Bound Beyond Death - An Alteration To Golem Lore

[Backup Lago 319]

The thanhic powered golem was created to replace the soulbound golems. Functionally identical, thanhic golems were meant to render soulbounds obsolete. Soulbinding was leading to contrived PKs and a dark element to golemancy that was completely at odds with golems' nature. When I implemented thanhic golems through the Last of The Scriberfolk events in Anthos, I expected soulbinding to die out. It didn't.

 

I've no idea why its popularity endured, but I figured, if soulbounds are still around and coexisting with thanhics, I might as well differentiate them a bit and make them into an interesting golem variant in their own right.

 

Bound Beyond Death

 

Background

A golem core is both power core and mind to a golem. A golem's body is little more than a rune-operated puppet and periscope for the core. The core itself is a relic of a bygone age. Knowledge of the principles of operation are long gone: golem core forging is simply following a set of instructions handed down from golemancer to student perfectly. A golemancer understands the mechanics of the core no more than an orc understands the molecular chemistry within the boar he's roasting on a stick.

 

Golem cores are made of perfect arcaurum, heated to molten and then cooled through a very precise process involving runic magics such as to create a solid cube of pure arcaurum without defects. Basic alchemy is often involved in the process. Damage to cores introducts defects to the golem core, impeding its function irreversibly, and severe damage can drive a golem beserk or cause it to creatively misinterpret instructions to destructive effect.

 

In a thanhic golem, at the heart of the core is a blue crystal of the magical material thanhium. Thanhium coverts heat into an internalised form of mana and serves the magical power source of the golem.

 

Before thanhium was rediscovered by the modern descendants in Anthos there was another way to power golems. With a few slight alterations to the forging process and the omission of thanhium (often instead incorporating some of the red stone material known as eruthium) a golem core can be made into a soulbind core. If in physical contact with (usually by being hammered into the chest of) a Descendant or Kharajyr when they die the soul is unable to pass on to the next world and is intercepted by the core and trapped within. The soul's link to the Void and the realms beyond serves as a mana source for the golem much as thanhium does, powering its body and mind.

 

The unnatural process is excruciating for the soul. Sometimes the individuality, personality and mind is completely annihilated by the process, resulting in a creature very similar to a thanhic golem, if a little more unstable. This not, however, always the case.

 

The Soulbound Golem

A soul bound to a golem core remains conscious. Thanhic golems appear to form their own consciousness or at least respond as if they are sentient: soulbound golems retain the consciousness of those killed to create them. The experience is hellish: the consciousness can submit to the oblivion and its personality and memories be completely annihilated in the process. Those who survive the binding process often remember very little of it: those soulbound golems that fully recall the agony of the binding go insane and usually must be destroyed.

 

The forging process of making a golem core changes the nature of arcaurum: it ceases to behave as a metal and becomes much more glasslike. A normal golem core appears as a brilliant translucent golden cube with intricate runic carvings both on the sides of and somehow within the material, with a crystal of thanhium elegantly fused into its centre. A soulbound core lacks the crystal. When empty it appears as a thanhic core would without a crystal, but when filled the core is filled with a murky red mist, like blood suspended in water.

 

An individual with the will or luck to suffer through the soulbinding retains their memory and personality. Deprived of all sensory input while trapped in the core they enter a sleep state, and the longer they are in it the more their memories fade away like forgotten dreams.

 

Upon being placed into a golem core the first thing a soulbound golem usually does is scream. The second thing they usually do is try to move and fall over. Used to having a mortal body, the clunkly movements of a golem form take a lot of getting used to. Upon realising what has happened to them a soulbound golem can also go insane in horror and it usually has to be broken to them carefully. It cannot be kept from them however. An awakened soulbound golem knows something is wrong: they feel completely numb and have no sense of temperature: deprived of the sensations of a mortal body everything feels wrong.

 

Soulbound golems, like normal golems, cannot feel pleasure or pain. Their emotions are dulled, they have no concept of adrenaline, they can only sense touch where touch runes are fitted (usually fingers) and they lack the senses of smell and taste. (Keep these in mind when roleplaying them: you are not playing your old character completely intact). This total numbness combined with the strength of the golem combined with its clunkly, nonfluid movements take some getting used to and soulbound golems often take a few elven days to become fully in control of their bodies.

 

A soulbound golem retains its previous personality, albeit probably broken, and any memories that survived the binding process. This mortal consciousness is not truly compatible with the golem core: soulbound golems all have a split personality between their own mind and the placid, naive and subservient thanhic golem-like persona. The mortal mind remains in control by force of will, in times of stress or distress the mortal consciousness can withdraw and the basic thanhic golem personality takes over until the mortal one can reassert itself. This persona lacks the personality and memories of the individual bound to the core and takes on the Bro-ken. For-mal. Spee-ch. Of. The. Go-lem. It is not unheard of for a soulbound golem to mimic a thanhic in order to put others at ease or in order to deceive.

 

Soulbound golems retain memories and personality but they are not the old individual "ascended" to stone form. Life as a soulbound golem is a hellish experience: they have lost their free will: they are still forced to obey commands they are given and suffer from an inability to effectively create direction of their own.

Soulbound golems still have Imperas and are compelled to obey their commands: if they resist they are overwhelmed with psychological pain until they break, the "thanhic persona" takes over and they act like a normal golem. Like thanhics it is not possible for a soulbound to successfully resist a command. Soulbounds also suffer from a lack of initiative: they require direction from their Impera and struggle to create purpose of their own. If a soulbound golem were to run from its Impera to avoid being commanded it would soon find itself not knowing what to do with itself, unable to think, and would soon find itself returning to its master as if in a trance.

 

Soulbound golems do not speak like mortals. They still speak mostly in the golem's voice and pronounce syllables as individual words (U-sing th-is t-yping con-ven-tion), but they add much more accent, colloqiual and personality to their speech. They retain their old understanding of language and can make jokes, throw insults and use sarcasm although they do so in the golem's voice and still suffer from the speech rune's inability to inflect (they cannot use ! or ? marks)

 

Like a thanhic, an soulbound cannot be its own master: it is shackled to its Impera. For the character, being a soulbound golem is an unliving hell. They have lost their free will, their body feels numb and wrong and they are doomed to this state of potential undeath for as long as their master keeps them that way: a soulbound golem cannot kill itself if its master orders it not to. This is a dark magic of enslavement and while soulbound golems may be very fun characters to play they are not happy ones.

 

A few OOC reminders about soulbound cores:

• Soulbinding requires a PK, and you can't PK a character without their player's consent.
• Soulbound golems cannot be used to convert a living character into a powerful stone form. The new soulbound golems may possess the memories and personality of who they once were but they still lack free will and initiative and remain as throughly dependant on their masters for command as their thanhic brethren.
• It is up to the player of older soulbound golems if they want to be grandfathered into this: they can RP their personality traumatically reemerging or can RP that after all these years it has been completely obliterated and nothing changes with their golem.
• The skinning convention for soulbound golems is to use darker stone than thahnics. However, this is just a convention: the colour of the golem does not indicate the nature of its core.

[SpiltMemes 367]

You're just making a bunch of stuff today, aren't ya'?

[VampsWillDie 76]

I hate this lore.

 

I'm biased.

 

Anything to do with the potential for obliterating a soul just irks me on so many levels, let alone being totally enslaved and such...it's just...not a thought I like to entertain. Disturbing on so many levels. This is probably darker than necromancy.

 

+1

[Hiebe 2475]

Hiebe Irongut is back in Golem form

 

Might get me on the play this new roleplay for a bit.

[Jistuma 1995]

This lore has been Accepted!

 

Evil golemancers.