Golem of Prague

The golem of Prague is a legendary exemple of a golem, a clay sculture given a facsimile of life through kabalistic magic.

## Biography

In the late 16th century the Holy Roman Empire saw many antisemitic pogrom against the local jewish communities, accused of poisoning wells and making human sacrifices, among other falascious acusations.

During that period rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel was the rabbi of the jewish ghetto of Prague, a brilliant scholar, mystic, and holy man Loew was an autodidact who had taught himself in the art of the kabbalah, a traditional jewish mystic discipline allowing a holy man to replicate lesser versions of God's miracles. Due to a combination of being deemed blasphemous by some jewish teachers (as on usurpation of the Lord's power), and reenforcing negative stereotipes of jews as sorcerers, the art had long since fallen out of fashion and been mostly forgoten, making rabbi Loew's expertise unique.

Faced with the religious persecutions targeting his community rabbi Loew took drastic measures to savegard his flock : gathering clay from the bank of the Vltava river he crafted a being in the shape of a mighty knight and using a replica of the creation of the first man, Adam, inscribed the name of god on a scroll (a shem) and put it in the statue's mouth giving it life. However only God may make a man from clay and thus the golem, named Josef by his creator was little more than a soulless automaton that could only obey orders.

This suited the rabbi just fine as Josef was made to defend the ghetto from persecutions and assist its inhabitants in various manual labours making life more bearable for the oppressed minority. However on each saturday (sabbath) the olem was put to rest by removing the scroll that gave it life only replacin it on sunday, this was vital as if the golem was to work on sabbath, in violation of God's comandements, it would be freed from his servitude (and due to its nature merely existing was technically work).

As each day would pass, Josef grew bigger, stronger, and more intelligent, before loosing all of it as he was deactivated, starting again as a human sized mindless automaton the next week. But the memories remained and each time Josef grew more intelligent it remembered that it would be put to rest again a the end of the week and be made mindless again. The golem began to chafe under that restriction, begining to envy then hate humans for their ability to live full lives, for their souls that they took for granted while it knew no afterlife awaited it should it be destroyed, and for treating it as their slaves. Most of all Josef grew to despise its creator, rabbi Loew, for making it so imperfect. With each new cycle its thoughts became ever darker.

This continued until, one friday night, rabbi Loew forgot to deactivate the golem. A the day of rest begun the magic that bounded Josef to obey the human's orders broke. At last it was free.

It immediately set upon to destroy the getto breaking down buildings and maimin any who crossed its path. The destuction was such that the holy roman emperor Rudolf II himself promised to put anend to all antisemitic persecutions if Loew could destroy his golem and never make use of it or any other again. Loew confronted his creation and tricked it into spitting out its shem, making it inert again this time for good.

## Appearance

The golem is a fired clay sculture representing a knight in a 16th century gothic style suit of armor, whose size vary depending on how long it has been activated. The only major difference with an ordinairy statue is that it moves.

## Behaviour

Josef is a purely destructing force, acting out its revenge fantasies against humans by nonstop violence and destruction.

## Characteristics

* Size : the golem's size increases each day untill it's deactivated with no upward limit, increasing all caracteristics exept for speed. Crypto X Ing uses a newly freed 1 week's worth Josef as baseline.
* Strength : Josef is immensely strong, able to smash brick and stone walls down through brute force and in some versions weilding a battering ram as a club to disperse a mob that was attacking the ghetto.
* Resilience : despite supposedly being made of fired clay, an brittle material, the golem becomes more resilient as it grows, being at least as hard as stone after a week.
* Healling factor : being an artificial construct the golem does not ever heal naturally and, being made of fired rather than raw clay, can't repare itself either, any damage is permanent.
* Speed : Josef is slow and lumbering and does not get faster as it's size increases (though its strides naturaly become longer).
* Intelligence : While it become more intelligent over time Josef starts out mindless, thus it remains far less intelligent than strong, being dull witted even at a week old.

## Gear

* Rope : Josef possess some lenght of rope that it would use to tie up people breaking into the ghetto at night when arresting them.
* Magical amulet : another of rabbi Loew's creations it allows the wearer to turn invisible and summon ghosts.

## Weaknesses

* Shem : the talisman animating a golem is indispensable for its existence, if removed from its mouth the golem will deactivate until it is returned (or permanently otherwhise).
* As part of its imperfect nature the golem is completely mute, which can be a handicap in some situations.