Golem

Golems are represented by the ' character and come in several varieties. As they are inanimate objects given life, their corpses are sometimes useful objects.

Golems are randomly generated, and an appropriate golem can also arise when trying to polymorph large piles of objects at once. For example, a pile containing many scrolls may become a paper golem, and a pile of rocks may become a clay golem.

Mythology
Golems are creatures from ancient Jewish folklore. See the Wikipedia article for more information. They are not derived from Gollum in The Lord of the Rings.

Encyclopedia entries
Golem:

"The original story harks back, so they say, to the sixteenth              century.  Using long-lost formulas from the Kabbala, a rabbi is               said to have made an artificial man -- the so-called Golem -- to               help ring the bells in the Synagogue and for all kinds of other               menial work.               "But he hadn't made a full man, and it was animated by some sort of vegetable half-life. What life it had, too, so the story runs, was only derived from the magic charm placed behind its teeth each day, that drew down to itself what was known as the `free sidereal strength of the universe.' "One evening, before evening prayers, the rabbi forgot to take              the charm out of the Golem's mouth, and it fell into a frenzy.               It raged through the dark streets, smashing everything in its               path, until the rabbi caught up with it, removed the charm, and               destroyed it.  Then the Golem collapsed, lifeless.  All that was               left of it was a small clay image, which you can still see in               the Old Synagogue." ...                  [ The Golem, by Gustav Meyrink ]

Flesh golem:

With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I               had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I               had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!--Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in               which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. [ Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ]

Gold golem:

The bellows he set away from the fire, and gathered all the tools wherewith he wrought into a silver chest; and with a sponge wiped he his face and his two hands withal, and his mighty neck and shaggy breast, and put upon him a tunic, and grasped a stout staff, and went forth halting; but there moved swiftly to support their lord handmaidens wrought of gold in the semblance of living maids. In them is understanding in their hearts, and in them speech and strength, and they know cunning handiwork by gift of the immortal gods. [ The Iliad, by Homer ]