Help me fill in this backstory..

[Mistah J]

Hey,

The Paladin of the party is about to find himself stalked by a Flesh Golem. This is a special golem because it is intelligent - no longer having a creator to control it.

It is also special because it was built entirely from the corpses of other paladins. When it came to realize this, it began to think it was supposed to be one too and when it couldn't achieve paladinhood, it began seeking out other paladins and demanding that they tell it what part it was missing that kept it from reaching its goal.

Of course, when the paladins who would talk to it (some just tried to smite the abomination) explained that being a paladin was more than just a physical thing, the golem couldn't understand the spiritual or metaphysical concepts and eventually frustration led to rampage.

The thing now believes paladins are deliberately keeping the secret from it, so it hunts one down, tries to interrogate them and ultimately kills them and takes parts to incorporate into itself in the hope it will find the right one eventually.

What I would like to brainstorm is: How did such a creature come to exist?

Thanks!

 

[Rune]

What I would like to brainstorm is: How did such a creature come to exist?

It would be really (in)appropriate if it was actually the unintentional byproduct of sacred rites that the paladins used to honor their fallen. Perhaps a great host of them died in glorious battle and were interred with solemn ceremony--but it just happened to coincide with a bad moon and a conjunction of planets...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A Paladin-hating necromancer with the soul of a poet.

 

[Random Axe]

A chaos god punking the god of justice.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Sounds like Frankin-paladin! Pretty cool stuff that you though up about it already.

How it came into existence - I have a few ideas:
1) A cleric of an evil god was trying to create the most powerful champion of his faith by using the body parts of numerous other paladins he dug up.
2) The creature has always existed (since time beyond memory), it just became sentient of itself because it had consumed a paladin and now it is on the personal quest you described.
3) A curse by a Djinn caused a paladin who wished for something without being specific turned him into the Flesh Golem. The creature doesn't know this, but it knows that obtaining its paladinhood is the only way to save itself.
4) A spell gone awry - A group of adventurers (paladin, priest, rogue, and wizard) were out fighting evil when the wizard cast a powerful transmutation spell in a wild magic zone causing his spell to hit all of his group (him included) and creating the Flesh Golem. The Paladin's personality (think highest Charisma) was the strongest so that is the main personality of the Golem and why it is subject to trying to find more paladins to answer its question. It's obviously mad and has more personalities at this point and suffers from bouts of rage as you stated.

 

[Lwaxy]

What about someone who felt slighted by paladins took revenge on them by getting them killed and then creating an abomination out of their body parts? Probably the spirits of the paladins aren't resting yet either, and with more paladins to add to itself, the number of spirits following it grows.

 

[Derren]

Or you could turn it around and say that the creator tried the same thing the golem does now. Create the ultimate paladin from the corpses of fallen heroes.

 

[xeno_eleusis]

Simple story, a High level Chaotic Wizard who hates divine magic, came across several fallen heroes on a battle field and constructed the flesh golem on a whim. Then Teleported out of range, leaving the creature to seek it's own purpose for existing.

A Gnomish character was excluded from joining the ranks of Paladin for racist reasons who turned to necromancy as a way to get revenge. He then raided the ancestral tombs of those who would not accept him and created a flesh golem from their fathers to enact his revenge. To the dismay of the Gnomish character, crusaders hunted him down and slayed him, leaving his creation masterless.

 

[Vaslov]

It was created to train paladins in martial matters. A local trickers demipower thought it would be funny to have the poor thing think it was Pinocchio. Well a real paladin. The joke has become deadly, but the trickster power has forgotten about it and is off doing something else.

Or just wait and listen to what your players come up with. Normally players have better paranoid delusions than DMs.

 

[Stormonu]

In an ancient battle against an evil force, a band of stalwart paladins were slain and their corpses dismembered. The somewhat misguided (and desperate) cleric that had accompanied the band stitched the bodies together and reanimated it, hoping to defeat the evil fiend once and for all. However, without a true soul, it possessed none of the paladin's powers and it became child's play for the fiend to grant it just enough intelligence to realize its ironic plight - then turn it against the priest who had "made" it.