Golem Factory

[Icestorm008]

Hi guys,

It's been awhile, but I'm trying to map out a Golem factory for a VTRPG pathfinder game. At the moment, my creativity is having a bit of a block, so I could your help coming up with ideas for its design and inserting intriguing features. So, how about it?

If I say you are about to enter into a Golem Factory, what do you picture in your mind?

Help greatly appreciated!

med.png

[Larb]

It depends what they are making the golems out of. Essentially though I picture two main rooms - the workshop where they are assembled and the ritual room where they are enchanted/brought to life.

If the golems are constructed from wood or stone, the workshop will resemble a carpenter or masons workshop, with associated rooms to store stone and timber. If they are bronze or iron, then they will probably be cast in big sand molds There will be some kind of furnace and some big molds (or multiple molds if it is multipart). So it's going to resemble a big ironworks. You might even have the original clay sculpts used to create the molds.

As for the enchanting room - well that is completely open I guess.

[Kier]

Well I am partial to the down and dirty golems, more old school. All the ones I write about are made of flesh, so I am thinking near a cemetery, poor section in town.

[Green-Pilgrim]

Essentially, what you're creating is an Arms-Factory...right?

So you're going to have to have some way of securing the "weapons" from competitors or those who would attempt to steal/destroy the golems before they can be used. The concept of a 'factory' that makes several of these "weapons" would also suggest that you're going to have a large labor force to turn out lots of them.

I would suggest that this could be seen as something like an assembly line (though not a conveyor belt system) where each room is a different stage of completion for the construction and finally the enchantment. Then you would have to store the golems until they are needed / purchased / sent out to do whatever it is that they are designed to do.

Good Luck.
-GP

[Bogie]

I agree with Larb, you need to decide, if you haven't already, what kind of golems are going to be produced. Then we can give you more specific ideas. I also agree with Green-Pilgrim that a single golem being made is done in secrecy, but you can't hide a factory so you need security.

[Icestorm008]

Thank you all for the good ideas. I was certainly struggling to conceptualize how this process would look and reflect that in the structure's architecture. Kobolds and indentured half-orcs are the principal working demographic for the factory. The kobold's natural inclination for spellcraft make them well attuned for the enchanting portion, while the half-orc's physique serves best transferring finished golem parts from one process to the next. I can see the Kobolds organized into some sort of a guild, comprised of sorcerers/wizards and their apprentices, to protect their working conditions and push for higher wages. The factory is overseen by a pair of dwarven taskmages, and three bizarre engineers (a gnome, a goblin, and a human) who maintain proprietary, sophisticated equipment (similar to an early ironworks) for cranking out several types of golems at a steady pace. I would say the primary type of golem used to be Ice (since this was originally used as a military factory for a war against the Efreet). Now, the focus has most likely shifted to personal bodyguards and servants, which in my mind would either be iron/stone or wood, given the natural resources surrounding the area. Although their production is nowhere near as efficient as an assembly line or a modern day factory, they are still capable of creating about 20 golems per working day, but probably run an average of 6-8/day now. There production definitely is closely guarded by a private staff of bodyguards, not to mention a few golems who have been ordered to assist the guard captain.

If it helps, think of this as an industrial hub of a nation. I will post once I get going on a sketch soon.

[Bogie]

Not sure what style or look you are going for, but these are items I could see being in a golem factory. Hope some of them help. None of them are my own work, all are items posted on the DundJinni site.

Spike03_FB_kpl.png8B4_Triangle1_FB.png536_Square1_FB.pngAFC_Circle2_FB.pngSeige_Tower.png8C6_Pully.png322_winche.png663_Block&Tackle.pngfurnace2_ra.pngfurnaceH_1_BLU.pngmundane-tool-3-4EYes.pngsledgehammer_MM.png758_coil_barrel.pngbowl_spiked_empty.png

[Simon33600]

Well, the reason why golems are such a hot commodity is that they make such great workers, right. So there is no reason why the factory itself would not make use of the very golems they produce...

One thing could be that, they actually are so expensive that in some regions, including the one where the factory is implanted, it actually cost less to keep hiring workers (the golems are therefore exported in areas where wages are more costly; use for very specific and dangerous jobs, such as warfare...)
Still, I could imagine a few unsellable golems being kept to help with the production.
"Oh; the legs on this one did not bake right and broke! Nobody will buy it now! Well, put it on a cart and asign it to the pump! "


Apart from that; I guess you might need some clay pits and some water for the bodies.

Conveyor belts would probably look out of place in a fantasy setting, but the golems must be very heavy, so maybe they "factory" is actually a series of similar room and the teams rotate around from one to the other? Or maybe they moulded on carts and wheeled around between the stations? Or there is a big freaking river beetween the various posts and instead of carts, the golems body are assembled on rafts and floated around the factory...

You'd probably need several really big, really hot ovens to bake the golems, and the combustible for these would seem like one of the most bulky supply the factory would consume; so you'd think that these would be on the side or outside of the factory to facilitate the delivery. Plus it would have the added benefit of getting this possible hazard away from the main building...

They probably be a few specialized "shops", like a carpentry, a foundry, some magic thingy. Probably some offices of sort.

Do the workers have living quarters on site? Do they have a break room? The place probably needs a trash pile of sorts. Was the place designed for this purpose or was it an existing building (or series of) that got transformed? Do they do their own R&D? Test their golems beyond seeing if it obeys simple orders? How involve is the magic behind it. Do they need a library and mage laboratories, or did they just buy a scroll once and made copies since then? Is the place working 24/7 and, if so, where do they get the lighting from? Do they use anything like a watermill to drive the factory?

Anyway, a few ideas, maybe some could be of use to you...