Forgeborn

The Forgeborn are the products of ancient, titanic science, refined by the work of mortal arcane tinkerers.
The first forgeborn were the proxies, massive war machines, designed to fight the Colossi in the Titans' place. The proxies relied on the power of the sky cities, but generations of Giants took the inherited proxies and created smaller versions to serve as armies on the ground. Much of this work was done in Eurosia, and the bulk of active forgeborn were created to serve in the Eurosian Forgeborn Corps.
Successive generations of forgeborn have been smaller and smaller, and designed for a wider range of tasks. Many of the smallest were assigned to technical roles, including The Creation of new forgeborn cores. In this task, the forgeborn proved for more capable than the giants, creating the first iteration of forgeborn with true sentience. This advance has led to a large number of these forgeborn deserting from the Corps to travel the world, and many continuing to create their own offspring.
Forgeborn are distinguished from lesser magical automata by a unique crystal 'heart' known as a core. These cores, typically housed in an armoured chamber in the forgeborn's chest, provide power to their body and also house their personality. They are created in Eurosia by a process of Titanic alchemy, but it is possible via a slightly less exacting process to grow a core from a sliver or slivers donated from one, or more, active cores.
If a forgeborn is slain, their comrades will seek to reclaim their core - if intact - as it can be carried in the body of another forgeborn, where an echo of the deceased's personality can act as a sort of adviser. Such a core can also be used as a donor for creating a new core, or im­planted in a new body; neither is done without pre-mortem consent.
When an existing core is integrated into a new body, they are considered a new individual. The totality of a forgeborn's self is formed from a combination of the core and the body. Similarly, the echo in a core stored in another forgeborn is not considered the original forgeborn, and is not able to consent to any form of donation.

• Proxy - The original forgeborn are vast mechanisms, created by the titans of Mecheri to fight in their place in the waning years of the Colossus War. A mere handful of these mighty engines remain, all-but indestructible, but lost without the direction of their masters.
• Juggernaut - Created by the Giants in imitation of the work of the titans, these forgeborn are living engines of war, sometimes used as fighting platforms by their allies. In the absence of battles to fight, some are adapted to the purposes of heavy industry.
• Enforcer - The first efforts of the 'lesser' races, mostly Humans, Gnomes and others working under the supervision of the giants of Eurosia.
• Envoy - The final product of mortal experimentation, these modestly-sized forgeborn were created to fill the ranks of the Eurosian Forgeborn Cohort, an armed force intended to be fast, flexible and more reliable than any mortal humanoids. The envoys proved capable of possessing as much sentience as any humanoid, however, and many rebelled against their masters and - ultimately - discover that what truly marked them as unique was the ability to create other forgeborn.

The forgeborn are not common enough, as yet, to constitute a culture, and most remain in bondage to the Eurosian state. Those who have rejected the authority of their makers tend to wander, looking for a place and a purpose outside of their designed parameters, in a world that views them as oddities or non people.