Description
Forged in The Hearth of Tarkes, Golems are magic infused constructs born through the corrupted marriage of human sacrifice, defiling magics, and concentrated psi energies. They require no food or water, are trainable in a variety of tasks, including combat, and have natural psi abilities.
Created by the viziers of the self-proclaimed Death Dealer and Throne, Harkol Aum, Golems are sold to neighboring city-states as sentient engines of war. Harkol uses Golems in his own armies, but he has no qualms about selling to opposing sides, or even wealthy patrons.
Golems are sentient beings created through difficult and ancient rituals that require a human sacrifice. Harkol’s viziers claim every sacrifice to be a willing volunteer from Tarkes’ standing army, but it’s largely an open secret that sacrifices include a variety of sources, including prisoners of Harkol’s ruthless regime, and missing citizens from Tarkes’ remarkably vagrant-free streets.
The excruciating ritual eliminates memories of the victim’s prior life, but remnants of their original personality often remain, making each Golem a unique identity with their own emotions and disposition. This makes soldiers, prisoners of war, and violent criminals particularly attractive “volunteers.” The ritual is purportedly ancient, spanning back to the age of abundance, but the Hearth in Tarkes is the only known site for creating Golems. Rumors persist of others, including at least one other city-state having forged their own hearth in an attempt to replicate the process and undermine Harkol’s monopoly.
Golems are typically born into indentured servitude, with Harkol’s viziers demanding recompense for the costly “service” of their creation. But with a healthy market for Golems spanning multiple city-states, different attitudes toward Golems across Tarisia, and significant lifespans relative to the average Tarisian, it’s common to find Golems free of this obligation.
Hand molded around the body of the sacrificial victim and formed of a slurry of bone, chitin, silt, and gypsum, Golems have a hard rock-like body with a hulking humanoid shape. Slight variation in shape, size and colors exist due to the imperfect nature of the forging process, the artistry of the forgers performing the ritual, and the various materials used in the Hearth that day. Averaging 9 feet tall, and weighing around 700 lbs, Golems are large dominant figures in any setting.
Naming Conventions
As Golems are created through a magical process, their names may come from a variety of sources such as their creator, or their peers after creation. Rarely, a golem may remember their name from before the ritual. As such there is a wide variety in conventions, but due to their slow, lumbering size and lack of common knowledge, names are often simplistic and reflective of their stature.
Examples include: Grond, Balthazar, Zephyr, Raze, Aether, Titanus, Zoltan, Solaris, and Lumos.
Characteristics
- Can’t Speak: Golems have no vocal cords and cannot speak. Consequently they cannot take Arcane Background (Sorcery) as they cannot perform the necessary incantations for spell casting.
- Construct: They add +2 to recover from being Shaken, ignore one level of Wound modifiers, don’t eat, drink, or breathe, and are immune to disease and poison. Wounds must be mended via the Repair skill. Each attempt takes one hour per current Wound level and ignores the “Golden Hour.”
- Made of Stone: Golems start with a d6 in Strength. This raises their maximum for Strength to d12 + 1.
- Mental Broadcast: Golems have a natural Psi ability of a very limited form of the Mind Link power. They can only use this ability to send messages to those located within a distance equal to 2× their Smarts die. This power is a limited free action, costs no power points, requires no line of sight, can have multiple recipients, but does not bestow Mind Link upon others, and does not permit two-way communication.
- Overt: Owing to their large size and exceptional weight, stealth is particularly difficult. Golems suffer –2 penalty to all Stealth checks.
- Size 1: Growing to an average size of 9 feet tall, Golems tower over the other species. Their Toughness is increased by 1, and their Strength maximum is raised another step to a maximum of d12 + 2.
- Slow: Due to their lumbering size Golem’s Pace is reduced to 5 and their running die to a d4.
- Unexperienced: Due to the memory wiping creation process, Golems struggle with Common Knowledge. They suffer –2 penalty to Common Knowledge checks.
- Unusual Size: Golems are particularly large compared to other ancestries. They subtract 2 from Trait rolls when using equipment that wasn’t specifically designed for Golems and cannot wear regular-size armor or clothing. Equipment and clothing cost double the listed price.