The lunar stone constructs were inspired by two of humanities creations, golems and mechanoids or the more commonly used term robots, they start out as pebble sized rocks and over time they absorb rocks and dust from the lunar surface. During their early days they try and burrow into the ground to avoid being eaten or collected by the slimes.
The grow to about the size of a small house and spend most of their time as a big inanimate rock, but with a little encouragement from me they will create forms of their own to move along the surface. These forms they take can resemble statues of animals and ruins but they are mostly big amorphous chunks of moving land.
Often times they will pretend to be ground and lure unexpecting creatures towards them where they promptly do what ever they want, also they bigger and older they are the harder it is to look at them, they have the ability to influence creatures weaker than it and have a tendency for collecting other organisms to use as tools and pets.
They seem to favor the mercury fiends as they both share the love for collecting other creatures, not only can these constructs sever pieces of themselves to use as drones and tools, I gave them an innate understanding of architecture and a crash course in manipulation, instigation and emotional trauma... I basically taught a big intelligent rock how to gaslight adventures and start drama.
Things light making people hallucinate, instilling fear and memory corruption the longer the adventure stays near the construct the more it can tamper with their memories and emotion. So as I look across the moon and see the various constructs pretending to be standing and ruined structure, the various monsters they've collected and trained.
Essentially these constructs are my dungeon core stand in's, I can't do everything since I need to get started with making a livable atmosphere and proper organisms, these guys act kind of like dungeon cores except they have a size limit and have to collect monsters instead of making them... yet so basically they do my job for me while I focus on world building.
Oh yeah two more things about the construct, the first is that they can interfere with technology when it is close to them, shutting it down, blocking signals and communicating via technology, ya know... things that would scare humans. Just imagine, you've arrive to explore the changed moon and you encounter something that not only can mess with your tech, but is actively taunting you with it... utterly terrifying.
And second is that they have an evolution... kind of. When they reach maximum size and have existed for at least 2 months they can create what I called ethereal cells. From any part of their stone bodies they can generate temporary biological components... what do I mean by that.
Picture this, your walking through the ruins of a lunar structure when a glowing tendril of what looks like green and blue strands of flesh and muscle. You try and run only for you exit to be block off by what looks like black boney teeth, the tunnel you where just walking through is suddenly filled with black eyes with green pupils.
You watch as creatures and monstrosities made of those same glowing cells, their skin is made of lunar rock but you know they are flesh and blood inside and that fact alone disturbs you, you fight your way through seemingly endless amounts of monsters to an exit only to realize that the construct has redirected you further into its body, will you escape those eldritch halls or will you perish against this eldritch horror.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
That paints the picture of how it's used... they are temporary and are not really alive though it sure doesn't seem that way... the better your understanding of biology, life and organisms the more you can do with it, flesh and blood, moss, fungus, viruses and bacteria, mold, parasites, plants, coral and more... you decide which you gonna use and the ability will do the rest.
As the constructs raise their proficiency with this skill the more permanent they can make things... the only way to defeat the constructs in either a constant magic barrage or going inside and finding the hearth stone, a darker shade of rock that the rest and breaking it.
Three months after making them and testing them as well as watching their interacting with the other lunar organisms, I can't say anything except that I'm proud of them, these constructs are now the homes for a majority of the lunar monsters.
Floor a distance you can see hundreds of rust clouds swirling overhead, dozens of fiends surrounding the ruins, hundreds of slimes and urchins making their way in and out of the ruins, it's both beautiful and terrifying. One thing that I've noticed is that constructs lover working together.
Their is one construct on the dark side that I've taken to calling a hive construct or a cluster construct, its around 18 fully grown constructs pretending to be one mega structure, they work in complete harmony and symbiosis... it puts ants and bees to shame with their level of teamwork... ants and bees... I just had a new idea.
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It's been 5 months since the birth of the construct species and since then they have gone through some wonderful developments, more constructs have decided to become hive constructs and their proficiency with ethereal cells have improved greatly.
The one problem that they have is energy usage, ethereal cells use a lot of energy to maintain for anything longer than a few hours, this is why they group together to form hives, while one section is using the cells the others are recuperating, so when one construct is tired the others take up where they left off.
That is the way they learned to manage the energy problem... but I gave them a slightly better solution. Lesser construct are like the bigger ones except that they only reach the size of a yoga ball, they are week on their own but make up for this by travelling in groups.
They are better at shape augmentation and are born with a weak version of ethereal cells, they either travel in groups, stay isolate, bond with fiends or mostly likely seek out a construct and serve it. These lesser constructs pretend to be parts of the bigger ones, the lesser constructs have protection and a being to serve while the normal construct get to save energy and preserve strength while focusing on manipulation.
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The constructs have been a complete success, it may have taken five months to get them here but that is all right now, though originally I was planning on making a greater construct that would require an atmosphere and proper organisms.
But the hive constructs will do for now... now onto some exciting news. I have witnessed an iron slime tame a swarm or rust clouds, at first I wondered what was the benefit for the slime here until remember that the rust clouds are conductions.
Let me set the tone for this explanation, you have gotten separated from your group from one of the other horrors on this god forsaken moon and are roaming aimlessly in this gray wasteland when you see a massive cloud of rust in the distance, the cloud locks onto you and surrounds you and starts eating away at your suit.
You panic and can't see when the iron slime slams into you further damaging both you and the suit, before you can recover, arc's of yellow electricity dart around the cloud stunning you, you are being continuously being electrocuted and immobile with your protective suit is ripped asunder.
I never intended for this to happen but I'm happy it did... why did it develop this way, well that's because I added a predator that feeds on slimes and urchins, why did I do this? well as you know.
If you are prey to a predator you will be forced to evolve some way of keeping yourself safe against them where it be by tactic like this metal slime, being the pet of a fiend or construct or evolving into something to combat that predator.
I will introduce you that predator another day but for now lets get onto my last monster species for now, the personifications dark and cold. Let me tell you, this one is strange.