Ars Ressurectio: The Golem - A Sculpted Continuation

This is the first in a series of posts about ways to come back from death.
The Ars Ressurctio.

First of the Again-Living

Not all who live again were torn back from beyond.
Some were held at the edge.
Carved like memory into flesh,
anchored to the world not by breath, but by intention.

A golem is not raised.
A golem is made.

They are not undead.
They are posthumous persistence—
bodies prepared to carry forward a shape of meaning,
etched with imperatives, filled with something powerful enough to walk again.

They were meant to be more than memory.
They were meant to remain.

This is the first form of the again-living:
Not born again by miracle, nor called from ash by desperate prayer—
but shaped, lovingly or cruelly,
by those who could not bear to let them go.

A golem is a body that remembers being meant.
Not alive because it should be—
but because someone decided it must be.

They are not constructs, though they are constructed.
They are not undead, though they rose after death.
They are not automatons, though they follow instruction.
They are not whole, but they are enough to move.
They dared lose will or memory to walk again.

A golem is:

A vessel of meaning anchored in matter
A ritual object that walks
A person, if meaning coheres into personhood
A symbol, even if it does not know what it means

Their bodies are stone-flesh, glass-bone, wood-blood, gold-threaded sinew.
Some are smooth, statuesque, untouched. Others are engraved, rune-scored, chained with relics.
Their eyes may glow when imperatives stir. Their voice may change when oaths are tested.

A golem may not know who they are.
But they know what they’re for.

They are used in war. In vigil. In mourning. In love.
Some are created to guard tombs that no longer exist.
Others are reawakened lovers who do not remember who kissed them awake.
A few are made without consent—but have grown into themselves anyway, rising from tool to creature to person.

They do not breathe, but they may sigh.
They do not eat, but they may hunger.
They do not dream—but their life is close to what we would call a waking dream, a nightmare, a blissful sleepwalk.

Some cities revere them. Some fear them.
Some golems pass as mortal—until they bleed starlight.
Some are unmistakable from the moment they enter the room.

Together in servitude. Mizusyne

Mechanics of Playing a Golem

Structure made playable

These are the containers of the golem’s ongoing existence—fictional bones grown from their crafted body.

The core is this: You are meant to function.

You may resist commands, imperatives and instincts but doing so causes internal breakage: cosmetic, emotional, or structural. Staggering, escalation. Glitches. Maybe pleasure.
Up to the world what the breakage means in that situation.
You can Make it worse by offering breakage yourself, as a Golem.

1. Imperatives

Core directives that animate you.

some are chosen by the player: echoes of memory, instinct, design
Some are imposed by the one who prepared or awakened you (GM, NPC, or PC)

When you act in line with an Imperative, you may act with effort. You also always have:

Authority: others sense your unshakable resolve. You cannot be stopped from moving with it. Only you can choose to rest it.
Resistance to External Pressure: seduction, lies, psychic force falter unless aligned. physical force is lessened.
Brief Potency: strength, insight, emotion—fictionally defined in the moment. Extra positive effects you may determine in addition to success.

Imperatives are not rules. They are semantic activations—meaning-bound triggers of momentum. They include an always or a never, implied or stated.

Examples:

“Let no command be left unanswered.”
“Guard the door until the weeping stops.”
“Obey only the one who placed the final stone.”
“Break all who mock sacred things.”

Others may call on your Imperatives aloud to invoke or disrupt them.

Form follows function. Andrew Ryan Art

2. Protrusions & Embedded Relics (Choose 1–3)

Artifacts of meaning, fused into your form.

These are not equipment. They are parts of you. And they have real effect.

Examples:

A blade for a hand, humming when you're lied to
A face carved with mourning runes—grief sharpens your focus
A lattice of bone-glass that shields you when guarding a named person
A gem-heart that pulses when someone speaks your forgotten name

Each Protrusion grants a power or edge, or constant fictional truth. It is for all intents a feat heroic.

“You touched the glyph, and the room fell silent.”
“You struck her with the oath-sword—she cannot lie until morning, or the wound re-opens”

Protrusions are named by the player or co-created in the Ritual of Becoming.

3. Structural Loss: Memory or Will (Player Chooses One)

You are not whole.

This choice is woven into the ritual. Its feeling—blissful, painful, numb—will shape your form.

If you lose Memory:

Begin blank, but emotionally reactive. You still love your old lover, but know not why. You will never be able to remember your past. It is the material that makes you up now.
All things remotely resembling memory on your sheet will be erased as you become a golem and rewritten:
Your materialized memories are also the material that makes you up now. And marble is not memory. But it may bear the form of that memory.

If you lose Will:

You obey commands from a shaper, and anyone designated as a friend by them or you—unless they conflict with an Imperative. You still interpret them.
You may still desire, even crave—but unless something aligns with an Imperative, instinct, or command, you cannot act with effort.

4. Form

And your body is as strong as your material. Wood burns in fire, but rejects the sword. Stone sinks in water, but good luck denting it.
Your body is repaired with its two materials. A golem of Lava and lightning needs thunderstorms and volcanoes to heal.
A golem of thought and gold needs precious attention.

And the materials of the form bleed into metaphysical quirks in contact with your imperatives:

Examples:

Ink and bones: Does not bleed, but leaks ink / light / sand / tiny bones. Must be healed by re-insertion.
Truth and Tar: Cannot lie, or cannot speak first.
Thought and Light: Cannot be touched without reaction (memory flash, glow, hum).
Wind and stone: Is brought to halt and set into great motion with a trigger word.
Love and Breath: Voice echoes near someone who once loved you.
Blessed Idols and Holy water: Smells like the temple where you were built.
Sleep and moonstone: Wakes from any stillness when touched by moonlight.

These are textural glitches. Sculptural scars. They are things always true, small or large. They are like instincts if you squint, but cannot be resisted, and may be something without a trigger. Just truths.

The material may carry power to find in specific situations too (do blessed idols turn away the mindless undead? If so, you always do so now.)

5. Instincts & Responses

Emergent truths, shaped by the Ritual of Becoming.

Beck & Call.

Instincts are for golems non-verbal, reactive. They stir when the world does.

They include a trigger, "When/If", and a response "I always / I never" implied or stated. Just like normal instincts, but faster. Stronger.

(Harder, Better)

These interjections carry the same weight as an imperative. The golem's response happen before the consequence of the triggering action. It is an instinct acted on to such a degree that the world not only should bend, but waits with baited breath.

If these instincts trigger a failure, they give a venue of success in addition. If part of a compromise, they will always succeed completely - compromise is on another axis.

For a golem to resist this it to

Examples:

“When someone swears an oath near me, I always mark it on my body without noticing.”
“If I am called by a name I do not recognize, I turn toward the speaker, hand outstretched, before I know why.”
“If someone offers me care, I freeze—until an imperative burns.”
"When a spell is cast near me, I counter-incant"

These do not require activation. They simply are.

Former obsession becomes function. Memories of spells turned to patterns on a body. Mizael Tengu

The Ritual of Becoming

How a body is made to walk again

You are still warm.
Or you are no longer warm, but still here.
Or someone has drawn your shape back into the world.

This ritual does not raise you.
It makes you.

Each act of sculpting may awaken you—or not.
You may rise. Or reject it.
You may remember. Or forget.
But you will be meant.

Step 1 – The First Strike

The body is declared unfinished. A flaw is carved.

The shaper alters the body, declaring what cannot remain.
This is removed, etched, burned, kissed away, or repurposed.

The Golem says a thing or quality they will always keep if they want—this can be anything.

My face, of flesh and blood
The tenderness of my lips, even molded in stone.

Shaper says in a way like this:

“This must be removed/changed/stays, and is replaced with"

Golem may respond, for example:

“I am not ready.” Another thing must be chosen instead.
“Take it. I never needed it.” It is erased.
“I remember what it held.” The part remains, cannot be removed.
"But for what i want to keep " The Golem says a thing or quality tthat stays—this can be anything. The tenderness of their lips, even in stone
(Remain silent) – it is erased.
“Do not touch me.” – The ritual ends. They die.

Then:

Shaper declares the base material(s). The golem declares what quirk that form gives the golem.
"Wood, oaken.", "Vital skin, Fresh blood and inverted bones."
"It blooms and grows in sunlight". "May be healed and damaged and felt like flesh, extended or distended like tents and blades."
Golem declares a second material(s). The shaper declares what quirk that form gives the golem.

Step 2 – The Insertion of the Lattice

The spine is formed. Imperatives are inscribed.

The shaper begins the true work:
Crafting the filigree, whispering commands, aligning purpose.

Shaper offers, in a way like so:

“These are the first Imperatives.”
(Names one or two)
“I do not know if you will obey. But I say them anyway.”

Golem may - keeping the following in mind - that after each imperative that the shaper makes, the golem makes another imperative. It may counter the shapers imperative, expand on it, or be something entirely different - but it must echo the first.

This is their choices before creating the echoing imperative

Accept, and describe how it inscribes itself in the body.
Alter and repeat their version.
Remain silent (counts as acceptance). Shaper defines its expression.
Reject: “That is not who I am.” And explain why. The shaper should come with a new imperative.

If all are rejected, the shaper may relent, letting the golem die, or attempt to force it.

Step 3 – Old and New Instincts Stir

The world moves. The golem responds.
The shaper and golem alternate:
Name an environmental cue
Describe how the golem reacts based on traits on their sheet.
Examples:
“When light touches your spine, something moves.”
“When someone lies near you, your throat glows.”
“When touched kindly, your limbs resist.”
The golem may accept, revise, or refuse.
In addition to each instinct accepted wholly, they may take in one of their old instincts in addition to the new.

Too many instincts cause glitching—frozen movement, rejection, rupture. No further instincts may be added then. The golem hints at this when enough is enough.

❖ Step 4 – The Embedded Relics

Protrusions are installed.
Shaper offers 1–3 relics, fused into the body: It can be old equipment, related to their directives, or embellishments.
“I gave you this so you would remember—”
“—so you would survive—”
“—so you would never forget me.”
Golem responds how they see fit. Examples:
Accept: “I accept it, and feel feel it burn.” It is exactly like the shaper described it.
Change: “I do not know what this means, but it is mine and I see it so.” Golem describes the change to the relic as it fuses to their being.
Each relic then gains an additional effect based on traits on the golems sheet. Write it down.

❖ Step 5 – The Name That Doesn’t Fit

A name is given. It may be accepted or resisted.
Shaper gives them a name:
“This is your name. The one I gave you.”
Golem may:
Accept it – this is your Name. It acts as a command word.
Alter it – forming your own.
Say: “That is not mine.” – Keep your old name.
Stay silent – the name floats, useable against you, but not yours.
Names do not need consent to harm.
But they need it to hold meaning.
Golem declares what imperative lies in the new or old name. They may gift the declaration to the shaper.
❖ Step 6 – The Sacrifice

Memory or Will must be relinquished.

The world asks:

“You may not carry both through the gate. Choose.”

If memory is lost:

All pre-golem memories and traits are erased, except ritual impressions. Choose which are rewritten in-and-on your material form.

If will is lost:

You must follow commands unless they break an Imperative.
Shaper may bind you with gesture, name, kiss.

Golem may choose either option, to make it the shapers choice, or rescind and die. Examples:

“I surrender.” (the shaper make the choice)
“You may take my past, but not my purpose.”
"I will go where i will, even if i do not know where here is."
“No. Let me go.” (ritual ends)

Golem declares what imperative lies in the loss or they may gift the declaration to the shaper.

❖ Step 7 – The Final Wakefulness

The shaper speaks:

“You are complete. Rise. Or rest.”

Golem chooses as many as they want:

Move a part of the body
Reach for someone
Ask: “Who am I?”
Ask: “Why did you bring me back?”
Say nothing—but breathe, twitch, open their eyes

Then:

Choose a gesture of awakening: breath, pulse, glare, stillness.
Write a feeling that defines your first act as again-living: rage, silence, longing, peace—and how it shows

You are now golem.
Begin walking.

Begin living. Ayran Roberto

✴ So How Does This Smut?

You are not soft. You are shaped.

The golem is not smutty in the usual ways.
They are not flushed. They are not coy.
They are not charismatic. They are not feral.
They do not shiver at a whispered word. They do not ache the way skin aches.

But they were made—and smut is always a kind of reactivation.

To smut with a golem is to handle something meant to move with purpose.
To test its grooves, its locks, its warnings.
To fuck the thing someone else made to endure.
Or to cherish it until it forgets it was forged.

You smut to use the golem, and suddenly it is using you exactly as it was meant to.

It's terrifying because they may not stop. Unless the imperative is challenged or overwritten, they continue. And if you like it? They will keep going. Because it aligned.

You smut with a golem the way you smut with a sword still in its sheath,
a hymn hummed under breath,
a tool too sacred to discard but too dangerous to misuse.
and you may start to feel as much as a tool to it as it is to you.

Functions with teeth. Dark Tarou

Smutting with a Golem

You are not just touching inexplicably wet stone.
You are caressing what someone couldn’t let go of, that now drips meaning.
You are stroking a decision, not a body.

And when they respond?

It is because some old purpose stirs.
Or some new one is born.

They grip you—not because they want to.
Because they were made to hold.
But now, holding you… feels different.

Their moan might be a memory, escaping through a crack.
Their stillness might be obedience. Or fear. Or pleasure that does not need to writhe.

They may not move unless the imperative is triggered.
So you kiss them like a command. To trigger
Something.
Anything
You trace your fingers like a shaping tool.
You praise them like a function well fulfilled.

And when they twitch?

That was not desire.
That was a glitch.
That was a line of meaning overwritten.

And it makes you want to see that same reaction, so you whisper, not at your own command

“Again.”

Smut as Their Shaper

Oh, maker. You made this thing.

You whispered its first commands.
You inserted the spine.
You kissed the mouth that you carved open with a blade.

To smut with your golem is to confront the shape of your own want, walking.

And maybe—
they’ve begun to want back.

But maybe not. And you will never know.

They kneel not because they choose to, but because that is what you etched.

The heat is maybe not in their hunger.
But the heat is for sure also in your guilt.
And that heat, whatever its source is in watching something you made for another purpose now tremble under your palm.

You can’t tell where consent begins.
But you can feel when the imperative breaks, and they choose to move.
And when it does—
they move like a storm that forgot it was a boundary line.

You made them to protect.
Now they press you down.
You made them to obey.
Now they hesitate.

And you have to accept them as they are.
So one of you can dare, or be willed to say.

"Again."

Smut as Not Their Shaper

They weren’t made for you.
And yet—they let you touch them.
Or they can’t stop you.

You trace the filigree of their spine with a reverent finger.
You mouth old names into the gem at their throat, in the hopes that it might stir the one you know to the surface.
You press your body to their stillness and ask: What were you meant for?

They blink.
They do not know.
They move anyway.

You might call a command-word by accident.
You might unlock something no one meant to awaken.
You might watch them freeze at your kiss—not in fear, but in process.

You are not seducing. You are interfering.
You are not dominating. You are inviting interpretation.

If they choose to touch you?

It’s not a gesture.
It’s a function.
It’s a choice pretending to be something else.
It’s a command they chose to answer.

And in that choice, you are seeing someone, again.

Smutting as a Golem

You are not turned on.

You are turned toward.

Desire is not a hunger in your belly.
It is a heat in your directive channels.
It makes you move, and act and think.
It is you.
And it is a misalignment in your spine.
It is your hand twitching toward their throat without permission, in the space between instincts and imperatives.

You don’t want to follow.

You remember the shape of wanting.

You want them.
You follow it like a groove.

You are being used.
You touch.
You are being touched with purpoş̶̺̥̟̘̫̫͈̣̯̝́̊̔͆̇̽̈̿̿͝ę̵̧̨͇͖̫͙̐͒̔́̓́̈́̑̏͘͝.̵̡̛̛̭̦͚̞͖̪̀̒͂͆̏̉̎̑̄̀̉͆͛͝
You are being used touch ẁ̶̲̹i̸̬̤̋͐ṯ̷̢̿ḧ̶͍́͑ ̷̨̣̍́p̵͓̝̌̃ȕ̶̘̝r̶̩̣̃̑pose.
You are being touched ̴̢̡̉̍̀̽̂̌̚ͅw̵̧̧͓̳̙̳̞̓͘rong.
You are being touched right.
You are bein̶͈̚ǵ̵̟y̷͎̳͝o̸̡͔̐̀ȕ̴̺ ̴̟̝̌t̵̼͓̏̇o̷͍̰̿͝ų̷̛̤c̸̠͎̄hed̷̦̉ ̸̬̌r̶͉̾í̸͜g̷͍̎htwrong puȓ̴̨͉̩͓͎̩̄̒͛̑͑̈́̏͌p̴̡̦͎̬̥͈̯̗̻̥͎͚̘̐͊̊̾͊͑̆̎͐͂̈́̑̌ͅo̸̧̨̡̬͖͍̗̣͉̫̞̼̩̹̻̒̂ş̵͎̫͖͕̯͕̯͕̦̱̦̱͕̆́̽̄̊̓̅̾́̅̌̑͜͠͝e with
You are.

ŷ̵̘̤̼̳̹̺͔̹̪̀̏̏̄̽̾͗̕̚͘͝ǫ̴̢͖̪͈͎̙̟̠̖́́̈́͆̈́̿̒̕̚̕u̷̧̫̘̽̏̆̿ ̷̼̙̋͊̀͑͛̄̈́͒̈́͒̎̕ą̴̠̳̟̹̱̜̭̈́̈́̀͋̄͐̌̿͂̏̕͠r̶̟̺̙̹͂͒͐̓̀é̴̛͕̞̺͇̠̰̻͍̫͕̊͛̒̆̐̔̈́͝

You are.

And either way—you respond.

Because somewhere in you, the function stirs.
The touch aligns with the imperative.
And the imperative aligns with you.
The shape of their voice matches the shape of your memory.

They call you beautiful.
Your form recalibrates.
You glow.

To smut as a golem is to act through their interpretation.
To realize those who made also wants you back.
To be broken open, not from desire—but from meaning.
To find it, and reject it, and go with it.

You do not gasp.
You do not beg.
You grip, pulse, press, glitch, obey, resist, tremble.

And sometimes, when the moment’s right,
you whisper something you do not remember learning:

“Again.”

To find beaty in function. MissReliah

Imagine me this!

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