The Long Road
An illustrated set of 18 place-natures for Wanderhome, a pastoral tabletop RPG.
The Long Road: A Supplement for Wanderhome
Tabletop roleplaying games are one of my biggest influences as a designer. Tabletop games, such as Dungeons and Dragons or FIASCO provide opportunities for deep social engagement, improvisation, and creativity. But the vast variety of rulesets and systems in the tabletop gaming space also help broaden the boundaries of what an interaction designer can accomplish. One game that caught my attention recently is Wanderhome by Jay Dragon, a game in which the players act as marginalized travelers on a long journey.
Unlike traditional roleplaying games, Wanderhome is peaceful and pastoral, and it uses no numbers, and no dice are rolled, but the game includes robust systems for exploring character growth, interpersonal drama, and imaginative worldbuilding along the road. When playing Wanderhome, love, forgiveness, and deep self-discovery come alive at the table.
Place Natures
One of the key elements that makes Wanderhome tell such memorable stories is its Natures system. In Wanderhome, every place the travelers visit has three qualities called Natures, chosen from a deck of 32 options. For example, a place might be a Tower (a place that touches the sky), a Swamp (a place that slows things down), and a Wilderness (a place where nature is in charge) all at the same time.
Each of these Natures is associated with aesthetic elements, local characters, and folklore. In this tarot-like system, the Natures can be interpreted metaphorically too - any place where people have to wait before moving forward could be a Swamp, for instance. The narrative design implications of this system were thrilling to me, and in order to explore it better, I decided to produce a homebrew supplement to expand the world of Wanderhome.
The Long Road
This supplement for Wanderhome, written, laid out, and illustrated by me, features 18 new place-natures organized into three categories: Wistful, Bustling, and Earnest. Each nature is designed to evoke a certain metaphorical meaning as well as the literal one.
Here are a few natures from The Long Road! As you read them, I invite you to choose your three favorites and combine them to imagine a single place that you would want to stop at on a long journey!