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[[caption-width-right:210:D'awwww]]

-> ''Heart-Warming Role-Playing''

''Golden Sky Stories'' (Japanese: ''Yuuyake Koyake''[[note]]literal English translation: "Sunset"[[/note]]) is a heartwarming, non-violent TabletopRPG from Creator/RyoKamiya and Tsugihagi Honpo. It is translated by Ewen Cluney. If this does not ring a bell, Ryo Kamiya is the one who brought us much weirdness in the form of ''TabletopGame/MaidRPG'' and ''{{TabletopGame/Nechronica}}''.

While ''Golden Sky Stories'' has its own share of strangeness, compared to the above works, it is much more tame in comparison. (In fact, it is recommended for ages 10 and up.)

The players take on the roles of ''henge'' (pronounced: hen-gay), magical animals who live in a small Japanese town, helping the local residents solve their everyday problems. There is no over-arching quest to save the world and usually no fighting or anything that could be traditionally called a villain.

That does not mean that the stories get boring. On the contrary, the honesty of the small everyday occurrences [[SugarWiki/WarmAndFuzzyFeeling will touch your heart]] and reinvigorate your spirit.

It is pretty much {{Iyashikei}} in RPG form.

It has four English supplements: ''The Colors of the Sky'', featuring additional character types, scenarios, stories, and more, combining translated Japanese GSS material not collected elsewhere with original English material; ''Faerie Skies'', an alternate setting where you play fae in a small English town; ''Fantasy Friends'', an alternate setting where you play LighterAndSofter versions of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' monsters in a fantasy town; and ''Twilight Tales'', a translation of the Japanese ''Mononoke Koyake'', which introduces playable ''mononoke''[[note]]wholly magical beings[[/note]]. It also has two untranslated Japanese supplements, which further expand the available player options, with elder ''henge'', and humans respectively.

The English website can be found [[http://starlinepublishing.com/ here]].
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!!Provides examples of:
* ActualPacifist: Almost all ''henge'', as encouraged by the system: ''any'' violence will result in a reduction of relation with the town they are in regardless of reason. [[PerfectPacifistPeople Everyone in the default setting]] are these as well.
* AsianFoxSpirit: Fox ''henge''.
* CatsAreLazy: This is a gameplay mechanic: Cat henge can take the weakness Lazy, which severely limits their ability to succeed at strenuous tasks, but in return, they get the Sleeping Soundly special ability, which gives them bonus Dreams points if they spend an entire scene just lazying around without actually doing anything.
* CrossOver: Backers of the English version's kickstarter got a game that combines elements of this game and ''TabletopGame/EngineHeart'', as well as supplements for both this game that ports elements of it to the second edition of ''OVA'', and vice versa for backers of that Kickstarter.
* CuteWitch: Rules for playing one of these, or variations upon the concept, are introduced in ''The Colors of the Sky''. It directly mentions that in a lot of ways they're actually more like the ''mononoke'' introduced in a later supplement, but the rules treat them as a special type of ''henge'' so you can use them with just the corebook.
* FunctionalMagic: ''Henge'' and ''mononoke'' have magical abilities, most of which cost Wonder.
* GameMaster: The base rules assign a very authoritarian role to the GM, requiring them to be both the Author and the Director by scripting out all the scenes of a scenario in advance and making the players FollowThePlottedLine. The English translation notes that this is pretty typical for Japanese tabletop [=RPGs=], especially compared to contemporary Western indie titles, which tend to distribute the authorial control among all players.
* GeniusLoci: Local gods are animal spirits with some similarities to powerful ''henge'', but they're tied to a specific location and thus not recommended as player characters. Fox ''henge'' can have shrines devoted to them, which allow them to speak to local gods as a peer, but they're not fixed to the location.
* {{Iyashikei}}: ''GSS'' is pretty much ''Healing Manga: TheRolePlayingGame''.
* LittleBitBeastly: The ''henge'' can opt to retain some of their animal features for a less costly transformation.
* MagicalCounterfeiting: Tanuki henge can have a power that transmutes leaves, acorns, pebbles, etc, into reasonably convincing money. But it only works in the evening and night and changes back at sunrise.
* NoAntagonist: There is no overarching conflict and no "bad guys" for henge to confront, just regular people and their small worries.
* OurFairiesAreDifferent: ''Faerie Skies'' offers six playable types of fae: brownies (helpful fae who like to do things for others); elves (incredibly beautiful nobles); gnomes (industrious crafters associated with the earth); nymphs (beautiful nature fae); pixies (tiny winged tricksters); and pucas (LittleBitBeastly shapeshifters and tricksters).
* OurMermaidsAreDifferent:
** Fish ''henge'', introduced in ''The Colors of the Sky'', have a mermaid form as their least costly transformation, with LittleBitBeastly and human forms requiring increasingly more Wonder.
** Kappa mononoke introduced in ''Twilight Tales'' cover most henge and mononoke that live in the water, including mermaid.
* PowerAtAPrice: At character creation, ''henge'' choose from 1-3 weaknesses from a list for their type, each of which comes with a corresponding power.
* RandomNumberGod: A rare tabletop RPG aversion, the core game rules contain no randomness whatsoever. Character creation is essentially PointBuy, Wonder and Feelings points are earned at a fixed schedule between scenes (dependent on your RelationshipValues), while Dreams are awarded by other players for role-playing. All ability costs are fixed, and attribute checks succeed and fail based solely on whether you spend the required amount of Feelings points to beat the difficulty rating set by the GM.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: ''Henge'' can live a very long time, foxes in particular, example PC Suzune is three hundred while the Elder Turtle who acts as exposition is far older.
* RelationshipValues: The game has these going for all the [=PCs=]' relationships with each other, the town, and its inhabitants. Building up these relationships is important since it gives you more Wonder and Dreams, which can be used for henge magic and social encounters.
* SliceOfLife: The game explicitly veers away from epic escalating conflict common in traditional [=RPGs=] to focus on short stories about small everyday troubles of normal people.
* SuperDrowningSkills: Cat ''henge'' has an optional weakness called 'Can't Swim.' If they enter any large body of water, they are automatically affected by a level 7 surprise. They can overcome this weakness if they spend 6 points of Wonders/feelings for each time they do.
* TalkingAnimal: The ''henge's'' true form.
* {{Tanuki}}: Raccoon dog ''henge''.
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: The ''henge'' can take multiple forms from the SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism.
* {{Youkai}}: The player characters in the corebook are all various kinds of ''henge'', although from the more benign variety. ''Mononoke'' are introduced in a later Japanese supplement.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Most of the example player characters in the corebook are only a couple years old, though they look like preteens in human form. The exceptions are Kuromu the cat, who's 15 and looks her age in human form but would be old for a cat, and Suzune the fox, who's ReallySevenHundredYearsOld.
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