What is Wanderhome?

Kenzie Tartaglione:

Hello! And, if you’re new, welcome to queeRPG! A TTRPG podcast by queer people, for queer people. My name is Kenzie Tartaglione. I am the creator of queeRPG and was the Master of Ceremonies for our first season, Wildmoore High: a Monsterhearts story.

So, you may know by now, that we are ramping up to season two of queeRPG. And this time around, we are playing a little bit of a different game. Of Kith and Pen exists within the game of Wanderhome.

Wanderhome was created by Jay Dragon and built on the Belonging Outside Belonging engine by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum. You might notice a familiar name there as Avery Adler was the designer behind Monsterhearts.

Wanderhome, as described on the Possum Creek Games website, “is a pastoral fantasy role-playing game about traveling animal-folk, the world they inhabit, and the way the seasons change. It is a game filled with grassy fields, mossy shrines, herds of chubby bumblebees, opossums in sundresses, salamanders with suspenders, starry night skies, and the most beautiful sunsets you can imagine.”

Wanderhome’s fully original setting is a fantasy world called Haeth, inspired by the works of Brian Jacques, Tove Jansson, and Hayao Miyazaki. It is full of good natured animal-folk and shifting seasons and pulls any player into a warm and cozy world full of hospitality and endless beauty. And one thing that is most important in Wanderhome is that there is no violence in Haeth.

The Belonging Outside Belonging is an engine designed around collaborative community building. There are no dice and no game masters. Usually. Since queeRPG is a podcast, we needed a little bit more structure, so, we found ourselves a guide! Harper Sage Pettit has joined us for season two to lead our cast on a journey of discovery. And while very easily done without dice, our cast felt the want to roll and so they created their own stat system. You will hear things such as Heart rolls and Instinct rolls pop up throughout the episodes that are of our own invention and not connected to the published book of Wanderhome.

In Wanderhome, each player. Chooses a playbook, which represents a type of person you could find in Haeth. It helps create characters and direct the player in what they can do while going on their journey. There are a plethora of traits within Wanderhome that help bring to life the personality of characters met along the way. Some are magical, some are supernatural abilities, and even though violence is not a part of the present world, some animal-folk may still be affected by trauma and pain.

As we did in season one, before each episode, we will have a content warning underlining specific topics in the episode that some people may want to avoid. While the content of Wanderhome is drastically different than that of Monsterhearts, things still may arise that some of our listeners may want to avoid so we want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to have a enjoyable journey.

So, that’s a little rundown about the game of Wanderhome if you are not familiar with it.

In Of Kith and Pen, we are still in Haeth, but more specifically, we start out in The Lastings, The Land of One Hundred Bridges, and follow our kith as they go out into The Outlings and beyond!

Of Kith and Pen premieres on June 21st. You can find the introduction of our cast on all of our socials and over the next few days and weeks you will get a sneak peak at their characters as well If you’d like to support us, the easiest way is by spreading the word! Tell a friend, tell a family member, tell your neighbor. Also, on whatever platform you listen to us with, leave us a little rating or review! It helps more people find the podcast. And lastly, if you’d like access to exclusive behind the scenes tidbits, our After Show where we spent some more time discussing the episodes and the world in depth, or even early access to some other shows we have coming down the pipeline, head over to our Patreon at patreon.com/queeRPG.

We are beyond excited for you to experience a journey through Haeth with us. Until next time!