CODE OF CONDUCT
- All rules subject to change.
- Follow all Gaia TOS at all times
- Violent behavior, bad language aimed at others, and drama are not allowed. Don't get worked up over nothing.
- The story, concept, and artwork belong to Antigra. You may not "borrow" them, modify them, resell them, or otherwise. This is a violation of Gaia TOS.
- All Crystal Heart trades must be sent to Zachary Bloodstone.
- Begging for a golem is expressly forbidden. Just wait for flatsales, auctions, or events.
- Do not ask about Pet Trades. If you want to know if your pet qualifies, check the "Acceptable Pet Trades" lists in the Lab Staff post.
- We reserve the right to give golems to whoever we want. If someone suddenly has a golem, maybe it's because I felt like giving them one. Get over it.
- All questions must be PMed to Zachary Bloodstone. Do not PM the other staff. Repeated offense of this rule gets you blacklisted.
ROLEPLAY RULES
- GOLEMS REQUIRE ROLEPLAY. Those who cannot handle coming in at least every 2 weeks should not bother attempting to get one. Each golem and caretaker will have a Laboratory of their own.
- Every golem has a flaw. This is almost the basis of your golem's existence. So don't pretend that they're Mary Sue or Gary Stu.
- God modding is forbidden. Period.
- In some cases, a golem will continue to its next stage after a certain amount of time. Other times, myself or Yakobi may drop in and extend to you a quest in or out of the lab. These quests, whether passed or failed, are required to advance to the next stage, and can affect your golem's appearance as it grows.
- Do not create huge blocks of text. Break them apart somewhere. It's impossible to read otherwise.
- Be literate. Spell and punctuate to the best of your abilities.
- If there is something you NEED your golem to have in its next stage change, PM Zachary Bloodstone about it.
FLATSALE RULES
- Flatsales consist of a roleplay prompt and a price.
- PM your flatsale response entry to Zachary Bloodstone. Do not post it or send it to any other staff.
- Flatsales are 15k per heart.
- Keep your response to a 1000 word maximum. You should be able to get all the information and more in within this limit.
- The best flatsale response gets 1st choice between the hearts.
- Never get someone to write the flatsale response for you. It will be fairly easy to figure you out, and you will lose your golem and be blacklisted.
- Think outside the box! There's always an original concept waiting to be written, and you will do better to try when answering the prompt.
- ONLY SUBMIT ONE RESPONSE. You get one shot. No more.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: What is a golem?
A: A golem is a creature of both magic and science, fashioned with pointed ears in order to keep track of them. In the case of Crystal Heart golems, their bodies are made of clay. Within the clay is the source of life, a heart of mineral. The mineral contains the memories of a person who died in extreme emotion, leaving the resonance of their mind in the stone for all time. THE MEMORIES ARE NOT THE REAL PERSON. They are merely the past of a person with an undesirable death. Like the memories we own, they do not always sway our judgement, but are sometimes key to our personality. By harnessing the perception of life the stone has captured, I recreate the person in a new body. Like human babies, they have very little memory perception during their earlier years, but as they grow older, the heart becomes more active, and they will see their past in pieces starting from the death and working backward.
The duty of Crystal Heart is to record the life of the golem and their past self. The golem's personality may be completely different from that of the person in their memories. It is the struggle between the past and the present that we witness, the ever-changing nature of life. All we can do is observe and document it.
There is a key difference between the golems' souls and souls of most other inanimate-to-human shops. This is that the "souls" do not necessarily want rebirth. There is no consciousness in the stones until given a body. And once given the body, the golem chooses how to handle the memories it has been created with. While there are indeed longstanding mysteries regarding the early deaths of the people of memory... it is usually far too late to right the wrongs some of them may have committed.
Consider this an era of early cloning, but opposite that of present-day Earth. What would happen if a human had all its memory intact, but not its original body?
Q: Can I have a Crystal Heart/Golem/pet?
A: Not for nothing. Please check the Applications post for availability.
Q: But I waaaant ooonnneee!!
A: Handle this more maturely, please. You're greylisted stare
Q: Can you explain to me what the 'past life' should be about?
A: Tricky question. My OOC answer is that the story is all yours to make. It can be of an original character, it can be based off a story or myth (provided the character was human), or based off of something in real history. You can constantly revamp your past life story BEFORE you start to discover it IC.
Note that there are three requirements to the past lives - your character must match the information given about their soul (ie known gender), the stone must be somewhere in the story at the point of death, and of course, the character has to meet an end of some kind. It does not have to have purpose. The life of your character could have been a child who one day got sick with a fever and died. Or they could have been a feared warrior who died in battle. The choice is yours.
I highly suggest you run the summary of the life story by me in a PM before your golem starts rediscovering its past. I do have a duty to make sure that your story matches the guidelines, or your golem will end up very bizarre.
The notion of the past lives is not that they are searching for a way to right their wrongs, but a way to use their new lives to their own advantage. There are no angels and demons to burden them, unless they choose to be. This is a new race of humanoids, and ony time will tell us what they will make of themselves.
Q: Can I roleplay as someone else's golem?
A: No. Unless the owner of the golem talks to me or Yakobi about this, it is forbidden.
Q: Do I have to roleplay my golem?
A: Absolutely. If you don't, then we'll have to find another owner for it. If you're vacationing, please mention it to us. If you can't make time after you've had your golem for a while, then you can entrust it to someone else. However, there are no refunds if you can't handle the responsibility.
Q: cn i tlk lyk diz??/?1 LOL.
A: No. Way. If you have nothing to say in a literate form, then don't say anything at all. We're not three years old here. Trolling will only get you banned.
Q: ___ keeps PMing me about wanting my golem. What do I do?
A: PM Zachary Bloodstone about it, with a copy of one of their PMs to you. He or she will be blacklisted immediately.
Q: So what is the deal with the 'past life' and 'memories'?
A: A golem's past life is merely the life it led prior to an untimely death. The past life could have been anyone - a master thief, a samurai, a princess, even a random person. However, with every life, there is always unfinished business to attend to. As your golem retrieves memories, it will find more questions to answer, and complete the puzzle of its original life.
Q: Are golems just another 'miniature magical people' breedable?
A: Of course not! Golems are as big as any human of the same age, and weigh even more, since they don't have a high water content. They're nothing magical, the majority of them have the souls of humans much like yourself. Others include werewolf souls, human and animal souls entwined at death, and other anomalies. You'll have to wait around a long time for such stones as those, since they are extremely rare finds.
Q: I want my golem to have a child. Can I keep it?
A: Unfortunately, no. There will always be someone who wants a golem. You are allowed to find the golem a good home by picking the person who gets to take care of the child.
Q: You keep talking about the golems having souls, but I'm confused about or uncomfortable with the idea. What are you talking about?
A: Soul is the easiest word for the concept. Each stone I give to a caretaker has memories trapped inside of it. These memories are the only tangible remains of the person who once owned the mineral. While it may not be what you consider a soul, it is what I have to call them. Other words for this could be "aura" or "resonance". Just consider it a past life the golem experienced contained in a crystal.
Q: Do golem die?
A: That depends on many factors... there's no definite answer. But I can say that some die, and some don't. It's all about how they handle their soul.
Q: So when will a ____ stone be available?
A: Good question, I don't know. Whichever ones I'm sure will be out can be found in the Applications post. If you really want a certain one, then there's always custom auctions or pet trades.
Q: What if I want a pearl/amber/petrified wood/shell golem?
A: The only non-mineral material I have found to contain souls has been Coal. I think it is highly unlikely for non-minerals to hold souls, so I will have to say you're out of luck.
Q: Can I can RP my golem in the main thread?
A: Of course. The guild is there to make sure that you don't get interrupted while roleplaying, but if you like it more fast-paced...
Q: What are artifacts, and why should a golem have them?
A: Interesting question. I shall have to think about it.
Q: My golem is made of clay, right? So what if it rained? What if they drop something on their foot? Will they shatter or melt?
A: No, no, no. Once taking form, the clay is fused with mineral. Raining on a mineral will not do anything. Dropping things hurt your feet too, so consider that. The clay of a golem is not real clay anymore, it is just further extention of either their heart or their soul. More on this when we've got some teens.
Q: Experiment One is only a child, right? So why is he so eloquent?
A: You didn't read the story? By touching the stone, I basically rerouted the magic through me, and in the process his heart picked up all the English I knew, as well as other things I'm sure. I happen to know a lot of English is all.
Q: Is there anything special about birthstones?
A: Actually... there is. Souls contained in birthstones seem to have unusual conditions. Many of them you can easily pick up in a flatsale due to how common the stone is, but there are a few, such as a diamond, that are far too valuable for me to hand out without a price.
Q: Considering a golem is no longer human... what are their regards toward us flesh-and-blood?
A: Another thing that varies between golems. At first, of course, they have total dependence on you. But as they grow up and understand themselves, some may be filled with pity, envy, or hatred for humans. Just because they used to be human does not mean they accept that fact.
