Wax Golem [Ravenloft]

Perhaps the most horrifying golem of all, a wax golem is sculpted to match one specific person so closely that only a thorough examination can tell them apart. It can step into its model's life without arousing the faintest doubt. It absorbs its subject's memories and speaks every language that person knows.

Wax golems are spies and infiltrators, not guards. Where other constructs stand watch, these replace rulers and other important figures.

If it must fight, a wax golem uses whatever weapons its model was skilled with, gaining +4 to damage from its great strength. Without those it pounds away with its fists for 2d6 damage.

Its true weapon is memory theft. As soon as it is animated, it knows where its model is, and its first act is always to find and destroy that person. Each hit it lands on its living twin calls for a save vs. death magic. On a failure the blow does no physical harm; instead the golem takes one experience level, absorbing every memory and ability tied to it. Blow by blow it empties the victim until only a comatose body is left. Someone who escapes before losing everything has huge holes in memory and faces a weekly madness check for as long as the golem survives.

The empty body must be kept alive. If it dies, the force animating the duplicate is released, and the golem slumps into a puddle of melted wax.

Like all golems of the misty dread realm, it shares the usual strengths and flaws of its kind. Electricity and cold cannot harm it. Magical fire, however, makes its features sag and run, exposing it instantly.

Using the stolen memories and powers, the golem slips into its victim's place, taking all the victim's valuables and magical items to support the act. Unlike most golems, wax golems gladly work alongside their maker and each other. A group can quietly replace the people of a village, town or castle one by one, then use their new roles to rewrite laws, rob, seize power and pave the way for more of their kind.

Each golem is shaped from fine wax blended with mimic ichor, doppelganger blood and obliviax dust, then brought to life with permanency, strength, limited wish and polymorph any object. Materials and equipment cost a full 75,000 gp per golem.