Dear Dr. van Richten,
I've recently read your 'Guide to the Created'. I was thoroughly impressed by your ability to dive into such a charged topic with sensitivity and scientific accuracy as well as practicality - it would surely come in handy next time my brother and I face a golem.
And yet, there is one thing I must question.
In your chapter about the psychology of the golem, you described its process of alienation from the Born and turning toward evil as deterministic: The golem can never find acceptance in the Born society, and thus will always grow to hate us and himself.
As one who had faced lack of acceptance as a youth, for numerous reasons, this is a depressing notion for me. Not to say this is a reason to ignore truth. But as such, I have found that there's always someone willing to accept you. Prejudice is a natural (demi)human trait, but is extremely subjective, depending on the individual's personality, culture and experience. I've traveled along and befriended equally off-putting creatures many times, often not even considering it unusual. The 'horror and disgust' are not inevitable.
So.
I'll disclaim I do not intend to imply it is recommended to create a golem, or to spare an adult golem threatening to assualt innocents, and surely do not intend to do either myself.
But was a golem still in the stage of dependence, or the beginning of the stage of confusion, to encounter a person other than their creator who is unmoved by their horrific appearance, that person could 'soften the blow', clearify that while some might be startled by the golem, neither those people nor the golem are evil, and it does not mean they're doomed for eternal isolation. Further, such person could guide and support the golem without exposing their undesirable thoughts and feelings like the telepathic connection forces the creator to! In this case (assume the person in question is competent to handle a (demi)human youth with psychological disorders), could such mentorship stray the golem away from the expected course? I do not ask whether the golem's evil is inherent or aquired - you've made it quite clear that both factors fuel eachother. But was the aquired factor to be removed, what would prevail, nature or nurture?
Is there a chance - however slim and impractical as it might seem to a hunter whose primary consideration is the lives a dread golem might risk - of saving it from becoming in the first place the terrible monster you've described?
Best wishes and fishes,
Talyn Truefinder.
Yes, I had a lore question and I wrote it as an in-world letter by my PC.
As a game, I challenge the first commenter to phrase his answer as Rudolph's response, and the next ones to respond as your PCs or as other scholars of Ravenloft. (Admins - If this fits more in another forum, tell me).
