Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: Golems and their Many Uses & The Halflings of the Triad who build them aka All About Golems & Halflings

Golems and their Many Uses & The Halflings of the Triad who build them aka All About Golems & Halflings by John Josten is a role playing game supplement published by Board Enterprises. Although there are some references to the publisher’s Legend Quest system, this is effectively a generic supplement. This is one in the Small Bites series and is the abbreviated “World Walker” edition; the full supplement is only available to Patreon supporters.

This is a nineteen page PDF which is available for free from RPGNow. One page is the front cover and around half a page has links to the publisher’s various sites and an ad for their Patreon campaign.

The Introduction, which is longer than usual, talks about how golems are not simply used for battle, just as vehicles are not in the current day. This is followed by the Table of Contents.

Fletnern Wiki duplicates a number of articles from the Wiki related to halflings and golems. These are items, groups, slavery, cities, cultures and regions.

The Sounding Board has copies of a number of blog posts.

High Fantasy – Golems vs. Robots talks about steampunk. The author suggests that, in a pre-1800 setting, it is quite likely that golems would go for the “man” power version of technology – such as golem knights and automated ballistae – rather than the black box type, such as tanks and bombs.

How Much Magic Is There? considers how much magic a setting might have and what this will mean for magic items.

It’s Not Every Day You see a Golem Horse (or is it?) – Part One diverges from its topic and considers the availability of enchantments in Fletnern.

It’s Not Every Day You see a Golem Horse (or is it?) – Part Two considers just how well known and common magic is and what effect this will have on the common people. Interestingly, greater familiarity with magic can lead to greater worry – as the common folk know just how dangerous it is.

Are All Golems Golems? considers just what uses golems might be put to.

Lifestyles of the Magical and Mundane considers halflings, whose greatest population concentration is in the cities of the Triad. First, there is a city that manufactures a lot of golems. Next, The Pocktish Halflings considers some non-Triad halflings, a group with many questions regarding their origin.

News Of Fletnern starts with On the sale of golems: or why a golem manufacturing city stopped making mining golems after unforeseen consequences.

Interdiction is how a telepathic communications organisation interdicted the Triad after the halflings started a service themselves, and how this interdiction has pretty much failed to work as planned.

Golem Armies has brief details on some golems that were used in combat.

The Good Life starts with Golem Form and how golems are designed based on living creatures, not inanimate objects.

Cuisine is actually mostly about the sugar produced by the halflings.

Halfling Toys has a number of non-golem halfling devices.

Halfling Holes has what might be considered to be a traditional hobbit burrow, and how halflings don’t actually live in these but use them for storage.

Other Halflings talks about how halflings appear to be only one race but may have different cultures.

The Construction Colossuses of Rimmim is how an island that is expanding by reclaiming the sea does so using big golems.

What’s Missing covers the articles that are in the complete version.

In Conclusion mentions a number of other supplements; All About Dwarves, All About Centaurs (the main centaur lands border the Triad) and All About Organized Crime (the city-state of Garnock has a lot of halfling slaves).

The PDF is bookmarked but only the major sections are covered and the Table of Contents is to a similar level of detail. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two column format and a few minor errors were noticed. There are a number of generally appropriate black and white illustrations as well as a colour map of the Triad region. This map is of a significantly better quality than any seen in the series so far. Presentation is okay.

As usual, this is a collection of sometimes loosely-related articles rather than a coherent whole.

The supplement considers why golems are useful to halflings. The primary reasons are that golems provide the strength that golems lack whilst also being about the same speed as them. Golems in this supplement are not the typical combat golems and foes seen in most FRPGs. Instead, they actually have more resemblance to the golems from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, starting from Feet of Clay, in that the golems are primarily used for “manpower” not combat.

The author’s interest in fantasy economics can be seen again, as the cost-effectiveness of such things as golems in combat versus normal soldiers and why it is worthwhile spending money on enchanting the equipment of a soldier who may have cost quite a bit of money to train.

Golems and their Many Uses & The Halflings of the Triad who build them aka All About Golems & Halflings can be downloaded for free by clicking here.