In "Skinsaw Murders", the barn at the Hambly farm is partially supported by a large stone head taht forms one wall, or part of one. If I remember correctly the head is 12 feet high, which would have made a human-proportioned statue, what, 96 feet tall?
In "Burnt Offerings", the island on which Thistletop was built was also a giant stone head, this one many times larger, though I'm not sure of the proportions.
I believe both were described as the ruins of stone guardians or sentinels of some sort, but given the size difference, I'd expect these two would have had different functions.
Is there any information on Thassalonian stone guardians outside these casual references in Rise of the Runelords? I found a handful of statue references in the Wiki, but nothing descriptive of function, and many of them (such as the 200 ft tall twins at Magnimar's gate) are modern constructions.
I'm seeing them like the Watchdog of Corflu in Runequest. So I'm using that for the basis of information for my players.
I'm seeing them like the Watchdog of Corflu in Runequest. So I'm using that for the basis of information for my players.
Um, okay. I suppose that's helpful for people familiar with Runequest. I'm not one of them, and Google seems to be in the same boat with me; the fourth link down in a Google search was your message above, and none of the links I followed actually told me anything.
"Watchdog of Corflu is a Godlearner relic..."
"...assembled by lunars..."
More unfamiliar terms, so at the moment I'm basically left with "The Beexlegrat of Felench is a Joruzny relic, assembled by forlingers..."
If there's no other information yet recorded, I will suppose that the smaller (mere 96 ft tall) version was a mobile construct functioning as a giant battle 'bot; the watchtower function of the larger one at Thistletop is described briefly in that module.
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A stone guardian or sentinal doesn't have to be a construct creature. In fact, they could just be stone heads like the ones on Easter Island.
We haven't really said either way if they're just stone heads or long dead/defunct constructs though... either one is cool for different reasons.
I took the stone heads as one of those "sometimes the gazebo is actually just a gazebo" moment. Great flavor to keep the players on their toes.
The Watchdog of Corflu was/is a living construct which looks like a cyclops. At the moment he is in bits with two arms attached to the side of a head with a toothy maw.
Considering the head is 80 feet tall and the base of the island is 30 ft underwater and considering "heroic proportions" the statue that was Thistletop should have been about 770 feet tall.
The thistletop head is fashioned in the likeness of Karzoug, not a stone giant!
I didn't think anyone said it was a stone giant, just a giant stone head. Giant here being used to describe it's size, as in really really big, not indicating what race it was fashioned to look like.
The thistletop head is fashioned in the likeness of Karzoug, not a stone giant!
I didn't think that was specified; I thought it was just a colossal sentinel statue. IIRC Karzoug's head is on a wall/mountainside at Xin-Shalast.
For my purposes it doesn't matter who's depicted, I was just trying to establish whether there were published hints anywhere as to the function of the smaller statue. For one thing, I'm looking for a place to seed a handful of non-standard minor magic items the party will find useful in upcoming encounters, and was toying with this notion:
* Call the party's attention to the stone head that forms part of the wall of the Hambley's barn.
* Allow them to find a secret door in the back of the head; perhaps magically sealed so that a Knock spell is needed to open it.
* Within the head is a small chamber containing the mummified or skeletal remains of a warrior chained to the walls and floor. On the wall in front of the warrior is what appears to be a simple window, looking onto the outside view that might be seen through the statue's eyes.
* A moderate Perception check reveals that the chains are quite long and the manacles are not actually locked, only snapped shut like bracelets; the "prisoner" has considerable freedom of movement when chained and could remove the manacles at any time.
* Detect Magic reveals the presence of transmutation magic on the manacles and chains, as well as other dweomers on several items on the warrior's body: cloak, buckler, boots, ring, dagger, gloves.
Basically I'm treating the manacles as a control system for a Thassalonian "mecha" type contruct; they communicate the warrior's movements to the statue. The window is a simple scrying device allowing the operator to see whatever's in the statue's line of "sight." The whole thing is pretty useless now that the head's been separated from the body, but they can still loot the operator's body for the magic items I want them to get.
Look at the picture. It's Kerzoug.