Soulbound

A race of living constructs - be it machines given a soul (necromancy), dying soul saved by technology (somtimes divine - see Archon). The technology of binding organic flesh to inorganic machine was prefected by the Ancients, lost to time and then relatively recently re-discovered and harnesed by the gnomes on Erbasis.

Soulbound are most commonly the organic remnants of living beings who were augmented with mechanized parts / organs - usually to spare them from an early or unwanted death. This method is generally accpeted and a common practice among those who can afford the procedures.

In rare cases a fully inorganic construct is bound to a lost soul in a Soul Forge. For a short period this happend regularly on Erbasis or Solarstation II II. Early gnome created Soulbund did not have full autonomy - they were inventing "smart devices" and the construct was essentially a slave to the owner who could shut down or cripple the construct. This practice has been widely challenged as immoral and clearly dabbling in necromancy. Many civilizatons (but not all) have deemed the practice of "fishing souls" from who-knows-where and binding them to machines illegal. At the height of the backlash, all but the most clandestine Soul Forges were shut down either from political pressure, or outright physical force by crusaders.

Regardless of their origin, a Soulbound's mechanical components are powered - either by fuel-burning engines or by arcane engins such as a dweamor-burners or crystal-burners. A soulbound (either necromantic or technological) is similar to an Archon's which is always of divine nature.
The results of the backlash were varied. Highly sympathetic governments went so far as to rapidly emancipate Soulbound under their jurisdictions and grant the citizenship. Issolated or uninformed communities typically deemes the Soulbound as just another form of undead and treated them with the same level of agression. Others saw the soulbound as a means to and end - secretly investing in the arts with insane dreams of fully loyal mechanized armies. Most governments however took the middle road, usually offering Soulbound paths to citizenship just like any other living thing with a soul.

Necromantic Soulbound - a lost soul that had not found its way to its own "afterlife" was "caught/attracted/enticed" and bound to a life-less mechanical creation.

Technological Soulbound - a living being augmented with technology to avoid or delay death

Divine Soulbound - A God-fueled mechanical creation. Usually an Archon