Cadaver collectors

Bloody horrors of the battlefield, these monstrous constructs retrieve the dead and the soon to be dead for the dark purposes of their masters. Cadaver collectors are massive, armored constructs built to retrieve corpses from the battlefield, regardless of the dead ones’ alliances. A loaded cadaver collector is a horrific sight: a 12-foot-tall, 2-ton form with bloody, broken, and decaying bodies impaled on its spiked plating.
Old stories say the first collectors appeared in the company of the human necromancer and conqueror Daelh, whose small but powerful army invaded the Nentir Vale from the southern borders of the Witchlight Fens hundreds of years ago. Daelh and later masters of the collectors used the harvested bodies for research and to create new undead with which to bolster their forces.
Even after a war or a conflict ends, cadaver collectors are often discovered among the ruins, searching for bodies to gather and masters to serve. The secret of creating cadaver collectors is thought to be lost, but occasionally a new one appears, suggesting that someone has rediscovered or reverse-engineered the process by studying the golemlike creatures. Given their complex construction and heavy plating, the process is likely both lengthy and expensive.
In Service to a Master: A cadaver collector is completely obedient to its creator or master. Though the construct is a powerful weapon, a collector’s minimal intelligence prevents it from understanding even moderately complex orders or battle plans, making it a poor soldier. A collector is usually let loose near the end of a battle. Once fully burdened, it returns to its master or to an arranged location, unloads its grisly cargo, and returns to the battlefield for another haul. Its enormous size and stout armor make it a difficult target, especially when unleashed on a dying or defeated force. Nonetheless, survivors usually throw everything they can at the monstrosity, not wanting to see their fallen allies return as enemy undead. Extremely loud noises interfere with the automaton’s locomotion, so attackers might lob alchemical bombs to slow a collector while they retrieve their comrades.
Alone in the World: A cadaver collector that loses its master continues to follow its last orders until it completes its task. This job might be as simple as clearing a single battlefield, or it could lead the collector to seek out corpses far from its original location. Once it believes its task is done, the collector becomes inactive, remaining near its last posting to await new orders or a new outbreak of battle. A persuasive individual might be able to command an idle collector, though doing so often requires convincing the collector that the newcomer follows the collector’s original master. The Daggerburg goblins (page 38) are particularly skilled at locating and using cadaver collectors for their own ends.
An Unending Task: Whether from battle damage or simple age, the minds of some cadaver collectors deteriorate over time, especially in those left alone for long periods. When this deterioration happens, it usually triggers one of two outcomes: The collector either leaves its current location to seek out a new master to assign it collection duties, or it looks for ways to justify resuming its primary mission (such as killing people so that it has dead bodies to collect). In rare cases, a collector decides that all bodies are worth gathering, whether living or dead. One horrific tale relates the fate of Blackleaf, a small village on the edge of the Witchlight Fens that was ravaged by a deranged cadaver collector. The monstrosity disappeared into the misty swamps, but it terrorizes the area’s inhabitants to this day. Since the collector is always seen unburdened, an enormous pile of bodies must lie somewhere within the swamp—or perhaps it still serves a hidden master.
Gokof: This notorious hobgoblin necromancer of the southern Nentir Vale is nominally a member of the Daggerburg goblins, but he spends most of his time with his collectors and undead servants. Gokof has a particular affinity for locating cadaver collectors and bending them to his will. It is not unusual for him to search the vale for collectors, though he rarely has more than two at his command. He also trains other Daggerburg goblins to command the collectors, but only if doing so further enriches him or adds to his power base.