Welcome to the Golem Factory – producers of the upcoming “Golden City” setting and adventure Kickstarter!

We’re incredibly excited to start sharing our world, art, puzzles, and stories with you. We’re working hard on developing a full Kickstarter, intended to offer:

• 3 linked one-shots (suitable for individual games, or as a single short adventure)
• a complete setting guide
• 14 factions ranging from sea wizards to merchant smugglers
• Over 100 unique characters
• 3 new subclass options
• 1 entirely new class built for the book!

To give you an idea of what you’re in for, read on for a dip into the setting so far.

The Golden City

The Golden City is an isolated location on the edge of the Dunes of Abandon and the Blessing Sea. This is the world as far as it is known – everyone in the city was born here and will die here, and knowledge of places beyond the City is limited to the assumption that there must be other people out there, somewhere.

Trade and imports are brought by the Blessing Sea through magical rituals known only to sailors who deal exclusively in the matter, and anyone who leaves the City will find themselves lost in their choice of: a desert that erodes their mind, an inescapable forest, literally endless plains, or the Sea itself, from which the untrained never return.

The Golden City is dominated by four factions: the Stalemate Council (and its constituent guilds, often referred to simply as the “Stalemate”), the Monarch’s Legion, the Outsiders, and the Sekrescats.

Traditionally, the City is ruled over by a monarch, with the Legion as their personal army and guard. Rather than a royal bloodline or an election, however, a new monarch is selected by secret rituals in the mountain Kingsrite, presided over by the Sekrescat cult. Members of this cult wear masks that obscure their identities and never venture to the City itself – at least so far as anyone knows.

While many would surely desire the throne, few seek it out: almost none who travel to Kingsrite return, and in times where no monarch rules the City, the Legion target anyone with any suggestion of leadership skills and drag them to the mountain in the hopes of finding their new ruler. Avoiding the Legion’s attention is a matter of vital importance to any who seek power within the City, for risk of an untimely and unknown end.

But life is not so difficult for some. When the City has no single leader, power falls to the Stalemate Council, made up of the City’s guilds. Almost all citizens of any standing are members of the Stalemate, though only the leaders of the Guilds and other highly prominent figures sit on the Council itself. More importantly, members of the Stalemate are ineligible for the throne, keeping them from the Legion’s grasp and allowing them to operate openly without fear.

The final group, the Outsiders, are unrecognised by any of the others in any official capacity. These are figures who amass power and loyalty amongst themselves while refusing to join the Stalemate. Their vulnerability to the Legion’s grasp means that Outsiders are both secretive regarding their members’ identities, and loyal to one another; the faction is formed from necessity more than intent. They have no stated goals save to protect those who join their ranks from the political struggle between the Stalemate and the Legion.

At the time of this setting, the last monarch, King Nichen, has been dead for 50 years, and most have forgotten what life is like outside of the Stalemate – which is exactly how the Council likes it…