Tell me about the Homunculi ,or other artificial life, in your setting, /tg/?
A fantasy setting I'm working on has a big golem/construct focus. Like a magical I,Robot, golems build and move and deliver. But for a long time, Creators have been trying to make golems that could think. A great Creator reworks tye very nature of the basics of golem creation and golems can think, but at a price. They increased complexity of golem brains leads to more energy expended, which adds to wear and tear. Golems now have to occaisionally recharge at wells of power. This has led to a strange shift in behavior, golems now have places relatively free of living interactions, and they only interact with eachother. They are creating their own culture, even their own language.
>>47847615
I had a plan for a small side quest before. Village girl was going to turn out to be the homonculus of a long dead alchemist. Unlike most who lose their creator, she was pretty sane and had just taken up running her "mother's" apothecary for the village. But she wanted to be a real human, maybe try that dating thing humans seemed to enjoy so much, eat food, sleep and dream, all that stuff. But she needed the PCs to help find certain reagents that could push her animation to true life...
... and then one player pointed out that constructs can be polymorphed into other creatures just fine and a minor item the girl could easily afford would solve her problems quite handily.
>>47847615
Every time I write up/run a sci fi game, I always find a way to work in androids because I love androids.
I'm planning up a space opera game right now and I'm working on how to include them. I want to take a leaf out of Bladerunner's book, and make them illegal to some degree. But I can't decide if they should be completely illegal or just banned on certain planets.
I'm leaning towards the former.
Sorcerers and alchemists make them on a bunsen burner out of a gobbet of wank and a quart of blood, wean them on milk 'til they're about the size of a child, which doesn't take long, and use them as guinea-pigs or servants.
Most look like ill made people with black eyes and grey skin, uneven limbs and asymmetrical features, but as a creation they can be shaped into any imaginable form by one so skilled: though bound to the will of the being from whom their "materials" were derived they possess enough capacity for independent thought that they can go rogue and attempt to break free of their creator; often through killing them, which ironically ends in their death as the magical enemies that sustained them dissipate.
>>47849707
magical energies dangit
>>47848991
I feel like I should understand the picture.
Humans died out to a plague that was only deadly to them (other races would get some minor sickness). They were the most technologically advanced race, which is now lost. The last few Grand Alchemists or whatever, to try to preserve humanity, created the Humonculi. This was a few generations before the Humans actually went extinct, but many families opted to have a 'designer' child who didn't have a high chance of a horrible death. Over time Humonculi took Humanity's place. Though not *as* tech-savvy, there are a few alchemists who get good enough to make more, so they gud.
It was half an excuse for rampant, interracial romance and half a reason for a couple players to gain some crazy genmods in a somewhat-fantasy setting.
>>47847615
>Golem
>Mass of material animated by a Golem Core, which contains a bound elemental
>Can be mindless or sapient
>Automaton
>Artificial life form constructed in the shape of a Humanoid
>Incredibly expensive to create, equivalent of trying to make a Terminator in the early Iron Age
>Modular, appearance varies greatly. Base form is an iron skeleton
>Powered by a Soul Stone, always sapient
>Homunculus
>Uses existing parts to make a "new" Humanoid
>Literally Frankenstein's Monster
>Neither alive nor dead, soulless but sapient
>>47852237
What if someone uses human's soul to power a golem?
>>47850135
That character is a robot. From the movie Ex Machina.
Poe Dameron built her.
General Hux wanted to fuck her.
>>47853991
This has always been a sticking point for me, as I've always taken the impression that a golem is still a golem whether you're burning a human soul as fuel or bounding some kind of element to it to do the same.
The key difference is how they are used for my purposes. Where a golem will burn, as in deplete it's power source over time the difference between an undead in an iron body is they have a phylactery which is designed not to burn out the soul and keep it in tack. This leads to other issues where the undead would have to subsist on the life essence of living creatures which can be done by means of stealing it from animals and such but sentient beings like humans provide far more lasting and effective nurishment as it were.
In my game, orcs and goblins are artificial races.
Two thousand years ago, when mortals first got really good at magic, they started altering their forms. In the nation of Avalon, people enhanced their grace, beauty (by local cultural standard,) and connection to nature magic, and became elves and some fey. In Jotunheim, strength and craftsmanship were more valued, so they made themselves into dwarves and giants.
When they went to war, Jotunheim relied on war machines and golems, while Avalon created slave races of fast-breeding workers (goblins) and soldiers (orcs.)
There was a third civilization based on India, but they got pretty thoroughly wiped out in the war. They had followed a path involving magically-induced reincarnation and spiritual enlightenment, but there's not much left of them but a few very pissed off Rakshasa and Mariliths.
>constructs are generally just robots, albeit fiendishly complicated ones for the late-1800s tech level
>programmable clockwork brains let them carry out reasonably complex tasks
>powered by trapped souls, like most magical things in setting
Dangers:
>a bit dim and single-minded. don't tell a hunter-killer construct to do non-lethal prisoner retrieval, it won't go well
>very occasionally a "fresh" soul will overpower the logic engine and the construct will go rogue
>logic engines are expensive and finicky, so some manufacturers implant the brain and vital organs of animals (or people) as a control core. then when this horrid treatment inevitably kills them, they get to be the next soul in the soul gem.
An obscure curiosity which is of no concern to 99.99% of individuals. Homunculi are created through a variety of methods with varying effectiveness. Some alchemists will try mixing semen with animal eggs to create small short-lived creatures which seem to be different every time, while more advanced scientists will artificially birth and incubate the products of breeding between different races which usually result in miscarriage normally. It's a highly unpredictable inefficient craft and generally golems, necromancy, and slavery are far more effective at accomplishing the same goals. Some strange and powerful hybrids of creatures have been created and a human body can be strengthened by grafting in parts of homunculi.
