'thul's story project...

['thul]

the Chinese terracotta army was made out of fired clay. the golems used in the story are more related to statues.

['thul]

These beings have begun to debate whether the more powerful golems need a stronger source of magical energy. Basing everything on that there is a certain limited amount of energy a mage can commit to a spell, as has been indicated several places in the story, means that the power imbued into a golem is also limited. Using this system would typically mean one of two things... either the golem will "exhaust" itself after a while, or it the golem is powered by channeling. The first case is obviously impractical in that a golem could stop working mid-battle, making them of limited use in extended combat. The second case means that a) the mage has to be alive to power golems - fatal flaw and b) a single mage can only power a certain number of golems at one time. also impractical.

Due to reasons above, 'thul have begun to debate an alternate source of power for golems, but not quite decided on what. Might be linking up to some central power source, might be taking of some (mostly) finite supply of power.
one of the more viable theories hinge on using the souls of the deceased. If the deceased have souls, they obviously have some sort of power, so why not put it to good use?

[fool-ish]

the Chinese terracotta army was made out of fired clay. the golems used in the story are more related to statues.

That's them, I couldn't think what they were called...duh!

['thul]

No worries. Some names just don't stick... These beings knew that it was them you referred to.
Rather senseless to build an army out of clay when you can't even animate them, though...

'thul decided this morning on a decent power source... souls of the dead.
Souls are obviously powerful, yet the dead don't really use them, so why not put them to use? The characters do it in secret, so it might yet garner some sort of critique, but 'thul figure that so long as the owners of the souls are long dead, its harmless enough. Its when people are killed to power golems that it'll be really questionable whether it is good or evil.

[fool-ish]

Rather like taking body parts without consent. They should carry donor cards! The use of souls is an interesting concept though.

Truly, I've nothing useful to say today. I'm getting a bit giddy cos I'm going on my jollies tomorrow.

['thul]

No doubt they'll get a bit of trouble when their use of souls is discovered. But then, they'll also get into trouble for over-keeping their contracted golem construction. They were asked to produce some 5-600 war golems, only to have built closer to 5-6 thousand with thousands more under construction. ('they' being two of the characters in the story)

['thul]

These beings have now begun expanding significantly on the various sub-species...

The Taken have now been split into six "castes" with slightly different changes, all based around a certain set of changes. Not found good names for these castes yet, but maybe 'thul will think of something...

The Nomads have now got five unique sub-species. all with traits useful for them all. (see/sense dragons, tracking, hiding, running, naturally armored and smelly)
The settled have gone from one to six sub-species. (vampires, fireproof, stonesensers, enchanters, climbers, light-adaptive)
The packs have three, with more likely to come. (wolven, moose-kin and tree-climbers)

The reason for all these new sub-species is that with the way evolution works, its not logical for there to be only a few extra species.

[Farseer]

Sounds good to me!

[fool-ish]

It was all going so well until..smelly!

['thul]

The only two groupings that would mind are the Packs and the Dragons, but for the most part, it is only the last two of those. The odor of the smelly sub-species is basically the same given off by Glau'mor. Utterly disgusting to dragons.