Colossus

Colossus
The image accompanying the Colossi chapter in the Undying Dynasties armybook.
Faction	Undying Dynasties
Category	Mason's Menagerie

I met a traveller from a southern land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Serve well the words on which the stone feet stand.
'My name is Phatep, king of kings:
This mighty city shows wonders of my hand.'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

— Parzeval Schalle

The colossus is a unit part of the Undying Dynasties faction.

Beatrix von Ueblingen and her expedition encounters large colossal statues in Naptesh in 962 A.S.. They are described as being "to the height than the largest guild houses on the Geldstrasse", even in ruins, and are described as being reminiscent of Schalle's poem (see above).

The colossi are said to be animated to life by the Naptaan priests.

Trivia

The poet Parzeval Schalle's name is a spoof on the real world, 19th century British poet Percy Shelley. The poem quoted above is a paraphrase of the sonnet Ozymandias, one of Shelly's greatest works. Ozymandias is the ancient Greek name of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II, widely remembered as perhaps the greatest Pharaoh of Egypt. It is easy to draw parallels between the real-world Ramesses II and the game world's Phatep, both called 'king of kings' and considered the greatest rulers of their respective empire.

It might also be worthy of note that Percy Shelley was married to Mary Shellley, author of the Gothic classic Frankenstein . The novel has made a lasting impression on popular culture including genres as horror, science fiction and fantasy. Perhaps not a direct influence, but its not a far-fetched guess that Frankenstein and its ideas about re-animation, the undead and the self-made god has had made a deep impact in the design of the Undying Dynasties.