Golem

"Have you heard? Tomorrow they'l choose who gets assigned to the Metalworks and who gets assigned to the Masons. The Masons are a strict and ruthless bunch who take nothing less than perfection, they don't believe in a good nights sleep or a warm conversation. Your hands'll callous til you cant close em, you'll have nightmares about the sounds of rock being carved and the food is so bland they say once somebody died from the flavour shock of eating a cave weevil they found. The Metalworks on the other hand have the magma forges. Pray you are assigned to the masons.

~new recruit to the Golemancy sect.

Summary

Golems are a class of construct, an artificial body made with the sole purpose to function as a working creature. They consist of earthen material, almost always metal or stone and must be intricately crafted for their permitted motions. While a revenant may simply magically move its rock body as if it were muscle a golem must have joints specifically crafted and fit for purpose, while this sounds difficult on paper it is not necessarily too hard to achieve. Golems have an incredibly high failure rate when being created as the process of imbuing artificial life to the processed materials is unnatural and often rejected by the natural order of being, much akin to grafting an alien branch to a tree. This combined with the large scale machinery or manpower required to manufacture golems makes them an often mass produced construct, with more emphasis placed on quantity over quality. This being said the collectives with the means of crafting golems designate the creation of specific parts of the golem to small groups of people. Individual golem parts being a comparatively easy component to create makes golemancy a particularly good entry point for those who aspire to creating constructs.

Golems are fueled by a viscous fluid which slowly radiates its energy throughout the body of the golem. The fluid is either inserted into the golem and will flow within internal cavities and pipe ways or, alternatively, placed in runic channels that are carved onto the golem itself and will adhere to the surface. This fuel is known as petrichor and is very difficult to create while also, at its most potent form, incredibly hot. As such any golem that uses the carved runic channels are not safe for contact if powered though once the energy of the petrichor fades it will cool entirely and the golem will cease to function. Depending on the insulative properties and the storage of a golem it may be capable of containing enough petrichor to be powered for decades. Though these golems will have rather unusual bodily proportions to decrease their surface area to volume ratio.
A golem is useful for a multitude of reasons, for one, they are unquestioning to their master in their line of thinking and can function perfectly well without any form of brain or core as the petrichor exclusively animates them. This combined with their sturdy nature, potentially dangerous body and the mass production they undergo makes a golem an excellent worker or soldier. For example a group of mining golems may be used to work in a cavern that is particularly dangerous for a humanoid due to natural gasses or unworkable temperatures. Usage of golems is done sparingly among the societies that employ them as the fuel used to power them is finite in nature and its origin is unknown not to mention that the refining and enriching process is labour intensive and dangerous. As golems are often only powered when required for a purpose they are designed for highly specific jobs and nothing else, for example the aforementioned mining golem may posses no hands but instead digging apparatus. A golem used for combat however may possess highly defended joints and have limbs dedicated to weaponry such as hatchets, swords, cannons or balistas. These combat golems are often incredibly large and act as sentinels to places of interest they remain unpowered inside their respective chamber with active petrichor ready to be administered should the need arise.

Creation

The creation of a golem is rather mechanical in nature as opposed to magical, despite being a magical creature. This is mostly because the magical element of the golem, the petrichor, is introduced near the end of the manufacturing procedure and is not entirely difficult as the golem would have been designed to contain or have petrichor adhere to it. While golems can be made from any earthly material such as clay or even gemstones the most widely used materials are stone and metal. As a golems size is virtually unlimited the required machinery and workforce to create a larger golem can be staggering, especially as the sturdier metals require immense heat to be worked with. While a golem can be manually crafted in its entirety by hand it is much preferred to create each piece individually and to assemble each component together once complete. As such each piece of a golem created in a golem forge will usually have a mold to be die casted. Due to the amount of heat required to cast the ferrous metals such as steel or just large amounts of metal in general a golem forge will be constructed adjacent to magma to utilise the high temperatures.
The heat produced from the magma is often not enough to melt the sturdier metals and must be magically enriched to increase its temperature. Golem forges are enormous and immensely hot with large crucibles and molds capable of withstanding the heat only due to the enchantments placed upon them. The labour required to produce golems in a golem forge is very high though due to the location and environment the only viable creatures to work here would be the chimeras made to resist such heat. Even still the lifespan of these creatures is often limited and will likely perish from complications related to the heat after a few years. Once the individual pieces have been die casted they will be joined either mechanically or adhered using unrefined petrichor, the former is more difficult and has potentially limited motions but is much less expensive and requires no replacement. These metal golems produced in golem forges are well worth the toil, however, as they are easily the strongest sturdiest of all constructs. They are obedient and sentient metal giants that do not feel pain and will continue to fight so long as the petrichor in their vessels runs hot.
Alternatively, a golem may be made from stone. Created by master masons they expertly chisel each individual piece of a golem and while this is equally as labour intensive and requires even more skill the process is much less dangerous. Additionally, the stone allows for a unique variant of the golem, the gargoyle, which is capable of flight. It is theorised that petrichor is more finely attuned to the rougher and more pure natural materials found underground and so golems made from unrefined material such as stone as opposed to smelted metal will retain the petrichors energy for longer. This is also attunement is also believed to be what allows the impossibly massive stone golems to achieve flight with equally as heavy stone wings whereas the metallic attempts at creating gargoyles have all failed. Another unique benefit to the stone golems is their ability to control detached parts of their body, the weakest points golems have are their joints and so any looking to slay a golem will target these specifically. This is a particularly effective tactic versus a metallic golem but a stone golem can still retain remote control over its severed limb for several hours so long as the petrichor remains active.
Creating a golem in a non highly manufactured environment is possible but to make the usually labour intensive the golem construction process more manageable for a single person they should be made on a smaller scale and with a more easily workable material such as clay. These clay golems are much more fragile and slower than the metal and stone golems but do not require fuel the same way that a stone or metal golem would. Instead these clay or soil golems are enchanted with runes and powered by rainfall. Certain older societies have utilised these golems as workers or even as company and sometimes even claimed them as family members in the same way you would a pet. Clay golems were the first golems to be conceived and the namesake of their fuel was carried on to the metal and stone golems though clay golems are a rare sight in modern times. This can be mostly attributed to the Diabolith and so any moving structure is seen as a terrifying monstrosity, meaning only the secretive societies dedicated to golemancy are able to create them without backlash.

Petrichor

Petrichor takes its namesake from the smell of rainfall on dry soil. This was the initial fuel of the first clay golems and when the viscous fluid used to power metal and stone golems was created it inherited the same name. Petrichor, the fuel, is found in large deposits underground and can be mined out as a cold and brittle substance that is pitch black. To become the fuel proper it is melted down and brought to shock chambers where large amounts of water douse the petrichor back into its solid state, this process is repeated and gradually enriches the petrichor. Eventually the water shocks will not be capable of turning the fuel back to its solid state again, this accompanied with now bright orange glow and the slight wailing sound that is produced when refined petrichor is stored in large volumes signals that the petrichor is ready to be used as a fuel for a golem.

As a magical substance one would assume petrichor has a myriad of uses but this is however false, any attempts to apply petrichor to alchemy as a reagent or as a fuel to anything other than golems has proved a fruitless endeavor. Petrichor is incredibly picky about its applications and, as previously mentioned, even amongst golems will offer varying levels of efficacy depending on the material they are constructed from. It would also be important to note that attempting to create a golem from a variety of materials will lower the efficacy of petrichor making the golem incredibly fuel intensive while lowering its physical attributes such as speed.
It has been fabled that petrichor deposits are the petrified remains of masses of souls claimed by the boiler and released back into the earth as molten amalgamations, this is further supported by the increased frequency of petrichor the deeper one goes into the ground and the eerie wailing produced which only grows louder as it is further refined and in greater volumes. There is no current known way to determine whether this rumour is true or false, however, and has been brushed off by those who oversee golemancy sects as a painful tale created by those unhappy with their labours.

Abilities

A golem will posess the abilities it has been crafted to posess, any good mining golem will have tools for mining. Likewise any combat golem will have some kind of weaponary as a part of its body. This is not all golems have been created for though, however. Despite not having a brain golems display the intellectual capabilities of a four year old human child and some have been designed to transport goods, plough fields or engage in fishing. While a golem is bound to the will of its master in the potential absence of its master a golem will be left to its own devices and may be seen exhibiting basic intelligence and curiosity as it explores the surrounding areas. Golems that are powered long enough to learn may even develop noticable personalities and preferences though these occurances are few and far between.
The physical attributes a golem posesses are dependent on both its material and the attunement of its petrichor. As mentioned prior a golem made of steel will be a nigh indestructable force but due to its refined metal nature it will be very power ineffecient and require a large sum of petrichor to constantly be applied to it in order to function. This attunement also affects several physical attributes, while steel is incredibly sturdy the steel golem would have to rely on momentum for any meaningful damage with melee weaponary. As the attunement is rather low for steel the petrichors capability to provide motive force also is low making the golem very slow physically and mentally. Ironically the most intelligent of all basic golems are those made of clay and soil.
There are of course other methods of enhancing a golem. By drawing inspiration from revenants some have tried to introduce a core to a golem, though this is similar in appearance in function it is much different. A golem with a core will posess much higher intellect than a basic golem and a higher fuel efficiency it is incredibly difficult to produce. To create a golem core it must also be made from petrichor. Obviously bending such a stubborn material into something as complex as a core for a living creature, albiet artificially alive, is immensely difficult requiring many stability rites to be performed and much petrichor. Even if performed perfectly there is still only a low chance of any success and so there are very little golems infused with cores in the world of Verdance.