CLOCKWORK HORROR (Gold)

Clockwork horrors are intelligent, arachnid-like constructs that live as a hierarchical collective. They exist solely to strip entire worlds of worked and raw metals, which they use to produce more horrors. These activities take clockwork horrors into areas where metal can be found, from underground mines to civilized areas where processed metal is often readily available. Clockwork horrors ignore nonmechanical creatures unless such beings pose a threat or obviously possess metal. The horrors’ searches are methodical and efficient, resulting in the destruction of nearly everything in their path. An army of horrors can devastate an entire nation in a matter of weeks.

A clockwork horror appears as a four-legged, mechanical arachnid with a body about 2 feet in diameter. It is made of a base metal (such as iron) overlaid with a thin patina of precious or semiprecious metal. A large gem is embedded in the creature’s brow. A single razor saw is situated near the front of its head where a mouth would normally be located. The more powerful clockwork horrors are more fantastically designed and decorated than the lesser ones. Servant clockwork horrors with overlays of less precious metals are known to exist, but these serve the hierarchy primarily as laborers.

Clockwork horrors communicate in their own language of mechanical sounds. The linked mind that they share allows for instant communication among individual horrors within 10 miles of each other.

Logic indicates that since the horrors are mechanical beings, someone or something must have created them. What happened to that being is unknown. Some sages theorize that the adamantine horror rebelled against and slew its creator, then devised the other types of clockwork horrors to serve as its armies

Gold horrors are the commanders of the clockwork horror armies. They supervise the electrums and other lesser horrors, ensuring that the orders of their superiors are obeyed.