Gears of the Golden Golem

June 11, 2009 9 comments

The theme of this month’s RPG Blog Carnival is Steampunk and Klokworks. When I think of steampunk, I think of three things: the industrial revolution, people working under oppressive conditions, and anachronistic technology. It’s almost always set in Victorian England, but I don’t feel that it has to be. That’s why I’m presenting three alternate steampunk settings.

In ancient steampunk Egypt, the Pharaoh is enslaving the Israelites to work in his coal-burning factories creating automatons in the form of False Idols (effigies of Egyptian gods and so forth). The player characters are enslaved Israelites who must conspire to escape and gather the clay and other materials needed to build a Golem. Through a series of heroic pulp quests, the player characters travel the land seeking what they need and battling the Pharoah’s oppression where they find it. As they must be spiritually pure and adhere to the Halakha, and face challenged that will temp them to stray from that law. They get to be armed with smaller steampunk gadgets along the way, the batter to battle trained soldiers and clockwork monsters.

Once the Golem (a giant clay mecha) is complete, they must return and battle the Pharaoh’s clockwork Golden Bull mecha, destroy the False Idol factory, and free the Israelites! Both the Golem and the False Idols have very Old Testament powers, instead of the typical mecha guns and missiles. The mouth opens to release a plague of locusts. Rays from the eyes cause boils. Stomp a foot in the dust, and the dust turns into gnats and lice. Big, kaiji-type fights with the pyramids and other classic Egyptian architecture in the background.

The title “Gears of the Golden Golem” is an intention pulpish misnomer. I chose the name for its alliteration. The Golem has no gears, nor is it made of gold. The Pharaoh’s False Idol automatons do have gears, and are gold-plated, but the gears are not made of gold (too soft a metal, it would wear out too fast).

Previously:

The Tinker-King of Klockworld
Street urchins from Victorian London are swept into a steampunk fantasy-land!

Coming Soon:

The Chinese CoalPunk Revolution
In near-future China, a band of heroes fight to overthrow evil Capitalists and return power to the People!