Hollows and Hellions (A to Z)

Sometimes things just need a name change to fit into a world better.  For the Sea of Stars, that is the renaming of Golems to Hollows and Tieflings to Hellions.

Hollows, the art of creating the illusion of life from inanimate objects is one that exists in the Sea of Stars, such creatures are usually called Hollows as they lack souls and often any sort of intelligence simply being bound to perform repetitive tasks.  (One can make an argument that an animated being with sentience but not souls are not actually Hollow, but that is the realm of philosophy.)

The dwarves in particular delight in the construction of complex hollows of metal, sometimes animated with clockwork and magic, other times purely with magic, and animated stone statues using bound elementals or powerful enchantments.  The elves have a tradition of filling the ranks of their armies with hollow soldiers made of carved wood or animated plants, the elves always having been loath to risk their lives in the “push of pikes” and even more so since the Sundering.  Human wizards and craftspeople have worked to build all sorts of hollows but flesh and clay are among their more common materials. The Sen’tek seek to use complex clockwork and spring, supplemented with a minimum of magic, to make tools to aid them in their never ending war to overthrow Dragonkind.

Necrourgists seek to improve their legions of the dead though the creation of hollows of flesh and bone, less prone to the whims of the evil spirits attracted to most animation of the dead but far more complex to create and bring to “life”.  Priests and Priestess seek ways to animate their temple’s guards, but as this often involved binding spirits into them, they are not truly hollow.

Hellions, are those whose lineage has, at some point, had the blood of beings from what are called “the lower realms”.  Unpredictably, such a heritage expresses itself through odd eyes, strange skin, even horns, a tails or odd appendages (claws, cloven hooves for feet, usw).  Ties to such physical expression are various magical power than are rarely as well controlled as the possessor of such would wish.

Notes: The word Golem has a very particular cultural source, so a word more unique to the Sea of Stars is good.  While Tiefling is a pure D&Dism and really should not be used outside of those worlds and I have never much cared for it in any case while Hellion has a nice history of use.  So, rename things to suit your world, it will take some time for people to adjust but it is worth it, as least, I think it is.

Photo Green Man Sculpture, Creator Nicholas Smale, License CC by 2.0