The Golden Book is one of the long-overdue stretch goals for the Monkey Kickstarter, which I’m pushing to get done by Christmas.

It’s now going to be part of the Monkey Companion, partly to focus my efforts to get everything done, but also because it makes sense to put it in with the rest of the miscellaneous articles and adventures that make up the companion.

Here’s an excerpt to give you an idea of how it works.

The book is split into two parts.

  • The Demons, who are typically the adversaries of the player immortals, although one group are the demons from the Ten Courts of Hell can potentially be allies.
  • The Immortals of the Celestial Bureaucracy, those who serve Western Heaven. Theoretically these immortals should be on the player’s side, but their current mission on Earth may put them at cross purposes.

The immortals are then split into four categories by card suite, which allows the Narrator to quickly choose characters based upon the story’s needs or draw a card to randomly choose (see Consulting the Golden Book below).

Consulting the Golden Book

You can either use it as a reference book or as an oracle picking the next immortal who your players encounter in their journey by using a card draw.

Method

Have another deck of cards, separate from the player’s and Narrator’s deck, put to one side away from the other cards for just this purpose.

You can either draw cards in-game spontaneously or use them for inspiration while composing the outline of your adventure (see Monkey pages xx-xx).

Broadly speaking, each suite of cards represents a different category of immortals.

For Demons:

  • Clubs. These demons specialise dealing out violence and seek to harm mortals.
  • Diamonds. Often called “hoarders” by their peers these demons for whatever warped reason accumulate riches and physical things.
  • Hearts. These are demons who specialise in manipulating human lusts and fears.
  • Spades. These are Demons from the Ten Court of Hell, who are hunting escapees when encountered.

For Immortals of the Celestial Bureaucracy.

  • Clubs. Are the soldiers of Heaven and demon hunters responsible for putting down threats to the Celestial Harmony down by force?
  • Diamond. Those immortals responsible for the smooth flows of Chi (or energy) between heaven and earth. They tend to be magicians.  
  • Hearts. These busy immortals who are always on the move are Diplomats, responsible for smoothing hurt feelings and reporting on various projects that Western Heaven has on the go at any one time.
  • Spades. These worker immortals are responsible for Earthly works.

The value of the cards matters. The higher the value of the card, the more powerful the immortal.

As a result:

  • 2 – 6 are Extras.
  • 7 to 10 are Supporting Characters.
  • Picture cards are Major Characters.