On The Golem Anvils

[Backup Lago 320]

Published in the Dwarven Journal of Arcane Knowings

"On the Golem Anvils of Old,"

 

"For the majority of the history of modern golem crafting, so called "golemancers" required an artifact known as a Golem Anvil. These anvils were critical to the golem forging process: without them, golem hearts could not be forged successfully. The Anvils were a constant source of warfare: constant and often successful attempts at their theft by a duo of mage and goblin made the dwarves paranoid, and when in Elysium the one surviving Anvil was given to the High Elves for temporary safekeeping in order to prevent it (and golemancy)'s destruction matters exploded. This led to a simmering conflict between the two races and animosity that lasts to this day.

 

Towards the end of the Anthosian Era the golem anvils were destroyed with the ancient artifact known as Ardol's Hammer, a weapon that completely destroys objects imbued with golem magics, and possibly runed artifacts in general. It is widely believed this was done because the anvils were Khorvadic artifacts: they were created through unholy magic and rather than enabling golemancy in close proximity they actively prevented it from working at long distance.

 

This is, when studied to any great extent, clearly nonsense. To disrupt a magic throughout the entire known world would take enormous power. Even if a mere anvil could project such power it would not go unnoticed by the mages of the world. It is likely whoever created this story did so in a last ditch effort to persuade the dwarves to destroy the anvils, likely with the malevolent goal of preventing their use of golem crafting for good.

 

The main argument in favour of this story is that, with the destruction of the anvils, golemancy suddenly became performable without anvils. Therefore it stands to reason that the anvils were indeed surpressing it. Or was it?

A few details are being overlooked. The previous theory on the function of golem anvils was that they magically guided and steadied the hands of the crafter, allowing them to forge cores with precision not normally possible. Golemancy had been being practiced for decades at the time of the destruction of the anvils, and it is entirely possible that we simply got better at it. We needed the crutch no longer. We also discovered far more precise core forging techniques in the Khaz'Ardol archives: the thanhic golem crafting knowledge we now possess (which almost entirely replaced their soulbound predecessors) is much more reliable than the old Braveaxe method that dates back to the Aegean Era.

 

A second point worth making that that, although many golems have been forged since the destruction of the anvils, they have all expressed... defects, from erratic behaviour to killing sprees. It had been widely assumed that Dagor Starbreaker was simply inept at the craft, but when you consider that he may be lacking a highly useful tool that the great golemancers of old did possess the defects his golems show are more understandable.

 

It strikes me as a far greater probability that the need for anvils was not removed with their destruction, but that we simply transcended the need for the crutch they provided, at least to an extent. We learned to forge golem hearts without anvils, but in losing them it became significantly more difficult to do well.

 

This leads me to believe that, were we ever to discover more anvils or even discover the secrets of their creation, they would not be artifacts of constriction to be warred over, but a benign tool to aid us in the practice of a skill they were once considered vital for."

 

- Brandt Oathcast

[Cpt_Noobman 1954]

((just a question, would this article be common knowledge to people ic, or would it be meta gaming to do so?

[Backup Lago 320]

((Common knowledge.))

[James 425]

Moved to the Archive. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.