Iron Golem

Sooner or later, if you reach high enough level, you’re going to fight an iron golem.  It’s just one of those rules, like “Never trust a medusa art dealer.”  And if you’re unprepared (what you didn’t memorize rusting grasp today?) iron golems suck to fight—all the standard golem strength and immunities, plus a breath weapon to boot.  What makes it even worse is they are almost always encountered as guardians in situations where their special abilities are most useful: sealed vaults, the tight confines of a wizard’s lair, rickety factory walkways, etc.

Iron golems are also really flexible—they work just was well for a mythic campaign (“The statue of Hephaestus comes alive”), a steampunk campaign (“From amidst the wrought-iron gears, a figure comes alive”), or a sci-fi/planar campaign (“The levitation chamber disgorges an automaton”) as they do a traditional fantasy campaign.  It’s no accident that AC11 The Book of Wondrous Inventions featured so many machines and gizmos that incorporated or were based on iron golem components…

A battle in a dwarven foundry goes horribly wrong when the clan’s iron golems animate to attack.  Not recognizing that the clan is going through a civil war instigated by duergar agents, the golem instead attack any non-dwarves in the vicinity.

Adventurers find themselves teleported from one strange metal tower to its twin—on the moon.  Two iron golems animate to attack the interlopers, filling the chamber with poisonous gas.  Pushing the right lever will vent the gas from the room.  Unfortunately, it will also vent all the oxygen exposing the adventurers to true airlessness for what is likely the first time in their lives.

The Colossus of Erith is no solitary statue, but a Colossal iron golem that slowly paces around the city as if on guard.  In addition to warding off attackers—no one has ever dared test the golem’s resolve with a siege—it serves as Erith’s official clock.  That is, until the day it salutes the horizon, and then marches off…

—Pathfinder Bestiary 162

We made it, just under the wire!  I was really hoping to get 100 Tumblr followers before I hit 150 posts, and abandonedarts and dwagor put us over the line, with jeremiahriggwell and couragewisdomtemperance as icing on the cake.  Thanks, guys!

Sooner or later I need to start paying more attention to this, my poor benighted Blogger site.  I do owe minisbyfinch thanks for sending me readers—cheers!

The new semester has started! And the good news is I’ll be on the same time: Saturdays, 10–noon.  But there was no show this week for me—I was up in NYC and Albany for the Labor Day weekend, so I’ll kick off the season properly this coming Saturday.

So instead of my show, enjoy J. and A. doing their thing at the 9:30 Club a few weeks ago, courtesy of NPR. 

Speaking of which, before I left for my trip, I caught Wye Oak Friday night headlining Scapescape.  And though I apparently I’d missed J. doing a Flock of Dimes set earlier in the evening, I was lucky enough to catch her join up with a bunch of Baltimore acts to play the entirety of the Guided By Voices album Bee Thousand at a surprise show.  A great night all around.