Hello again, itâs the Wanderhome anon (Iâll shorten myself to đđˇ). The game went fantastically with plenty of distractions and hiccups along the way. We found that we required a dictionary on-hand, because we all spent an unspoken amount of time trying to remember A Word⌠so we have a table dictionary. Similarly, Pinterest is the road that takes us home as we wanted visuals for certain moments or needed an idea for our landscape. Its best usage was during a candlelight dinner where the Vagabond plotted to steal the candle as an offering to a daemon. Everyone pitched in with our lunch (turned dinner), two came early to help cook and everyone else came with drinks/snacks. I highly recommend crockpot meals as you can put everything in a pot and itâll be done in 3 to 4 hours, which is roughly how long we planned our session (though we went basically all day).
Theyâre a good crew and fascinatingly loud roleplayers (but thatâs all the merrier)! Iâm glad that I talked to them as we wouldnât have had a great experience like this otherwise. I think it worked out perfectly for us. I also went into this telling everyone that they had to contribute at least a few lines of dialogue per place we visited. Itâs not much of an adventure if nobodyâs contributing. Thankfully, I didnât need to worry and everyone chose to be an active participant. Sure, we had some troubles here and there, but thatâs why I was the Guide.
Please do use the trinket idea as it went better than I couldâve hoped. I decided that, rather than attempt to discern what tokens should be, everyone could bring their own items and doohickeys. Weâre a table of six, myself included. My supplemental tokens were small tasting spoons, which everyone wanted so they attempted to do tasks for Sinkbeast the Goldaemon (a fancier way of saying âa goldfish who lives in our sink and speaks in rhymeâ). I hadnât expected them to want pathetic little spoons, but I didnât know my audience. (PS: They all loved the evil fish in a glass concept, especially since I scooted it closer to them whenever they had the choice to be mischievous.)
The system I cobbled together asked them to randomly select a Tarot card, and I gave them a task based on it. (ex: Our Ragamuffin pulled The World, so I requested that xe finds something throughout xyr journey to offer the Great, Fantastical, Utterly Amazing Sinkbeast. The offering was a suspiciously pretty boot said to be twice stolen.) While made on the fly and driven by a want for spoons, it provided side quests and hijinks aplenty. I plan on making a better system before our next game.
Before I talk about the game itself, Iâd like to introduce Sinkbeast the Goldaemon, as well as what we decided a daemon is. Daemons are embodiments of a concept, whether thatâs kindly or scheming, and make exchanges based on their epithet. Sinkbeast used to embody kleptomania, but is now literally a beast in the sink who begs us to steal. The title Goldaemon is a pun and family name. Unfortunately, Sinkbeast was captured by our Exile who panicked during their escape and poured Sinkbeastâs soul down a sink drain⌠accidentally tethering Sinkbeast because the pipes happened to contain a sigil that binds daemons. It is canonical that Sinkbeast barters these days with utensils carrying wish-granting power, though Sinkbeast is frustrated nobody seems to want the monkeyâs paw wish and instead prefers the boring old spoon.
Now, onto our journey, which we decided isnât meant to take us to a destination, but allow us to find a home in each otherâŚ
We chose a world that still experiences skirmishes between the Kingâs men and the Rebellion, but the kith begin to heal as they recognize that the world is not made better by war. Our story begins with the usual questions, though ours add two unique flourishes: âHow has magic scarred you?â and âHow is magic rebuilding you?â
Our Exile is the co-owner of The Sure-Footed Mistress and something of a wild engineer, but donât trust them with a toaster. They were a funny cross between Bigfoot and a skunk, imagine that as you will. Their trinket was an entire electric guitar that I sincerely couldnât believe was in my living room, and their tokens were guitar picks.
They somehow ended up a parent of three, which was a horrible decision for all involved, but when youâre traveling in a locomotive that might die if poked funnily, so be it. One of the three is a kith that I made, but nobody could handle leaving him behind, so Ben the orphan axolotl has a room on board. The other is our Ragamuffin in a coparenting situation (as our poor Guardian requires a break), and the third is a kith our Caretaker made named Jenkin Jeakins the Forty-Fifth, who is a puppy we found sitting in a town hit by a maelstrom. Speaking of kith, the Exileâs player made a kith named Flabber-me-ghast, a sailor macaw-frog hybrid (we didnât ask) from the western reaches who fixed up their old shirt and wistfully sighed at bathtubs.
Our Caretaker is the other co-owner of The Sure-Footed Mistress and the one who communes with the four squabbling gods of Wind, Earth, Fire, and Water. Unfortunately, all four gods are off-brand purchases made at a night market, so we are experiencing several problems. The Caretaker is trying to resolve everything, but seeks comfort in daemon spoons. She was a snow leopard who was overgrown with moss like a forgotten shrine. Her trinket was an old collectible Barbie doll still in its case and several gemstones.
She managed to seduce not one, not two, but three women by accident. Ia, the god of misplaced kisses, was overjoyed and gave her a lovebug pendant. While her player was quieter of the bunch, every moment with the Caretaker was a hoot. She bonded a lot with the Ragamuffin as they both Really Liked The Spoons, and she often drew doodles of everyone. (I now have Sinkbeast artwork on my fridge.)
Our Vagabond is discerning all the reasons for our Exile to not turn him in to the bounty hunters, which is circling back to a single point: âI am annoyingly handsome.â (Itâs working.) Heâs probably a rat, but he might be a possum. The jury is out on decisions. His player made a wanted poster with several expressions and wrote notes on them, and his tokens were m&ms that kept âgoing missing.â He had a gag where he either: critiqued his wanted poster or committed a crime to get another wanted poster made (to critique it). I was surprised that his player was so witty given their inexperience, but like fish to water (or thief to crime?)!
I let his player and our Exileâs player decide how bounties work, which snowballed into a bounty hunting guild funded by royals, nobles, and downtrodden heroes. Everyone took an oath to never be a wealthy snob, followed by Sinkbeastâs booing. (Sinkbeast wants them to be robbed.)
Our Guardian and Ragamuffin chose to work in tandem with each other since the Ragamuffin is new to the premise. They were taken by the bookâs art, so they chose to be a bear and kitten respectively. The Guardian was an emotional wreck, but managed to be eerily correct despite his circumstances. To be fair, anyone would be having an aneurysm if they watched a child who contained the soul of the Slobbering God openly run around with the Heavenblade.
They (sometimes including the Caretaker) occasionally travelled away from the less-than-legal exploits of the Exile and Vagabond to visit the forgotten crannies of the world, seeking out whatever Sinkbeast sent them to nab or uncovering a piece of the Ragamuffinâs history. The Guardianâs trinket was a bear figurine and his tokens were regular wooden tokens, though the player told me to âexpect somethingâ next time. The Ragamuffinâs trinket was a white cat beanie baby and xyr tokens were legos.
Our stories revolved around misadventures, showing we can be trusted in kind to those who offer us a hand, moral quandaries, and joyous amounts of petty crime. We crashed the Kingâs gala (on accident at first, but it turned purposeful), provided a lift to kith of several kinds, enjoyed a rambunctious Sun Parade, toasted to Sinkbeast at dinner, and had a ton of fun. Our game needed a Guide, and I enjoyed the lax work I had to do compared to D&Dâs expectations.
Since this was our opening game, we didnât dig too deep into morality or the ongoing war, but everyone is eager to push into those boundaries and touch upon its impacts. A healthy balance between gentle pastoral fantasies, where we neednât fear our next word, and a world that we can see find a conclusion to war, one that wonât stomach violence like today.
I appreciate you lending an ear to my rambles (I know itâs a long doozy), and I hope Iâll have more stories to tell. Do you have any recommendations for games similar to Wanderhome? Iâd like to pitch more TTRPGs in the future (and collect some for myself). The only two I have on my list is Yazebaâs Bed & Breakfast and Iron Valley.
Clang the pots and pans!!! Fish Wine anon is back!!!
Or rather, Sinkbeast anon as you shall henceforth be known đ There is so much concentrated delightfulness here that it could rot my teeth. After a hard week, this brought all the smiles I desperately neededâthank you so much for coming back to share your exploits!!
I am utterly enamored by the fine group youâve got; how wonderful to have such friends! Seeing them take to roleplaying AND worldbuilding so quickly mustâve been doubly as heartwarming for you to witness as it was for me to read.
The scooting of the glass! The tarot cards! Jenkin Jeakins the Forty-Fifth! So much found family and discount gods and bounties and petty crime and cursed children! And SPOONS! So many spoons!!!
As for games similar to Wanderhome, youâre right to look to Yazebaâs nextâits greatest shame, however, is that it is the TTRPG most singularly deserving of a physical copy, and yet is no longer in print. A whole TTRPG designed to be annotated, marked up, doodled on, rewritten⌠with custom stickers and sticker shelves! Itâs like if a beloved TV show was a spinoff of itself, complete with video-game-esque unlocking mechanics and infinite replayability. Perfect for lovers of found family. Itâs got a little something for everyone! Judging by the creativity of you and your group, Iâm sure you could print and doctor up your own pages.
Outside of that? Hmmm⌠off the top of my head, I donât know of any other game that matches both the playstyle and tone of Wanderhome. Itâs a unique little gem! Iâm a huge fan of Fox Curioâs Floating Bookshop if you want another pastoral animal-folk world, but thatâs (almost certainly) a solo endeavor.
Honestly, Iâll probably be stewing on this for a while to offer up more recommendations. If anyone else reads this, please feel free to throw out suggestions in the comments!
And to you, Sinkbeast Anon: thank you for creating a beautiful, ephemeral experience among friends, and thank you for taking the time out of your day to share it with me. I know Iâm rather slow at responding to my askbox, but please, please feel free to return anytime! Iâd love to hear of your groupâs escapades and/or shenanigans in any setting!
Kind regards to you and the crew of The Sure-Footed Mistress from across the web đ
