The original terra-cotta soldiers were funerary art to honor
an emperor. Pathfinder’s
terra-cotta soldiers naturally have to take a much more active role in tomb
defense, what with fantasy adventurers and necromancers having such casual
attitudes about grave robbing.
Of course, imperial tombs aren’t the only place one might stumble
upon terra-cotta soldiers. Here
are three slightly less standard places to find these constructs.
A terra-cotta troop
was programmed to follow a certain battle standard, fighting as
directed. The vagueness of this
request and the tenacity of the ceramic soldiers have led to them fighting
across nearly two centuries of local wars, rebellions, and upheavals. Currently they defend the halfling town
of Shen from gnoll attacks…or they did until the battle standard was stolen.
An eccentric wizard’s
life was once saved by an errant terra-cotta soldier, somehow separated
from its troop by a whole continent.
Now confined to bed, the elderly wizard asks his adventuring friends to
make an old man happy and return the strange construct to its home. After a continent’s worth of
adventures, they succeed…but the second the soldier is reunited with its peers,
the entire army animates to fulfill its original mission: defend the throne
from all usurpers—including the current emperor.
The pueblo-building
oreads and gnomes of Aznakar guard their burial vaults with terra-cotta
soldiers made from the same glossy black pottery as their famed pots. These warriors are shaped like dragon-men—not
for any spiritual reason, but to prevent the region’s superstitious kobolds
from robbing the grave goods.
—Pathfinder Bestiary 3
262
I always enjoyed the terra-cotta army cameo in Terry
Pratchett’s Interesting Times.
I got to see the real terra-cotta soldiers in a museum
exhibition. ’Twas very cool. I also happened to be lucky enough to
be in Sydney at the time (the event actually gets a mention here), so after
leaving the museum I got to look at flying foxes in the trees as a bonus.
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