The Golem - Reboot OCT

Brief

He was created to learn quickly and work deftly. As a tool of the melodic arts, music and language come naturally to him. Give him an instrument he's never seen and ten minutes and he'll probably be able to play it at least bearably. His secondary functions included providing minor repairs to his peers and companionship to his creator.

When he was reworked the mechanic used the gifts provided to him as a starting point to create a fighting machine. To the predisposition toward musical instruments there was added a predisposition toward the instruments of war. His ability to fix automatons and golems came in handy when damages occurred within the artificial armies and their weapons and allowed him to repair himself after battles. He was equipped with a berserk mode, two control phrases, and a protective symbol.

Name: (none)
Age: ~7 years old
Gender: Male
Sex: (none)
Species: Clay golem
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 200lb

❤: music, machines, learning new things, creative people, craftsmanship, fighting

✖: losing autonomy, the power-hungry, opening his mouth, doing nothing, fighting

_{Notes on appearance: No finger nails or discernible pupils/irises. "Hair" doesn't have any texture to it. Features are solid, but not sharp. Lots of red clay and mud inside him from repairs - some shows through on his torso. Passes for a living creature if you're not looking for a human and can't see heat.}

Extensive

Motivations: The golem was created by a peaceful hermit who liked constructing artificial lifeforms, but after around four years of functioning as an assistant and entertainer his home was destroyed and his creator murdered by a mechanic-cum-warlord named Thistle. Thistle reworked the hermit's automatons and golems for use in his mechanical armies, but the golem released his creator's masterpiece, an automaton, before the warlord could get to it. After participating in the final year and a half of a devastating war the golem was released from service by Thistle's death. For a year now he has been searching searching his world for the automaton he released, working as a mercenary to pay for traveling expenses and information. He wants to make sure his creator's final work is safe and whole, and intends to ask the central computer where he can find it or its remains.

Personality: In social situations the golem tends to come across as distant and mechanical, with little interest in interacting. The larger the crowd, the more obviously uncomfortable he is. His inability to grasp complex displays of emotion often makes him seem insensitive or uncaring. In reality he's suspicious and uncomprehending, but not malicious or even genuinely disinterested in the people around him. While it's no simple matter convincing him to speak, the easiest way to get him to interact is to show off musical paraphernalia or machinery, or to strike up a conversation on the same subjects.

Though he may not be the antisocial hostile people often take him for, his conscience is wrecked and he tends to act on self preservation and perception of material worth rather than on concepts right and wrong. When he does appear to act according to a personal perception of morality, he's generally acting on what he remembers believing before he was reworked or on what he believes his creator would have wanted.

Abilities:

•He's very nimble for a lump of dirt and has all the endurance of a rock.

•He learns very quickly, especially by watching. Musical instruments and weapons come particularly easily to him.

•As long as his tongue is still attached to some part of his body, he can keep functioning with that part. With some water or slip detached body parts can be reattached, as well, though they take a while to set.

•His hearing, while it isn't any stronger than that of the average human being (maybe a bit weaker), is omnidirectional and magical. He has no ears.

•He does not have a sense of pain, or of pleasure. His sense of touch is limited to pressure.

Berserk mode:

His berserk mode is activated, with some exceptions, by the words "thus descend the furies" said in sequence by any individual, including himself. When activated whatever goal he has oriented himself toward will become his exclusive objective, and he will attempt to achieve it, usually violently, at any expense. It's stopped by the word "surrender" or by burning out after his goal has been achieved. In berserk mode he cannot consciously harm anyone whom he knows is wearing the thistle symbol indicated in the reference, and their direct orders may override the objective.

In berserk mode his mouth appears to leak with a burning red energy. His eyes may also produce the energy, but not as consistently and not to the same extent. The energy is warm and may make your skin tingle, but is essentially harmless if you're not extremely sensitive to magic. If you're close enough to him to stick your hand in it you should probably be worrying about other things.

If he enters berserk mode without the control phrase the rules become suggestions, but he can be more easily calmed down through means other than "surrender."

_{You can force berserk mode by:
Forcing his mouth open
Damaging or trying to damage the beetle
Otherwise terrifying him}

Weaknesses:

•If you remove his tongue from his body the body effectively becomes a clay doll.

•He has no sense of smell and no sense of temperature, and his sense of touch is limited to pressure.

•His level of empathy toward living creatures is extremely low. He tends not to understand the subtleties of facial expressions or body language, so if you keep your facts straight it's easy to lie to him.

•Cutting through him has all the difficulties of cutting through a particularly dense lump of clay, but the same shortcuts work - particularly taking a taut wire to him.

•If you soak him he'll grow easier to cut or pull apart and he'll avoid making sudden movements.

•He grows brittle in intense, dry heat.

•He's sentimental and refuses to wear armor because he wasn't created with it. In fact, it takes some doing to get him to wear anything that doesn't look like or match his original outfit.

Weapon: He's in the practice of discarding his weapon after a fight and taking that of the (or a) defeated person. If they have no weapon he may keep his, attempt to copy their fighting style, or both.

Exceptions include weapons he is physically unable to use, weapons that would affect his autonomy or functionality, and weapons of extremely low quality.

Current weapon: A spear roughly 6'5" in length. Diameter of the shaft is about half the width of his hand. The shape of the spearhead allows it to be used as a hook, and two rings decorate the shaft directly below it. The golem uses it like a staff or spear, but its length disallows certain forms. However, it is sturdy enough that he can use it like a miniature vaulting pole.

The Beetle:

The beetle is an experiment of the golem's creator. At face value it is a colorful, vaguely beetle-shaped rock about the size of the golem's thumb. It's actually a beetle carcass encased in stone, and it is both sentient and able to summon a theoretically infinite number of beetles to function as its eyes, ears, and independent body. Said beetles look extremely like large japanese beetles, but come in a variety of colors and are made up mainly of glass and gossamer. If destroyed they will disintegrate and disappear within the hour.

The initial rate at which the beetle can call up new bodies is around ten per second, but after every ten seconds of sustained conjuring the rate halves. It rises again, at a somewhat slower rate, with rest. The more beetles there are the more difficulty the beetle has controlling them individually: at a quantity of around ten they stop behaving normally and begin either clumping together or flying wildly and erratically.

The golem keeps the beetle both as a companion and as a weapon of distraction. He ordinarily keeps the stone itself pocketed and lets a body or two roam around on his person. Communication with the beetle is performed mainly through gestures, but sometimes through rapping on surfaces or indistinct sounds, as the insect's bodies hear vibrations rather than individual words. As the rock itself cannot hear or see, the only way to communicate with it directly when its bodies aren't around or focusing is to move it.

Contents of bag:

A small flask of water, a handful of red clay (wrapped in paper), two pouches full of assorted coins, a short, light cloak, a linking puzzle he hasn't gotten around to pulling apart

Other notes on various things:

•He would kill for a few fistfuls of solid white clay. Grey and black are also 

•He holds no inherent value toward life, but sentiment and nostalgia often lead him to act kind as his creator did. He is also entirely capable of forming emotional attachments, slow though they may come.

•Visual art is not his forte. While he has a steady hand, his drawings are broken and primitive. His handwriting and sheet music, however, reflect that steady hand.

•While he can sleep, he doesn't have to. When he does sleep it's because he's bored and secure, and he sleeps very lightly.

•If there's nobody around to show him how something works and examining it supplies no useful information, he'll jump in anyway and see if he can figure it out rather than waiting.

•As much time as he may spend basically standing around, he's not very patient.

_{Trying to organize the text section of a reference is ???????? ??? ???????????????? ? Liable to be reorganized before the audition deadline}

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