ECOLOGY

Environment any mountains (Abyss)
Organization solitary
Treasure standard

Heaving masses of unnatural protoplasm known as riftcreepers prowl the Abyss's shattered canyons. Despite their name, these intelligent, malevolent oozes are quite agile and swift, slithering up and down canyon walls and swimming through even the foulest water. Although smart enough to understand Abyssal, riftcreepers have little interest in listening to the babbling of the sacks of meat that will soon be their food.

Products of advanced scientific technology, the constructs called robots are animated by engineering and advanced science rather than magic. Most people refer to robots as “automatons” or “metal men”; their proper nomenclature is known to only a few. Unlike most constructs, robots are capable of independent thought. However, they still must obey the programming instilled in them at their creation. Any robot whose creator hard-coded limitations into its programming can never be truly autonomous.

Robots almost always arise from cultures that possess technology that is leaps and bounds ahead of other civilizations, though sometimes they appear due to cultural diffusion from such a society. A wrecked spacecraft, a portal through time, or a group of robots mass-producing others of their kind could all bring robots into a world. Robots that appear from another place or time might still follow the alien dictates of their original programming, or could run amok, their directives corrupted or forgotten. Whatever the case, these robots possess technology that is beyond the means of almost anyone to reproduce, and they represent a stark contrast to other constructs, as they have nothing to do with magic.

Some spellcasters, despite lacking any real grasp on the technological principles required to create robots, have managed to create their own robots by cobbling together spare parts and broken machines, filling in the gaps and completing the design with a mixture of magic and barely understood fragments of science. These inferior designs usually lack the inexhaustible power supplies, advanced intellects, and self-repair systems found in the original robots, and the magic used in their creation can potentially render them more susceptible to techniques that work against other sorts of constructs.

Robots serve a wide range of purposes, from warfare and defense to peaceful tasks like excavation, farming, and maintenance. Small villages that find robots and somehow manage to command them will often put them to work quietly tending fields or constructing buildings all day long. Armies and warlords collect the more dangerous varieties of robots, but even the more ordinary varieties can be deadly. Most robots sport alloyed skin as hard as steel, meaning that even the lowliest worker robot presents a potent threat when altered for battle.

Furthermore, since most cultures lack a means to reliably repair or understand how to command robots, even the most benign one might malfunction, or even reach a point in its programming where it changes its activity and refuses to follow orders, leading to untold death and destruction among the its former temporary masters.

The means of commanding robots vary from model to model, which can be a source of endless frustration for any who seek to control them. Some obey orders from any humanoid, some bond to a specific master until her death, and others only yield to the command of technological brooches or control rods. Still others submit after mechanical surgery or rebuilding, or not at all. Many must be given extremely precise instructions, for they are unable to process metaphors or other figures of speech, and may interpret them in unanticipated ways, much to the chagrin of those who would command them. A surprisingly large proportion of uncontrolled robots already speak Common, as most models exhibit considerable linguistics talent, and the robots train each other in their new home's languages. Though they comprehend language, most robots rarely speak save for terse acknowledgements of orders. Their speech typically excludes words they deem unnecessary with their mechanical efficiency, leading to strange disjointed statements that convey the requisite information without emotion, although some robots programmed to interact well with humans are able to speak in a more fluid and less disconcerting manner.

Constructing a robot requires no magic, but does involve advanced and extraordinarily rare materials and technological expertise. Because almost no one possesses the skills and materials to complete the process of constructing a robot, these entries omit the construction sections provided for most constructs. A GM can add the robot subtype to a different type of construct, such as an animated object or homunculus, to create new types of robots. Typically, this doesn't alter the construct's CR.

A character can't create a robot from or add the robot subtype to a construct that has already been created; adding the robot subtype to an existing creature is purely a means for the GM to simulate additional robots beyond those provided here.

Other Robots In addition to the four robots with full entries on the following pages, robots are designed by beings of sufficiently advanced technology for a variety of other tasks. Here is a list of some other robot types and their common uses.

• Collectors serve as scouts and acquisition agents.
• Directors enforce order and maximize efficiency.
• Evaluators determine whether races are fit for contact with other beings.
• Juggernauts are titanic robots with the ability to shut down technology.
• Observers are designed for reconnaissance.
• Reclamators are adept at salvage and construction.
• Surgeons are equipped to treat injuries.
• Thought harvesters extract memories from living creatures.
• Wardens serve as guardians.