Van Richten's Monster Hunter's.pdf - Askadesign.com

''4 tailor the golem to your exact
Earlier in this book, Van Richten
presented common traits,
vulnerabilities, and extraordinary
powers of golems. These can serve as
guidelines for your new creature.
Consider the information to be
suggestions only; it is not intended to
be a rigid system of inflexible rules.
The purpose of this book is to open up
possibilities and expand the options of
you, the DM, not to limit your
creativity.
When building golems from scratch,
remember how powerful these
monsters are. Be careful to balance the
golem's special abilities with at least a
few vulnerabilities. It is a delicate task
to create a monster that appears
nearly unstoppable, but is also a
monster the PCs have a chance of
defeating. The gibbering golem
described by Dr. Van Richten is an
example of a golem "created from
scratch."
If your story calls for the spirit of an
NPC to be planted in the body of a
golem, plotting the adventure is
relatively easy. But what happens if a
player character is the victim? This
potentially dramatic twist poses special
challenges. Certainly, the desperate
fight to save the PC is the stuff of great
adventure. However, becoming a
golem must in no way benefit the PC.
In most cases. a golem's animating
force, or spirit, has only the
fragmented memory of its former self,
and then only briefly. However, if your
story calls for a PC's spirit to be
transferred to a golem body, then the
personality of the character should
remain intact for a short time. This
allows the PC and his friends a window
of opportunity in which to save the
unfortunate character. Bear in mind,
however, that the sudden disruption of
changing bodies is always followed by
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the deterioration of the PC's mind and
personality as he rapidly becomes a
creature of obsession and evil.
The section below explains how long
a PC's spirit may inhabit a golem
before this atrocity is irreversible (and
the player must abandon his or her
role). It also describes what happens to
a PC's personality and abilities when
he becomes a golern. You may wish to
devise your own methods of golem
animation, but the following guidelines
should provide a springboard for your
imagination.
The Gw~gy Svrge
As noted in Chapter Two, a powerful
surge of energy binds a spirit to the
golem's body. When that surge occurs,
the PC must make a system shock
check. If he fails this check, his body
dies during the transfer of the spirit,
and the player must immediately give
control of his character to you, the DM.
The player should then create a new
character, for the old one is
permanently lost, trapped within its
new golem body.
On the other hand, if the system
shock roll is successful, the PC finds
himself a golem. Within 2 to 24 (2d12)
hours, the character will remember his
true identity, although he will only have
hazy memories of his transformation.
He will have an acute sense of physical
power, however-a power derived from
his new form.
Bmin Tmnpplants
An adventure in which the physical
brain of a player character is placed
within the body of a golem offers an
even more extreme plot twist. This
ploy should only be used if you feel the
PCs will have some chance, however
slim, of restoring their comrade to his
original state. There is an added diffi-
culty, as the PC's body almost as-
suredly (barring extreme magical
measures such as the use of a time
stop spell or the like) actually dies