What would you do with an Iron Golem in real life?

[gooddragon1]

If you somehow inherited an Iron Golem, what would you do with it?

A departure from the if you had a class level, if you could cast one spell, etc.

[Hackulator]

Honestly? Probably try to sell it for a **** ton of a money. To a normal person, it's not really that useful, but I bet some R&D company or billionaire would pay insane money for it.

[Coidzor]

Hmm. Could probably rig it up with a custom version of certain vehicle attachments, like a bulldozer or find some use for it in construction in some role.

Could get a big dynamo for it to put that 33 strength score to use in generating electricity?

[Florian]

I´d contract Sotherbys to auction it.

[Zurambas]

Well...first step is logistics. Where would I keep hit? He doesn't fit in most garages. Do I need to conceal it in some way? Will people want to come after it? Is it unique, something the government would want to take?

After that, I believe the best use for an iron golem would be deep-sea or space exploration. Especially if you could design technology that allowed effective drone control of the iron golem. Which would involve magic/tech interaction, which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish...

Using it for combat is obvious...but...it isn't as durable as a modern MBT or even a Bradley. And it doesn't possess ranged weaponry, and it's slow. I suppose there might be some use for it in an urban setting as a terror weapon, as it is likely immune to small-arms fire, but...

That's my 2cp.

Zurambas

[icefractal]

Honestly? Probably try to sell it for a **** ton of a money. To a normal person, it's not really that useful, but I bet some R&D company or billionaire would pay insane money for it.

This. It's more valuable for researching how the hell it works than it would be for any direct purpose. And even if it was impossible to discern anything about (and everyone knew that in advance), it would still require significant resources to leverage it effectively (deep sea exploration sounds potentially good).

Things I don't think it's useful for:
* Power Generation - Even though it's technically a perpetual motion device, the amount generated by one golem is a drop in bucket compared to even a single city's energy usage.
* Taking Over the World - It's slow moving, obvious, and not invulnerable to anti-vehicle weapons. You could have a short-lived crime spree using it, but it wouldn't last.

[Alcore]

Apart from selling and/or combat;

Logging
Construction
Being intimidating
Lawn ornament (with home security functions!)
Steady means of locomotion cross country


Placed in a D20 modern world most weapons (anti armor weapons at that) would struggle to inflict any harm at all. Combat is still its best use.

[unseenmage]

In reality. Really cool high fives at completely inappropriate moments.

In fantasy-verse? Same.


And also all the time would be showtime.

[Bronk]

Car jack?

Clean the gutters?

Get rid of that hornets nest?

Tree removal?

Pest control?

House jack?

I'd just have to make sure it didn't crack the driveway or underground pipes...

[Vizzerdrix]

Tidal areas aer far too muddy to use this thing in the water, and I dont think it could out pace a man with a chainsaw in the woods (let alone tell junk wood from good). I honestly think it would mess up whatever it was told to build on a construction site as well.

Personal power generation, or clearing farm land, or mining. I could see using one to quarry sand or gravel.

[Zakerst]

Local terraforming mostly. I know some people who have tasks that take a long time and labor to do but don't have the cash for all the labor they would like. Also dog walking and riding it around a big events since I'm not that tall myself.

[Rhyltran]

Short lived but insanely epic crime spree.

[Alcore]

Tidal areas aer far too muddy to use this thing in the water, and I dont think it could out pace a man with a chainsaw in the woods (let alone tell junk wood from good). I honestly think it would mess up whatever it was told to build on a construction site as well.

that is the problem; you have to treat it like an over priced zombie. Your the brain.


And it's not about outpacing sometimes. Sometimes it's a marathon and one participant doesn't fatigue.

[Malroth]

Mining down to the mantle to create a giant Geothermal generator next to the ocean.

[Vizzerdrix]

I did think of one great use. Cleaning up fallout sites.

[Sagetim]

I did think of one great use. Cleaning up fallout sites.

It might need a bit more intelligence than it has to do tasks like that. Also, decontaminating it when the job is done might be kind of a bit. It would be interesting to find out how radiation exposure and magic might interact (if at all) though.


I'd probably go with power generation, mostly. It doesn't have to power an entire city, as long as it can power more than my house, that's free money from running my meter backwards. When the power company comes and asks what the **** I'm doing, I tell them I'm generating my own power, and that's all they need to know quite frankly. And, you know, keep the iron golem out of sight.

It's frankly probably too dense to really have it walking around a city, do remember that streets may be built to have cars on them, but the cars don't have their entire weight focused into two feet, the weight is spread out more than that. An I don't want to have to pay for damages to city sidewalks and streets. So, there's that. These things are like, 11 feet tall and 16 tons, right? If I'm off on the size and weight, it might not be as much of a problem.

On the subject of power generation: You don't need to generate a lot of power for the grid to be useful, having a power generator that can walk itself to a location, sit down, and generate a significant amount of power without any fuel is very usable for spot locations where you need power but can't get it, or can't get it easily, or where batteries wouldn't give you the oomph you need. This is where it leads to....

Emergency Response- An Iron Golem is sturdy as ****, it's immune to, what was it, electricity or fire or something? If it's fire, you can potentially deploy it to industrial accidents to help keep those from going out of control. An Iron Golem on the fire department would be handy for stomping through a burning building to save people (well, at least at ground level) and act as a support pillar for a collapsing building (which would probably still not break it's dr when it collapses on the iron golem, which could then dig itself out).

Construction- The Iron Golem can move heavy objects precisely, replacing a number of functions where a crane might otherwise be necessary. Given a proper scoop, it could dig out a foundation and start sinking support infrastructure while the rest of the construction crew does things like pouring cement, laying plumbing, electric, and data, and so on.

Construction of scrap art. Does anyone remember the Iron Giant? Yeah, I think an Iron Golem could be directed to bend, twist, tear, and reshape metal to facilitate the construction of art made from scrap metal. Extra points if you never explain how you make the art.

Be Art- It's an Iron Golem, you could put some stuff on it and have it pose, then hold still, and only move when people see it out of the corner of their eyes to mess with them. Bonus points if you have it go through the thriller dance or The Robot, but only out of the corner of people's eyes.

[gooddragon1]

It might need a bit more intelligence than it has to do tasks like that. Also, decontaminating it when the job is done might be kind of a bit. It would be interesting to find out how radiation exposure and magic might interact (if at all) though.


I'd probably go with power generation, mostly. It doesn't have to power an entire city, as long as it can power more than my house, that's free money from running my meter backwards. When the power company comes and asks what the **** I'm doing, I tell them I'm generating my own power, and that's all they need to know quite frankly. And, you know, keep the iron golem out of sight.

It's frankly probably too dense to really have it walking around a city, do remember that streets may be built to have cars on them, but the cars don't have their entire weight focused into two feet, the weight is spread out more than that. An I don't want to have to pay for damages to city sidewalks and streets. So, there's that. These things are like, 11 feet tall and 16 tons, right? If I'm off on the size and weight, it might not be as much of a problem.

On the subject of power generation: You don't need to generate a lot of power for the grid to be useful, having a power generator that can walk itself to a location, sit down, and generate a significant amount of power without any fuel is very usable for spot locations where you need power but can't get it, or can't get it easily, or where batteries wouldn't give you the oomph you need. This is where it leads to....

Emergency Response- An Iron Golem is sturdy as ****, it's immune to, what was it, electricity or fire or something? If it's fire, you can potentially deploy it to industrial accidents to help keep those from going out of control. An Iron Golem on the fire department would be handy for stomping through a burning building to save people (well, at least at ground level) and act as a support pillar for a collapsing building (which would probably still not break it's dr when it collapses on the iron golem, which could then dig itself out).

Construction- The Iron Golem can move heavy objects precisely, replacing a number of functions where a crane might otherwise be necessary. Given a proper scoop, it could dig out a foundation and start sinking support infrastructure while the rest of the construction crew does things like pouring cement, laying plumbing, electric, and data, and so on.

Construction of scrap art. Does anyone remember the Iron Giant? Yeah, I think an Iron Golem could be directed to bend, twist, tear, and reshape metal to facilitate the construction of art made from scrap metal. Extra points if you never explain how you make the art.

Be Art- It's an Iron Golem, you could put some stuff on it and have it pose, then hold still, and only move when people see it out of the corner of their eyes to mess with them. Bonus points if you have it go through the thriller dance or The Robot, but only out of the corner of people's eyes.

12 feet, 5000 lbs.

It's healed by magical fire. Normal fire is still a problem.

I'd use it to get rid of a hornets nest too.

[Sagetim]

12 feet, 5000 lbs.

It's healed by magical fire. Normal fire is still a problem.

I'd use it to get rid of a hornets nest too.

Aw, booo. No firefighter Golem. And that's not as bad for street cracking at least. It's still roughly similar to putting a small car up on two legs, so cracking the surface of the street or sidewalk could still be a problem, but at least you would probably be able to avoid actually stomping holes through the surface of the street and remind everyone in a most unfortunate manner that sewers run under our roads.

[Tainted_Scholar]

This is going to end like The Iron Giant isn't it?

[Alcore]

Aw, booo. No firefighter Golem. And that's not as bad for street cracking at least. It's still roughly similar to putting a small car up on two legs, so cracking the surface of the street or sidewalk could still be a problem, but at least you would probably be able to avoid actually stomping holes through the surface of the street and remind everyone in a most unfortunate manner that sewers run under our roads.

Twice the weight of a car, some only half again, spread over the frame of a large man shapped frame. Twice my size so each foot should be twenty six feet long. No measuring tape is handy so I'll eyeball it at eight to ten inches wide. Some depictions show a bulkier wider frame with bigger feet.


Any road built for semi's can handle him. Anything else can handle him but wear and tear will start to show after a few months or year(s). Industrial grade buildings and elevators (possibly only him) can take him.


Not bad.