Bestiary I - The Blubber Golem

 

An illustration of the Blubber Golem by yours truly.

Apostates and pariahs must still practice their craft, regardless of where they are forced to hide. The town of Leviathan Bay provides such a refuge for those who practice the art of golemancy and study the science of anatomy. Those who tamper with animating dead matter are shunned by polite society (and many amongst impolite society too for that matter), and even at the best of times, human tissue is staggeringly expensive. When resources to create their delicate masterpiece are scarce, artificers must content themselves with more inelegant meat. Fortunately, the squalid town has a literal mountain of it. However, what results is often ugly and ponderous. Constructed with greasy matter gleaned from the corpse of the stranded titan, this strange breed of golem is a crude and clumsy assembly. A rubbery mass of tissue, a lipid monstrosity of oily offal imbued with rudimentary motive force. Its bones are shaved and sawed into shape, bound by slippery cartilage into an ersatz skeleton and grafted with waxy flesh. Its gangly limbs jut out at strange angles, and its joints bend to uncanny degrees. It moves with a clumsy, lurching gait and carries the heavy tools of the flesh gangs- an immense meat cleaver, a serrated greatsword, a huge bonesaw, and the like.

The creature's exact shape varies between specimens, but most have a stunted nub of a head atop a hulking and lumpen body. Its hide is heavy and thick, and slick with foul-smelling oil. This provides the creature with a durable and weatherproof skin, but there is little available to grant the construct much sight or hearing. The golem’s sensory organs are a mere gesture towards function. Many have little more than pinholes for eyes, and an asymmetrical gash of a mouth. They are often dressed in simple garments of rope and hessian cloth, or other materials common amongst seafaring communities- seal skin or shark leather.

The following rules apply to blubber golems in addition to the general rules for golems found in the Monster Manual:

Graceless Anatomy. The golem’s body is constructed from unsuitable materials and assembled by an artificer with inadequate knowledge of anatomy. It stumbles as it walks, and its limbs flail as it attempts to balance itself.

Mercenary Muscle. Blubber golems are often brought along as crew on whaling ships, or amongst the flesh gangs- land based scavengers who scour the shores for scraps of meat and oil. They carry the heavy loads, and the heavy weapons. Chopping up large whales requires equally large knives. You may replace the golem's Immense Whale Cleaver with another appropriately huge, appropriately sharp weapon.

Pelagic Memories. Blubber golems are made from the stuff of the sea, and their form unconsciously remembers the feel of water. Although they are slow on the land, they can swim perfectly, with a speed of 40 feet per round. Additionally, when they are fully submerged in water, they no longer count as Clumsy.

 

Feel absolutely free to use this monster in any way you see fit, shove it into your games of nautical nonsense and watery weirdness. I'm going to make a few more posts about monsters I've created and illustrated.

Peace,

O