what could a golem made of hands do?

[King of Nowhere]

this has become a brick joke in our group.

back when they were still low level, the party faced an assassin. the party chased him in an area where using magic was dangerous. once defeated, the assassin tried to get away (with a single use item), but the spell misfired and different pieces of the assassin were teleported in different places. one hand fell beside the party. the party decided to collect the hand as a keepsake.
this started a tradition. since then, the party has kept the hand of every assassin sent against them. and they started joking of making a golem with all those hands.
eventually, they stormed the private demiplane of vecna (who, in my campaign setting, was killed one century ago as a culmination of a previous campaign; basically, the party wanted to loot the corpse for divine energy), and they got ahold of the other hand of vecna.

So now they have a bunch of hands, some of them having belonged to pretty powerful creatures, and all those hands were collected after killing the owner in combat. and they have the hand of a dead god too.
At this point I'd like to figure out what this golem of hands could do. I'm quite out of ideas (besides free use of all the hands spells). one of the players suggested giving each hand a gun, and treating it as a sort of machine gun.
I'll take suggestions.

[Inevitability]

The Hecatoncheires (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Hecatoncheires)'s Superior Multiweapon Fighting might be interesting.

If you want this not to use weapons, you can instead give it solid unarmed strikes, improved grab and grapple-focused abilities.

Lastly... what about a serpent-like shape, where every hand is grasping the wrist of the one in front of it, to create several 'strings' that are then 'braided' into a tough creature? This'd let you focus on movement and flexibility.

Another interesting move I envision is the golem grabbing a creature and leaving a number of its hands clinging to the target, which can be statted as an ongoing effect or as separate creatures that come into existence grappling. You could even add an option for a character to grab the tail end and wield the entire thing as a freaky prehensile whip, though I'm not sure what the benefit of that would be.


If the hand of vecna is involved, you can have the golem's touch deal cold or negative energy damage, deliver ability damage, or inflict some status debuff.

[Saintheart]

It should be very good at hand to hand to hand to hand to hand combat.

[CapnWildefyr]

Probably good at poker too. Hand jive. What is the sound of one hand golem clapping?

Seriously its special attack could be a clapping confusion. I might be able to climb almost anything, move across any surface. I'm thinking like a gibbering mouther, a sort of amorphous form.

[Saintheart]

Seriously its special attack could be a clapping confusion.

I vote for giving PCs the Clap (Ex).

[Telonius]

The most epic jazz hands you'll ever see.

[Inevitability]

Holding several dozen conversations in drow sign language has to be useful in some way, right?

[Tzardok]

You could use the Creeping Claw (from Lost Empires of Faerûn) instead. It's a construct and it's a swarm of animated hands. Also quite fun.

[Saintheart]

Holding several dozen conversations in drow sign language has to be useful in some way, right?

You could say it's quite ... handy.

[Telonius]

Cast Hideous Laughter without using a spell slot. (Requires grapple).

[Saintheart]

Cast Hideous Laughter without using a spell slot. (Requires grapple).

It's a good way to come to grips with the subject.

[Tzardok]

It seems the puns have a stranglehold on this thread. But that is no reason to point fingers. Let's just all palm down. :smalltongue:

[Berenger]

These are not just hands, but the hands of evil murderers.

Historically, such hands have been made into a variety of artifacts (e.g. Hand of Glory, Totenhände) said to grant powers akin to Hold Person, Darkvision, Knock, Protection from Evil or various healing spells.

[Morphic tide]

You could use the Creeping Claw (from Lost Empires of Faerûn) instead. It's a construct and it's a swarm of animated hands. Also quite fun.
They're a weird boundary case, they can be made as Constructs or Undead depending on edition and method. Additionally, they're specifically left hands, while King of Nowhere has Vecna's right, as the "main" Hand of Vecna artifact is his left. They're also dependent on the spirit of the person who's hand it is same as most Golems have Earth Elementals in them, so the party would have to dredge up Vecna to put in his own still-slightly-Divine hand, which is just begging for him to revive himself the rest of the way somehow.

As for my own idea, I'd go with merging the largest hands like a Fingercreeper (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Rp-5VWbJk) (video covering them for animated reference) to form the main body mass, with a "torso" rising from the final wrist joint formed by having thumbs fuse with carpus bones (the cluster at the base of the hand) and fingers with the stubs of forearms. Smite Fallen from the Crawling Claw Swarm would be an amusing bit to keep, an ability like the Cadaver Golem's Assimilate Flesh based around adding new hands would directly indicate acquiring Climb, Open Lock, and Slight of Hand as skills as well as abilities like Favored Enemy, Smites, Sneak Attack, and Flurry of Blows, and getting innate slots in the thing wouldn't be entirely weird given it's only one component they'd lack and dragging souls in has a remarkable variety of ways to go about it.

How much of an inventory have you kept track of, and in how much detail? Because that'd definitely inform the options that may be carried over.

[KillianHawkeye]

It'd be pretty good at giving massages, I guess?

[Saintheart]

It'd be pretty good at giving massages, I guess?

It certainly could be said to be hands-on.

[Thurbane]

Should have a big racial bonus to Slight of Hand checks.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If made with the Hand of Vecna (and The Other Hand of Vecna), it could be the catalyst for Vecna's return.

[Saintheart]

If made with the Hand of Vecna (and The Other Hand of Vecna), it could be the catalyst for Vecna's return.

His cultists would be high-fiving one another.

[Elvensilver]

I think at this point a list of all the ideas until now might come in handy:

- Free use of all hand spells due to the right Hand of Vecna
- Grappling
- improved unarmed strike
- improved grab
- the Hecatoncheires' Superior Multiweapon Fighting
- Detaching hands
- Abilty to clap (Ex)
- Tickling after grapple (Like Tasha's hideous laughter)
- Drow Sign language
- Bonus to the Sleight of Hand skill
- assimilate new hands, to get
- smites
- favorite enemy
- flurry of blows
- etc.
- Hand of Glory-like abilities, such as Darkness, Knock, healing due to being made out of the hands of assassines

Oh my, that's quite a handsome list. I would like to build that monster myself now. :smallamused:

[Saintheart]

I would offer a helping hand, but you've got this worked out.

[King of Nowhere]

I appreciate all the help.
we can say you guys lend me a hand

[Sir_Chivalry]

Dragon Magazine suggested that the cult of Vecna makes a special flesh golem out of hands which wields two large longswords and gets an extra slam attack (with its "head" which is a hand) which has Improved Grab

[PraxisVetli]

It could finally satisfy Carl's hunger

[Lord Torath]

It could make all kinds of faces (https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Helping+Hands+Labyrinth&iax=images&ia=images).

[AnonJr]

It could make all kinds of faces (https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Helping+Hands+Labyrinth&iax=images&ia=images).

I haven't thought about Labyrinth in so long... thank you for that. :smallsmile: