Moonlit Grove Tea House

Yesterday, I got the whole family -- myself, my wife (Kate), my son Stanley (9) and my daughter Wynifred (4) -- to all sit down and play an RPG together. From previous experiences playing with my son, I knew that he wanted me to have a character as well and that he wasn't exactly looking for a "GM/Player" divide like naturally occurs in most TTRPGs. The last game we'd played was RUNECAIRN, which is made for one player and one GM, but he wanted to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with my character, not face me like an opponent in some contest of tabletop acumen. And the thing is, I completely get it: I'm far more of a collaborative person than a competitive person (I seriously hate competition; it's so impractical and stupid), so I snatched up the idea and ran with it. Instead of one of us sitting "behind the screen," running the game for the others, we'd all run the game together for each other, with Kate and me acting as guides for times that guides were needed. It took a moment for us to find our feet, but once we did, we took off running.

Stanley had had an idea at some point for an RPG (or a Roblox mod I think, but we went this direction instead) where instead of potions, people would brew tea. By simply having that one detail as the thing that differentiates his idea from other settings, it made sense to lean hard on this angle: tea shops or tea houses should be central features of the campaign. Kate being a huge Miyazaki fan took this in a very Spirited Away sort of direction when she decided that it should be spirits who run the tea house, which pushed the whole thing into a Spirit World / Faewild sort of direction. Of course there had to be a Yubaba-style crone watching over the place, the sort of Tea Witch you'd call cranky and cantankerous. When we started making our characters, we tied them all to the Tea House in one way or another -- and thus to Maribel the Tea Witch and to each other. 

Fur is a fox spirit (humanoid) who was drummed out of the spirit army for some reason (possible storyline there) and decided to dedicate his life to saving lives instead of taking them. Though he swears to the contrary, Fur is very much Maribel's apprentice, learning tea blends to soothe body and soul at the feet of the master. 

Wanawne was a forester and hunter when she came across the strange tea house in the woods. Through some spirit trickery, she's now stuck in the Spirit World, where she does errands for Maribel -- mostly cleaning and chopping firewood, nonstop firewood -- in return for room & board. She seems to have no thoughts of going home. 

Max, on the other hand, very much wants to return from the Spirit World. Another mortal, Max sought out the Moonlit Grove Tea House after every other cure for the disease that plagued him failed; he hadn't counted on the fact that drinking tea brewed by spirits would trap him in the Spirit World, and now he looks for a way back home, working for Maribel for room, board and whatever scraps of myth and legend he can learn about how to get back to his family.

Another fox spirit, the kitsune priest Masuki, frequents the Moonlit Grove Tea House and does errands on occasion for the Tea Witch Maribel. Masuki cares for a nearby shrine and is attended by the Tanuki monk "Abbott" Amaya, who dreams of growing the shrine into a grand monastery one day. Masuki, however, is content with the social advantages of managing the shrine adjacent to the Moonlit Grove and its famous tea house. She offers to help Maribel and rarely asks for a reward, happy with the opportunity for adventure and trickery.

Can you guess which of us made which character? As I wrote this, I started to not be able to tell myself...

These are the characters who set out on a journey from the tea house to bring back Blood Sugar -- sugar taken from cane grown in a cave deep in that mountain over there in the eerie light of red crystals -- so a tea could be made to help a cloud spirit who was going to be arriving in a few days. Along the way up the mountain, the vampire who grows the cane dropped boulders on us, we discovered a meadow of flowers with eyeballs instead of centers and were attacked by a swarm of murderous butterflies (Murderflies?) which nearly ended Masuki's existence. In the cave itself, we were attacked by a red skeleton encrusted with crystals and minerals and then faced down the vampire themself. When the vampire retreated, we cut our losses, harvested the Blood Cane and left rather than pursue and put an end to the vampire threat. Now there's a vampire out there we'll have to deal with before they deal with us. Great. 

So far, we don't know much about the Moonlit Grove where the tea house is located itself. We know it's named after the grove of tea plants that grow nearby, but we don't know yet why it has that name. Is there some special moonlight that imbues the tea with special powers? Maybe tea picked at different phases of the moon has different effects? There are all sorts of options, although as of right now I'm leaning toward that last one. 

Immediately after our session concluded, the kids both demanded that we play more, but it was dinner time, so we had to switch gears. 

This morning, Wyn has already begged for us to play again when she gets home from school.

Looks like it's working!