Wednesday, March 11, 2020

OSE Encounter Activities - Living Statue

These overlap quite a bit with other automata like Golems or gotcha! Monsters like Gargoyles, but with a few interesting differences: First each is specifically aligned, which almost seems to imply an innate conflict between them, or perhaps a legacy of their creators. Lawful Magic-Users can only create Crystal Living Statues, etc.

I almost like the idea of them not being “Created” so much but summoned and bound into a substance from another Plane where they wage and endless war between each other. Plucked out of their lives and forced to toil here, they still rigidly cling to the philosophical trappings of their former lives. Or perhaps only the Lawful/Neutral ones are ever truly desired (these seem like they’d make the best servitors/guardians after all), but the Rock Living Statues are the result of a ritual failure/corrupting force.

While immune to Sleep spells, it would seem that Crystal and Iron Living Statues could be susceptible to Charm Person and Hold Person (Rock would need Charm Monster due to its HD), as it’s not specifically called out in their Immunity as with Golems. Is this an implication of more sentience, or a weakness that leads more powerful Magic-Users/Clerics to explore true Golemcraft? They are also susceptible to attacks from non-magical weapons (although the Iron Living Statue makes this more difficult, better have some backups).

While I have occasionally used some of the Living Statues that eventually showed up in the Creature Catalog (Jade, Rock/Ooze, Silver, and Steel), I don’t believe I’ve ever followed the recommendation in the monster description to invent brand new types with more unusual materials, but I have simply “re-skinned” the stat blocks to have them serve as Antediluvian Robots, Elf Amusements, and Caryatid Columns when I didn’t have any other compatible monster books on hand. It could even be fun to recycle them as a Player character Class that gradually gains some of the more impressive powers as they advance.

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