Arcane Animation
"Sure, everyone thinks they want their tools to work for them and it will save time. The problem is, those tools don't know the things we do - how, when they have no brains! All those people worried about Myrisian enchantments being a threat to their livelihood don't understand the issue. Let some enterprising fool try to do it, and we'll sell tickets to watch the failure."For as long as people have worked with magic, there has been an interest in managing to control an object without needing to touch it, or even direct it. It is said in the ancient days of Erisdaire there were wizards who could make statues do their bidding, or enchant suits of armor to protect them from others who seek them harm. Modern arcane spellcasters have sought to reinvent this art, and have managed to do so through a several different methodologies: Necromantic Animation, Enchanted Animation, and Soulbinding. Each of these methods have their own particular benefits, dangers, and shortcomings.
Necromantic Animation
By far the easiest method of animation is necromancy, which is to say this method creates animated corpses. Understandably, this leads to a great many problems before it can begin. Necromancy is an outlawed practice in the Rhyliss Empire, along with many of its allied states. Myrisian Sages are overall less restrictive, but many of them have local laws against performing magic on the unwilling - and the dead cannot be said to be willing. More of a problem is the death and decay of the subject, which renders biological structures unable to perform exactly as they did when alive. Solutions have been found through countless iterations of refinement, which in turn brings its own problems.The end result is a ritual spell which animates a corpse and binds it to the control of its animator. Verbal commands will be followed, though often in an overly literal method unless the ritual's design allowed for more deft control. Colloquially these are known as 'zombies' and 'skeletons' to adventurers, often commonly associated with evil places. One could say this is the primary problem with using necromantic animation, as it draws the sort of attention few desire.
It should be noted there are necromancers who have built upon the basic ritual to generate more advanced forms of these animated corpses by joining parts of multiple corpses together. These creations tend to require more effort in the ritual, and thus are able to do more complex tasks without constant supervision. Whether this veers into the realm of "the undead" is a question for divine philosophers.
Enchanted Animation
The second most common method of animation relies heavily on research done in the depths of antiquity, and is rarely reinvented as often as necromantic magic can be. As a result, the enchantments are often very robust and reliable, with such animated objects outlasting their creators by centuries. (Or longer.) Often these are created as guardians for places where their creator wishes intruders to be kept out, and it is said this was a common practice in tombs of old. Modern mystics scoff at this, as the methods of animation which last across such a gulf of time are prohibitively expensive "just to protect a decayed body". The invested time and expense of reagents are the primary barriers to this method of animation, not to mention the long time of study and practice to develop the necessary skill with magic.The subjects of this animation, practically-speaking, can be anything with enough physical presence to last the entire ritual casting. This means anything from a wooden puppet, to a carved chunk of ice, or even your favorite walking stick can be animated with the proper ritual and components. The animated objects can be commanded, but most often there are more layers of enchantment placed on top of the subjects to govern their behavior. Telling a granite statue to "protect this room" has gone poorly for a great many arcanists, as quite often the animated subjects cannot distinguish their creator from other living beings without further enchantments providing a means to do so.
Recent developments of clockwork mechanisms by gnomes and dwarves have led to a sub-division of such enchanted objects: the "clockwork automatons". These are objects with a specific form which are already able to move due to the clockwork mechanisms within them, but magic imbues them with a purpose and guidance to fulfill that purpose. These creations are much more labor-intensive to create, but tend to be much more difficult to disrupt than to simply hit it with common "anti-magic" measures.
Soulbinding
The last known method of animation is something which is a grave taboo across almost all cultures of Erisdaire, and that is to bind the spirit of something into an object in order to provide intelligence as well as the usual benefits of animation. A combination of necromantic magic and other enchantments is required, making it rare to encounter. This method requires a soul (or the "essence of life") to be trapped in a vessel before a subject is prepared. Then magic is used to bind that essence into the subject and bind it to the will of its creator. Under no circumstances may such a bound spirit harm the one who performed the binding, or any others designated by the ritual enchantment. The binding remains even when the physical form has been broken, though the means of performing actions may be heavily impaired.The results are incredibly useful, as such bound spirits are able to make decisions and more importantly discern intent of instructions. It is the source of the spirits which cause great consternation, as there is one obvious source of such to bind: the sacrifice of a living person. This is why the art of soulbinding has been a taboo for as long as any can remember, save maybe the elves and dragons. There have been others who experimented with binding the spirits of animals, such as a favorite pet, but they have usually been subject to exile and seen as examples of degenerate minds. Currently, only a few cultures perform soulbinding from living beings, and even then it is seen as a rare and dangerous thing.
More common, but no less dangerous, is the art of summoning beings from outside the world and using them to animate objects. Elementals are most often used for this purpose, but there are always rumors of those who use demons or devils as the animating force. Myrisian Sages once experimented with such bindings, and after refining the process it has now been called "elemental binding" in order to make it legally distinct from using the souls of people. Thus it is now possible to see fountains of fresh water flowing up inclines due to the power of bound elemental spirits.
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