Helmed Horror

It looks like a knight sealed head to toe in plate mail, but the armor is hollow, its plates held together by binding magic. Neither undead nor summoned, this thinking construct is also called a shadowguard.

A horror can wield any fighter's weapon and use magic items that need no command word or skin contact, such as potions and ointments, but it never casts spells or does magical research. It perceives invisible things within 120 feet and sees by infravision just as far. Its senses fill the whole shell, so a beheaded horror fights on; severed parts go limp but rejoin if someone else presses them back on, though it cannot refit them itself. It heals at a resting human's pace.

Levitation holds it up, letting it walk on air, fight legless and fly at its listed rate, though never with a rider, and it always falls as if under feather fall. It carries 200 lbs. of anything while walking, but just 100 lbs. of lifeless cargo aloft.

It knows no fear and is immune to illusions, charms and anything else that works on mind or senses. ESP and similar spells reach it, but whoever makes contact has their surface thoughts and feelings read in turn, defenses or not, so it can always judge sincerity and sense treachery. Magic missile heals it; healing past its maximum rebounds onto the caster.

Horrors rarely roam. They guard until destroyed, often long after the master's death, and some are bound to take vengeance for a murdered maker. Orders may grant free action when none are given, or ignore the matter; unless told to cease when the creator dies or wishes, a horror never halts.

Making one takes a priest of at least 7th level, a wizard's aid and a plain suit of armor; the rest is secret. The maker sets permanent orders on its freedom, conduct and limits; loopholes can undermine its loyalty, so they must be worded as carefully as a wish. The maker may also name three spells the horror will ignore forever, most often lightning bolt, fireball and heat metal, without needing to know them, and no orders can extend that immunity beyond three.

Horrors never eat, sleep, speak or feel pain, and serve without ambition or feeling. A telepath can speak with them and organize a garrison into a tight fighting band.

This variant looks exactly like a normal horror. Once a day it can dimension door as far as 180 feet, and once a day it can blink for up to a turn, though it cannot stop and restart. Every third round it fires a magic missile of two 1d4+1 missiles at targets up to 70 yards off. It is lawful evil and worth 4,000 XP.