Golems

Der Golem! by Warren Criswell

Most peasants know or at least heard of the main three golem types: clay, stone and iron. They are, in that order, the learning steps of a beginning Golemancer. It's sort of like gaining a bachelors degree, if your senior project could suddenly go kill crazy and smash your head in because you fucked up drawing a single letter 12 months ago. Needless to say, many Golemancers don't get very far in their studies, or reach a point where they don't feel the need to continue. Clay golems, while not the sturdiest, are still terrible engines of destruction.

Creators of Flesh Golems are seen as quacks, criminals and pretenders.

Continuing with the school theme, creating a specialty golem is a bit like writing a doctoral thesis. These golems are unique in there creation, and their creators set up Universities dedicated to teaching others how to craft their masterpieces. Except these aren't so much schools as long, complicated, often incestuous families that are created to venerate the original founder and fiercely protect his magnum opus

A University golemancer may only be able to make a clay cat that yips at nothing and scratches itself to death, but that's fine because he's family and thus infinitely more worthy of that cat than you.

You will always know when you're dealing with a University golemancer; they are very proud of who they are. These aren't the type of people who skulk in dungeons or are employed by nobles. Going to a University implies you want something from them, or you want to join. Nobody would consider going otherwise.

Brass Minotaurs

Created by Plegeon the Elder, creating a Brass Minotaur involves converting an entire tribe of the bull men to worshiping primal spirits, than skinning the head shaman alive and bathing his bones in molten brass. This angers the spirits worshiped, which you can direct and bind into the golem. These golemancers are skilled manipulators, and are some variant of supremacist. They snort powdered asp fang because they think it makes them smarter. Don't bring up rumors of student-minotaur relations if you know whats good for you.

Burning Man

Thrown together over a week of spite and many curses, Somner Bigsby crafted the first Burning Man. By all accounts except those of the University, Bigsby was a failure and an petty, egotistical moron. Most doubt his ritual of shoving another golemancer and all his life's work into a massive stick and tinder human and lighting the whole thing on fire was actually supposed to produce anything. Present day followers of Bigsby are the drugged out scags of other Universities. They gather in woodland communities, put on strange plays for foreigners, and wear bleeding animal skins.

Caryatid Column

First sculpted by the hands of Gasubelle the Guilemost, creating one of these golems involves killing your wife (you must be married for at least 15 years) and guiding her soul into the golem. The women of this school have largely accepted this fact, and most look forward to the day they will be immortalized forever in beautiful stone. Which is a problem, since the killing must be done in a fit of anger, betrayal and horror. 

Carrionette

"First, birth a child." begins the guide to creating a Carrionette, written by Marque de S'dein. The guide continues in such a manner to ensure that only the sociopathic-since-birth defectives of the University would ever craft the puppet-like Carrionette. Each member has a personal journal with the names of everyone that ever slighted them. They repay every insult with  screaming ventriloquism and cutting. If they ever finish their list, they turn their creation on themselves.

Drolem

While it's true that fleshcrafters are considered base and loathsome by true golemancers, followers of Daroc the Unforlorn have argued (uunsuccessfully) that the dragon is part of a natural world, thus should be considered fair building material for their sewn together Drolems. Over the centuries Daroc's original writings have been translated so many times as to have changed completely. Today, his ancestors can be found nailing wings to their backs to emulate the corpse-dragons they consider their gods.

Juggernaut

Krawren Stafshkerwein certainly did not intend on creating a University when he crafted the first Juggernaut, cramming so many elemental spirits into what is essentially a stone battering ram on rollers that all it can do is speed forward till it is destroyed. By all accounts he hated magic users, wanting merely to shorten the long military campaign he was on. His students emulate this attitude, rolling on custom Juggernauts throughout the badlands, searching for other golemancers to kill and fighting each other when they find none.

Naaruk

Created by Enkidu, possibly the first golemancer ever. Naaruks look like a winged bull with the face of a king composed of stone. Enkidu is still alive, uniquely, immortally scratching and chipping at more Naaruks. His students keep a healthy distance from him, writing down his words and proselytizing them as though they were teachings, despite the fact Enkidu would rip any of them apart if he saw them.

Radiant Golem

Radiant Golems can only be made of a certain material found in a very specific place. Finding it is a students first test. His second is surviving the "curse of the stone" long enough to craft their golem. Makks Pastren, who created them, was a self styled prophet who predicted great metal birds that carried men across the sea, and a land war that would split the continents. His last words, famously, warned against ever creating a Radiant Golem.

Scarecrow

Nah, scarecrow are special. I'll figure something else out for them.

There are other golems, but they're all stupid, so nope.

Case in point