Statues (Vampire Golems and Guardian Constructs)
Vampire Golems and Guardian Constructs featured in Defiance.
In Defiance, Kain and Raziel fought animated winged statues. These statues could be found in the Reaver Forges, inside and outside of Vorador's Mansion, and in the Earth Forge's Warp Gate room. They were designed to protect important artefacts or places from intruders. They were 'once merely normal statues' that had been enchanted by the Ancient Vampires to animate in response to specific events; for example, when someone entered a room or approached an item.[1,2]
There were two types of animating statue, both named in Prima's Official Defiance Strategy Guide. They superficially resembled the Ancient Vampires (whose magic gave them 'life'), and both types carried swords, apparently made of carved stone like the rest of the figure. The first - and most frequently encountered - statues were the Vampire Golems. Raziel fought Defiance's first Vampire Golem in the Light Forge, and his most memorable encounter with them was in the courtyard of Vorador's Mansion. Two animated and attacked him when he tried to open the mansion's front door.[1]
The Vampire Golems were slow-moving but very strong. They were protected by a glowing aura that shielded them from physical damage. However, maintaining this shield required a lot of magical energy, and the statues only had limited reserves to draw upon. If the statue expended some magical energy to swing its sword, its shield would vanish until the statue recovered. It was temporarily vulnerable during this time. Raziel and Kain had to lure Golems to swing their sword, dodge the sword at the last moment, then swiftly counter-attack while the Golem's shield was down. When faced with several Vampire Golems, a good tactic was to make them hit each other by running between them.[1]
As the Vampire Golems sustained damage, parts of them were chipped away. When they were finally defeated, they exploded, as shafts of light broke through the stone figure from the inside, shattering it. Perhaps this was the statue's remaining magical energy escaping from a vessel too compromised to contain it any longer.
The second type of statue were the Guardian Constructs. They were bigger than the Vampire Golems, but had more endurance and agility. The most obvious difference was the Constructs' use of fire. They had a fiery shield which 'inflicts massive damage on an attacker who strikes the enemy while it is active'. The Guardian Constructs could also launch fireballs at Kain and Raziel. Kain and Raziel needed to avoid these, and wait for a Construct to drop its fiery shield before they could assault it directly. Even then, they had to be wary of the Guardian Construct's sharp sword. Guardian Constructs half-crumbled, half-exploded when defeated.[3]
References
- Defiance: Prima's Official Strategy Guide (ISBN 0761544674)
- [DEF] Kain (referring to a pair of Guardian Constructs): "These statues were singularly inanimate. I knew better than to assume they would always remain so."
- The Defiance Game Manual (UK and US versions)
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