Small Souls in a Big World: A Wanderhome Setting

There are two parallel worlds, although none can tell you where one ends and the other begins. The True world is whimsical and rich with emotion, where animalfolk live lives of gentleness, curiosity, and pastoral comfort. The Weird world is a strange, surreal mirror; a medieval fantasy land of unknowable beings, driven by logic and irony that folk can never comprehend.

You play as animalfolk on their Walkabout, a coming-of-age tradition that children take to learn new skills, soothe the spirits, and mend the rifts between the worlds.

I wanted to write a post for the RPG Blog Carnival, and this month’s theme is “Small Souls in a Big World.” That prompt and the Beatrix Potter artwork immediately brought to mind the Wanderhome campaign setting I’ve been developing. We’re starting to play through it in the Cozy Game Group Discord server, and I’d like to one day release it as third-party Wanderhome content

The setting expands upon the original with only a few minor changes to the lore. If you’re unfamiliar with Wanderhome, you play as animal people, also called animalfolk. In my setting, you are an animalfolk child on their Walkabout, which is a coming of age tradition that nearly everyone in this setting goes on when they’re between 10 - 16 years old.

When the moment is right, and most claim that only their families can declare that moment of readiness, they fill a modest pack and set out along the road. Some roam for a single season, tracing a lazy circuit of nearby hamlets. Others vanish for six, following migratory insects or forgotten trails that stitch the True and Weird worlds together. Either way, walking is not rebellion, but a rite as old as the oldest trees. Grown folks speak of their own journeys with fondness and welcome the walkers in turn.

The Walkabout tradition was inspired by many coming of age stories featuring children exploring and going on quests, especially the Pokémon anime, Spirited Away, Finding Nemo, and The Chronicles of Narnia novels.

Another aspect of this setting is the parallel world. While in the True world, animalfolk live in relative comfort and safety. But in the Weird world, the animalfolk are just mere animals. This was inspired by Beatrix Potter’s work and again Finding Nemo, where in their home environments the characters are quite people-like. But in Mister McGregor’s garden or Dr. Sherman’s dentist office, they’re just creatures, not people at all.

The Walkabout and the parallel worlds are connected. Children go on a Walkabout to repair any rifts between the worlds, as no one wants to travel into the Weird world accidentally.

Animalfolk slip between these worlds without warning through bad dreams, misspoken rituals, forgotten paths, and profound emotional moments. What they find on the other side is neither evil nor good, just deeply other.

The babies of this setting are gifted by the land where love is present and children are wanted. You might literally find a bundle of joy on your doorstep after some time wishing for a child. While family relationships may be complicated, no child is unwanted.

Families are formed by choice and affection, not biology. Children are born of the land, their form determined by the land in which they are found.

The six playbooks I’ve created for this setting focus on childlike mentalities your character might have or even struggle with on their walkabout. The Aspirant Hero, for example, emulates the heroes of myth and legend, and can’t wait to become one. The struggle, however, is understanding what heroism means for them and how to embody heroism.

A bright-eyed kid who believes the stories, longs for a quest, and desperately struggles to become part of legend.

I can’t wait to polish this setting a bit more. I feel that it fits the prompt of “Small Souls in a Big World” quite well. The characters are children, they are animalfolk, and they are moving through a world that is larger, stranger, and older than they are.

When walkers return, the village gathers for the Return Feast. Parents search their children’s faces and find something new and gentle shining there: the quiet certainty that the world is wider, kinder, and more mysterious than any single burrow or hamlet. In that certainty lies the promise that the next generation will keep walking, keep learning, and keep gifting small wonders back to the land that gave them.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this. I have more analysis of cozy quickstarts in the works, so I’ll see you back on The Cozy Questlog then.