So I am working on some Conan adventures, and one thing I am looking for is a living idol. I am thinking about a giant statue, that craves worship and animates in times of need… like when adventurers want to loot it’s temple or interfere with a sacrifice.
At the basic level, it needs to be a large object made of stone, steel or bone. Plus would be power that scales to worshippers or holy objects.
The inspiration for this kind of thing comes from a combination of Ray Harryhausen movies and some modules from Al Qadim.
Looking through the books, I have seen some monsters I could use to roughly simulate this. For example, the golem from the Hyborian Bestiary. However, I was thinking to create one from scratch. The books don’t give me an especially clear idea on how to create NPCs or monsters, unless I’ve been overlooking something. Thoughts?
The game mechanics, when it comes to monsters, are not developed in the way D&D is - mathematical models and tables for average hit points and etc. based no level or challenge rating. Here, you create a beast that suits your story and powers you want to demonstrate and do it. The books contain a lot of ideas how you can make up custom monsters and represent their special abilities that are triggered by doom or simply part of their standard armament of destruction.
Stats for those guys are in the Pirates book. Also, thanks for chipping in. However, the Black Ones may look like statues but are clearly not statues themselves. They are living beings.
