The Verdant Sentinel - The Clay Golem
They say it was once a guardian of the gods. Now it stands in the overgrown halls of the jungle temples, motionless until your blade dares to draw blood within sacred ground.
Role in Its Society:
The Verdant Sentinel is not merely a golem — it is a divine instrument, forged centuries ago by the Serpent Priests of Xotal, jungle-dwelling arcanists who mixed primordial magic with divine edicts.
This Clay Golem still serves a forgotten covenant, defending the sacred inner sanctums of the Ruined City of Xotal-Zan. Its sole directive: to maintain the sanctity of life in these grounds — ironically, by unleashing unrelenting violence on any who spill blood within them.
Locals leave offerings and whisper prayers to “The Stone Watcher.” Cults, explorers, and necromancers who seek the ancient city often go missing, crushed beneath vines and stone fists.
Appearance Description:
This golem towers like a statue torn from the temple walls, its body sculpted from reddish-brown clay, overgrown with lichen, moss, and flowering vines. Across its surface, glowing green sigils pulse faintly, etched deep into the stonework in patterns matching temple carvings.
Its face is featureless but not expressionless — a mask of unreadable divine purpose. When still, it’s indistinguishable from a pillar. When it moves, the entire temple seems to tremble with it.
Backstory:
Forged by a forgotten sect of druidic stonebinders who once ruled the high jungle, the Verdant Sentinel was their final creation — a clay-bound arbiter of divine will. It was animated during the fall of Xotal-Zan, just before the Wrath of the Canopy, a cataclysmic rebellion of the jungle itself.
Unlike most golems, it was built to judge, not just obey. The Sentinel's animating glyphs are tied to natural law — any defilement of life within the temple causes it to awaken and pass sentence.
Though the priests who made it are long dead, the magic persists, and the Sentinel now treats the entire ruined jungle city as a sacred biome.
