Zorian's golems

Zorian built a number of golems throughout his months for various purposes.

Zorian first considered making a golem upon being asked to kill the grey hunter. Golems can be very strong and poison resistant. However, he doubted his talents would be good enough to build such a golem at that time.

## List of golems

* Wooden golem, version 1. A wooden golem, built to test out his skills. It was made out of wood because is is cheap and easy to work with, as he didn't expect it to do much. This was first revealed when Alanic teleported into Zorian's room. Very clumsy, stumbled, and swayed around drunkenly. It had at least one arm.
* Wooden golem, version 2. A wooden golem built to handle traps. Awkward, slow and jerky, but stable enough to retrieve papers from a trapped case. It, however, didn't release the papers when Zorian tried to take them, leading to them being scattered in an annoying way that wasted several of his hours.
* Wooden golem, version 3. A wooden golem which was built for unknown purposes, just before an assassin failed to kill Zorian.
* Combat-worthy golem. Based off the wooden golem, made of an unknown material. Almost immune to aranea mind magic. Zorian claimed to the aranea that it is a luggage carrier (it carried crystallized mana) but its true purpose was being a bodyguard against further ambushes. He first used it to visit the Illustrious Gem Collectors. This led to them bringing a larger escort, telling him the names of shady aranea colonies as the matriarch thought he looked like he could take care of himself. The matriarch of Yellow Cavern Guardians claimed it was a "stupid toy".
* Huge steel golem. A huge golem with arms and a torso which took ages to craft and reinforce built to fight off and distract the frog monster which drove Yellow Cavern Guardians out of their cavern so that the aranea there would teach Zorian their skills. It managed to stun the monster with a punch, allowing Zorian to hit the monster with a fireball, but soon had its arms torn off and limbs snapped and was destroyed.
* Doll golem. A miniature golem built to entertain Kirielle and test out his notepad transfer ability to carry designs across loops. Designed in the previous loop. Expensive and skill intensive to build.
* Kosjenka. A wooden golem. According to Edwin, it has nice stabilizers, but inelegant compressed nodes that Zorian needed to make it work. Built for Kirielle, this had a bunch of minor improvements, as well as brown hair as Kirielle requested. Kirielle later painted a face on it. It was made to nod whenever it heard something like a question, something Kirielle used to pressure Zorian into going on a date with Raynie. Recreated in future restarts.
* Chelik prototypes. Steel golems built with the aid of Edwin, no more than a meter tall due to regulations. Zorian made at least three golems together with Edwin in that restart.
* Chelik. The final version of the prototypes, built to be a combat target. Heavily warded, perfect by Edwin's estimations, and able to wave. The description was as such. "Being little less than a meter tall, the golem did not look particularly intimidating, but he doubted anyone would mistake it for a harmless toy. Its slender, humanoid figure was made out of alchemically-treated steel and powered by a comparatively massive crystalized mana battery that supplied it with plenty of power. Its movements were smooth and natural, and despite Edwin's rough handling, it never lost its balance like Zorian's previous golems would have. The golem looked and moved like a credible little helper and last ditch defender/distraction." It survived a focused magical missile barrage from the group, alchemical acid from Kopriva, earth smashing from Estin Grier, and had two notable weaknesses, in that sustained fire magic could overwhelm its defenses and that it could be buried in earth.
* Body double: Built for the second assault on Iasku Mansion, the body double was very similar in size and proportions to Zorian himself. While a close look would reveal that it wasn't human, as long as it was mostly covered in clothes it could fool people from a distance. Smaller and much weaker than most combat golems, it is still less dexterous than a human being. Zorian was able to see, hear and speak through the golem. Its primary purpose was to conceal that his other combat golems were being controlled telepathically, while aiding them by throwing grenades.
* Rutvica and Jaglenac. Two golem dolls Zorian made after Nochka Sashal inhaled hallucinogenic powder brought by Kopriva Reid, for Nochka and Kana Tverinov respectively. Presumably they were similar to Kosjenka in nature, except that Jaglenac looked male and had white hair. The name Jaglenac was used to refer to the golem by Kirielle and Nochka; it is not known how Kana called it.
* Simulacrum golems: These are lifelike golems with near-human dexterity that Zorian's simulacrums can be bound to. This makes them both more durable and only half as costly in mana regeneration, allowing Zorian to maintain up to six simulacrums. They were first seen using advanced rifles to kill a grey hunter. Two of Zorian's simulacrums were permanently set to the task of upgrading the simulacrum bodies, under threat of mutiny from all of his simulacrums.
* Refined combat golems: After a great deal of experience with making golems, Zorian is capable of producing large, durable and reliable steel golems en masse. While there have been likely been several models and updates, his combat golems are similar enough to be considered as a group. They have been used in fighting Ibasans under Cyoria, defending against a variety of dangers in the jungles of Koth, and countering Silverlake's earth elementals. They can operate without much direct control and act quickly and efficiently to respond to dangers.
* Mrva. Six meters tall, with the best wards Zorian could make. Included a captured soulseizer chrysanthemum as an anti-Quatach-Ichl measure.
* Bodyguard doll: The final iteration of Kosjenka shown in the story was "a veritable tiny murder machine", though Zorian didn't tell Kirielle that. It was built to be a bodyguard for her, and sacrificed itself to protect her during the invasion of Cyoria. Kirielle was upset by its loss, prompting Zorian to consider "repairing" (actually replacing) it.

## Trivia

* Chelik means "steel" in Serbo-Croatian, spelled "čelik" there. It is a Turkish borrowing.
* Kosjenka, Rutvica and Jaglenac are characters from Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić's book "Priče iz davnine".

## References

1. ↑ chapter 29
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 chapter 33
3. ↑ chapter 34
4. ↑ chapter 36
5. ↑ chapter 37
6. ↑ chapter 41
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 chapter 42
8. ↑ chapter 43
9. ↑ chapter 44
10. ↑ chapter 46
11. ↑ chapter 48
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 chapter 50
13. ↑ chapter 74
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 chapter 98
15. ↑ chapter 106