Water dripped onto its face. The creatures eyes, two hollow sockets, flickered with a dull, greenish light as it emerged from its magical slumber. It lay in the cellar of a forgotten ruin, buried beneath years of dust and rubble. For decades, it had lain dormant, a victim of powerful magic cast by a desperate group of interlopers in the last moments of a fight that had long since faded to history. The golem's rigid body creaked and groaned as it slowly walked forward, stepping through the bones of its former master, its purpose unforgotten despite the lost years.
With heavy, deliberate strides, the golem emerged from the cellar, pushing aside debris that had accumulated over the years. The world above had changed from the one it had remembered. The once-thriving religious complex was now a shadow of its former self, with crumbling buildings and overgrown pathways. The golem programmed mind ignored the changes, focusing solely on the task at hand. It followed the faint magical trace drawing it towards its target, though time had eroded much of the surrounding complex, the magical residue lingered, leading the golem unerringly toward its prey.
Hours became days, days became weeks as the golem trudged across verdant country sides, tireless and relentless. It finally arrived on the outskirts of a larger town, where the descendants of the target and their family resided. They had no knowledge of the ancient feud that had sealed their fate. The golem stood at the edge of the town, its presence a harbinger of impending doom. As it moved toward the unsuspecting family's home, the golem's mission, started on its path to completion. Its lifeless face betrayed no emotion, it raised a heavy, clay arm to strike, fulfilling the orders of its former master.
Wipe them out, leave none standing
Overview
Before going into the monster breakdown, the Clay Golem has heavy ties into Jewish folklore and mythology, in fact the golem is FROM Jewish folklore. If any of your players have lines and veils relating to religious trauma I would talk with them before throwing a golem at them, it will more than likely not be an issue but just be kind to your friends.
Now, onto the show.
Clay Golems are constructs made from clay, built to protect it’s creator and follow their creators orders. Golem’s, not limited to Clay Golems, have no ambition, need for food or water, feel no pain, and have no remorse. They are emotionless juggernaut guardians.
That is the meat and potatoes of a Golem of any kind. They are such fun creatures to run in campaigns and in encounters, they can create tons of chaos for both the players and yourself, and that is exactly why I love them. Golems are blindly obedient to their creators, following any command they give, and the Golem will follow those commands flawlessly. If it is given no follow up orders, or is incapacitated in some way, it will continue to follow its last orders to the best of its abilities1.
Golems can be found guarding sacred sites, tombs, and vaults. They can be there long after their creator has died, carrying out their appointed tasks for all eternity while brushing damage, ignoring potent spells, and outlasting time itself.
Stats
Alright, let’s take a look at what can have our little beastie do.
Having a average armor class and high Hit Points for CR 92 the Clay Golem is a fantastic boss monster. However, these two stats are deceptively plain, because…
Immunity to acid, poison, psychic, and BPS3 from nonmagical attacks that aren’t adamantine. By the time your players get to fighting a clay Golem, they should have some options to bypass this, however, damage immunity can be terrifying when it first procs.
That topped with Immunity to Charmed, Exhaustion, Frightened, Paralyzed, Petrified, and Poisoned means some spell effects will roll of the Golem like water off a duck’s back.
Usually I won’t cover languages, however, this creature understanding the language of it’s creator can have very fun roleplay potential. This can come up if the players speak to it in the native tongue of the Golem’s creator, giving them the opportunity to reissue orders if you so decide.4
Acid Absorption is one of my favorite abilities that I often alter and place on my BBEGs5. Having a damage type heal the creature 1 for 1, is such a sadistically cruel (and fun) monster ability, but making it specifically Acid damage doesn’t make it too powerful of an ability.6
Berserk is a fun roleplay ability that does have consequences in combat. A creature than can rampage in the middle of combat and attack friend and foe (or nearby small objects) alike can change the goal of a combat from, “Kill the enemies and survive” to “Get the hell out of here”. This ability can lend to a very cinematic moment when the creature starts flailing wildly destroying the environment around it, while its creator attempts to calm it and the party slinks away or strikes at the creator with deadly efficiency.
Immutable Form doesn’t come up too often (at least from my decade of players) but it is another great immunity that can surprise the players and characters alike as they attempt to polymorph the hulking Golem into a small fluffy sheep and the hulking mass of clay stands there…menacingly!
Magic Resistance will make your Golem last at least one more turn in combat as they shrug off spells as easily as water off a ducks back7.
Magic Weapon, I don’t think any subclass gives resistance to nonmagical attacks, but this is here in case the players summon a Clay Golem to fight a different creature that may have that resistance.
The Slam attack (you get two of these from Multiattack) is devastatingly powerful; this attack, if used too early, will kill parties. 2d10+5 damage is substantial for any melee attack, stacking a 1 for 1 max health draining ability on it is wild; yes its a Con Save against it and Con is usually what players put points in to because they are cowards8, but still a 15 is a relatively high DC. This is a save or suck ability that is potentially problematic to some groups. If the max hit points are reduced to 0 the target dies, no save, no chance to live, just dead. This ability much like, the Life Drain of the Wraith and Specter, is one that when it first activates I tell the players the stakes, this is just my sense of sportsmanship and fairness, I would rather my players not throw away their characters on an ability that can be negated by clever tactics or extreme caution.
Haste9. Do I even need to explain this? This makes the Clay Golem deadlier, even if it only has a 33% recharge, it has NONE of the downsides of the Haste spell which is wild, and has infinite uses.
Campaign Example
Knowing what we know, we can create the framework of an interesting and fairly unique campaign for our players. From the onset we should decide whether or not if the Golem’s actions can be justified, for this example I am going to go with yes, but there is room for interpretation (or misinterpretation).
Let’s list out our important figures for this camapign.
Lord-Mayor Karrim Doldart, a Dwarven merchant who owns many of the businesses in town and has investments in major shipping businesses.
Belzira Cinderleaf, the Halfling head of the Lord-Mayors personal guard, she leads the small mercenary band “The Daughters of Steel”
Videl Gallo, the long deceased priest who created a Clay Golem several decades ago
Calvert Gallo, the son of Videl Gallo and current head of the local temple of Tyr
The rest of the NPCs in the game can be filled out as needed to create a diverse gallery of targets for the Clay Golem and people for the party to interact with.
You can start the campaign with any first quest, including kill the giant rats in the basement. Once they are traveling at night give a passing description of the party seeing a large hulking figure moving through the night. The next day they hear a town crier alerting the town about the attack on a magistrate, through the next couple of days the group is approached by the local representative of the Adventurers Guild with a job offer to investigate.
Through the course of the investigation, let the players stumble upon the Golem; if they decide to fight it, let them. The party isn’t the target so the Golem won’t fight them directly; instead, the Golem will shove them away as it makes its way towards its target, since the party will have very few ways of damaging the Golem10. This is fine, we don’t want the players to harm the Golem too much so that they don’t trigger the Berserk ability, or impede the Golem so that it determines that the party is a threat that needs to be attacked.
I would not recommend initiating initiative when the players first encounter the Clay Golem, this and dealing little to no damage being dealt to the Golem should tip off the players that they are not an appropriate level or not appropriately kitted out to deal with the Golem. If they are determined to kill the Golem you can just tell them that it is currently a function of the narrative that they aren’t able to beat the Golem.11 We want to create a sense of urgency, and set up a soft (or very strict) time limit to when the Golem goes after the Lord-Mayor. The how, where, and when I will leave up to you to determine. The finer points of planning are best determine when you know your players/party and letting a stranger tell you “wait 3 sessions before proceeding” may not mesh well with every group.
If you’re like me, and like to pitch campaigns to your players during or before a session 0, you can use the following to clue the players in to what the initial campaign will be.
A Clay Golem, forged decades ago by a vengeful priest, has awakened to hunt down the descendants of the wealthy merchant family that once betrayed its creator. As the Golem's relentless pursuit leaves a trail of chaos and death, the adventurers must uncover the buried secrets of the past and decide whether to protect the imperiled family or assist the Golem in its mission of retribution. Time is running out as they navigate moral dilemmas, face deadly challenges, and confront the powerful construct before it completes its deadly task.
Combat Example
We know Clay Golem’s will be lethal against low level players, and will be formidable against Tier 2 players as well. Knowing that we are going to throw 1 Clay Golem against 4 fifth level adventurers. Level 5 is where characters get their first power spike, it opens up the martial’s extra attack and caster’s 3rd level spells, it is also far enough in the level progression that most players will have 25+ hit points allowing them to survive a few hits. Moving on, the adventurers will encounter the Golem on its way to the next victim.
Soft, wet, footfalls echo through the alley way. Through the nights mist our brave adventurers face off against the foe they have been hired to kill. After thoroughly learning how Golem’s work, training to withstand its powerful attacks, and planning their attack; the time has come. Our adventurers stand between the Golem and its prey, diplomacy is not an option to such a cold calculating killer.
On it’s first turn of combat the Clay Golem will either make it’s multiattack or shove an adventurer to clear the way for it to approach its target. This will be determined on whether or not the player have done more than 20 points of damage to the Clay Golem. After either action is taken the Clay Golem will activate Haste.
Here is where we “cheat” at the start of the next turn the Clay Golem’s Haste will recharge, you don’t need to roll for it here, and this is my reasoning; When the Clay Golem activates, Haste announce it. Literally tell your players “The Clay Golem activates it’s haste ability”. We are going to make a pretend damage threshold that knocks the Clay Golem’s automatic Haste, into one the recharges, and once the Berserk ability is able to be triggered the Golem loses the Haste action.
This will have various effects. First, it creates a more dynamic fight, you get the final boss monster phases that makes combat in games like World of Warcraft engaging. Second, it creates a sense of progression in the combat’s narrative, remember every scene is part of the narrative not just the roleplay scenes. When your players deal 25+ damage to the Clay Golems total health, announce on its turn whether or not the Clay Golem recharged its Haste. This will clue the players in on “We are weakening the Golem, we can do this!” Third, it allows us as DMs to have our fun monster abilities activate more than once a combat. Again for those who don’t know, the DM is ALSO playing Dungeons and Dragons with the group at the table, the DM is allowed to have fun as well, so long as that fun doesn’t prohibit everyone from having fun.
Final Thoughts
If you don’t find Golem’s as fun as I do, the running them may not be a good campaign for you. They can still be fun in combat for strong minion monsters of powerful wizards or priests that are working against your players. While they don’t deal a ton of damage, if you introduce them too early, you can wipe out your party before they get a chance to find out they are doomed.
Keep in mind that communication is key to fun games, for both you and your players.
This will be expanded on in the Campaign Example
CR 9 is where you start getting the fun dragons
Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing
Which I personally think you should, provided the players learn a command phrase or have a control amulet/wondrous item.
Big Bag Evil Guy
There are only 5 acid specific damage and 16 total spells that can do acid damage
I need more “[substance] off an [animal]’s back” sayings, let me know in the comments.
Hello, it’s me. I’m cowards.
“Holy Santa Clause shit” - Will Ferrell, Step Brothers
Especially if the party is level 4 or lower.
Many people may have an issue with this sentiment. They will call it railroading or removing player agency, but I disagree. We are merely setting up the players to make their choices on how to advance and take on the Golem at a later time or find allies that can assist them.