Art by Brian Valenzuela. Copyright 2009 Wizards of the Coast.

This article is part of a series! Click here to see the other entries.

The Lore

As we saw back in the Colossus entry for the Monster Manual, colossi are at the top of the tech tree for traditional constructs, and only gods and near-divine spellcasters have the power to create them. They’re the kind of thing that was used as a weapon in the Dawn War. Well, here we learn that the gods weren’t the only side of that war that could make colossi.

In the post linked above, I made a reference to the giant monsters from the Shadow of the Colossus game. The primordial colossus we’re looking at here fits them much better than the godforged variant from the first Manual.

Most primordial colossi were created at the time of the Dawn War, and being as ageless as their creators they still exist today. Some roam the planes seeking to fulfill the orders of their long-gone masters, but others lie dormant looking for all the world like shattered ruins or broken parts of the landscape. When someone approaches them, they rise and smash the intruder.

The magic that goes into a primordial colossus is a little wilder and less controlled than the one that goes into the god-forged variant. The principles behind it are such that a primordial colossus might be created by accident in any event that causes the release of a massive amount of elemental energy. This includes the awakening or destruction of a mighty elemental being. It’s also possible for an epic spellcaster to acquire and perform the ritual to create one of these constructs.

The Numbers

Once again we get a single stat block here, so let’s get right to it.

Primordial Colossus

This baby is a Huge Elemental Animate with the Construct keyword, and a Level 29 Elite Brute with 640 HP. It’s immune to disease, fear, poison and sleep, and has a Variable Elemental Resistance 15 switchable 3 times per encounter. Its ground speed is 10.

Primordial colossi really lean into that mechanic for composite energy damage. They have an Elemental Presence aura (5) that deals 15 damage of the “acid, cold, fire, lightning, and thunder” type to anyone caught inside. You need resistance to all five types in order to not take full damage from it.

Their basic slams do physical damage, but they likely prefer to use a Colossal Slam maneuver (close blast 3 vs. AC), which does the same damage over an area and triggers a secondary attack vs. Fortitude that does a bit of extra five-type elemental damage.

When an enemy moves adjacent to the colossus, it can use a Reactive Kick as a reaction, targetting Fortitude, doing a good bit of five-type damage, pushing the target 4 squares and knocking it prone. This recharges once the colossus is first bloodied.

Staying away does you no good, since it can throw Primordial Stones (Ranged 20 vs. Reflex) that do only a bit less damage than the slam and have a secondary area attack (Close Burst 5 vs. Fortitude) which does that sweet five-type damage.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions

The two sample encounters have primordial colossi guarding ancient ruins alongside other similarly powerful apotropaics:

  • Level 26: 1 primordial colossus, 2 great flameskulls, 1 slaughterstone hammerer.

  • Level 27: 1 primordial colossus, 1 primordial naga.

Maybe an epic adventure centered on Far Realm opposition could have some horrible aberrant secret guarded by both godforged and primordial colossi - something so terrible the gods and primordials actually joined forces to protect.

Mechanically, I find those Big Balls of Elemental Damage in the colossus’ stat block to be a lot of fun. It’s so hard to resist you’d get the same result by just using straight physical damage, but describing it this way reinforces the elemental nature of the creature… and you get to see the look on your players’ faces as you announce they took acid, cold, fire lightning and thunder damage.