a lingering odour, that most will be aware of, though it's exact nature — the tincture of rotting flesh — will be very hard to define unless one is a gravedigger or mortician. For those who are aware of what the smell is, however, that recognition will cause the smell to seem much, much worse than it is.

Communicating with the flesh golem in the open, or once the odour is known, will require both a wisdom and intelligence check; if either fails, the would-be communicant must give ground and end the conversation before it has a chance to produce results.

Advantages

Being made of flesh, these golems are subject to most elemental attacks that would affect humanoids, such as fire, acid or petrification. However, they lack nerve endings, so that flesh golems cannot feel pain, nor are their minds similar to humans. This makes them naturally immune to sleep and charm, gas, paralysation or cold-based attacks.

Flesh golems can only be struck by magic weapons that have a minimum bonus of +1. Though it has a 19 strength, the creature will typically shun weapons, unless specifically asked by its creator to use on.

Electricity will restore half the number of hit points to the flesh golem as it would normally do as damage. If the golem is dead, this restoration will resurrect the golem (treat as -10 hit points for calculating how many hit points the electricity restores). This resurrection can be performed long after the golem's death, as the golem's flesh wastes away at a rate of only 1% per month. It will cease being a golem once this wastage increases beyond 50% of its original mass. Once the golem resurrects, it will seek to locate enough dead flesh to restore its mass to 340 lbs., sewing flesh into its own body (which it will know to do).

The flesh golem will abandon a fight if it feels pressed, as its prime motivation is to keep its body intact. It will not hesitate to jump from a great height or immerse itself, or otherwise seek a hiding place where it cannot be found, so that at a later time, restored, it can again challenge its enemies. During storms, flesh golems will wander into the open, using a long piece of metal as an attractor, in the hopes of being struck by lightning in order to restore itself fully.

Control

Flesh golems cannot be controlled like other golems.

See Bestiary