How is it that we define life? For some, it entails a particular state of perception and reason, for others a mere biological and chemical state, and for others something different. There are those who would not classify the lifeless husk of the undead mummy as alive, but can you say the same of the immortal, fiendish vampires of legend who walked amongst us, reciting our poetry and seducing our women? What life burns in the great Spectral Wraiths of the Glimmering, whose bodies are incorporeal, and whose tongue is as frightening and incomprehensible as the howling wind?

The answer, dear friends, is that life is defined in as many strange, wonderful, and oftentimes horrific ways as there are creatures that walk our fair land. And perhaps one of the strangest creatures of all is known as the Oregolem.

The Oregolem has been known to inhabit various places within Arcanum, yet tends to be found mostly within the deepest caverns of the Grey Mountains, or among the windblown dunes of the Vendigroth Wastes. The earliest dwarven histories speak of battles with these fierce and mindless creatures, which they named Njord Frigg, or the Furious Mountain. The dwarves feared it because it was relentless and unstoppable. They feared it because it was alive, and it was made of stone

The Oregolem is a massive creature; specimens have been known to exceed 18 feet in height alone. They are humanoid in appearance, with two arms, two legs and a shapeless head that may or not be split with an irregular, crooked maw. It walks upright, like a man, and has an extremely aggressive, and often deadly, disposition towards anything and anyone who disturbs it. It does not eat, nor is there any known record of it mating or producing progeny. They do not speak or make noise, save from the terrible grinding of the its massive stone limbs upon one another as it stalks its prey.

Many are the stories of Stone Elementals and the wizards who summon and control them. Make no mistake. Many more are the stories of foolhardy mages who sought to defeat the Oregolem with similar magicks, and whose lives were forfeit because of that shortsightedness. The Oregolem, from what we can surmise, is no creature of magick. And although no blood flows within the solid stone of its rock carapace, it most definitely lives and is best left to its own devices. Our studies have shown that the only way to defeat an Oregolem is to literally blast it to bits, or to hack off those limbs which it might use for locomotion. It is not at all uncommon for adventurers to employ dwarven sappers if they believe that Oregolems might be happened upon.

Advice for the itinerant traveler who stumbles upon an Oregolem? Run, my friends, plain and simple. Oregolems, as invincible as they might seem, are not the fastest creatures in all of Arcanum. Better be the coward's way than the crushing death between those great hands of stone.