Monday, December 16, 2013

Living Statues are not Golems

It always seemed curious to me that AD&D had the classic Golems - Clay, Flesh, Stone and Iron - whereas the Basic D&D book had lower level creatures called "Living Statues" - Crystal, Iron, and Rock.  I always viewed it as  part of an "AD&D just gets better stuff" syndrome.  However, in the Expert rule book, classic D&D would add variants of the Golem, such as the Wood, Bronze, Bone, and Amber Golems.  Strange that the archetypal Clay Golem or Frankenstein-like Flesh Golem never made it to classic D&D!

However, there are a few key differences between the Living Statues and Golems that make the oversight more nuanced and more interesting - the overlap between the monster types is incomplete.  Regarding Golems:  they have a morale 12, meaning they never check morale, and are unaffected by Sleep, Charm, and Hold spells.  They're also immune to non-magic weapons.  They're firmly in the realm of powerful magic constructs, true automatons - mindless and dedicated to relentlessly following the creator's orders, heedless of personal danger.

The Living Statues have a morale rating of 11.  There's a slim chance that a statue chooses to disengage from combat or retreat - the self preservation instinct implies awareness and a degree of consciousness.  Living Statues are unaffected by Sleep, but they are affected by mind control - Charm and Hold spells work against them - more evidence that a guiding consciousness is present within the construct, differentiating them from their more powerful cousins.

For my campaigns, Living Statues are constructs like Golems, but achievable at lower cost - represented by the weaker combat statistics and fewer magical immunities.  The short cut to creating a Living Statue is imbuing the creation with a degree of will.  Independent thought makes the Living Statues less reliable as guards and servants -they're capable of interpreting commands loosely or abandoning their posts in the interests of self preservation.  The idea of a powerful wizard with a bunch of unreliable stone flunkies is kind of funny.  I suppose that's why Living Statues end up collecting dust in the odd corners of low level dungeons - they have a tendency to forget their mandates or get abandoned for more effective servitors by the high level wizards.  For a pulp fantasy setting, the Living Statue is imbued with the soul of a sentient being or a summoned outsider during creation, allowing some unusual story possibilities.

It does make me wonder if such a theme appeared somewhere in the classic pulps of the early 20th century.  Living Statues seem to be a Tom Moldvay creation; I don’t remember seeing them in Holmes (and please chime in if they went back to OD&D).  Moldvay's bestiary is rife with pulp action monsters, and his power trio of classic D&D adventures - The Isle of Dread, The Lost City, and Castle Amber - borrow ideas heavily from 1930's era weird tales.  They are practically homages to Robert E Howard and Clark Ashton Smith.  (If you're new to the hobby and enjoy weird tales, I highly recommend those adventures).  I have to wonder if the Living Statues are a throwback to the weird tales era that I'm overlooking.

11 comments:

  1. Living statues also had several tricks: rock statues could have burning magma pouring from their wounds, your sword could remain stuck in an iron living statue, etc.
    To me the inspiration was Talos in the Jason and the Argonauts movie, but I have no source for this clam.

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    1. There is a Bronze Golem in the D&D expert book that is super close to Talos. It spurts liquid metal blood when damaged by an edged weapon. A gargantuan version could even have the heel-plug vulnerability.

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    2. i blogged about devil swine and bronze golem not being in ADnD to have one of writers confirm harryhausen Argonauts and Sindbad eye of the tiger for golems - high house in the mist for pig men

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  2. I've used living statues as an intelligent free-willed race in the past. That really separates them from golems.

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  3. When I did my Golem Index, I did a sort of "conversion" of living statues, "pretending" they were golems (e.g., giving them morale of 12, noting the spells required to create them, etc.) I know this really wasn't the best answer. My original intention was to keep them separate; it just sort of happened in the process (due to the heavy "overlap" between their traits). At some point, I'll probably break out living statues into their own index to reflect differences in behavior and construction to golems.

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  4. There are entries for "Living Statues" in the Monster and Treasure Assortment, which puts them back closer to OD&D.

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  5. How funny. With magic, creating a servant with AI is the easy part, I suppose.

    The thing that always rubbed me the wrong way with AD&D-style golems is the spell immunity, always seemed like a bit of a Fuck You to me. The way I run it is that they automatically save against magic effects that have a save and get a save against ones that don't normally allow a save.

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    1. It is a bit of a "Fuck You" that high level spellcasters send each other every Christmas.

      Apart from "Scarabs of Golembane", in whatever form they appear in your game world, the Iron Golem is the Panzer of D&D.

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  6. Really a fantastic write up. Thanks for doing this!

    I've added this to my Best Reads of the Week series I've been doing to help draw attention to some of the best stuff I've run across. You're welcome to check it out at the following link:

    http://dyverscampaign.blogspot.com/2013/12/best-reads-of-week-december-7-20.html

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  7. I always assumed they were at least semi-intelligent because they were aligned.

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