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[✗] Creature Lore - Golems


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Golems

 

 

 

Physical Description

 

 
 
 
 
Spoiler

The body is composed of several parts, held together with magic rather than mechanical interfaces. Motion is achieved by pairs of runes carved onto the material which operate in a similar manner to muscles and allow the golem to move its limbs.

 

The most complicated part of a golem limb is the hand, as it involves so many parts. Unlike the larger joints, golem hands do tend to have some physical interlocking, and exterior runes are worked into the fingers to give the golem a rudimentary sense of touch. While the golem seems to manage without these touch runes on the rest of its body, it seems to need them on its fingers or it crushes anything it attempts to hold.

 

While in theory any material could be used to create a golem, there are limitations. Any metal causes problems for the runes or enchantments, and the golem will either not animate at all or the core will shatter. Obsidian is too heavy for the golem enchantments or runes to move.

 

Golem size is limited by the strength of the core. While a golem is very strong, golem cores cannot effectively animate a golem larger than a common Uruk orc (7 to 7.5ft). 9-foot tall golems are possible but suffer from defects such as arms dropping off without warning.

 

The golem head contains many complex runes required for the golem to sense and speak. The eyes of a golem are one of the few runes that need to be exposed, and they glow brightly when the golem uses them.

 

 

 

Mental Description

 

((Reminder: The restrictions on Golems behaviour have been loosened somewhat. This is to allow for a greater enjoyment while playing a Golem character, as they have been rather dimensional and dry in the past. This means that Golems can now adapt and evolve as time goes by. Some may become slightly more intelligent, others may develop rudimentary personalities (bring on the sarcastic golem), and others still may become more nimble. All of these adaptations are, however, rudimentary. Even the smartest Golem is still dumb in comparison to a normal character. Even the strongest Golem still has only a marginal advantage over a regular one. Even the nimblest of Golems still has an over-sized clumsy stone design. No matter what the adaptation, a Golem cannot defy its Impera either.))

 
 
 
 
 
3
Spoiler

Golems obey every command of the being they view as their “Impera”. Impera appears to mean “master” at first glance, but there appears to be far more to its meaning. Impera is a word ingrained into the golem. It is incapable of referring to anyone as Impera save its Impera, and cannot view itself as its own Impera (if it did, it would become locked in an eternal loop of waiting for orders from itself.)

 

A golem’s first Impera tends to be the first person it sees upon its creation. While people tend to view the golem’s Impera as some sort of specific magical attachment, the concept is entirely in the golem’s mind. If a golem’s Impera dies or goes missing the golem will seek out a new Impera. The only other way to change a golem’s Impera is for the current Impera to command the golem does such.

 

A new golem knows very little apart from how to operate its body and the concept of Impera. Occasionally they also seem to possess a very basic vocabulary, but often they know no words beyond “Impera.” Golems usually need to be taught almost everything, but, like a child, they are capable of learning very quickly when they are new. In the first few days of their existence, a golem is capable of understanding an Impera’s meaning even if it cannot understand their speech. This could be how they are capable of picking up the Impera’s language so quickly.

 

A golem mind is a simple one. A golem takes what is said literally, metaphors and implications are beyond its comprehension. If ordered to carry out a task, it is not unheard of for them to continue to do so until told to stop. They are not creative. If ordered, for example, to build a house, a golem will either attempt to badly copy something it views as a house or simply pile materials on top of each other. It is incapable of designing.

 

Golem speech is slow, monotonous, and devoid of harmony. They are incapable of intonation. ((The convention for golem speech is to never use exclamation or question marks, capitalize every word and separate syllables with hyphens. An Ex-am-ple Is This. Sometimes full stops are used for every word. An. Ex-am-ple. Is. This.))

 

Research into golems has defined two primary personality stereotypes, known as Blue and Red, from which golems seem to deviate surprisingly little. A Blue Golem is one that seems content to serve and carries out commands to the best of its ability. A Red Golem is one that seems compelled to serve. While they are very similar in mannerisms, a red golem is likely to willfully misinterpret commands to their Impera’s detriment. Red golems are also far more likely to go berserk. 


 

 

 

 

General Red lines/Restrictions

 

 
 
 
1
Spoiler
  •  A golem is not a descendant. While a golem does possess increased strength, they lack intelligence, dexterity, speed, and many other things that the average descendant has. 

  • If magic is able to penetrate or reach the core of a golem, the golem will begin to lose function. Golems are able to use enchanted or runic weapons as long as the magic does not affect them internally. Internal applications include but are not limited to; Runesmithing runes carved upon the Golem’s surface, or a mana gem embedded into the Golem’s body. Golems may not use any magic. This is not to say that one may press their magical item next to the core and disable a golem. 

  • For now, golems must not be made of metal. It is also improbable and impractical for them to wear armor. Paint may be applied to a Golems body, however, it cannot be applied near or on and runes or cores. 

  • All golems can become red, a state of being in which the golem is incredibly likely to misinterpret their Impera’s commands and go berserk They see everything as a potential threat and will try to attack it, even their Impera. Going red can be caused by a multitude of things, such as damage to the core, improper creation, and much more. It is imperative that golemancers monitor their creations to check for any damage.

  • Golems are not impervious to damage. While golems are strong and hard to kill, they are not invincible and can be taken down by a group of descendants. Especially if any among them know where to strike. If a weapon were to disturb or destroy a rune or the core, the golem could become disabled or risk becoming red if the damage to the core remains unrepaired. If a sharp weapon, with enough force, were to strike a rune and cause enough damage, the golem may lose function of the rune. If the rune were a motor rune, the golem may lose strength in that arm or lose function of that particular limb. If the motor rune on a golem’s shoulder were disabled or destroyed, the golem would still have function of its forearm and hand, just not the shoulder itself. 

  • If a golem’s Impera is absent for 3 years (In Role-play), the golem in question may leave its Impera. This is driven by the simple fact that golems ‘live-to-serve’ and without direction, their existence is meaningless to them. Often the very next person the golem sees, this person becomes their Impera. The golem may not leave their new Impera unless another similar situation should arise, in which their Impera is inactive. ((If the player who is role-playing the Impera goes on holiday and informs the golem of such a hiatus, this becomes null. This is simply in place so that if a Golemancer or Impera goes inactive without any forewarning, golems may continue to roleplay.))

 


 

Golem Types

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
14
Spoiler

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.

 

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 clunky 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.

 

(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 clunky, 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, colloquial 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, a 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.

 

 

The Thanhic Golem

 

The Thanhic Golem is best described as a naive, subservient child that is unable to make decisions for itself. Golems quite literally ‘live to serve’ and cannot even fathom the concept of free-will. As with all golems, they must be taught and shown everything. When first turned on, the golem does not speak the common tongue but has a certain understanding of its Impera’s intentions.

 

The Thanhic Golem, much like all other golems, is incapable of speaking like most descendants, only able to speak slowly in syllables, such as;  The. Bro-ken. For-mal. Spee-ch. Of. The. Go-lem.

 

Thanhic 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.

 

 

Swift Golem

 

While the Swift Golem is the fastest amongst its brethren, it is by no means faster than any descendant. It is still slightly slower than the average descendant and most likely as strong as one. This meant that a Swift Golem could be rendered incapacitated by a few quick blows to key locations on the body, thus dislocating its limbs entirely. Quick learners compared to the other golem types, they are still a golem and require extra time to come to grips with some concepts. Swift Golems speak like their brethren, but somewhat faster and more coherent.


 

Brawn Golem 

 

The Brawn golem is certainly the strongest of it’s brethren and it is most certainly the slowest golem, in more ways than one. It is also incredibly stupid and only capable of manual labor. The brawn golem is unable to willingly harm anyone, but this is not to say that it cannot hurt someone who throws themselves in it’s way. To surmise, it cannot directly harm anyone. Brawn golems can speak somewhat intelligently, but as with other golem types they are much like a baby when first created, and must be taught everything. This factor is exacerbated when in regards to Brawn golems. They will take twice as long to understand concepts and it can become frustrating for the golemancer attempting to inform the golem.


 

Multi-Cored Golem

 

 Multi-core golems make use of the unique properties of the Command and Slave Cores. Through these two core types, Multi-core golems gain much higher cognitive skills, as well as additional motor skills. The behavior of the multi-cored golem is much like the soulbound golem, save a few characteristics. As described above, it’s existence is an unliving hell.

 If for any number of reasons a core were to become red, it would slowly spread amongst the rest of the cores until the golem itself was red. If one of the ‘outer’ cores were to go red, it would slowly spread until repaired. If left to fester, it would eventually spread to the command core, making the entire golem go red. Much like the normal soulbound golem, the multi-cored golem is capable of some intonation and accent in their speech, perhaps more due to the command core’s abilities. Regardless, the golem still speaks syllables as words and breaks often between words. (still cannot use ! or ? marks.)

 

 


 

Purpose (OOC)

 

 The purpose of this lore is to add specifications and to create a separate post for anything related to Golems and the expectations placed upon those who have decided to play one. In the past, all lore regarding the magic of Golemancy and the creature lore of Golems was lumped together in a pit of confusion and wasted time. Now they are divided and able to streamline the process of finding and learning more about the lore.


 

Citation Spoiler


 

This lore piece draws heavily from Dizzy771’s post on golemancy. Here.

Link to the LoTC Wiki on Golemancy. Here.

Link to the LoTC Wiki on Golems. Here.

Link to the LoTC Wiki on Arcaurum. Here.

Link to the LoTC Wiki on Arcaurum/Mage Gold. Here.
Link to forum post on Arcaurum/Mage Gold.. Here.

Link to the LoTC Wiki on Thanhium. Here.

 

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Golem is best playable creature +1

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But here’s a few reasons why--

 

The main part of this thread that I have serious issue with is this section right here:
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This section is something I am against, which I generally label as Micro-Management in regards to when and how a golem character may do one thing or another. It’s too detailed and not enough is left up to the player’s choice. There will be golem players who will not want to wait this long just to say their impera is inactive and finally be able to find another one. A golem cannot function in their current lore [and this lore if it were implemented] without the direction of an Impera, so while the golem is waiting out these IRP 3 years, the player can do nothing. This is too long, and there should never be an actual timeframe written into the lore for this, it should simply say “If a golem’s Impera dissappears, the golem can’t find them for too long, or the Impera passes away, then the golem may turn to seek out a new impera in order to give itself purpose and to continue to have the orders that it needs to function” or something along those lines.

 

Giving it an actual timeframe means a golem player will have to sit and wait it out, even if they know that their impera has gone on hiatus or quit the server, or been banned. I don’t know many people [including myself, I’ve been playing them for years] who would want to do that. If I can’t find my Impera in like idk, 3-4 days of logging on and not seeing them, I’m likely to move on. Even if they haven’t left the server, clearly our roleplay times don’t meet up and I need to find someone else.

 

My second point with the same section of lore, “Often the very next person the golem sees is their new impera” Im not alright with this either, choosing the new impera should always be left up to the player, not the lore. For instance, my golem Ursus is generally trained as a war golem, so when he chooses a new Impera he seeks out someone within that genre because that is what he’s used to. That’s the roleplay explanation, but in all actuality, I am not about to run around in a city and pick some random person to trust with being 100% in control of my roleplay character. What if I pick some rando off the street and they tell Ursus “Go climb the tallest mountain, take this pickaxe, and level it.” Yeah great, now I get to roleplay by myself for ages while I terraform a mountain. Then you also have the typical response some golem owners go with, where they have you gather materials like stone or wood, no roleplay there either. Just hours in the pits. Selecting an Impera is a very delicate process, I hold it on the same level as when someone picks a player to roleplay their character’s child, you don’t just hand it out to the first person you see.

 

My final point with this same section, “the golem may not leave their impera unless this same or similar situation should arise.”
This would lock players into the golem-impera relationship in potentially undesireable situations, sure, the golem might be getting roleplay and getting orders that it needs so technically it shouldnt leave. But what if those orders are the kind of roleplay I don’t like? Take Glothir for instance, my longest RP’d golem. He’s trained in combat, but I hate CRP/PVP, so I avoid it as much as possible. If I ended up with an Impera who was a bad guy or someone who uses violence to solve everything and constantly orders my golem to crush people, I’m not going to be having any fun at all and I will need a way to explain in RP as to why I’ve left this Impera in search of another. With this line in the lore, the Impera could quote it say that Im breaking lore if I leave them to find a new impera in RP, and this would be actually enforceable by the LT. That’s incredibly scary, I don’t want to be locked in a situation like that. A golem player should be allowed to leave their current Impera for whatever reasonable excuse they can make up in RP. 

That’s most of my issues I had with this lore, the remaining reasons why I -1 it is because not much of anything has changed, the formatting for the post looks terrible, which makes it hard to read, and the description of Blue Golems versus Red Golems isn’t detailed enough.

 

Edit: Im not active on the forums but the amount of +1s to this scared me so I tossed in my two cents, but don’t expect me to reply to anyone who quotes me and tries to argue my points, this is all my personal opinion based on previous interactions as a golem roleplayer and I dont really have any reason to prove whether or not Im right to someone ovo 
I mean it in the most constructive way, I just want to protect future golem players from undesireable situations.

Edited by Sybbyl0127
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Lmao, don’t expect him to argue his point, yeah sick one dude. Golems have always been followers to what their impera says, if you don’t like what you’re being made to do, perhaps golems aren’t for you, or you should speak with them oocly about.

8 hours ago, Sybbyl0127 said:

But what if those orders are the kind of roleplay I don’t like?

Bad fuckin luck, you’re literally playing a stone servant, don’t play a golem if you just wanna have free will, that’s not what they are.

 

As for the times set before you can find a new impera, that has to be a set amount of time or people like you decide they don’t like what their impera is asking of them and leave when he’s not active enough in their mind, rushing off to be their friends impera because like you said. . .

8 hours ago, Sybbyl0127 said:

choosing the new impera should always be left up to the player

Again, that would imply the golems have free will to make their own choices instead of just obeying the next person they find as they should when they lose an impera. Your excuse is ‘Ohh what if I know my impera is gone or they get banned’ than you make an LT req and explain it with proof and I’m sure something can be worked out, otherwise, play another character for a little while, these guidelines are in place for a reason.

 

Feel free to write your own lore for both golemancy and golems as a creatue if you’re unhappy with what is set and how the post is formatted.

The reason it’s had only positive responses so far is because it’s an entirely sensible reformatting of the lore that understands how golems work, the only distaste I’ve seen is from golem players who want to walk around like descendants and do as they please.

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15 hours ago, Sybbyl0127 said:

Giving it an actual timeframe means a golem player will have to sit and wait it out, even if they know that their impera has gone on hiatus or quit the server, or been banned. I don’t know many people [including myself, I’ve been playing them for years] who would want to do that. If I can’t find my Impera in like idk, 3-4 days of logging on and not seeing them, I’m likely to move on. Even if they haven’t left the server, clearly our roleplay times don’t meet up and I need to find someone else.

Yeah,  not giving a timeframe means you’ll see golems hoping daily from impera to impera saying oh no he was inactive or inventing an excuse for that.

As Z3m0s said, golems aren’t exactly known for their free will, Daedra has written the lore that allows golems to adapt, to learn, but they are still servants, they must follow certain protocols, most Golemancers I know tend to make the protocols so they allow some freedom to their constructs. But if you don’t like needing commands to rp then don’t play a construct that requires that.

It’s like trying to play a paladin assassin, it doesn’t work that way!

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This lore is very good and you know I’m being honest because I hate McDaedra 

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Oh no syb and my dwarf friends are arguing mom pick me up im scared

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Thank you for submitting your Lore Games draft! You will receive input on what needs to be fixed within the next 2 weeks.

 

Edit: This lore has been placed on pending with the input from Story members on what needs to be fixed sent over PMs.

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This lore has been denied as a new submission will be submitted by OP.

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