Myrmidon

Myrmidons are essentially the drones of the robot hierarchy (and given their vaguely insect-like appearance, yes, that pun is intentional), aerial hunters intent on lashing and lasering earthbound foes into submission.  Like annihilators, myrmidons give off that vibe you find in all those scenes from the Terminator movies set in the future, with an added dollop of death from above.  They can fly at 90 feet per round without busting a gasket, stop on a dime and hover, see invisible creatures, disrupt force fields, and of course launch rockets.  Most frightening of all is that they seem to take orders from no one but themselves and their robotic superiors—on Golarion, at least, even the most technically adept humans can’t bring them to heel.  How they behave in your game world is up to you, but in general myrmidons should be objects of fear even to their allies…assuming the myrmidons allow any such organic creatures to exist.

An elven swanship has been shot out of the sky—horribly burned by a line of fire cast with mathematical precision.  The magistra wants answers.  She sends adventurers to investigate, but is particularly insistent that they report their findings to no one but her…almost as if she already knows what they will uncover…

Reddawn is closed to all visitors—on pain of destruction and disassembly.  So some spacefaring adventurers’ plan to infiltrate the Machine Moon by crash-landing is actually not a bad idea…assuming they can provide enough destruction to satisfy the Reddawn probes.  Now all they have to do is cross some 140 miles of desert without drawing the attention of any myrmidon patrols or the native death worms.  How hard could it be?

A machine cyst is slowly incorporating the town of Boggard Gulch.  After adventurers deal it several blows and cripple one of its gearsman assembly lines, the cyst retaliates by incorporating a clutch of wyverns, a locust swarm, and a manticore into its manufacturing bible.  The result is a new robot design: a flight of myrmidons that begin specifically hunting for the troublesome adventurers.

—Inner Sea Bestiary 45

Like all the ISB robots, the myrmidon is a Russ Taylor creation.  Also, as usual look to the Iron Gods issues of Pathfinder Adventure Path for more on myrmidons and ways to customize them and other robots.

And with this entry we close the book on the Inner Sea Bestiary.  That’s right—another book down! 

Hold on, you say?  Where are the annihilator; charnel colossus; Chemnosit, the Monarch Worm; and marrowstone golem?  Rest assured, those entries are written.  As soon as I’m not on rickety cruise ship Internet (clarification: “rickety” refers to the Internet access; the cruise ship is just fine—I saw sea otters today!) I’ll get those posted and give you the heads-up.

Gearsman

If you’re a Pathfinder Adventure Path reader, you’ve probably received the last installment of the Iron Gods Adventure Path.  Along the way, you’ve been introduced to a shipload of robots (literally).  But the gearsman, statted up by Russ Taylor for the Inner Sea Bestiary, is pretty much the default robot for the Golarion setting—the silent symbol of the Technic League’s power in Numeria. 

But in your home campaign, these robots might be otherworldly encounters, rare artifacts, or as common as gnomes.  With their intelligence and adaptive learning abilities, they can be surprisingly resourceful opponents, and their ability to heal themselves and other robots (particularly the devastating annihilators and myrmidons) make them highly dangerous as part of a larger force.

Merfolk have declared war on the Duchy of Trent!  The duke’s shipmages predict an easy victory over the nomadic and fractious sea people.  But when bronze gearsmen begin marching up from the shoreline wielding electrified tridents it becomes clear that there is much about the merfolk that the shipmages do not know.

Junkdock is famous for its sentinel gearsmen.  The brass-helmed robots patrol the spaceport in silent pairs at all hours of the asteroid’s 26-hour day, and only the witchwyrds seem to have any ability to treat with them.  But when adventurers try to find a sage to examine the strange puzzle box they have found, the gearsmen’s eye orbs flash red and every robot in the station mobilizes to attack the box’s bearer.

A young farm boy dreams of one day escaping his desert world and soaring among the stars.  Instead, he’s stuck accompanying his uncle on trips to buy beaten-up droids from wayang scavengers.  He and his friends are cleaning one of the droids when they trigger a hidden holographic message left by a princess.  Which is when the other droid grabs a nearby spear, electrifies it, and attempts to kill the farm boy and his friends for having seen too much.

—Inner Sea Bestiary 44

Since you all liked my riff on Bilbo’s birthday party, I decided to ruin—er, I mean, make better—another classic tale.

Given that I left my last radio show in a panicked dash to ER, I was pretty stoked to actually make it through all two hours this week.  Click here for the first show of the spring semester!  We finished up our look at the Bush’s Sixteen Stone’s 20th anniversary, danced to 10 years of LCD Soundsystem, and caught up with the Decemberists’ new track.  Download and enjoy!

Annihilator

Placeholder post.  Will finish later.  Because I don't always visit the emergency room on short notice, but when I do, I bring chicken sandwiches.