Golems and Robots

 

Cybermen = Necrons = Warforged

Of the canonical D&D races, Warforged are one of my favorites. 

Made Men

Constructed life interests me.Where is the line between machine and person? What must it be like to know that you were made for a specific purpose (or made for no reason at all)? Does your creator own you? Can you rebel?

Frankenstein, Pygmalion, Blade Runner, the Iron Giant. Perhaps even Milton's Lucifer?

This is a cluster of themes and questions, that I find myself invoking a lot in my games, both when choosing characters as a player and when building worlds, societies and NPCs when I'm DMing.

For me, it all originates here: 

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. - Genesis 2:7

Our Successors

Will we be overtaken by our creations? Will they resent us for making them to labor? Will they enslave us in return? Will we become to them, what cattle are to us?

Second Variety, At the Mountains of Madness, Terminator, Battlestar Galactica, the Matrix and the anxieties of Nick Bostrom. 

Relics of the Deep Past

What if the past is better left buried? Will the uncovered armies of lost ages resume their wars, unconscious and uncaring towards present people?

The Mummy, The Pastel City, Prometheus.

A Soulful Sidenote

To understand the place of Golems and Robots in my D&D cosmology, it will be helpful to know a little bit about souls. We'll take a detour to consider them for a moment. 

A soul is an awareness fused to a will. The shared space, where the fields of observation and desire overlap is "reality". The metaphysics of my D&D cosmos are more-or-less based on Berkeley-ish immaterialism.

Bodies are an interface between the soul and the shared world. Each soul's connection to "reality" is shaped by this bodily aperture. Thus human-types of souls are typically attached to human types of bodies.  While it's possible to transfer a soul between bodies, it's much easier if the bodies are of a similar shape. 

Golemetrism, necromancy and demonology are closely related arts.

Golems: Laboring Clay

Reverend Richard Stott

A golem body is a clay shell made for a human soul. In ages past, they were built by the Church. When a loyal servant of the holy ecclesiarchy became too disabled or infirm to continue their work, their spirit would be poured into a humanoid, earthen vessel, to labor on. 

The transferal of each spirit was guided by an embedded clay tablet inscribed with their True Name and instructions for behavior. Golems are absolutely obedient and will never deviate from the most literal interpretation of their instructions. The Church finds this orthodoxy tremendously convenient.

Forcing a golem into a situation where their orders are impossible or paradoxical will drive them mad.

Sadly, the process to create golems has been lost. The looming earthen figures that tirelessly turn pumps in cathedral basements and lurk in guard posts around the Church's vaults are all very old. The stories you may have heard, of monasteries where the ritual is still performed, are myths. 

The reports that the Church forcibly converted delinquent borrowers and tithe-cheats into golems are heretical slanders. Although, hypothetically, if that did happen, the opportunity to make restitution for debt-theft must have been a blessed mercy. 

Arnold has stats and a Centerran view.

Fallen London

Robots: Ancient Armies

A robot is a metal construct, possessed by a motivating spirit. They seem to have been common in pre-history. Some appear to have been made by our ancient ancestors, but others show no evidence of interaction with actual humans. Might they have once had civilizations of their own? 

Above the horizon, on metal hulks amidst the stars, there are stirrings. Metal men are moving on Damnos and Mondas. Beetles scuttle between the stars. How long until they come here?

Chris Foss

So far as we know, the souls which actuate the robot hordes were never human, no matter how human-like they might seem to us. There is no evidence that they had any existence at all before taking up residence in their metal carapaces. They certainly have no memory of a prior life.

• Forged somewhere out in the void to fight in wars long since forgotten, legions sleeping in their vast, frozen tomb worlds. Might they serve us? Should we fear them?
• Perhaps a mad wizard or plutonic guild has learned the secret of their construction and begun producing them in our midst. Spies relay that House Cannith is even now retooling foundries.

1978 Cylon

In my games, various forms or robots, constructs and mechanical men have frequently appeared as tomb guards, helpful misfits and fascist shocktroops. I find them to be versatile and deserving of ubiquity. 

This adventure that I wrote last year is a good example, though the Stygian robots are more spiritual vehicles than independent entities. 

They really don't look that friendly, do they?