The Ghost and the Golem

Confront mystic perils and revelations, pogroms, & your own wild heart, in this Jewish historical fantasy set in the violent spring of 1881, amid bandits, betrothals, klezmers, and kabbalists! Can you save the shtetl...or do you long to escape it?

The Ghost and the Golem is a 250,000-word interactive historical fantasy novel by Benjamin Rosenbaum, Ennie-nominated author of the Jewish tabletop roleplaying game Dream Apart. It's entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

When the czar is blown up by anarchists on a St. Petersburg bridge, the Jews are blamed, and a wave of anti-Semitic riots spread through the Russian empire. Though they haven't quite reached your sleepy little market village on the border of Poland and Ukraine, tensions are rising, and otherworldly portents foretell approaching doom. Can you delve into the mystical secrets of the Unseen World, investigate the underlying causes of the brewing pogrom, or make alliances with the local Christian peasants, the Czarist garrison, or the bandits of the wild forest? And let's not forget that Mamma is itching to get you married! Will you embrace the match that she and Gittel the matchmaker have arranged? Or do you have other plans?

In the tradition of the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sholom Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, and the particularly zany parts of the Talmud (as well as modern authors like Michael Chabon, Naomi Novik, and Helene Wecker), The Ghost and the Golem lets you experience a magical 19th century Jewish Eastern Europe. Surrounded by an often hostile Christendom, by wild forests in which anything might creep, and by the invisible creatures of the Unseen World—angels, demons, ghosts, and spirits—the Jews of the shtetl feud and reconcile, bargain and gossip, celebrate and mourn, and snatch a little joy and love where they can. Life in the shtetl is sweet as raisin pastries and bitter as horseradish: may it be the Divine Will that it endures another season...

Play as male, female, or non-binary; cis or trans; intersex or not; gay, straight, bi, or asexual ... in an approach that unites historical accuracy with agency and the possibility of queer joy.
Debate, laugh, sing, or flirt with old friends or roguish traveling musicians!
Help fashion an enormous golem from clay, and bring it to life, or mystically ascend to a transcendental plane to discover the secrets of the Universe!
Get a standing ovation onstage -- or be pelted with potatoes!
Stand up to antisemitic agitators, czarist soldiers, bandits, and a very disapproving rebbetzin!
Win the praise and admiration of the shtetl...or thoroughly ruin your reputation.
Choose whether you want everything translated for you, a little help, or to be fully immersed in yiddish vernacular terms.
Succumb to demonic influence, or fend it off with pious faith or Enlightenment skepticism!
Get dragged by a donkey through a crowded marketplace and several chicken coops! (So...many...feathers...)
Go through with your arranged marriage, convince Mamma to let you marry another, scorn all suitors, cherish a secret queer romance, arrange for a discreet partnership of apparent bachelors/spinsters... or run away to find new possibilities in the big city!
Disaster looms for the shtetl, human and otherwise -- and you have only your wits, charm, chutzpah, and whatever forbidden mystical secrets you can discover. Can you save your people? And at what price?