Category:Dread Golemcrafting

This section contains canon info from officially published sources

Dread Golemcrafting is the dread crafting of a golem created with the dread golem template. Dread golemcrafting is, whether one realises it or not, dread constructcrafting, dread crafting, and dread creation. It does not presuppose the competences of constructcrafting and golemcrafting. What is achieved is achieved through dark desire and the assistance of the Dark Powers. One need not be even so much as a novice at magic to create a dread golem. Equally, one can be the most gifted scientific mind in the Land of Mists but the golem will not animate save by the fiat of the Dark Powers. Crafting a dread golem is will to the creation of life and as such is hubris and transgression. Dread golemcrafting is Powers Check worthy, but such a check may be unnecessary as the dread golem itself is "reward" enough. Dread golems are "natural patricides", being destined to attempt the murder of their maker.

Dread golemcrafting is a bit like riding a bicycle. The cyclist knows how to ride it. But he or she cannot explain the physics involved. Dread golemcrafters do not truly know the "how" of "what" they are doing. They do not understand the role of dark desire in the creation of their golem and they do not recognise the hand of the Dark Powers in its animation. Nor do they appreciate the consequences . . . . Neither Emil Bollenbach nor Dr. Victor Mordenheim constitute exceptions. Both believe that their wonders are works of biological and medical science. Mordenheim, at the very least, does not even realise that Adam is not a member of the living, but is rather one of the created. Adam is, for him, a living thing whose definition is strictly a matter of biology. Others involved in dread golemcrafting are, in their own ways, no less deluded. Their creations are, for example, works of "advanced alchemy" or "advanced chemistry", or "gifted metallurgy" or "gifted woodworking", or a "parent's love" or an enemy's "hatred", or even "divine favour". Individuals such as Azalin Rex or members of the Fraternity of Shadows who have a firm understanding of the process of creating a dread golem wisely choose not to do so.

Knowledge of the particulars of dread golemcrafting is Ravenloft Lore and Knowledge (Ravenloft). Arcane Lore and Knowledge (arcana) are useful, but afford no information about the ways in which dread golemcrafting differs from golemcrafting, and so may even offer information that is, in certain points, dangerously inaccurate. For example that making a dread golem is making a mindless creature that is firmly under control.