Stone Guardian

About
Stone Guardians are a species of Guardian, artificially-crafted Monsters with high combat ability designed to safeguard a designated area or person.

Compared to other varieties of guardian, Stone Guardians are relatively simplistic in construction, and are composed entirely of large rocks. While most resemble the upper torsos of muscular male humanoids, there is no true consistency in appearance between individuals within the species, causing some to look very different from others. Despite these cosmetic differences, they are universally incredibly large, often reaching heights of up to 384cm and weighing as much as 1,975kg.

Created for the sole function of acting as sentries, Stone Guardians lack egos and are thus incapable of any independent thought outside of subduing intruders. They are not completely without intelligence, however, and are able to understand and follow rudimentary commands issued to them by their creators, such as differentiating between allies and enemies. Their stone bodies also provide them with a natural camouflage in mountainous environments, making them unexpectedly skilled at ambushing.

In battle, Stone Guardians are extremely durable opponents whose sturdy bodies allow them to both give and take great amounts of damage. Furthermore, they possess a seemingly unique ability that allows them to prevent their enemies from withdrawing from combat, forcing those that encounter them in battle to fight until either they or the guardian itself falls. This deadly combination of attributes allow stone guardians to pose a significant threat to even high level adventuring parties, enough to rank them among the strongest species of monsters.

A special variety of Stone Guardian known as a Super X-Type Stone Guardian (スーパーXタイプのストーン・ガーディアン, sūpā X taipu no sutōngādian), which have exponentially higher physical abilities than normal members of the species, is known to exist. A single one of these guardians is powerful enough to fight formidably against an entire army on its own, but requires such a significant amount of time and effort to construct that few have ever been seen.

Trivia

 * The Super X-Type Stone Guardian's name is derived from that of Cemedine Super X, a Japanese brand of adhesive.
 * The Stone Guardian received the fewest number of votes in the "Monsters" category of the Rance III Popularity Poll, with the development team speculating that their lack of popularity was due to how difficult they were to defeat. Notably, the monster was not included in Rance 03, the remake of Rance III, possibly in response to this.
 * An enemy resembling a Stone Guardian known as a "Stone Lump" (石の塊, Ishi no katamari) appears in the Alice's Cottage 2 sub-game Naguri Makuri Tower, which is set on The Continent. It is unclear how this enemy is, if at all, connected to the normal variety of stone guardian.