The Golden Sea

The Golden Sea is a short game by Grant Howitt. It's about a great civilisation that has been smothered by sand, leaving roving scavengers sailing on the sands and looking for treasures thrust up to the surface.

This is one of Grant's handwritten and manually laid out games (follow the link to see what it looks like).

Like a lot of these small games the setup is traditional with a GM and players with each player holding a single character that they generate themselves.

The game is whole mish-mash of ideas, you have an initial map drawing phase that creates the world. The basic mechanism is a d20 roll plus modifiers versus a fixed target number. You have archtypes and associated abilities like Lady Blackbird. The GM gets lots of random tables to help create a scenario. Advancement is a "please the GM" style affair.

The real appeal though is in the background of wandering agents in a sand skimmer, given a license to wander and embody the cultural values of your religion and employer.

If you've ever wanted to mash-up Fury Road, Dark Sun, the Quiet Year and Lady Blackbird. Don't bother. The Golden Sea is here.

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