Golem

2

* Legacies:

1, 2, 3, 4

**Golems** are a rare, supernatural species that began with the creation of Malivore by a an ancient witch, a werewolf, and a vampire. Malivore, alone, sought to fashion beings like himself, to create a lineage. However, the golems that followed were imperfect and powerless, and though they resemble humans, they could not continue his legacy.

Witches, through their witchcraft and various ingredients, can fashion their own golems independent of Malivore. Cleo Sowande, however, uses Malivore mud when she fashions her golems.

## History

Most golems came into being through Malivore, fashioned in his likeness, his children. They were, however, imperfect and sterile, unable to reproduce and continue his legacy. Malivore was created to be the only one of his kind and was never intended to be a species or have a bloodline of his own.

Other golems have been created at various points in history, typically through witches for specific purposes.

## Throughout Legacies Series

*Main article: Malivore* and *Ryan Clarke*
In *Yup, It's a Leprechaun, All Right*, a leprechaun appears at the Salvatore School as they experience financial hardship. The leprechaun is captured, but Lizzie suggests using it to their advantage and bolster their support for their Fundraiser Day. Kaleb doesn't agree but doesn't stop Lizzie. The leprechaun eventually causes discord among the various Mystic Falls townspeople, causing them to attack one another, gaining the attention of Hope. Realizing that a new monster has appeared, she assumes that it's a Malivore monster and a new portal has appeared. She attempts to question the creature, but is unable to do so given a language barrier that even her spells can't help with. Turning to another option, she takes some of the creature's blood and releases it to cast a locator spell in the hopes that it will lead her back to the newly opened portal. The leprechaun, however, heads towards Mystic Falls bank and steals an armored car and consumes the money. Cleo and Hope track the creature to a parking garage and separate. Cleo is forced to destroy the creature after it attacks Alaric.

In *Long Time, No See*, Cleo "summons" the Ferryman to the school's ground, getting Kaleb and Alaric to believe that he could help them bring Landon back from the prison world. Unaware of Cleo's plan, Hope constructs her own plan to force Josie to help her open a portal to the prison world using the ascendant. Lizzie intervenes and she and Hope open a portal but are assaulted with black magic. "Landon" appears from the portal and destroys the ascendant, closing the portal. Meanwhile, the Ferryman accepts Alaric's, Cleo's, and Kaleb's payment and disappears, seemingly bringing Landon back despite Hope and Lizzie opening a portal.

In *Do All Malivore Monsters Provide This Level of Emotional Insight?*, "Landon" is seemingly okay but doesn't recall anything from his time in Malivore or the prison world but attempts to settle back into his life at the Salvatore Boarding school.

In *All's Well That Ends Well*, "Landon" continues to support Hope, however, the arrival of a banshee foretells doom. Should Cleo remain at the school, Landon will die Cleo makes up her mind and leaves the school. Landon encourages her to find her, but Hope encounters what she believes is another, new Malivore monster, a Hunter.

In *You Can't Run From Who You Are*, "Landon" accompanies Hope to the prison world by her astral projection spell. They discover that the Necromancer is dead and encounter a berbalang. Hope sends Landon back and deals with the berbalang but becomes infected and begins to transform into one. With Wade and Josie's help, they're able to stop and reverse the process. However, Wade suspects that something is wrong with Landon as he doesn't remember certain things about their friendship.

In *I Was Made To Love You*, "Landon" continues to have trouble sleeping since his return from the prison world. To occupy his time, he lifts weights with Jed, which shocks Hope, considering how much he's lifting. Working off Wade's suspicions, she tricks him into eating a burrito with avocados. Since the real Landon is allergic, she casts a sleeping spell on him and traps him in the Old Mill to run tests to determine who or what he is. Drawing Malivore blood, she believes that he's been taken over by Malivore. To confirm, he agrees to test his reaction to Hope's blood but his arm begins to dissolve. Unwilling to listen to Cleo, Hope attempts to help him, believing that he's still Landon. However, with Cleo gone, he attacks and attempts to kill her to force her to turn into a vampire. During their confrontation, his torn clothing reveals the *Luctus* inscription that Hope made on the bust of Landon and realized that he wasn't Landon, but a golem. Hope then destroys the golem by forcing "Landon" to ingest her blood.

In *One Day You Will Understand*, Cleo explains to Kaleb, Josie, and Alaric her past and shares various memories with them. She shows them how she became imprisoned to Malivore and was forced to create golems for him to consume and satiate his hunger. She also inspired Malivore to want a vessel and eventually created a vessel for him, the Vitruvian Man, which she used to her advantage to escape. Specifically with Alaric, she explains that she created the leprechaun golem to help the school during their financial crisis. Likewise, her most important creation, the golem of Landon, was only necessary because Hope refused to let Landon go. She could not have her open up a portal to the prison world and risk Malivore's escape. She explained that she made the Ferryman and did not summon him, so that Hope would believe he had granted her fervent wish.

## Psychological Characteristics

Golems are independent and typically possess their own psychologies or imbued with memories of the people they're fashioned to replicate.

## Physiology

Golems are typically fashioned from mud or clay or in most instances, specifically with Malivore-mud. Depending on who creates the golem and what they're made from, their physiology can vary from one golem to the next.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Immortality:** Malivore, his children, and golems, seemingly, in general, are created to be immortal and possess an unknown degree of immortality. Ryan Clarke was for all intent and purpose, immortal. This was exemplified when Landon Kirby killed Ryan by breaking his neck only for him to return soon thereafter. Malivore has been around for centuries, as well as Ryan has also been around for an untold number of years having helped dissolve Malivore and worked at Triad Industries. The golem that Cleo created of Landon from Malivore-mud was also practically immortal as he wouldn't get sick, break down and die like humans.

**Unique to Malivore**

* **Unique Physiology:** Malivore possess a unique ability to consume supernatural and human beings into an endless space inside itself that leaves its targets isolated in darkness. Malivore can also, seemingly, absorb beings that exist on other planes of existence — such as the oneiroi and qareen. While the absorption process hasn't been demonstrated, their release from Malivore, however, has been to their respective planes of existence, the dream and fairy plane; however, both of these creatures can and have materialized to the mortal plane. Malivore can choose to release the beings it's consumed whether for mercy or to do its bidding, but seemingly only one at a time. Stemming from this, Malivore can mystically transport those beings that complete his tasks to various locations. When the Necromancer stole the knife to unlocked one of the keys to freeing him, he released the Necromancer to find "peace". However, in actuality, he transported him to Texas and temporarily caused his abilities to go dormant, which led Chad to believe that he was made "human" to give him a shot at peace. Landon was created to become Malivore's vessel and can, therefore, possess Landon.
	+ **Absorption:** Malivore, as he consumes humans, is capable of absorbing their genetic material which gives him the ability to reproduce. Malivore seemingly can absorb any type of supernatural creature it wishes — including the three original species, *per se*, that resulted in its creation; having absorbed the Necromancer, Malachai Parker, and Hope Mikaelson, a witch, witch-vampire hybrid and a witch-werewolf hybrid with vampiric blood, respectively.
		- **Memory Repression:** Beings that are absorbed into Malivore are forgotten from the collective consciousness of the world through a seemingly passive form of supernatural influence. These memories, however, are only repressed and not removed from said beings in a seemingly instantaneous manner that can transcend various dimensions. One such example is when Malachai Parker was absorbed in the 2018 Prison World and subsequently forgotten.
	+ **Golem Creation:** Malivore is the first golem that eventually became lonely and created beings similar to him from his being. The golems he created were imperfect and flawed. They possessed none of Malivore's powers and all of them had weaknesses. However, over the years, Malivore's attempts at "children" became more refined, and they were indistinguishable from humans. This control also extends to the golem's constitution as he placed a "ticking clock" when he released Ryan Clarke for a second time. Ryan's form became unstable and was forced to consume other beings, supernatural or otherwise, to retain his form.

**Unique to Leprechaun Golem**

* **Unique Physiology:** The golem of the leprechaun was created in a way that seemingly made it indistinguishable from an actual leprechaun. As opposed to the golem of Landon, the leprechaun's "blood" was green and not Malivore-mud. The golem also could create rainbows and endowed with super speed. It remains unknown how much was Cleo's direct control over the golem.

**Unique to the Vitruvian Man**

* **Immunity to Witchcraft:** Much of the Vitruvian man seems unknown, however, during Hope and Landon's fight, the golem was unaffected by her spell, which she concluded that he was immune to magic. This is likely in response to Cleo making the vessel perfect to free Malivore from the confines of the spell that originally created him. This, however, does not seem to include Cleo, as she was the one to create him.

## Weaknesses

* **Witchcraft:** Golems are susceptible to the powers of witchcraft. When Malivore was created, a symbol was ascribed on its forehead. Ryan states that to undo its creation, all the Triad had to do was wipe away the symbol and he would be destroyed. Furthermore, the spell was crafted so that it cannot harm the three species that gave rise to its creation, though it seemingly can still absorb them within itself. Malivore was later bound by a coven of witches practicing black magic using three artifacts; a supernatural knife, an urn, and a dagger. Though not a direct weakness, the supernatural influence that affects the minds of beings consumed by Malivore can be purged and their memories restored. Josie discovered the spell when she siphoned it from an ancient sword to save her sister's life and reverse engineered it with Freya's assistance. The Vitruvian Man was created by Cleo to be the perfect vessel for Malivore, however he was under Cleo's complete control. The Vitruvian man, however, seemed immune to Hope's magic during a direct confrontation. The golem of baby Hope was also dependent on the spell that created her form and when the spell was stopped, the golem disintegrated. Likewise, the golem of the leprechaun was also destroyed when Cleo caused it to explode.
* **Imperfect Creation:** Golems created by Malivore, such as Ryan, are imperfect and flawed. They possess none of Malivore's powers and all of them have untold weaknesses. They are also sterile and unable to reproduce or create a lineage. Additionally, as beings made of his mud, he can possess control over their form. After Ryan made a deal with Malivore and was subsequently freed from his darkness, to control Ryan, he put a proverbial clock on him and his form became unstable. He had to consume people and monsters to stay stable.
* **Tribrid Blood:** The original Triad, a witch, a werewolf, and a vampire, created Malivore and they were the only ones that could destroy him. Since Malivore was created to be immortal and Nature would never allow it, Hope Mikaelson was created in response to be a loophole. Though not fully realized, her blood is capable of destroying Malivore, at least his portals, and golems created from his mud. This, however, has only been demonstrated on the golem of Landon. As a fully realized tribrid, Hope's blood is lethal to Malivore and resulted in his destruction.

**Unique to Malivore**

* **Consumption:** According to Ryan, after Malivore consumed every creature he could and his supply ran out, he grew weak and vulnerable. To temporarily stave off this consequence, Malivore forced Cleo to create monsters, more golems, from his mud to consume them.
* **Vessel:** Despite being an immortal golem, after he took control of Landon, a powerless, mortal human, Malivore became vulnerable. Landon, and by extension Malivore, was completely incinerated into ashes by the Necromancer's zombie dragon. However, since Landon and Malivore were banished to the 2029 prison world, they were resurrected. Malivore, however, was resurrected separately from Landon. Malivore's first vessel, the Vitruvian Man, was created by Cleo to be the perfect vessel; however, the vessel was under Cleo's complete control. Once bound, Malivore could feel the weak points of the vessel and would fail to hold him and would eventually break free.