When Creating Life to use as minions, you have things you want, like strength, speed, intelligence, and all the useful characteristics, but the less necessary things like gender, hair color, and voice pitch, how do you, as a creator of minions, or as a creator of the work, decide on those?
Well, drawing from the maker's desires is a way to Show, Don't Tell things about the maker, and that trope is a common piece of writing advice. But if the minions aren't to be too flexible, then the customization could be made to only be possible before the minion is fully "born". Also makes it even more meaningful if the creation process has a large resource cost, so they can't just make more to fit the situation but have to work with what they've got, but that last point isn't necessary, it just helps keep minion counts down and a need for inventive uses.
Angel Face, Demon Face is when the customization is automatically done to match their "owner", instead of being under the control of the minion creator. The ability to create Animate Inanimate Objects when paired with an ability to make the animate object obey, means that picking out the right object to animate is a type of design.
Minions made of multiple parts, like robots, don't count because the ability to customize them both before and after activation is more inherent to the idea of such beings than it would when customization can occur to a more generic minion.
Examples:
- Naruto: Sai, a ninja who specializes in a ninjutsu style where he makes Living Drawings that emerge from the page, then he controls them.
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: Ami has two ways to make minions, both with flexibility after being taught how.
- Ami tries to make stronger, or at least more durable imps by changing the material she summons the spirits into. The spell usually sends them into a flesh body, but she tries materials such as stone, water, and mud, and while her plan eventually works, she needed the help of much more experienced magic users to do it.
- Ami can create Animate Inanimate Objects that obey her because they're reliant on her magic for food, and trying to implement someone's advice on making custom minions rather than just enhancing what's already there, reveals that she can make them look like whatever she wants, not just based on items around her.
- Fate Revelation Online: Keita's familiars are furniture that he made and which have been imbued with the power to move around at his command.
- Overlord (2012): In-Universe. When he was a human, Ainz and his guild played an MMORPG called Yggdrassil that allowed for a great deal of customization, including making Non Player Characters tweaked to the creator's preferences and allowing a lot of backstory (although this didn't play a role in the game). When Ainz finds himself transported to a different world with his entire guild's equipment and base, he discovers that the Non Player Characters are now real characters in accordance to those backstories (and because he was goofing around as he played, one of them is now deeply in love with him instead of a Really Gets Around succubus). This causes all sorts of problems since there are a lot of personality clashes and their Undying Loyalty manifests as being an Overzealous Underling to the last, but Ainz can't bring himself to change their personalities even if he could because they're all he has left to remind him of his guildmates, so doing so would be as if he were brainwashing their children.
- Threadbare:
- Souls can be used to animate golems whose appearances and capabilities are under the design decisions of the golem-maker / controller, a.k.a Golemist.
- Every Toy Golem receives a second Racial Job based on the doll they're based off of. The consequences of them introducing new Elves, Dragons, and Humans into the world is explored in later books.
- Velveteen vs.: Velveteen animates toys for her battles by asking nicely, rather than by forcing them, so she does have some choice of what she animates, but her very first use, as narrated in "Velveteen vs. The Flashback Sequence", was unconsciously getting a teddy bear to make her breakfast.
- Warbreaker: Awakeners imbue Breath into a chosen object, along with a Command, to make it carry out that Command until the Awakener reclaims the Breath.
- Whateley Universe: Generator generates spirits to infuse into items and make Animate Inanimate Objects out of them, so the limits of her customization are what she has on hand.
- Dungeons & Dragons: Objects animated by the "animate object" spells are under the control of the caster, and said caster can choose what they animate.
- Pathfinder: The origin story of Balazar, and, from him, the rest of the "summoner" class and how they form their eidolons. He was about to be thrown into a Void Chasm, Bleached, and presumably killed For Science! when a voice called to him. It said that if Balazar gave it a form, it would help him. So Balazar imagined what he thought the voice would come from: A strong and serpentine body, powerful talons, and a chicken's head because he was getting hungry. Cue exactly that leaping out of the chasm and unleashing hell. The eidolon, which called itself Padrig, pledged its Undying Loyalty to Balazar, and they've been together ever since.
- El Goonish Shive: Summons whose forms are made from magic usually also have a part of the Summon Magic being able to tweak the result with sufficient will.
- The Handbook of Heroes: Waifudolon
commentary talks about the possible fun of a customizable minion:
the true beauty of the eidolon is that it can be whatever you want it to be. As per the class description: “The eidolon’s physical appearance is up to the summoner, but it always appears as some sort of fantastical creature.” Just think about that for a second. That’s a lot of creative power to put in the hands of a player! It means that Xenomorphs, Freddy Fazbear, and the freaking Kool-Aid Man are all on the table, not to mention creeping on your fellow party members.“Tut-tut!” says the intrepid GM. “The rules stipulate that your control is not fine enough to make your eidolon appear like a specific creature.”“Fine then. She’s size Large and pink. Happy?”
- The Owl House: The witches that deal in the creation of generally obedient "Abominations" made out of shaped purple matter. It appears that the completed humanoid forms cannot be altered, only dispelled, because there are shaping failures that apparently cannot be easily salvaged.
