I've really been on a Monster Hunter kick these past couple of weeks, but I want to take it back to some mostly original ideas. After I told Blue about this idea, he said that D&D 5e already had this concept from a 3rd-party source, but I haven't seen anything along these lines for PF. I considered looking at the 5e version to see if it inspired any ideas, but I wanted this to be uncolored by other designs of the same type. Tiptoe past the traps, ready your bags of holding, and check out the hoard golem!
While my idea for the hoard golem came free of any other influences, when I was designing its abilities, I ended up looking to a few other creatures, particularly other golems. It's gild ability, which I find super fun and flavorful, is based on the fossil golem's petrification ability, while discorporate comes from junk golems. I toyed with the idea of it having an energy immunity based on the type of dragon that made it, but thought that might be overloading it. The only issue I really had with its design was that its engulf DC ended up being super high, but when I looked at other monsters with the engulf ability, that seemed to be the case, so I ended up leaving it. Also, I feel like I should have added more to the Construction cost but wasn't quite sure what to do with it.
Pathfinder 1e Version:
For the 2e version, it was nice to be able to set the DCs to what I wanted, which I definitely feel is a strength in comparison to 1e, which always based abilities off of the math instead of what just worked for the creature. I gave it an Attack of Opportunity largely because that felt appropriate to me for something that was designed as a guard. The Gilding ability in 2e is instead based off of the cockatrice and its calcification ability.
Pathfinder 2e Version:
ENCOUNTERS
Golden Oldie: Years ago, a powerful dragon left her cave to accomplish a personal mission and never returned, leaving many to presume her dead. The heroes have decided to plunder her domain where other monsters have begun to move into areas not protected by the dragon’s wards and traps. After getting past these hazards, the heroes discover that she had turned her hoard into a hoard golem. The heroes can try to defeat the hoard golem or research the through the dragon’s study for the golem’s command word.
All That Glitters: Through a series of proxies, a sentient weapon managed to assemble a hoard golem under its control. It directs this hoard golem to wield it into battle and seeks to further increase its wealth – maybe even adding other sentient weapons to its hoard golem. The heroes may be hired by a retired adventurer who lost his old traveling companion or may have sentient weapons of their own that were stolen by the hoard golem and its master. They must somehow track down the hoard golem, figure out its next target, or lay a trap for it so they can engage the hoard golem and its master in combat.
There's a Discord for Monster Monday now, so if you're interested in building, discussing, and sharing monsters and other homebrew content, come check it out: https://discord.gg/WMaKuq
This was a lot of fun to build and I want to get back into doing more original monsters. Have a Monstrous Monday!
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