Café de Nuit

GOLEM, LESSER, PAPER

-"What do you mean by this nonsense, noting in the log of the Retriever that the cause of death was not, as I and my peers could well imagine, savages boldly met or sea fearlessly braved, but was by, as you write, 'paper cut'?"
-"'Paper cuts,' sir. Three score I'd venture."

Inquiry into the death of Captain Weathermay, discoverer of Sri Raji

GREENVISE

"Your system of classification is as quaint as it is wrong. Omnivorous and carnivorous diets are the preserve of animals? And teeth too, I suppose! Hazard a guess as to the creature that burnt me thus."

-The re-education of Charlie Wescote, Ship's Biologist of the HMS Retriever

Paper Golem: Small Construct, CR 1, neutral. An origami humanoid folded from a single sheet of paper. Instead of hands, its two arms taper into razor-sharp points. Very decorative; creators commonly model them on samurai (with paper "swords" incorporated into the design). Extremely agile (especially compared to other golems) and dangerous in large numbers. Vulnerable to fire and slashing weapons, as one might expect. Generally found in the Scattered Lotus Archipelago.

Greenvise: Huge Plant, CR 10, neutral. In essence, a massive, semi-intelligent, ambulatory Venus flytrap. Its main attack is to slam foes, stuff them in its leafy maw, and swallow them whole, but if push comes to shove it can also exude a deadly acidic fog. It can sense the location of any creature in contact with vegetation. Only active by day. I generally consider it useful as a predator in the jungles of the Verdurous Lands. (I.E., it's "random encounter" fodder.)

The Paper Golem and the Greenvise have been rewritten taking into account the provided info.

GOLEM, CHAIN

"You have discovered my child. Isn't it magnificent? A stroke of sheer brilliance. Do you know what I call it? What was that? Chain got your tongue? Well we will see to the most apt adjustments in a moment. It would be a crime for you to not be free to lend voice to the ultimate trial of your existence. You do realise that a chain can go right through a man? But before that know that it is called the Automatic Chain and that it is I who gave barb, hook, and link life."

-The Chaining, unfinished autobiography of Francois de Penible

Golem, lesser, junk

Old Jakob made himself a son,
Hey, ho, ain't you most done?
To do his work from dusk till dawn.
Search all the leavings and take up the pickings;
Hey, ho, ain't you 'most done?

Tin cans, old pans, a pail, a nail,
A mop, a strop, a bucket, a locket,
Old rags, old bags, a kite, a knife,
That was the making of Jakob's son.
Search all the leavings and take up the pickings;
Hey, ho, ain't you 'most done?

from Old Jakob's Son, traditional Nosan

Elemental monolith, earth

At first we thought it was an earthquake--a minor tremor, certainly nothing dangerous--but it went on and on, a dark subterranean rumble shaking the ground around us. Ivan (whose ears are much better than mine) said, as if to himself, "Singing?"

We saw it at the same moment; one of the hillocks of tumbled stone a few furlongs off was not a "hill" at all, but a great figure with something of the shape of a man. The sight of it was indescribably piercing; both frightening and pitiable at once. Somehow, even without physiognomy, the sight and sound of it conveyed an indescribable loneliness, as if its song (for such it must have been) mourned a world lost to it forever.

private journal of George Weathermay


Elemental monolith, fire

...her drawn white mask was a mask of wrath, her hair writhed about her face like Medusa's; in her rage she had bitten through her lip, and blood and spittle frothed from her mouth as she shrieked. "Payment there shall be for me and mine!" she cried. "In the name of Infernus, Pyrrhus, and Ahriman, let Hell hear me! This place shall be holocaust to my spirit of vengeance!"

As she spoke she thrust forward her hands, and there was ripped from the ground a great sheet of fire, which formed itself into the shape of a man. Like a silent spectre of flame it stood, considering our little town, and all that could be heard was the susurration of the flames.

"Go!" she whispered, and the fire-thing rolled forward.

Carrietta, from Twelve More Tales of the Macabre, Jean Lafolie

A few crucial details about Funugs Golems would be appreciated as I have an idea involving the Dark Delvers. Thanx.

Fungus Golem:: Medium Construct, CR 4, neutral.

About the size of a beefy human, composed of fungi and plant matter fused into a hard rubber-like substance, Fairly tough and strong, but mainly dangerous due to the spores it carries. These give it a poisonous breath weapon, and wounds from its slam attacks fester so that the damage doesn't heal naturally. Primarily created by druids.

And while I'm at it...

Tin Golem: Medium Construct, CR 3, neutral.

Looks somewhat like an armored human. Not very tough in combat; it has no natural attacks, though it can wield weapons. It has limited intelligence, which give it the ability to speak and the abilty to perform specific skilled tasks (the golem's creator "programs" it with ranks in two Craft or Profession skills).

In Hour of the Knife, a local guild created a tin golem (a precursor to the creature described here) and modeled it after a streetwalker, intending to use it as bait for Bloody Jack.

Old Jakob made himself a son,

HOW DID YOU KNOW?

Half-golem, stained glass

"We had all thought Dannel a little obssesed with his work, spending days on even the smallest window. During the creation of rose window for the grand catherdral I swear he went a fortnight with nothing but water and will to keep him going.
But when he lost his arm to the rot I've never seen such sadness in man eyes. He cryed a torrent of tears over his unfished masterpeace, a grand warrior fully as tall as a man made with the finest Borcan glass. For days on end he would sit before it with a bottle in his hand stairing up at it with eyes long since cried out.
We did what we could for him, bringing him food and keeping his shop tidy. After a while the visits dwindled from once a week to twice a week then a month then four. With winter closing in I had though to bring him home with us for Yuletide and try to break him out of his funk.
I opened the door to his shop and was shocked to see the grand warrior shattered, a few pieces still in the frame glinting with frost. It was a twinkle of light that drew my eye to Dannel sitting in the lightless workroom...or rather the moster he had become. Where once had been a clean cut stump now glittered wih the addition of an arm made of the shards of the shattered window. The arm was a thing of horrid beauty that can only be made by a mad man. Small rivers of dried blood dulled the gleaming as he held the broken form of child in his arms, a thousand cuts visable on his tiny body.
'I had to do it...the devil children...broke it they did...REVENGE!' were the last words he said as the guards drug him away to the gallows
I couldn't bare to look at the rainbow on the ground as the sun set behind his body as it swung in the wind..."
Erick Von Holtz speaking to Doctor Van Richten during his research for VRGT:Created

Effigy

Q: What is the name of the Burning Spirit?
A: It may not be revealed to Man.
Q: What is the reason for which he burns?
A: He burns for the vengeance which life denied him.
Q: What is the fuel that feeds his fire?
A: Strong wrath and stronger hatred.
Q: How shall this fire be extinguished?
A: Only when its fuel is spent.
Q: When will that time come?
A: When all the world is ash.

from The Second Book of Deaths, Har'Akir

Jakob wrote:

Old Jakob made himself a son,

HOW DID YOU KNOW?

What, you thought you could keep it hidden forever?

Golem, tin

Little Dorte went a short way, she went a long way, and at last she came to a little clearing in the woods, and a wee house; and there before it stood a most unusual man, a man all made of tin! He must once have shone beautifully, but he had rusted stiff, and now the rain and the sun had made him green and brown, with only a hint of his shiny skin beneath. Little Dorte knew that such men are made by witches and warlocks to serve them, and at first she was afraid; but then she took heart, for the cottage was long deserted and the man had obviously not been cared for in years; and it occurred to her that it might not be an ill thing to have such a creature at her beck and call. Therefore she took a little lard from her hamper, and rubbed it in the tin man's joints 'til he could move.

"Now, then, Tin Man," she said. "I am your mistress now, and you must obey me. Nod if you agree!"

And the tin man nodded his head.

"That's good," she declared, and handed him her hamper. "Take this, and follow me." And together they set off into the woods, the little girl before and the tin man after.

Little Dorte and the Three Strange Men, traditional Kartakan

Ethereal slayer* [Monster Manual II]

We had heard the stories of a haunting at the Farwaes manor, and had made our usual preparations for ghost hunting; I asked M. Mikkelson to accompany us, as his ghost-sight would surely prove invaluable in our expedition. Entering the house during daylight hours, we had made only a cursory inspection when I heard Mikkelson shout, "What the devil?" in a tone quite unlike his usual conciliatory manner of speaking to the restless dead. Hurrying into the hallway, we saw him pass at a dead run, yelling to us, "Get out of here!" as he went. When we caught up with him at some distance from the manor house, I asked what on earth he had seen there.

"It's not a haunting," he said, his face even more pale than usual. "It's not...I saw a thing in there, like a spider--a crab--I don't know how to describe it. Big. Whatever it is, it's not a ghost."

private journal of George Weathermay

GOLEM, LESSER, FUNGUS

We did not lack for speed. The Loathsome Consort had seen to that by limiting our baggage to little more than what his strange, bipedal porting creatures could manage. They were tireless, strong, frightful. A great secret indeed had been stolen from HER for with them we could push deep and seize greater knowledge still. But only in returning did we realised their full value. For the dead that they had left behind, slain by the spores they exuded and transformed into rich beds of mushrooms, alone kept us alive, as the Loathsome Consort had intended.

-Vomited Up From the Bowels of Hell, unfinished, anonymous manuscript