Trust me, golem is among the best card games for a
professional gambler. You can duck out of a round if
your cards aren’t falling your way, but you can stay in
and exploit a rube if you’re on a hot streak and canny
enough to pay close attention. Fortunately, golem is
common in taprooms and gambling dens throughout the
Inner Sea. Regional variants keep the game lively, but
it’s rarely rude to insist on a game of “pure golem,” no
matter where you are. Even high-class establishments are
likely to have a few games available, with the ante set
high enough to discourage riffraff.
Setup: Golem usually has three to six players, plus a
dealer (or, in a less-professional establishment, players
who alternate being the dealer). The game requires a
shiny token to represent an amulet and a deck of 52
cards in four suits, numbered from 1 to 13. In many
places across the Inner Sea, players use an Old-Mage
deck without its wildcards, as they’re already numbered
from 1 to 13 in four suits. The suits in golem-specific
decks are flesh (hearts, or life in the Old-Mage deck),
clay (spades, or mind), stone (diamonds, or matter), and
iron (clubs, or spirit).
Play: Golem is a card game similar to five-card draw
poker in that the players try to build the best hand from
the cards they’re dealt. However, in addition to beating
the other players, players must try to beat a “golem
hand” to win the pot.
The hands ranked from best to worst are a straight flush
(five cards of the same suit in sequential order, 9 through
13 being the best), four of a kind (four cards that match
numerically, one from each suit), a full house or “golem
lab” (a combination of three of a kind and a pair in the
same hand), a flush (five cards of the same suit in any
order), a straight (five cards of any suit in sequential order),
three of a kind (three cards that match numerically), two
pair (two different pairs in the same hand), a pair (two
cards that match numerically), and high card (the highest
numerical card in the hand). In any tie, the higher-number
card wins (that is, a pair of 13s beats a pair of 12s).
Golem is played as a series of games; one game must
be completely resolved so someone gets the pot before
the next game begins. The player to the right of the
dealer gets the amulet to start the night, and each player
must ante by placing an amount (determined by the
table, typically ranging anywhere between 2 cp and 5
gp) into the pot.
The dealer then deals five cards to each player. Starting
with whomever has the amulet, each player can take one
of three actions:
• Establish the current bet (with an amount at least
equal to the ante; some establishments limit how
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high the first bet can go) or, if there’s already a bet
established, match the current bet.
• Raise the current bet (again, usually by an amount
at least equal to the ante; sometimes with a limit).
• Fold.
Anyone who folds is out of the game and can’t come
back in until a new game begins. The betting continues
going around until all players have matched the current
bet or folded.
Next, each player still in the game can discard up to
two cards and receive that many cards back from the
deck. The discarded cards go face-down in the table’s
center. Another round of betting occurs, starting at the
player with the amulet.
If, at any point, only one player hasn’t folded, that
player wins the pot and the game ends (if playing at a
gambling hall, the hall usually takes 5 percent of the pot
as its cut before any payout). If at least two players are
still in the game after all bets are matched, those players
reveal their hands. The dealer then “frees the golem.”
The golem hand—the best five-card hand created
from the players’ discarded cards—is revealed, and if
the player with the best hand beats the golem, they win
the pot, and the game is over. But if the player with the
best hand doesn’t beat the golem hand, that player must
add a set amount of coins to the pot (usually an amount
equal to twice the ante), and all cards are collected so
a new hand can be dealt for the players who were still
in the game. This continues until someone wins the pot.
The amulet then moves one position counterclockwise at
the table, and a new game is dealt.
History: With a game as widespread as golem, it’s
hard to pin down a specific origin point. Most scholars
of the game (noting that a “scholar” of a game is
someone who’s gone broke playing it but still can’t let
the game alone) peg the origin in Cheliax, before the
Even-Tongued Conquest that broke the nation away
from imperial Taldor. The city of Corentyn experienced
something of a fad around ruins unearthed from the
Jistka Imperium. Several ancient construct factories and
tombs had been exposed at nearly the same time by rival
archaeologists looking to outdo one another. It became
the fashion to showcase strange amulets and crumbling
monoliths hauled from these ruins. Civic improvements
blossomed as aristocrats rushed to show each other up
by building gardens around Jistkan golems and filling
museums with Jistkan relics.
As soon as some members of the city’s elite claimed
Jistkan heritage, it became the rage for others to do so
as well, studying up on varieties of golems and other
constructs to add to their ersatz pedigree. Before long,
even servants and children could recite the major different
types of golems and even describe, in vague terms,
golem-related magic like controlling amulets and batons.
The game of golem appeared across Corentyn
during this craze, hitting at just the right time to ride
the zeitgeist to immediate popularity. It was played in
aristocrats’ salons and dockside taverns alike. The game
spread to all ports Taldan traders could take it, although
its adoption in the capital of Oppara was slow due to its
characterization as a “mere western affectation.” (Golem
remains less popular in Oppara than elsewhere, even
centuries later.)
An incident called the Golem Rage put a quick end to
the fad. Several Jistkan relics stuttered into simultaneous
animation and smashed villas and plazas alike before
collapsing back into dust. No one wanted anything to
do with Jistkan relics any longer; the surviving pieces
were quietly sold to distant ports and the embarrassing
craze was quickly forgotten. Yet, the game of golem still
endures in bars, casinos, and parlors across the Inner Sea.