Basic Information
A construct is a form of artificial life, created by magic rather than science.
And that, frankly, is about all they have in common.
The term covers magical clones, golems, homonculi and many others - things that are animated by magic alone usually don't qualify, as there needs to be some aspect of construction and snapping your fingers and having the table spring to life just doesn't make the grade. Acari on the other hand, may or may not qualify as well - depending on your definitions, they many not be artificial enough … the category does not usually include species created by "magical genetic engineering" so an actual species created by alchemy may also be disqualified. Indeed being capable of meeting the typical definition of a species by reproducing probably disqualifies something from being a construct at all - if constructs want kids they have to build them.
Of course, the whole concept of magical artificial intelligence crops up when constructs are involved - in some cases a construct runs off a written "program" (golems are quite often portrayed like this), whilst in others they require a living brain (or some kind of spirit) bound into them before they have any measure of control1.
This, then, means that the boundary between constructs and undead may become blurred - in the Hollywood portrayal2, how does Frankenstein's Monster differ from a zombie stitched together from a variety of corpses? If the creature eats and breathes the answer may be simpler, but if it doesn't? In a similar way, does binding a dead person's spirit to a construct actually make it undead? Does what the construct is made of alter that?
For those who wish to transplant sci-fi tropes into fantasy, or invert Clarke's third law, constructs are very useful indeed.
Speaking of which, clockpunk and all later stations start to explore the barrier between science and magic - is a steampunk clank a construct or a robot? When do the creations of a mad scientist simply become bioroids (or just new GMOs)? This may depend on the stringency of the setting, but even if a pretence to science is made, that may be simply a figleaf even in universe. The alleged robot may simply be a golem in disguise.
Regardless, Frankenstein Syndrome is to be expected, plot wise.
Sources
Game and Story Use
- A construct could make an interesting protector for an NPC or a community (see the original Golem).
- As noted the science/magic borderline becomes interesting in clockpunk and thereafter, and having it not be clear in-universe is entirely acceptable.
- Very rule of cool though to have a steampunk world where artifice nerds write and sell retail "software" that you can buy to programme a golem, especially if you have to input it as a series of punched cards or a player-piano type roll. Shades of Mielville's Bas-Lag perhaps - New Corbuzon certainly feels like the sort of place where you could do this.
- For those who never experienced the 1980s, the above sort of refers to the days when you could buy software as printed code that you typed into your computer yourself… although punched cards are a few decades older than that.
- The difference between an undead and a construct with formerly-living components can make for some interesting philosophical discussion, or maybe a loophole where necromancy is illegal.
- A fetch skates the borderline of what is an isn't a construct … but probably is. Something manifest from ectoplasm, on the other hand, probably isn't.
- But if the caster creates a artificial spirit and then forces it to manifest … perhaps that might be a special, rather esoteric subclass of construct.
- This could well be the sort of thing thaumatologists argue about in setting…