[Shelved][✓] [Update] The Primeval Golems - Sorvians

[Swgrclan 2633]

 

The Sorvians

[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V217OrusJJw ]

 

“I have seen the end of days;

And years from now, men will say,

‘Here began the fall of the self’.”

 

A time ago, my venerable lord, who bore little to his name, crossed a sea of sand with we few loyal mean and sought to invade a land ruled by Orcs said to bear the blood of giants. Many of their kind were slain, and from the precipices of their lairs of scorched earth, a deep secret was stolen. When my lord the king returned, the Primeval Golems materialized, and the foundations of his sovereign nation were thus risen with their conception.

 

The faceless Golems, who are said to be men shaped with the bones of beasts and the skulls of passed mortals, rose as my lord’s military subjects. We, the victorious veterans of that savage war against the half-giants, were granted mantles of commandership so that the Golems may have leaders to follow upon the battlefield. Our neighbors, long to have snaked us and worked the venerable lord’s humbleness against him, were soon decimated under the might of these creatures.

 

But in due time the half-giants returned to bring ruin to the prosperity their very creation, stolen so viciously, brought to us. I cannot remember how long the war lasted… but I do recall the undoing it caused. There were no victories for either sides, for our Primeval defenders fought against the half-giants so unrelentingly that it was the wear and tear of constant warfare that ensued the crumbling of civilization around us, not the conquering of Krug’s scorned bastards.

 

The Golems… have wills of steel. They could not find it within themselves… to surrender to the misdeeds of our enemies. I have witnessed one among them nearly hacked to pieces, yet swung its blade with wild abandon and disregard for suffering and selfish weaknesses brought by mortal wounds. These beings fought for the mission of our lord without question, and in some way he was deified, until he was slain in combat by the king of those half-giant invaders.

 

It was as though a cult was given an affirmation that their fabricated god never existed. They lost the will to fight, and those that were not broken in the resulting slaughter scattered across this world. I see them, sometimes… with their macabre facelessness obscured by masks riddled with all sorts of messages and designs. Their kind exist to serve, for without a beacon to kneel to, they have nothing.

 

What They Are

 

“Corpsed beasts, twisted into men… that was the nature of the half-giant’s magics. We took their Creator-mimicking tools from them and used them to achieve something greater than toying with the nascent nature of marrow and blood.”

 

Once known as “Primeval Golems” due to the similar design of their creation to traditional Golems of the Dwed, Sorvians are creatures born from artificial bodies pieced together with the flesh, blood and bones of beasts such as wolves and elk and crowned with the skull of a truly deceased mortal. In the stolen scriptures of the half-giants, they claim the essence of the soul dwells the darkest coagulations of blood in the veins, and thus through painting the body with fresh blood, the spiritual remnants of the victimized beast’s soul regather within the vessel and incite both a reawakening and a reformation of their livelihood.

 

The origins of the Golems was, too, mentioned in the texts of the half-giants, said to be a gift of a spirit who deified the willpower of men and their ability to draw it from even the basest of ideological fabrications. This spirit, nameless to the Orcish half-giants, taught them how to bind the bones and flesh of their bestial prey together and forge them into men once adorned with the skull of an ancestor; and when the human lord came and stole their power, the very same Golems were raised to combat the half-giants and the kingdom’s enemies, but designed in a manner much more civilized and fitting to knighthood. Even if Sorvians are the reassorted flesh, blood and soul essence of mindless beasts, they are reformed in a manner that brings them closer to the state of mortality, and thus by binding with certain concepts like religious cults or doctrine-following camaraderies, they adorn their respective aesthetic aspects.

 

A skull-masked Sorvian assassin.

 

It is the absolute and inescapable nature of a Sorvian to seek mortal concepts to serve, and in most cases they are not the ones who choose to do so; it is others who recognize their capabilities and thus adopt them into their creeds. Sparse tales of the Primeval Golems say that they carry no personality of their own, and by having a soul no closer to that of a man’s as much as they did in bestial life, are perpetually stuck in a status lesser or below mortal men. Yet, through their rebirth, the souls of mere animals they bear give off flashes of brilliance earned by experience and comprehension of all things they come to witness through existing as Sorvians -- and thus, like how a child grows into its own person, the same transpires for the oldest of the Golems. The craving to serve is always constant and never-ending, but something almost mortal culminates within them… a timeless contentedness, a wistful wonder in the world, and a deep, dark yearning to be apart of something greater.

 

Because they are shaped from the bones and flesh of animals, it is impossible to fabricate the proper image of a mortal man; the repositioning and adjustment of flesh and bone, and then after rebirth, cartilage and connective tissue bids the visage of strange, almost crippled-looking specimens that, too, bear no face that defines them. This casts them into the “uncanny valley” of strange things to behold, for to have flesh wrapped around a mortal skull, yet without the features of a mortal descendant, may seem very macabre.

 

The distorted appearance of an

unmasked Sorvian.

 

Yet despite the contortions of their form and the awkward formations of their flesh, the Sorvians are as capable warriors and adherents of beliefs they come to adopt as any mortal man. Better than the standard soldier and scholar, perhaps, for not only is their dedication unwavering, but there is a bizarre chronological “pause” set upon their corporeal coil that seems to enhance their martial capacity and ability to survive in the harshest of circumstances.

The timelessness which their bodies are afflicted with is something which has its degrees of advantages and disadvantages. Mortals are defined by duration, but when put into a limbo, they simply cannot perish - to be timeless is to never have duration, by definition. So Sorvians are not foul, corrupted undead; they are merely beyond the passage of time and are not subject to its weathering. It is said of ancient Truthbearers, a lost and very old clan of the Golems, that their visages were so contorted and scarred and battle-torn because of the nature of their ideology, not because of how much time their flesh weathered. Countless blades crossed their being to no detriment to them only to carve skin which cannot change except by force, and thus by fighting these battles, the Truthbearers were lined with old wounds that eventually sealed on their own. Corporeal deter is very unorthodox within Sorvians; time or decay or illness may not be able wear them down, but direct damage does. That is why so many of them look much like some old-age Orcish brute- the Truthbearers led so many battles against their God-fearing Human foes that the strikes upon them marked them like chalk-boards.

 

The Sorvian torturer of a

Daemonic following.

 

As a result, the wounds mortals may suffer are not suffered by Sorvians. While, in battle, their limboed coils wouldn’t be able to be hacked apart, the painful removal of extremities as bad as an arm would not incite bloodflow, nor infection, nor decay. It is the unique ability of Sorvians to, if they’re able to, collect their severed pieces and seek isolation so that, after settling torn flesh and bone and sinew in place, it may seal back upon them. This process is extremely painful for them, as is the process of being dismembered, but it keeps them together all the same.

 

Though they are all intended to exist as “one and the same” - lacking individuality - it is the way that the Primeval Golems are shaped, and what they are shaped with, along with the desired aesthetics of their creator, that determines what they can look like. A Druidic creator of Sorvians may tend to slay elk so that they may reshape them into horned, lithe variations of the Golems, or a Shamanistic creator may reshape desert savage wolves of a more hunched, bulky frame, lined with patches of fur. Whatever beast is killed and then used in the ritual, it seems as though they are have the same capacity of physical strength and endurance; precisely the right amount, one might say.

 

The Sorvian warrior of a savage Orcish

Spirit cult.

 

That being said, it seems as though there is a limitation to strength that all Sorvians must struggle with. At maximum, they are capable of wearing lighter platemail and longswords, though by some law bound to their form they cannot wield greater weapons such as greatswords or suits of plate armor; preventing them from matching beings such as Darkstalkers of Xannic Keepers in terms of show of might, but perhaps not in show of skill.

 

To Create The Faceless

 

In order to achieve the creation of a Sorvian, one must first be capable of acting as what is known as a “Life Catalyst”. A Life Catalyst is a mortal being that is at least average in skill [T3] of few specific magics that have the nature of tampering with the flow of life. Magics that qualify a practitioner as a Life Catalyst are of the following:

 

Druidism

Ascendedism

Clericism

Paladinism

Necromancy

Blood Magic

Mysticism

Soul Puppetry

 

It is through being a Life Catalyst that unseen threads seem to attach to the fingers of the ritualist and, through ethereal means, tie the flesh and bones and blood of beasts together and reinvigorate their soul essences.

 

The second aspect of Sorvian creation is what exactly is needed to piece them together. The Shamanistic half-giants, who were deeply meticulous in their mystical ways, devoted an entire tome just to the creation of the Primeval Golems alone. Yet scholars of the lost kingdom that stole this power claim that the entire book is a philosophical farce, and that such deep understanding and measurement was not exactly necessary. Thus, the ingredients that must be gathered for the ritual are of the following:

- The flesh and bones of any “medium-sized” animal; elk, large wolves, cattle, etcetera. In other words, the equivalent amount of animal bones and skin needed to reshape into a semi-accurate mortal design.

 

- The blood of the same beast slain for the first ingredient. The half-giants were wise in claiming that the blood contains the essence of the soul, for when the re-assembled flesh and bones of a creature is bathed in their blood, it activates something deep within their unmoving fragments of decay. Through being a Life Catalyst, Lifeforce is drawn back into the corpse, and through the unknown designs of the ritual, chronological pause ensues to assure there is never a deeper influence capable of distorting the Golem.

 

- The skull of a mortal. The half-giants claimed this is what brought Sorvians so close to humane image, and grant them their sentience through rebirth from bestial life. Any skull will do, though it must be the skull of a long-dead man (permanently killed).

 

- The ground-up hide of a snake. In old times, among more primitive tribes, men were likened to snakes because of their self-destructive nature. It seems whatever spirit that made this ritual law in the world agreed with this, for the flesh of serpents must be ground into a fine dust before being dusted upon the skull of the fabricated body.

 

- A copy of the half-giant’s ritual-inducing prayers, written upon the flayed hide of a mortal man. Only those who know the ritual know the scripture of the half-giants.

 

In order to initiate the ritual, the Life Catalyst sew all the flesh and bones together in the shape of a man; breaking some of the bones to adjust them, if need be. Then, the fresh blood of the same beast slain for the skin and bones must be washed over the body. The mortal skull must be dusted with the serpent dust. Then, the prayer of the half-giants must be uttered in reverence:

 

“Beaukav ukewn inavo bur;

Gijak carriun shal avhe ukoul, awaken;

Spiriav riuken up from mindleukukneukuk;

Willpowas ro men, avaken.”

 

[ Beast sewn into Man, wretchedness;

Blood carried in the soul, awaken;

Spirit risen up from mindlessness;

Willpower of Men, taken. ]

 

The corpse will then be blessed with the rapid renewal of life, the chronological pause unique to Sorvians, and a newfound sentience cursed with the deep yearning to serve the concepts of men - however twisted they may be. One’s ability to create Sorvians does not require an MA, but must be tracked by the MT.

 

Their Likenesses

 

The advantages and disadvantages of Sorvians will be listed in a more summarized manner here. Guidelines are also included.

 

Advantages

 

*Sorvians are capable of being the perfect soldier; while they can feel pain, their capacity to tolerate is higher even to the degrees of dismemberment, and to lose extremities such as limbs fails to incite death-bringing afflictions such as shock or blood loss. At that point, pain and the general lack of limbs becomes the greatest deterrent.

 

*Sorvians are highly resilient to the elements and the use of clandestine utilities such as poisons. As Sorvian bodies are timeless, temporal forces such as the elements have difficulty ensuing substantial degradation to their bodies, such as freezing whether inciting frostbite or flame marking them with extreme, debilitating burns. Poisons do not work because there is not a bloodflow to lead poisons to the heart.

 

*Sorvians are unrelenting in what they believe and are incapable in faltering in this regard, much like machines and their directives. A Sorvian Canonist Priest can preach to the masses, word by word, for days upon days and with no deterrent or tire; for their will to serve their aligned way cannot be broken. This coincides with the will of soldiers as well.

 

*Sorvians bear a greater supernatural presence within their souls known as Higher-Neutrality. It prevents their timeless bodies and limboed souls from being “corrupted”, and therefore subject to the powers of Aengudaemons, as Sorvians are just as capable of serving Orders aligned with Gods as they are darker forces.

 

*Their tolerance for physical duress is high, much like their threshold for physical pain. These two bodily aspects go hand in hand, as their timelessness prevents their muscles from suffering from exhaustion that many mortals eventually feel while traveling or upon the battlefield.

 

Disadvantages

 

*Sorvians are absent of the “self”. They become “unbiased”, and have difficulty forming a new personality without being dependant on the ideologies they crave to serve.

 

*As timeless beings, Sorvians lose a majority of usual mortal functions that correlate to the basic organic design of their bodies. They can no longer “enjoy” life,  reproduce, or confide in mortal virtues until many years later, perhaps up to a century of existence. They become a blank slate, a machine, an agent, and are no longer in need of these basic mortal aspects.

 

*While they are resistant to natural temporal forces, Sorvians do not react well at all to arcane-based ones. They react almost viciously to powers summoned from the Void, because powers summon from the Void do not adhere to the passage of time, much like Sorvians, meaning these powers and the Sorvians are put on the same “existential level”. This disparages their corporeal form in ways comparable to an undead reacting to gold or holy magic; Voidal fire easily catches upon their unchanging flesh, Voidal ice incites almost immediate frostbite, and Voidal arcane power’s kinetic forces are enough to tear them apart.

 

*They must always depend on an ideology to follow, because if they are not apart of one, Sorvians are reduced to bizarre nomadic entities where they cannot fight, speak or bring themselves to do something for the sake of something else unless it involves them becoming aligned with an ideology. In this same fact, they are unbiased in this strange astray state, and do not have preferences toward either dark or light or good or evil ideologies. The design of them does not matter; it is the fact they are there and may be served that does.

 

*Sorvians bear lesser souls than men, and thus are incapable of utilizing magical powers. Hypothetically, if they were capable of it, they would end up damaging themselves as their chronological stalling reacts negatively to the presence of Voidal magic in particular.

 

*Because all Sorvians are locked into the same physical profile, their strength is limited in a way their endurance and pain profiles are not. While they are capable of being strong - as strong as a lithe soldier, at most - they are not strong enough to heft heavy armor and greater weaponry, especially not all at the same time. The most a Sorvian can wield is a heavy longsword or a two-handed battle axe or a fighting staff, and leather armor or plate mail, but never heavier weapons such as greatswords or protections such as plate suitsl or higher.

 

Guidelines

 

*Because Sorvians are no longer made from mortals due to lore changes, they are now applied through CAs after a person is selected OOC to play one and after the necessary steps are taken with both preparing and ensuing the proper ritual.

 

*Sorvians are not effected by gold or holy magic because they’re not inherently unholy or godless beings. They’re designed to accommodate all ideologies, and because of this even their very origin is neutral.

 

*Higher-Neutrality is a force implemented into the design of Sorvians by the spirit that conceived their design that prevents anything like dark or Aengudaemonic impurities from tainting the limboed soul of Sorvians, which allows for them to serve any Order without being spiritually or physically affected in long-term.

 

*Because their Lifeforce is forced to remain inside them via their limboed state in order to eternally preserve them, they cannot be drained nor can it be manipulated within them. This means a Sorvian corpse is no corpse at all - it’s just a discombobulated Sorvian that had fallen into a trance of deep inactivity in react to it’s damages which will eventually reform elsewhere. This also applies similarly for the abilities of Blood Mages, who cannot extract Sorvian Genus because Sorvian Genus does not exist within beast blood, which they bear.

 

*A Sorvian’s primary form of expression is a mask they are extremely inclined to wear upon creation. All Sorvians have different kinds of masks, and they are stylized further once they aligned with ideologies. Past markings upon their masks give incite to what ways they served before.

 

*Sorvians, because their bodies can be crafted from a variety of “medium sized animals”, mary vary in form widely but do not differ in physical capabilities. Differential aesthetics may be applied to them, from being riddled with the fur of a wolf to bearing the antlers of an elk. It is said, in legend, that the king who stole the power to create the Primeval Golems once attempted to shape a champion out of the flesh and bones of a slain dragon. It is not known if he succeeded.

 

*Sorvians get the Necrolyte race with an overlaying Sorvian race, but are not defined as undead entities.

 

*Sorvians are for both player and ET use.

 

[ Art credit is given to Halycon450. ]

 

[Ford 1990]

you're such a sweetie mwah such juicy lore as usual babe +1

[Kvasir 1118]

i play a sorvian - if this makes them more interesting, sure.

[Man of Respect 5431]

16 minutes ago, Swgrclan said:

Gijak

@Smaw

[Swgrclan 2633]

4 minutes ago, Kinslayer said:

i play a sorvian - if this makes them more interesting, sure.

0

 

 

I wrote this after a discussion with an LM regarding how dull it must be to play a character that's incapable of developing, which is pretty core to the interest of playing a character in the first place. It also removes the necessity of sacrificing an actual player character for it. Since you're one of the few who played the prior iteration, you'll only have to follow the new changes and can keep whatever history your Sorvian has had.

 

2 minutes ago, Man of Respect said:

@Smaw

0

 

 

I literally typed "black speech translator" in Google and used the first result, so I didn't use LoTC's Orcish BS variation for the ritual prayer. If this is erroneous, I can easily have it amended.

[Kvasir 1118]

Just now, Swgrclan said:

I wrote this after a discussion with an LM regarding how dull it must be to play a character that's incapable of developing, which is pretty core to the interest of playing a character in the first place. It also removes the necessity of sacrificing an actual player character for it. Since you're one of the few who played the prior iteration, you'll only have to follow the new changes and can keep whatever history your Sorvian has had.

 

that's good. :) I stopped playing him since I couldn't really get into him

[E__V__O 1984]

32 minutes ago, Swgrclan said:

To Create The Faceless

 

In order to achieve the creation of a Sorvian, one must first be capable of acting as what is known as a “Life Catalyst”. A Life Catalyst is a mortal being that is at least average in skill [T3] of few specific magics that have the nature of tampering with the flow of life. Magics that qualify a practitioner as a Life Catalyst are of the following:

 

Druidism

Ascendedism

Clericism

Paladinism

Necromancy

Blood Magic

Mysticism

 

Although i've not read the lore completely still reading. Wouldn't some other magics be under this clause? 

 

FrostWitch, Soul Puppetry, Monk magic, Xan Keepers. 

 

Are some I can name. If not what details them not to be apart of this list?

[Swgrclan 2633]

Just now, Evocress said:

 

Although i've not read the lore completely still reading. Wouldn't some other magics be under this clause? 

 

FrostWitch, Soul Puppetry, Monk magic, Xan Keepers. 

 

Are some I can name. If not what details them not to be apart of this list?

0

 

I thought of the most life-relevant magics that are available to players, which consist of magics that dabble in Lifeforce (Necromancy) or parts of the body that are very ingrained (blood with Blood Magic), as well as magics that focus on healing (all Aengulic types, really -- which includes the Keepers you mentioned as "Paladinism"). Frost Witches don't focus on life, and monk magic isn't available to anyone now. May you provide logic as to why Soul Puppetry would be included?

[E__V__O 1984]

Alright, soul puppetry focuses on directly connecting a tether/link to the persons soul which gives the puppeteer access to the soul blueprint which is mirrored on the person. With this puppeteers are able to directly effect the person bounds physical or mental state altering this soul blueprint to do such. 

 

If it would work alongside this, with as you described you've missed soul temperament which necromancy can do though soul puppetry focuses most on. Which I believe would suit in the lore well. 

[Swgrclan 2633]

Soul Puppetry has been added to the list.

[Vindicant 641]

Would the forming of a Sorvian be considering immoral to Tahariae?

 

I ask as a Cleric, as it would be cool to have a white-robed Sorvian warrior who likes to save descendants.

[Swgrclan 2633]

47 minutes ago, Vindicant said:

Would the forming of a Sorvian be considering immoral to Tahariae?

 

I ask as a Cleric, as it would be cool to have a white-robed Sorvian warrior who likes to save descendants.

0

 

I would think the alternative or fringe followers of Tahariae would be more inclined to making Sorvians for their clan, but considering that Sorvians are not exactly undead and exist as tools, I don't believe he would outright reject them. Especially if they can become vessels for his faith.

[Stolos 19]

"Cool"

[Parker 389]

Damn sorvians look pretty cool.

[Avacyn 1706]

horrible lore