Stone Soldier (Patreon)

Wondrous item, uncommon

This fist-sized toy is carved from gray stone into the shape of a rugged foot soldier. You can use an action to toss the toy into an unoccupied space that you can see within 10 feet of you and speak its command word. The toy then springs to life and animates, magically growing to the size of a Medium humanoid when it does. The animated toy uses the statistics for a guard, with the following changes:

• Its creature type is construct.
• Its hit points are tripled.
• It has resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks.
• It has immunity to poison and psychic damage.
• Whenever it takes the Attack action, it can make two attacks with its spear.

The construct is friendly to you and your companions. It understands your languages and obeys your spoken commands. In combat, the construct acts on its own initiative count. If you issue no commands, it defends itself but takes no other actions. You can use an action while touching the construct to speak its command word again to revert it to its toy form.

If the construct is reduced to 0 hit points, it dies and reverts to its toy form. The toy then shatters and is destroyed. If the construct reverts to its toy form before losing all its hit points, it regains all of them, but can't be animated again for 24 hours.

"I've always wondered; why do you keep that thing around the bar, Brunhilde?"

The barkeep scanned the common room for what had raised Doln's interest this time. Her eyes settled on her sole server, his stone hands stiffly bussing a table.

"Stoneface? Da carved 'im when I were a sprig, named 'im after an ol' cap'n friend. Said 'e'd keep me safe. An' he did! My adventurin' days, he were the one who kept more'n a few arrows outta my neck!"

"So now you've got him spooking the patrons?"

"No more'n you, and not half so loud. 'Sides, after we made all o' our noise out travelin'—"

Doln found himself dangling above his seat, collared by a fist of rock.

"—'e keeps the place nice'n quiet."