The Orrery of Golems

An idea I've had knocking about for a while. Not really connected to other Golem posts, which have their own implicit setting.

The Keep of Malphoebe was the home of that most infamous of renegade sorcerers, able to maintain her wealth and carry on magical researches outside of the usual system of Universities and Guilds. The gaze of the Church and the Magistrates fell on her often, but she kept to the letter of the law whilst violently abusing the spirit of it, and was never tried for her misdeeds.

In the deepest basement of that looming trapezoidal donjon, with its five pentagonal turrets, there is a wide room, perhaps fifty feet across. In the centre of this, between scattered pillars you will find seven rings, surrounding a raised dais. Bands of inscriptions bind each ring to the dais. Each ring is a circuit, each trodden by a human figure. These are seven golems, composed largely of fired clay, but with intricate metal fittings.

Each is clearly one of the seven heavenly bodies that circle about Terrae Vertebrae in the celestial procession. From the centre out, we see Mani, Stilbon, Hesperus, Eliodromus, Pryois, Phaethon and Phaenon. This is an orrery, of a kind. No clockwork powers the movements of these spheres. But one can see the marks where the golems tread out their long circuits, wearing down the flagstones. Parts of the paved floor have clearly been replaced near where ever-changing Mani and nimble Stilbon make their swift circuits. 

The golems are given character by the things they bear, by the pattern of metal fittings about them and by the rough shapes of brow and body. Mani glitters in arabesques of silver, with a veil of silver wires, carrying a sistrum. Stilbon ports in ceremonial mode a petrified snake, with lustrous bands of amalgam about the torso and thighs. Hesperus holds several apples in one hand, a looking-glass in the other; Hesperus is decorated with lozenges of copper, which are alternately untarnished and covered in verdigris. Eliodromus holds a curling gilt whip and an ornate golden flambeau. Pryois stands angular in layers of rustless iron plate, with a plume of fine wires; Pryois holds both shield and spear, and bears other arms on belts and baldrics. Phaethon is robed toga-style in swathes of white tin and carries an ornate tin-patterened chalice and a judicial sceptre with a lightening-bolt motif. Phaenon is cowled in lead and leans upon a crooked vinewood staff; through a lead belt is thrust a reaping-hook.

Each golem is, as in Ch. 16 of C. S. Lewis's Perelandra, sexless. ('Masculine and Feminine meet us on planes of reality where male and female would be simply meaningless.....The two white creatures were sexless. He of Malacandra was masculine (not male); she of Perelandra was feminine (not female).'

Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, 1766
(Paul Kidby did a Discworld pastiche of this for The Last Hero, and I can't find an online image of it).

These, that tread the path of the stars, are celestial proxies. Malphoebe used them to predict the arrangement of the planets and the times of various conjunctions, as well as the aspect of that planet in the mute pantomime of the constructs. The golems automatically match the pace of the planets across the sky, but a device built in the shape of a sundial on the dais can have its gnomon moved to increase their pace. However, Malphoebe did not only this but used the golems as foci, to foster benevolent or malevolent influences upon her enchantments, even outside of the naturally occurring celestial seasons.

If someone should attempt to remove the items they carry or the metal fittings, the golems will attack, though they will also try to continue on their path. 

If a golem has a serious obstacle in their path, they will attempt to remove it. 

If a golem is frozen in place is a way that does not effect their sense of time passing, they will then speed up to get back to where they should be. 

If the inscriptions linking the rings are removed, the golems will continue on their courses. 

If somehow the majority of metal fittings are removed from a golem, it will stand stock-still. (These are their link to the planets proper). If the fittings are restored - even crudely - they will move again.

The words of power for these golems are found in their items, rolled up as scrolls. If the sistrum, snake, looking-glass, torch, spear, sceptre and staff are broken, the golems will fall to their knees and cease movement altogether. There will be the sound of a great bell, though no bell may be seen. 

If the golems are all de-powered or otherwise obliterated, in 1d4 weeks a band of seven people may be seen in the footsteps of your band of adventurers. Clearly colourful characters, they are much remarked upon in the neighbourhood. These are a Rogue, a Mountebank, a Guide (Elf), a Militant, a Fighter, a Wizard and a Prophet. Each is of at least the second level. Several of them - for instance, the Fighter - may be surrounded by pets.

Mani and Eliodromus are as 'Luna' and 'Sol' would be to 'Moon' and 'Sun'. The first is Norse, the second Mithraic - that is, Greco-Roman workings on a Persian base. There's a few other influences in the above to draw it away from purely Olympian imagery.

The term 'The Human Orrery' has been in my mind for a while as a sorcerous device or a curiously rituralistic band of adventurers. Here it became both.

As it emerges, Armagh Observatory has a Human Orrery of its own. This differs significantly from the above.