Flesh Golem [Ravenloft]

These golems are sewn together from parts taken off many different corpses, so each looks different, but all are hideous. Despite popular images, they have neither flat skulls nor bolts jutting from their necks.

Cold and electricity cannot truly hurt this flesh golem: such attacks deal half damage, or none if it saves, and electricity does not heal it. Spells cast directly on it, area spells included, can deal damage, but any other effect they carry is ignored, so sleep, teleport other and charm person all fail. Indirect results of magic still apply; a wall of stone that topples onto the golem is not dispelled by its touch, and it must deal with the wall like anyone else. It cannot see invisible creatures and is fooled by illusions unless the illusion targets it directly, as phantasmal killer does.

If both fists hit in the same round, the golem may choose to start strangling that victim on the following round, dealing 3d8 automatic damage each round. Escape requires Strength 19 or more, though two rescuers with at least 17 Strength each can pry its arms loose, one apiece.

Ordinary weapons and normal physical blows cannot hurt it. Weapons of +1 or better can, as can attacks by monsters of 4+1 Hit Dice or more (player characters do not qualify).

Its flesh is alive in its own way, so it is vulnerable to poison, gas, level drain and other attacks on living tissue, though it gains +4 on saving throws against them. Disease never affects it.

It regenerates 1 hit point per hour, resting or not, compared to a human's 1 per day of rest. Below 0 hit points it stops healing: the body is disabled and the mind lies dormant but it is not dead. Once its wounds are stitched and repaired, a jolt of electricity wakes it again. Fire and acid deal normal damage and are the only means of destroying it for good; anything less leaves a body that can be reanimated later.

Its one built-in weakness is a terror of fire. It flees any flame, even a single match, staying 10 feet or more away from small fires such as torches or cooking fires and 25 feet or more from large ones such as bonfires or massed torches. To edge past a small flame or knock it from someone's hand it must pass a fear check (save vs. paralyzation). Its normal fear check is 8, but fire imposes -4, so it needs 12 or better on 1d20. Should it be pushed nearer a flame than it can bear, consult the failed fear check table for its reaction.

Built to serve the selfish goals of insane scientists, these golems seldom have any home or society. They yearn to be accepted as people, and the rejection that always follows teaches most of them a deep hatred of the living, humans and demihumans above all.

Ordinary flesh golems are mindless, but these are not. The spirit animating the body belongs to the brain used in its making, or to another creature's mind moved into it. It is fully aware of what it has become and is often seething with hatred, and the transfer or reanimation usually damages it, leaving it far cruder and more childlike than it was in life.

A flesh golem is not a living creature and has no ecology.