Golem Wars- A world idea..

[MoonHunter]

So lets Summarize

1) A generation or so ago, The Great Golem War raged. Alchemists on all five sides created Golems as weapons of war.  These monsters rampaged across the battlefields.
    Golems are controlled by Keys. One Key per Golem. Only those with Keys can give orders to a Golem or turn the Golem off.
    Golems are empowered by an Alchemical mix, Etheroil. This provides their "spark of life" the "heat" to move the golem.
    Golems came in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and specializations.  Some were smart, some were dumb, some were strong, some were fast, some flew, others were stationary.  They were created for specific purposes.

2) Eventually the war collapsed. While there was no official peace, nobody was actively waging war. The economy and populations had been so damaged that they were unable to support warfare with anything more than hatred.  
     The Golems were being made "smart" towards the end.  Some of them wanted a "say" in their assignments, or wanted the same rights as any other soldier.  This caused defections of the Golems from the battles.

3) This left a lot of Golems following "scripts" (orders/ programs) that were no longer useful.  Many rampaged, others stood idle, others went to follow their own limited initiatives.  Some of the Golems who were smart enough did not want to be "decomissioned", so took steps to remain free. Without a controller, a golem was considered wild.

4) An order of "knights" emerged from the lands. Each land had its own order, but they wisely merged into one uber order. These knights are tasked to stoping the wild golems. These knights hunt keys, investigate the actions of golems, and occasionally fight dangerous wild golems.

[Araith]

I'm currently working on an idea for a roleplay, but I'm stuck on some ideas.
I'm running a game that has a heavy influence of golems. I wanted to ask for some ideas for non-traditional golems, crazy wierd ideas for golems. No matter what it is, even if it's really crazy, it might help me out.
Also, I'm trying to think of a way for golems to communicate. Since I don't want most of them to be able to talk, I was thinking of a morris code type of language, since all of them can hit something, they can pound and use it as a language. What do you think?
Here are some of the traditional ones, just add to the list or make a new one.
Iron
Stone
Flesh
Clay
Doll
Glass
Gargoyle
Bone
ScareCrow
Juggarnaut(Like a vehicle of sorts, to carry troups.)
I like the animal type golems like the Mantis idea to cut through calvary.
What can you think of?

[Scrasamax]

This golem was modeled after the indigenous species of elephant, probably brought to extinction during the golem war. Rather than being the normal four to five tons and elephant sized, the Grand Titan was a true monster, standing a towering twenty-two feet tall. Each of its feet was large enough to crush a horse and rider to pulp. The large feet were essential to keep the Titan from becoming a liability by sinking in less than stone hard earth. Most of the Grand Titans are 'smart' enough to avoid wet terrain when possible.

The back of the GT is flattened, and has a four foot tall retaining wall around it the size of an average front porch, or ten foot by 18 foot area. Archers could take cover and fire at enemies from the invulnerable mobile fortress, or spellcasters could use it as a mobile strongpoint in casting spells. GTs are docile in behavior, but if pressed in close combat by golems, it can lash out with a stone trunk the size of a tree which it can use to lift and throw things, mainly other golems.

Few, if any of these survived the wars as they were primary targets and saw heavy usage.

[Araith]

That sounds awesome, thanks for your help!

Would a government run by Golems be communist? I mean, most golems seem to be made for specific reasons, they could even be created for specific professions. How would a society run by golems look like?

How would they communicate? I mean, they can't depend on other beings, but because they are different in form, they couldn't exactly have one specific written language since some can't see.

[EchoMirage]

Generally, golems just 'percieve' - they have a sphere of awareness, with the sensory input becoming less accurate the farther it is from the golem.
Many golems can speak, and all can hear. Those who cannot speak could use a morse code of sorts - CLANG clunk CLANG-CLANK thump...

[Scrasamax]

It is a natural function of living organisms to organize themselves and create pecking orders. Golems, being animated objects, would not form societies, no more than cars would if they could drive themselves. Now, the sentient golems might create their own bases of power, using other golems and humans for their own ends, but that would be emulation of their creators, on whom their own intellect would be likely based.

I think the social structure would be anarchy.

[MoonHunter]

Actually their basic structure would be that of the military command. That was their first set of experiences. Sure they want to "be free", but they understand this military structure... so they could come up with something like it.

One Golem is in charge of a small group that seems to live near each other. Each Sgt would report to its Captain, who is in charge of golems over a region. There may be a Major, a Captain over the Captains. (The names are insignificant and should be changed to fit the world).  There might be more than a major, but really between communication and travel speeds... it probably breaks down to below that.

So the sgts would keep thing organized locally, making sure people followed any rules that had been set up (usually rules to keep the golems safe - like don't attack the city of XXX) and helping provide resources to each individual golem under their command.

Certain Golems would be AWOL from Golem society.  The society may try to get anarchist golems to join and conform, because they are a threat to the rest of them (getting Humans riled up and hunting down rogues) or subverting the unit.

Of course... the golems could go the other way... Athenian Democracy...

[Scrasamax]

I am afraid I have to disagree with you Moon. The golems may be self animated, and a few of them may be self aware, but once the human factor is gone, there is nothing to hold a golem society together. THey dont need anything other than etheroil, and I dont imagine too many were programed to refuel themselves. It would create a serious problem if the golems followed their own resupply schedules when supplies were not completely constant. If a golem was denied fule it thought it deserved, it would take the fuel, and cause quite alot of destruction in the process.

People are not generally stupid. In the realm of science fiction humans make some collosal screw-ups, but such screw-ups are often essential to the progression of the story. We have seen enough movies and books about self aware computers taking over the world, we arent going to create a world dominating super computer just because. There are going to be a long line of golems leading up to the time of the golem wars, and the mistakes of construction and creation should be well worked out by then. Self replicating, socially active golems would be the fantasy equivalent of robots, and there would be a similar golem version of technophobia.

This in mind, once the human element, the controlling element was gone, the golems would kick around for a while but several things would come to pass.

1. No new golems would be made, with a finite number, attrition will reduce the numbers, quicker if the golems are violently active.

2. Golems that are active will run out of fuel, unless someone is refueling them, thus further reducing the number.

3. Entropy always wins.

But on the other hand, this is like the definition of dragons, a purely fantastic venture in which no one can be assured of what is correct or what is not, as the subject matter doesnt exist.

[CaptainPenguin]

Note:
The D20 setting Eberron has something extremely similar (in fact, near identical) to the sentient golems we speak of here.
Check it out. It's one of the only D20 settings worth the money.

[MoonHunter]

From earlier in the thread....

So lets Summarize (edited)
1) A generation or so ago, The Great Golem War raged. .....
2) Eventually the war collapsed....
....The Golems were being made "smart" towards the end.  Some of them wanted a "say" in their assignments, or wanted the same rights as any other soldier.  This caused defections of the Golems from the battles.
3) This left a lot of Golems following "scripts" (orders/ programs) that were no longer useful.  Many rampaged, others stood idle, others went to follow their own limited initiatives.  Some of the Golems who were smart enough did not want to be "decomissioned", so took steps to remain free. Without a controller, a golem was considered wild.
4) An order of "knights" emerged from the lands.......to destroy golems....

Scars, early on we had set that they were "smart"....

The human element is what would make for a golem society (pushing them together for self preservation). While many of them would be "indie" others would be working together... as well as they could.... to keep the humans from decomissioning them.

Golems don't need to be refuled... thus eliminating the great control that many science fiction creatures have.  

People also have both hubris and desperation... they didn't stop and think about this... they did not have generations of predictive litiature warning them of robots going amok (amok...amok... amok... whack . ow!). They thought they could control them (hubris). They needed more good soldiers and smarter soldiers are better than stupider soldiers (as long as the smart ones will follow orders).  

And it would seem that these things require some learning and experience before they start asking questions or going rogue. As they developed intellectually, they suprised their army leaders. These guys didn't know what to really expect from these things, not what special treatment they would need. They just used them. And they got smarter. I could easily see a mage saying, "What did you do to them? They didn't do that in the lab!" when told of defecting golems.

Eventually the left overs of the Golem wars would be decomissioned... eventually...  And this is what the campaign is about... (or part of it anyways).