And I want this to be in my setting....
But I need a reason,
an explanation to why creating a soul from nothing and placing it in a body is just as vulgar as taking an already existing soul and stunting it through necromancy.
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Also you can post pictures of Golems if you want
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The concept for creating golems and the necromancy to create zombies is one in the same.
Proper necromancers know how to use portions of their own soul to animate a body but they cross the line when they force a soul (even an animal's soul) into a body because it degrades the soul to the point that it becomes an evil spirit and pollutes the nature of the world around it.
Those who create golems are no different and cut from the same cloth but try to justify it as not using bodies of people but artificial bodies
That's 1
I should add, using your own soul to animate a body or golem is proper because it limits your ability to create and control many of them so a wizard who creates a golem as his personal servent is fine but that's pretty much what he's stuck with. If you have no scruples and decide to implant a soul then you can create many although an animal's soul will cause it to act like an animal so a human's soul will allow it to be intelligent and take complex commands and do things intelligently
Like sticking a human soul in dessicated corpse wasn't bad enough
What I described was a concept for a magic system I was thinking of. The basic point is that "magic" is about imposing your will upon reality around you and things with souls have such a will to do so, some stronger than others.
Necromancy was one of the first magic's mastered because it was literally the science of how to manipulate the soul itself so the way it works is that a necromancer could use his soul to animate a few bodies (assuming they were in such a shape as to still move) so you are effectively using your soul to impose your will on a thing that no longer has a will of it's own to animate it but it's difficult to do and dangerous because you're spreading out your soul from yourself into something else and it gets worst the greater the number you try to animate so at best they are just basic shamblers while one would be easier to control.
This naturally applies to golems as well as they work on the same principles that and I don't see a difference in it being undead if it's the original body or just an artificial one
Nonsense, a properly created golem is animated by the arcane formula activated during its creation. It's an automaton with preprogrammed responses. That's the reason they seem as "dumber" than feral or some mindless undead who are somewhat capable of reacting to unexpected events. The exception being the creation of golems through the binding of elemental to golem shell.
Any "golemancy" involving soul binding is merely a radical application of necromancy
What if you lose control over it?
The soul of a golem knows a sort of half-life while it functions, unaware and barely thinking. And because they knew life to a degree, they experience death when the golem is destroyed. But there is no proper afterlife for the soul. Because the soul was never free to live and grow properly, there is nowhere to go after death. Every golem's soul becomes a spectre upon death, bound forever to the earth.
It's kind of hard to make it taboo this way
If it's animated by your own soul at worst you loose the ability to control it and it goes limp. If it was animated by a soul and you loose control of it it can go wild and do anything from having a mental breakdown to going violently insane.
That's what the various Acadamies would have you believe now wouldn't they? It would be bad form if it was uncovered that the Kingdom was funding their research for the purpose of creating artifical soldiers for their own use.
cool
>creating a soul from nothing and placing it in a body
It sounds like you already have a reason. If a golem has a soul, then it's going to end up in some sort of afterlife. If it's under the control of a wizard, then it will likely be forced into repugnant acts. If it does repugnant acts, it probably ends up in some variation of a hell. Thus, a wizard who creates golems is likely creating individuals doomed to suffer forever unless you're one of those heretic Universalists.
Being magically compelled to do evil kind of clears some of the responsibility. A golem, if you are going with standard fantasy idea, is incapable of choosing its action - it only follows the commands, nothing more, nothing less. It's a tool.
The blood is on the wizards hands, and the sins upon his soul as well.
Making it taboo would add nothing to the narrative. It's super fucking expensive compared to necromancy, and requires a much higher amount of individual magical power and proficiency to achieve. If it were just as taboo as necromancy, there would be basically no reason to even bother with it. Necromancy is the quick, easy, morally dubious path to autonomous, non-living servants, whereas golems are expensive, time consuming, and require a much higher degree of mastery to create. There is a nice narrative balance there, and I don't see how upsetting that balance vastly in the favor of necromancy adds anything.
This assumes that the gods aren't assholes who don't give a fuck about your excuses. Sure, it's the creator's fault, and he SHOULD be punished, but the gods are more lazy than they are wrathful, although they're plenty of both. Sucks to exist, basically.
This is a great idea, whether you go with D&D elemental bound within to power the golem or some kind of half-formed soul. Golem dies, whatever powers it gets free. It's probably not very smart but it can be very powerful depending on the golem.
Consider it kind of like a nuclear-powered car. If it's maintained properly, it's not really a threat. But if you give it to an idiot to wrap around a pole somewhere, the reactor will melt down and the whole area is fucked unless someone spends a lot of time and effort removing the fallout.
In case of the golem, the fallout is a semi stationary specter that won't go away unless a mage binds it again or it is exorcised.
Even better
...
If we are to speak in confidence and purely academic terms there's are a few thesis that propose the possibility of creating undead by means more similar to golem making than necromancy.
It involves the the creation of a shell enchanted with the arcane formula in the form of an armor set as normal, but with the addition of a conjuration of soul entrapment. Should the wearer be attune itself with the armor and expired in close proximity to it, the soul entrapment would trigger and serve as the activation ritual for the arcane formula. The effects of the soul on the parameters of the arcane formula are still debatable as this kind of experimentation is forbidden within the halls of the academy. Not to mention the difficulty of acquiring volunteers.
Strictly speaking volunteers have never been a problem so much as having repeatable success. The process of Soul Entrapment naturally degrades the soul but the degree to which it does varies and this affects the ability to retain one's sense of self. More often than not the process ego killed the volunteers turning them into mindless waifs. It seems it takes a certain quality to survive the process or perhaps we need better methods
Do yo uhave the how souls things work locked in already for your setting? I like the idea that bringing a soul back from wherever souls go in your setting and doing anything unnatural with it, whether it's returning it to its own dead and rotted body or putting it into a new, mechanical one.
>I like the idea that bringing a soul back from wherever souls go in your setting and doing anything unnatural with it, whether it's returning it to its own dead and rotted body or putting it into a new, mechanical one.
Is seen as fucking up the natural order of things
Golems could be potentially much, much more powerful than the undead, with bodies of solid stone or metal.
What's worse? Shunting 15 or more souls into a 50ft tall golem, or doing the same with a magic corpse to create a pseudo-lich of absurd power?
I suppose it depends on two different factors. First the quantification of a success. Is the desire product an intelligent entity with an ego or an obedient automaton with better reactions than an ordinary golem or maybe something in between? And the second relating to the process, is the resulting mindless waifs a byproduct of substandard volunteers or an error within the arcane formula relating to the Soul Entrapment?
Creating magical automatons tends to go badly.
Just make it taboo because souls without an appropriate living vessel will be constantly suffering. From the outside, the golems seem fine, but if you were to read their minds they sound like this vid.
Could a dead golem be brought back as an undead golem? How about a golem bitten by a vampire?
>Breen in reverse
Truly god has abandoned us.
In my setting, it's impossible for mortals to create a program complex enough to resemble an AI. Only gods can - supposedly - do that. The only alternative is to use real souls by trapping them in crystals (Skyrim) or sealing them in other objects (Horcruxes, the One Ring, Full Metal Alchemist) like a golem, an armor, a corpse (that's necromancy), a weapon, a gate... Savage tribes don't have an issue trying to reanimate their love ones or dead soldiers/kings, they summon spirits and demons everytime they can and this is considered heresy by the magic/alchemy/divination practicing religious orders of the civilised kingdoms. There's even a druid that is kinda part of that order who literally genocides the savages become of that, he has huge powers and never hesitates to endlessly wipe out entire villages and settlements of these tribes when he confirms they summon souls and spirits. He's a nature druid kinda thing, so he thinks it's absolutely haram to disturb the natural flow of life and force defenseless souls into servitude. Plus it's illegal.
Unless the wizard only uses their golem creation for Lawful Good actions.
Yes, they could be, but typically you need all sorts of mystical gems and materials to create the golem, not to mention the cost of making the body itself.
Do you have any idea how much more expensive commissioning a giant hulking statue or a solid figure made of steel would be? Someone who wanted to make a golem could probably get several dozen skeletons for far cheaper. While the golem itself is a lot more durable, it's not indestructible, and any damage it takes has to be meticulously repaired.
Do not intrude upon the domain of God, for he is powerful and quick to anger
>should be just as much taboo as necromancy
so not at all?
let the golems flow like tap water
could have a golem be a stolen soul
The easy one is requiring a wizard to mix the artificial (or stolen) soul with a small sliver of their soul to allow control of the golem. This must be done for every new golem. Not mixing their soul into the golem creates a crazed killing machine that can not be controlled.
The more slivers you break off the more insane you become however leading to necromancers/golem creators either stopping early on, killing themselves, or become completely erratic, insane monsters with horrible killing machines at their disposal.
A soul created with a organic body in mind is just not compatible with a inorganic body and the result is that it drives the soul permanently insane, no matter what body it is put into afterwords, and the only way to remove it is to grind the soul up and start over.
To get a golem to work you would have to experiment to come up with a way to create or change a soul so that it is compatible with steel and of course trial and error. It's just the error the gods and mortals have problems with since they are the ones who have to deal with the forever screaming and howling souls.
>elemental lives matter!
I wonder who's behind this post?
Around elementals, there's no need to be gentle. They're almost all violent cannibals and racist towards different types of elementals.
If anything, enslaving elemental spirits to power golems is the best for everyone and lets them contribute to the greater good rather than just following their base, and often unproductive or downright destructive, elemental instincts.
>Could a dead golem be brought back as an undead golem?
Sure, just pump it full of negative energy and a bound controlling spirit. Expect undead side effects such as murderous hate for the living and insanity. Also note that this will make the golem vulnerable to forces that are effective against undead energies.
>How about a golem bitten by a vampire?
Probably need more than a bite, especially without blood.
Properly created undead are among the most potent standard fantasy monsters. Lich, Vampires, Mummies,. Even lower tier undead often punch above their weight, Ghasts come to mind.
When it comes to cultural hang ups you don't need a reason. Why don't Jews and Muslims eat pork? Because. Why don't Americans like their fish with the head on? Because.
Somebody didn't like golems and said they were an offense to nature and the gods and the charge stuck.
It's just a taboo like period sex and being gay in Uganda.
Because you are instead taking what could have been, instead of what was. Even if you create a soul out of nothing, you created a soul and that was meant to go in a body, a real body, and learn and love like any other person. This is why golems so frequently go rogue or on rampages, even compared to undead.
If the undead is like enslaving the sick and elderly for eternity, a golem is like sticking a baby into a machine as a sacrificial power source.
For shame.
The binding of a departed soul into another form, be it shambling undead shell or masterfully crafted automaton of rock or steel is among the darkest of deeds.
This control...this foul warping of self and purpose spits in the eyes of The Lady and invites nothing but further horrors into the world.
Slicing off a bit of your own soul or stretching it out at a distance is just.. weird. Something to watch for and guard against them taking the eventual logical step of binding some Other's soul instead. Same as working with the fleeting spirits of animals.
There is a great theological divide on the subject of wholly-created empowering essences, the "synthetic soul" idea. Some would say that how one treat the least shows how they would treat all, others say that a tool, made to be a tool, Should be a tool. It is discussed at great lengths.
>now, everyone feel free to take a pamphlet.
Golems are a jewish invention. Enough said.
You have to be a Jew to make a golem.
Undead are dead bodies animated by using bound spirits
golems are artificial bodies animated by using animal spirits
binding spirits is evil and prohibited by the church
done
Creating a soul is the province of God, and even God's creation fell to sin. Souls created to serve men's petty desires inevitably become corrupt.
The wooden puppets given life by the Wizard Musmagna to be his servants turned on their master. A dark mirror to that sorcerer's sloth, they were forged to be tireless workers. Thus, they tirelessly created more of themselves until they became an army too vast to control. They marched across the land, cutting down whole forests and dismantling homes and wagons for wood to make more of themselves. It took the combined armies of the three Empires to put them down, but many still wander the waste lands of Musmagna's folly.
Even noble desires may lead men astray, so to it is with the creations of men. The Stone guardians of Barden were crafted to protect the people of that once great city from invaders. However, invasion comes in many forms. Two centuries of peace following a great plague had much changed the people of Barden in both aspect, manner, and blood. When awakened to battle the hordes of Bodonchar, the stone guardians instead turned on the inhabitants of Barden and slaughtered most of them. After that great sorrow even the pure blood Barden fled their city, for too few survived to mend it's walls.