Maggot Golem

From a distance a maggot golem is a lumbering, off-white heap with a rough human shape that never holds still. It walks upright with a pair of arms and a pair of legs whose length and bulk keep changing, as does its torso. Its head may be a mere lump between the shoulders one moment and show eyes, ears, a nose and mouth the next.

The reason is that its body is a living colony of maggots. They constantly mature into flies that buzz around its head, then settle back to lay eggs that hatch into new maggots. Some fall away and squirm on the ground behind it, but they are replaced astonishingly fast.

The golem is mindless and cannot be provoked or moved by emotion. It follows its master's orders or, left alone, its urge to kill fleshy beings. Being composed of hundreds of thousands of insects, it is extremely hard to hurt. Blades and points pass through it as harmlessly as through water, the maggots closing behind them. Blunt weapons can knock chunks away but deal only half damage. Its sped-up life cycle also lets it regenerate 2 hit points per round.

It cannot wield weapons either. Instead, any successful attack means it has pulled the victim into a smothering embrace, inflicting 2d6 damage that round and each round after. At the start of each later round the victim may attempt a Strength check; success means breaking loose and taking no automatic damage that round, though the golem may still attack and grab again.

Most spells do nothing. Fire spells work normally, cold spells slow it for 2d6 rounds, summon insects heals it 1d10 points, and repel insects instantly strips away half its current hit points.

Its earth spirit is loosely bound. In each fight there is a cumulative 1% chance per round, figured separately for each battle, that it breaks free, and a freed golem attacks its master and everything else in its way. The master then has a cumulative 10% chance per round of reasserting control, but only from within 60 feet, where the golem can see and hear him, by speaking to it firmly and persuasively.

Like all golems it is a made servant directly controlled by its maker. Usually one to four are created at once. Each can follow only one simple, direct instruction, so every part of a task needs its own command, which makes them clumsy servants. They are mostly set to guard places or treasures. Because the maggots must keep eating rotting meat to live, a maggot golem needs little instruction as a guard: on its own it seeks out living creatures to kill, then devours them once they begin to decay.

It begins as a corpse heavily infested with maggots, into which a spirit of elemental Earth is bound. In time the maggots consume the body entirely, and the spirit holds the swarm in human shape. The method refines the one used for flesh golems and is said to have originated in a city of the misty dread realm. Rumor speaks of a further refinement that uses rot grubs in place of maggots.