3.P - Construct Metaphysics Discussion

[unseenmage]

I find myself wondering on Constructs and their relationships to the planes and the divine.

Sadly all I can recall from memory is that Mechanus is an appropriate home for many Constructs, that Gond is a deity of invention, and that PF's Brigh is their de facto clockwork deity.

Is that really it? Are there no other planar or godly relationships to Construct goodness?
Here's hoping not.

EDIT
Also warforged may or may not go to heaven and undead warforged might have been a thing.
I remember reading in Faith's of Eberron info that conflicted with ECS and there's reference to the undead warforged called woeforged... somewhere. (Forge of War p.85)


Am also updating my mobile device with all the sources for as much as I can so books and page numbers for anything relevant are more than welcome.

TLDR: General request for Constructs in the planes and Construct related deities and discussion of such.

[unseenmage]

Additionally, I'm looking to make a list of all the variant animating forces and the examples of such.

Being animated by an actual bound elemental is largely an Eberron thing, and originally a Golem thing. There are other animating forces for other Constructs. Bound souls (PF's Soulbound Constructs), negative energy (cant remember but I know there are some), and even just pure magic as with Aninated Objects and Awakened Sands.

Sadly my books and PC are in storage so I need some help hunting down and listing all the neat ways Construct have been given animation and semblance of life.

[Mind's Eye]

I would argue that if/when a warforged dies it would be treated (in terms of afterlife) as a normal soul, as they are sentient, and have alignment, etc.

[MisterKaws]

Actually there are other elementally-bound constructs in base 3.5. Most notable of them is the Nimblewright on the MMII, which is bound to a Water Elemental, and even has an int score.

Also there's the Dustform Creatures, which are animated by their will alone(and dissolve in 20-ish slaps... so strong willed)

[inuyasha]

I believe that- unless you get into clockwork stuff- 9 out of 10 constructs are assumed to be animated via a bound Earth Elemental, with the notable exceptions being clockwork stuff and the simple animated objects. Once you get out of core there are some necromantically aligned things, but again I think bound Earth Elemental is the assumed default.


I would argue that if/when a warforged dies it would be treated (in terms of afterlife) as a normal soul, as they are sentient, and have alignment, etc.

This is theorized in the Eberron books, as Warforged to react to a lot of negative/positive energy effects as though they had a soul, but no planes-walking mages or diviners of any kind have managed to discover a dead warforged soul out there in the universe.

And while technically they are canon in the fact that they're WotC books, the discrepancies found in Forge of War and Faiths of Eberron can be explained by noting that Keith Baker had nothing to do with either of those, something that he occasionally talks about in his blog and podcast.

[frogglesmash]

Automatons from MMII are animated by shadow magic.

[Segev]

"Construct" on the face of it seems both a broad and a specific category. The big trouble is that differentiating it from "undead" on anything but a case-by-case basis can sometimes be very difficult.

We have golems as the go-to example of constructs. They're animated by "bound elemental spirits," and generally have no will nor intellect of their own (so even if the spirit has an Int score, it has no control over the golem). Some golems go berserk as the spirit breaks its bonds, but the stats don't grant it an int score, so we must assume it operates on a rage-instinct alone.

We have animated objects, which are generally created by a divine spell, and are essentially animate only because of the spark of divine magic that gives them a semblence of life to serve the cleric.

We have, in PF, Trompe L'oiele, which are animated by pure magic and sympathetic resonance: they look like a real thing so much that they come to (fake) life. These have Int scores and may have souls of their own.

From a non-metaphysical angle, constructs (and most physical undead) share the trait that they are animate things that are not alive. They conceptually have no organs or the like that do specialized things, taking hits equally well everywhere. (This makes less sense if you think about it too hard, but this is the conceptual source of their various immunities.) But in this, the only distinction between a construct and the (corporeal) undead is that undead were once alive. (And corpses are valid targets for animate objects, which gets weirder still.)

So there isn't a singular answer for the metaphysics of constructs. The biggest thing is that they're non-living corporeal creatures which are animated by something other than negative energy.

[Psyren]

Well, Warforged souls are one of the "setting mysteries" of Eberron that can be tailored to specific campaigns, sort of like the nature of Golarion's Test of the Starstone - so you're not going to find a definitive answer on their true nature printed anywhere, just some seemingly contradictory tidbits.

As for constructs in the planes, you already know this but I'll mention it anyway for others' benefit - Pathfinder has the "constructed" subtype that lets it have outsiders that are constructs for all intents and purposes; this is what they use on their Inevitables, and its why they didn't need to invent some kind of stand-in for the trademarked Modrons as their Mechanus Nirvana resident of choice.

[inuyasha]

Oh! I forgot about another D&D classic: Ravenloft has golems that are created through sheer obsession from their makers, along with a little help from the dark magic that pervades the plane.