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« Last post by cdcooley on April 28, 2024, 08:16:05 PM »
Golem magic shouldn't be able to fuse a pile of bones together, at least according to the classic definition. The only arbitrary choice here is the idea of allowing a golem to be constructed out of pile of bones, sand, water, or a bunch of body parts sewn together. And that's the point of this topic.
Golem magic animates a single piece of a particular substance. That has always been the definition. The core idea is that the golem is an animated statue or figurine that has no "working" parts. All motion and movement is provided solely by the magic. You could mold a golem from clay, sculpt it from stone, carve it from wood, etc. You could even carve a golem from a bone. The key is that it will basically hold its shape but be inert and immobile. A pile of bones doesn't fit the definition and neither does a bunch of body parts stitched together. But D&D added the "flesh golem exception" along with a picture that resembles Frankenstein's monster and virtually everything that inherits from that tradition (including most modern videogames and even movies) continue that exception in some form and sometimes extends it further.
Animating piles of bones, mixtures of flesh with muscle and bones, and any other collection of things is some other type of magic. In RM the standard "animated things" groups are Golems, Constructs, and Undead. Golems are animated statues, Undead are reanimated corpses (and more spiritual variants), leaving Constructs as the type of magic for animating collections of bones, flesh, and any other type of material. Unfortunately, as written, constructs are assumed to be robots or machines that have the structure to be functional and are simply missing a power source. The idea of animating a collection of bones, a pile of sand, etc. really isn't addressed by any of those, so Construct Companion added the Amalgam.
Personally I would like for RMU to follow the Construct Companion model and add the Amalgam so that Golem can return to its core definition without needing the strange exceptions or extensions to cover animating body parts stitched together, a pile of bones, or even a pile of sand. I'm also not happy with the Water Golem for similar reasons. Basically, if you can't make a statue that holds its own shape from some substance, then it's not appropriate for golem magic.