skygiants

Surely not every animated pottery humanoid needs be a classical Jewish golem, or even any kind of golem at all.

I haven't read the book. It was not clear to me that Kingfisher didn't call them golems, which—the influence of D&D notwithstanding—if the name is used, I do expect them to follow at least some of the traditional Jewish rules. (Which can get weird in its own right in secondary worlds that don't have Jews, but . . . eh.)