ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

In the last bit of lore for Garkul, it states that massive amounts of alchemists channeled their power through Atamathon, which is what gave him his powers and made him animate. This makes sense compared with ordinary golems-they have some residual energy after their master's death, but they can't leave the zone they're in, likely being powered by the last vestiges of energy they had stored up and the magic released on the death of a powerful mage.

Atamathon's mages, though, have been dead for quite the long time. It doesn't make much sense for him, as a golem, to be so immediately hostile and powerful simply by putting his eye back in.

My personal theory is that so many people, including his controllers, dying at Garkul's hand created a gestalt spirit (a very angry gestalt spirit) that inhabited the most powerful body it could find-Atamathon. However, with half the control mechanism missing, they stayed trapped and inanimate, driving themselves insane(r) in their isolation. This would explain both Atamathon's immediate murderous nature upon waking up and why he still has such powerful magical abilities at his disposal.

Is there some lore I'm missing that contradicts what I think? Or any other good theories on why Atamathon works how he does?

My theory is that Atamathon is an optional end game boss and is powered by the tears of all the players who get pounded to dust by it.

I think Atamathon has a little popup when you interact with him which says that "someone foolish has tried to rebuild him" or something along those lines. Maybe it was the decrepit golems roaming the area?

Na, what you get when you reactive it is a mere shade of its true power.
You're fighting a golem that was *already broke* by Garkul.
And you ahve trouble doing even that.

Yes Garkul is awesome.

Red wrote:In the last bit of lore for Garkul, it states that massive amounts of alchemists channeled their power through Atamathon, which is what gave him his powers and made him animate.

Golems are created through animation, but they don't need that to sustain them if built in the right way. Residual enchantment, especially on such an immensely powerful golem, can be enough to make it animate.

But as DG says, this isn't the full power of Atamathon. After all, if the player can beat it then clearly it's not as strong as the one Garkul faced.

As for why it's hostile, it was created as a weapon and it has been damaged. It's now essentially on auto-attack mode.