Golem Mail

You... want to stick a man in it? Sure, it's no crazier then building these things in the first place.

-Gimble RockHeart, A History of Golem Mail

Written by Pippykins

No single piece of magitech has seen as much widespread use as Golem Mail. The original suits were hand built pieces constructed by the Collegium Magi, precursors to our modern Tower Mages and arguably the first Technomancers, in order to combat the innumerable threats that existed before The Fall. The rudimentary intelligence of magical constructs was deemed insufficient to make full use of the substantial weaponry carried by these multi-ton war machines. This led to the development of a pilotable variant allowing for an already trained combatant to pilot the vehicle with minimal additional training. This “ease of use” philosophy and advances in mass production have seen golem mail in a much wider range of applications. With everything from transportation to construction with some limited use in agriculture, golem mail is ever present in most places. Most cities will have numerous hangers and streets laid out with golems in mind. It is not uncommon for even small villages to have a local mechanic and garage to keep a town guard or agro golem running, though they would probably also serve as a general magitechnician for the town. Still, golem mail intended exclusively for combat hardly rare. Skirmish between corporations; nations; and city-states happen all the time over everything from salvage rights of old ruins to land disputes. The influence of Harvester can still be felt even now, 1461 years after it’s apparent death, through its cults and monstrosities. Between that and numerous other threats, conflict has become a fact of life on Agrona along with the mercenaries that fight in them.

Golem mail comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, being highly configurable and tailored to specific purposes. Most are 20 to 25 ft and whether it’s light recon mech or a massive four-legged construction golem they do tend to share some commonalities. Most are roughly humanoid with a cockpit located in its torso. The front section, if not a full dome, is lined with seer’s glass paired to the golems optics allowing them to see from the golems perspective with relevant targeting info. The golem is controlled by mimicking the pilot's motions through there command harness with a little corrective automation on the golems part, though many things are fully automated for convenience. For instance, navigation is usually simplified rather than having a pilot “walk” in the cockpit and turns over full leg controls when needed, while reloads are almost always done by the golem at the push of a button. The smallest golem mail tends to function more off automation due to the restricted cockpit size, though many of the features and magitech used for it is the same.
The construction and anatomy of golem mail have seen many additions and innovations since its invention, but by far the most curious has been the inclusion of cognition cores. They are a strange mixture of circuitry and animation enchantments that provide a kind of sentience to the golem. They aren’t a perfectly understood technology, and each Core seems to have its own quirks and personalities regardless of how manufacturers try to standardize them. What truly makes cores an oddity is that most of the history around them has been lost, as well as the techniques involved in making the origional varients. Ancient cores are far superior to the ones being made today while serving as a sort of black box for lost civilizations and magitech from before The Fall. Highly coveted and absolutely priceless, battles are fought over ruins that have even a moderate chance of having one.

Power Generation

While all golems are generally built around a skeletal frame complete with servos and pistons, the real driving force behind their massive limbs are a kind of artificial muscle called puppet ligaments. There are a few different kinds of engine typically used but the most common are perpetual spell engines or elemental binding cages. Regardless of the number of limbs or shape of the golem, the load bearing quality of limbs comes from the strength applied by the puppet ligaments which can be found crisscrossing the golems anatomy beneath its armor.

Weapons & Armament

Golems typically run weapon systems tailored to the individual pilot. In most cases this is whatever weapons are wielded in or mounted to the arms, assuming the arms aren't replaced entirely, and one or two extra weapons systems mounted for utility. Those are usually placed on the chest; back; or shoulders, though stranger options exist. The golems hands are fairly formidable by themselves, and monks have been known to eschew all other armaments for these with surprising results. Spellcasters generally use spell amps in order to give there spells more kick, and in some rare cases uses systems to have extra spells while aboard the golem, though by itself the golem can make no use of these systems.

Armor and defense

Hulls are most commonly made of steel, though other variants are hardly rare. Adamantine is a favorite for heavy siege golems, while mythril is all the rage with rich speed freaks. Some druids even prefer green oak, as the enchanted wood is still living and receptive to healing magic. New materials for hulls are being experimented with all the time. Golems will also employ shields, force fields, and any other number of magical defences.

Additional & auxiliary systems

Arguably the most impressive advancements and rediscoveries of lost Magitech have pertained to the golem’s systems. Mundane software and circuitry meshes well with the divination magic of seer’s glass, lining the cockpit with targeting information and useful HUD elements. Cognition cores allow them to act on their own in a limited capacity. While they do not make the golem to fight better on their own, they do give the pilot a greater degree of control via linking to the pilot’s instinct helm and reading their intentions. Cores also allow the golem to learn over time, better adapting to its pilots. This generally makes veteran pilots fiercely protective of cores they’ve had for a while.

Nickname

The term Mech is reserved for combat golems as short hand for mechanized cavalery.

Complement / Crew

The nature of piloting has always been designed to give a single pilot the fastest response time. While there are occasional instances of golems with cabins or turrets, the main functions of a golem are always controlled by one pilot.