Phylactery Construct

(Phylactery Construct are to be played for Events.)   Several hundred trapped souls, forged into the very metal plates of a suit of armor, bound together by one final soul, which controls the whole thing. Phylactery Constructs come in a variety of shapes and sizes, though they are usually large and dangerous looking. What is a constant is that they are constructed of overlapping armored plates, like a large suit of plate mail. Generally speaking they have hands, though a few unlucky ones are built with weaponry in place of hands. They are as tough as a suit of armor would be, meaning they are generally extremely tough and resistant to most weaponry, though damaged pieces of the armor tend to cease to function fairly quickly. Those golems made of primordial ice are somewhat less tough, able to be hacked away at with axes and swords like a block of very tough blue ice might be. They can even have parts of themselves shattered, with significant effort. The parts of an ice golem need to be shattered or completely shorn away from the main body before they’re rendered nonfunctional. Phylactery golems are almost always created alongside a specific weapon, made in the same ritual and of the same material as the golem itself, which will also regenerate alongside the golem, though the weapon gains no magical properties otherwise. Generally, they have a sheathe on their body for the weapon, usually across their backs.  

Racial Abilities

Being made of armored plates held together and motivated by pure magic, phylactery golems are very strong, about three to four times stronger than a human could hope to grow, while being only a little bit slower than an average human. They are incapable of perceiving or using Truths, and live until they are destroyed. They can see perfectly in the dark or light, hear and smell as well as a human, but they cannot taste, nor do they feel in the same way that a flesh-and-blood being does. They can detect injury on their own part, as well as feel when they are touching something, but that is the extent of their ability to feel. Some Golems are made to feel something when they’re created, generally the biting cold, but by the time they achieve freedom, most are completely numb to any feeling they’ve been imbued with. Phylactery Golems do not need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep, nor can they do any of these things.   Regeneration: Phylactery Golems will regenerate from a single undamaged piece of their armor, or in the case of a Primordial Ice Phylactery Golem, from the single largest remaining shard. It takes one day to regenerate five percent of your body. This regeneration includes the weapon that the golem was created with, though the weapon is regenerated last.   Eternal Slave: Anyone who closely examines your binding and is capable of understanding it can determine the Truth behind your creation, immediately gaining total control over the whole of your being.   Frostbite: Primordial Ice Golems Only Because the body of a primordial ice golem is made of a supernaturally cold material, you radiate cold. People can feel your presence from a meter away, even on a hot day. Your touch will freeze water instantly, and will cause frostbite to those you directly touch   Unnatural Strength: The Strength of a Phylactery golem depends on how large it is, but it is always between three and four times as strong as a human could hope to become.   See Cold Resistance.

Redlines

Phylactery Golems are undead, and as such, are subject to any effect which specially targets undead. Similarly, they are also constructs, making them equally vulnerable to effects which would target constructs.   The key, controlling consciousness of a Phylactery Golem always dwells within its largest whole part.

Creation

The creation of a Phylactery Golem is a gruesome ritual involving the ritual sacrifice of hundreds of victims, carving Runes of Truth into each individual plate and then quenching them in their lifeblood. The final rune and sacrifice are different, the rune being significantly more intricate, and the sacrifice needs to be prepared in a much longer and more ghastly ritual. During this ritual, the person creating the Phylactery Golem extracts the soul of the final victim slowly and agonizingly to discover its Truth, allowing the creator to forever after call on this Truth to control the Golem fully. Covrudurth himself sometimes creates these golems in an unknown ritual of godly power, constructing them of the same unmeltable Primordial Ice which he created his lair of, and these golems are truly indestructible, trapped in a miserable existence controlled for millenia by the Bitter Cold.   In this way, each Phylactery Construct, at least until its creator falls, is an absolute slave within its own body, and some necromantic cults pass down the Truth of their individual golems from generation to generation, keeping them locked into infernal servitude. On rare occasions, one of these will be released when the last person who knows its Truth is killed, or when the dragon commanding it forgets or grows bored of the creation. On very rare occasions, one of Covrudurth’s own golems will achieve self-control, though it is unknown whether this is another cruel trick of Covrudurth’s or if he has simply forgotten the Truth of the individual golem.

The Mind of a Golem

The existence of a phylactery golem, unless the individual is truly depraved, is one of near-constant trauma and terror. Being created entails days of horrid agony for the person, and after their creation, it is a constant, endless list of usually terribly violent acts in service to a master twisted enough to create such a thing. Even after they have been released from their master, anyone who inspects their primary binding rune can eventually discover their Truth and enslave them yet again. All this together generally leads to more than a little paranoia, in those that aren’t driven totally mad by the experience. Beyond this, knowing the Truth of a Phylactery Golem allows the creator to alter the perceptions of the golem entirely; should the creator command that the Golem enjoys his work, the Golem will enjoy it. Should they command that the Construct forgets, it forgets. It is merely the casual cruelty so revered by Covrudurth and his followers which causes them to allow most Golems to remember, and find revulsion in the things that they do, and so most freed Phylactery Construct tend to be cautious, untrusting of even their own perceptions. Most phylactery golems are programmed, so to speak, with things that prevent them from taking certain actions, like allowing others to kill them, killing themselves, or disclosing those who made them. The individual commands differ from golem to golem.

History

Not much is known, in the civilized world, about phylactery golems. The vast majority of the time, when one shows up, it is there for the sole purpose of slaying things and bringing their bodies to their necromantic masters, or simply causing as much havoc as they possibly can. They are the boogeymen in many stories, and are well known for being terrifying monsters of yore, beings that heroes out of stories would fight and slay before they could descend on a nearby helpless village. Suffice it to say that they are almost always bad news.