Source: Guns and Gears pg. 37
Archives of Nethys: Automaton
These intelligent constructs house actual souls and represent what remains of a dying empire's last attempt at greatness. Automatons combine technological ingenuity with magical power, creating a blended being wholly unique to Golarion.
The Jistka Imperium was the first major human civilization to emerge after Earthfall, arising around the area that would later become Rahadoum and enduring for seven centuries thanks to great advancements in civics and the sciences. However, Jistka's leaders often favored aggressive uses of technology, and early advances paved the way for arrogance, petty infighting, and corruption. The Jistka Imperium's expansionist tendencies and lack of diplomacy earned the Imperium many enemies over the course of its existence. The most notable of these foes was the empire of Ancient Osirion. Osirion's enmity ultimately sealed the Imperium's fate, as they employed clever and depraved magic that proved more than a match for Jistka's legendary golem army, even when the Jistkans began to cut corners and bind fiends into their golems. In a desperate attempt to fight back against internal corruption and external pressures, a cabal of concerned Jistkans formed the Artificer Conclave to develop new technologies to stave off the Imperium's collapse and return Jistka to its former glory. The most successful of these developments were automatons, which the Conclave believed to be the pinnacle of Jistkan constructs—or at least, the last hope for Jistka's salvation. Conclave creators transplanted the mind, life force, and soul of Jistkan individuals into these constructs, creating magical and technological marvels powered by the life energy of the greatest warriors and scholars the organization could recruit. Unfortunately, despite the Conclave's best efforts, the automatons' arrival happened too late to save the already doomed Imperium. The empire collapsed, leaving automatons to fend for themselves.
The exceptional and forward-thinking construction of automatons means that a fair number remain today, millennia later, scattered to the winds. However, the passage of time has revealed one of automatons' greatest weaknesses: their mortal psyches. Only the strongest willed have managed to retain their memories, sense of self, and lucidity after all this time. As each automaton remains as unique as any living person on Golarion; a given automaton has their own personality, shaped by countless experiences. Most automatons behave reclusively, preferring to avoid others due to fear of attachment or misunderstanding. Even automatons who are more willing to live in the open understand that their unique nature makes them a prime target for hunters, scholars, or worse. Rare is the automaton that lives without the regular occurrence of distrust or worry.