Golem

Golems are, depending on their level of sophistication, a combination of species and/or construct. Unlike most life forms on Ijzeria, golems are not born, but rather created. Golemancy, the arcane science of constructing and maintaining golems, involves high-level engineering and delicate sorcery.

Despite once being the most commonly-owned home appliance, golems now make up a very small minority on Ijzeria, with a population somewhere under 10,000 worldwide.

## Invention of Golems

It's not known precisely where the first golems were invented, but it is generally believed to have occurred in ancient Zant, on the eastern coast of what at the time would have been the ancient Saha'i Empire puppet state of Aujiri. Desperate to relieve themselves of Saha'an overlordship, they created the first golems, which while crude by modern standards, were initially quite successful. These golems were nowhere near the level of power, mobility, and utility as a "modern" golem, but their effectiveness laid the foundations of the art of golemancy, which would become a central focus of many (often evil) civilisations to come.

## Ancient Golemancy

The first golems were essentially animated mud, or less-than-dry clay. They were animated by a primitive version of what is known today as a "golemic core"; a simple coloured glass vessel containing a mixture of fruit oils and water. The glass vessel was inscribed with a complex series of runes that allowed a soul inside the vessel to "pilot" the mass of mud it was placed into. As the soul moved the mass around itself, the oils would deteriorate, until eventually the golem's core had been expended, and a new core would have to be constructed, with the soul having to be migrated to the new core as well.

This process obviously presents a few problems. Firstly, the disposable nature of the cores is extremely problematic, since making one is neither cheap, nor easy. Secondly, ancient golemic cores had about six hours of working life in them. Towards the end of their use, the ancient core design was improved such that one could be expected to do 26 hours of work before burning out. Thirdly, the entire process required that a soul be healthy, happy, and compliant, since it was basically "possessing" the body that was being made for it.

Thankfully, science put an end to all of this.

## Modern Golemancy

Modern golems are descended not from freedom-fighters and warriors, but from enslaved robotics.

Traditionally, golems were seen as weapons, since they made strong fighters and were unafraid of death. However, one industrious golemancer realised what they really were - *labour!* Labour you did not need to feed, you did not need to clothe, you did not need to house, and you did not need to pay.

The central design philosophy of golems was changed drastically. Rather than crafting special glass orbs which would allow a soul freedom of movement in the physical world, instead, the bodies themselves were carefully constructed. Instead of putting a golemic core into a mound of sacred clay, instead they were installed into a complicated array of clicking, whirring, zipping things. Golemic cores were altered from a rune-covered glass core, to a clustered crystal "viral" core. The golemic cores were changed to allow only very simple instructions from the soul encased within; instructions like "move arm up" and "move leg forward". This meant that a golem moving at full-tilt could now last years before ever needing a core change. Furthermore, the viral cores had an even further advantage, in that they trapped the souls within. A soul could be forced to enter a core, either through coercion, or through evil magic. Once inside, the encased soul was trapped until the core was significantly damaged, since the new cores had an external fuel compartment which would be switched out, rather than an internal one which required the core to be destroyed and rebuilt. Over years, this would exhaust the person contained within and slowly erase their personal identity, rendering them an emotionless simpleton with no free thoughts of their own.

What was constructed then, was not the body of a warrior, but the cage of a slave.

### Animals as Golemic Cores

In order to assuage some ethical concerns from philosophically-minded citizens, some golemancers opted to use the souls of lesser beasts to animate golems. This actually does work, to a limited degree. Unlike intelligent souls which must be "dumbed-down" through consistent abuse, however, animal souls must simply be given jobs which are easier to understand.

Ironically, the use of animals in golemic cores seems to have spurred further resentment towards the creation of golems, rather than eased tensions. Traditionally, those enslaved through golemancy were criminals or prisoners of war. Now that some golems were precious little doggos, people were generally much more disgusted by the practise.

## Role of Golems in Society

Golems were created as a sort of ancient civilisation's stopgap solution to artificial intelligence. Depending on how they were built, they could understand simple instructions, or indeed very complex ones. Toward the end of their popular use, they could be built with all the same functionality as a normal humanoid being - although this was exceedingly rare; the role of a golem was to obey.

Golems were built as security enforcers, industrial workers, lumberjacks, garbage pickers, data-miners, and simply as machines of destruction - but in the thousands of years of their continual use and creation, nobody ever built one to vote.

### Popularity as Household Appliances

Once golems were able to be made cheaply, it was only natural that they were then made for sale.

Even common households would own one or two smaller golems that were capable of doing simple chores, although the larger warfare-capable models were of course strictly controlled.

Regardless of their utility in combat and their place as home appliances, by far the greatest majority of golems were held in bondage serving as manual labourers in work camps and factories. The nature of the work golems were forced to do was often mind-numbing and deliberately dull, to avoid stimulating what was left of their imaginations, or spur them to creative thought.

Lucky golems were built with defective cores which would break after a few years, but unfortunate golems could be enslaved for several centuries on average before their golemic core sufficiently broke down for their soul to escape.

## Golemic Liberation

In the modern day, it is now illegal to create or to own a golem for any reason, since golems are now classified as people, and not objects. The liberation of golems came about due to large-scale and international commitments from labour groups and working-classes who banded together to fight for workers' rights while also ensuring the freedom of all Ijzerians.

The mass production of golems was eventually outlawed in every nation that possessed the knowledge and ability to make them - usually due to internal pressure from the above mentioned labour groups and working classes. There were ethical concerns as well, but mostly the fact that a manufactory could only possess two or three golems before an angry mob would come and smash its windows, meant that just as golems were built to serve economics, they were now being obsolesced by them.

As The System began to assert its authority throughout Ijzeria, some nations were extremely reluctant to give up their golems, and received special dispensation that allowed them to keep what golems they currently owned on the condition that no more were ever constructed. By the year 4403AU, however, enough violations of this agreement had occurred such that The System simply outlawed golem ownership altogether. Those few golems that remain are pursuing their own lives to the best of their ability.

## Trivia

* Golems were one of the very first "species" added to **Key of Ijzeria**. This is because there are a lot of fun similarities between traditional realworld golems, and current realworld robotics. Golems of legend required words to be written and then placed into its mouth; somewhat like how a robot needs code to be written and placed into its CPU.
* The idea of golems being used as slaves is inspired by Jade Empire (2005), an Action Role-Playing Game from BioWare for Xbox. We won't explain precisely how though - you'll have to play it to find out!