Strawmen

The term "Strawman" reffers to two distinct sets of beings that were often confused with one another. One is an artificial construct given life through Magic-Tech, the other is a being... far older.

Magic-Tech Strawmen

During the Mage Wars, many races and creates were given life by means of magic. This process typically involved beginning with a creature of mundane origins, and either taking away, or adding to it until the desired effect was achieved. However, that method had a tendancy to produce beings that were unpredictable, wreckless, and bad at following orders. In some cases, this was the desired effect, creates like Viverin were originally devised as a sort of automated protection system, a colony could be established in a city's sewer system, and keep out unwanted intruders.

The Strawmen had a very different purpose and origin.

The earliest accounts of Straman production date to the beginning of the First Chaotic Period when they were produced as a sort of expendable foot-soldier. Because armies frequently had to travel long distances to attack neighboring city-states, an automaton who required neither food nor water and could march for days without rest was considered invaluable. As the war progressed, different powers began shaping Strawmen for their own purposes. They were still primarily soldiers, but some were used as laborers and domestic servants. Indeed, entire empires were built on backs of Strawman labor.

A typical Strawman was intelligent, but unemotional. The ones built as soldiers were often very smart, some learned magic, others became inventive enough to modify and upgrade themselves. The only thing Strawmen never learned was how to make more of themselves.

History

The first Strawmen may have been created as early as the late Age of Darkness. Anecdotal evidence suggests they were present at the fall of High Tower. Some books on how they were made survived into modern times, though the exact method was lost by the start of the Golden Age.

During the First Chaotic Period, Strawman production was very sparse. Each strawman took many months to produce, usually as the work of a single mage. For this reason, they were most often used as guards or outpost defenders, augmented by human soldiers and fixed enchantments.

By the Intermediate Period, entire empires were propped up on the backs of Strawman labor. This marked a peek in their extant populations. Whole armies were produced and sent to war, while others remained at home as laborers and field hands.

Recreation

During the late Dynastic Period, mages all over the Agras Plain used Magic-Tech to produce their own Strawmen, based on observations and accounts of the original.

These Strawmen were used as slaves and expendable soldiers throughout the Second Chaotic Period, sometimes even fighting their own inspiration.

It is unclear exactly who created these Strawmen or when, but the making of them was lost sometime before the end of the Mage Wars. Many Strawmen survived into the Golden Age but were often treated with great hostility, or even killed for sport (as they were not considered sentient creatures). By the early Golden Age, no more Strawmen of any type were known to exist.

Origin Theories

Because of their appearance in ancient oral histories (that is, stories dating back to the Age of Darkness, many historians suspect the Strawmen were created by the Empire of Roads, perhaps as warriors to fight in the Roads War. However, as the Stramen are clearly a form of magic-tech, and the Eladamri are not believed to have had this technology, this theory is considered unsound.

Still others suspect that they were actually created much more recently. This theory has two parts. The first is that only those created by humans during the late Dynastic/early Second Chaotic periods of the Mage Wars exist, and that these were retroactively "written in" to the oral traditions of various cultures in order to make them appear more fearsome. The second part of this theory says that they were originally created, probably during the Intermediate or First Chaotic periods, then "got loose" when their original masters were annihilated, and this accounts for the wild Strawmen found in later periods.

Finally, an argument has been made that the Strawmen actually pre-date Classic Antiquity and that they were created by the enemy of the Eladamri. When the Strawmen emerged, humans were still fighting the same war as their ancestors.

Old Strawmen

The Old Strawmen are a mysterious race of artificial beings, considered a variety of golem. They are found only in the dimension of Arindell. Described as "living clay", though they include metal components. They are taller than ordinary humans, though not by much, and have human-like faces described as "very expressive". They are known to speak and are believed to be fully sentient.

History

The Strawmen feature very heavily in the Rowen oral tradition, and creatures in many other such histories are believed to be Strawmen. Even the name comes from Rowen, where the sort of clay the strawmen are made from was confused with the clay-rich mud, mixed with straw, used in building many Rowen fortifications. Hence the name "strawmen".

Numerous contemporary accounts of Strawmen survived the Mage Wars. It is difficult to conclusively prove many of these accounts, but the texts are of known provenance. However, because the term "strawmen" did not come into wide use until the Second Age, it is difficult to to tell with any certainty.

Based on historical evidence, the Strawmen ceased activity sometime during the Second Chaotic Period; the exact date and reason is unknown.