Hi, If you don't like golems why not give them a more steampunk vibe. Something that sounds more like machinery. Eg Machina. Cheers, Greg.
There's a think called "grog" which is basically little bits of ground up, fired clay. It makes the finished ware stronger. You can't make grog out of rocks or metal, they would heat unevenly, possibly explode, and generally turn the firing into a disaster. But there are a lot of things we make today out of clay or plaster, like bricks, drywall and concrete.
Name-wise if you wanted to go with Gollum but were worried about faithfulness to the original creature, how about using it as some sort of evolved slang? When the creatures were first created, they reminded someone of a gollum from the old stories and the name stuck. But mostly I wanted to say, I am already intrigued by the world you have created and would love to know how it pans out
