Where are you from?

The world of Little Wizards is a magical planet that is a flat disc floating around the sun.

That disc is called Coinworld. And like any other coin, it has a heads and a tails. But in this case, those are the names of the actual sides. Heads is a sunny world of fairies, rainbows and butterflies. There are five island archipelagos spread across the the side. The five areas are Keys, Smiles, Steppes, Whispers and Wilds.

Of the back of Heads is the darkened ocean of Tails. The land is a mysterious place of moonlight, spooks and shadows. The area is not evil, but there are scary monsters lurking, a danger to the unwary. The five island groups found on Tails are Bones, Screams, Shivers, Storms and Wyrds.

I'll talk about these ten lands later, but I bring them up because it seems very difficult to travel from one face of Coinworld to the other. So when I run an adventure, the characters are likely to come from the same side as where the story takes place. While I'm in favor of letting the players define their character's history, I've also devised a way to randomly determine a home if the player cannot decide.

Determine on which side of Coinworld the adventure will take place. Then roll 2d6 and add the numbers. The chance for each particular island is the same, with a small chance of having wandered from the other face of Coinworld. In that case, roll again and determine which island there. At that point, the player can use that information as a starting point to describe how their character came to join the story.

With everyone knowing where they're from, now you all can work together to learn where you all are going.

How I got here...

In 2015, I saw a new book called Little Wizards at my FLGS. The cover was adorable and playful. Flipping though a few pages, the game system struck me as both simple and elegant, full of potential for telling delightful interactive stories to both children (the target audience) and any adults who were still kids at heart (so mostly all my friends). So on a whim bought a copy.

Well, when I say "new" I presumably mean "new to me" since the book originally came out in 2013. And that's the English version.

The book for this game system originally came out in France in the early part of this century.  That version was created and written by game designer Antoine Buaza. If that name sounds familiar, you've probably played 7 Wonders or Hanabi. From what I understand, the French version of this game came out in two volumes, but the English translation gathers the material into one book.

Oddly enough, this game mirrors an idea that has been bouncing around in my head since 1998. When I first got to see Kiki's Delivery Service (the American release), I was entranced by the idea of witches living among us, going to school, some doing well in potions and enchantments, while plucky Kiki's greatest talent lies in flying. (Remember, this time was still before Harry Potter became the full blown phenomenon we recognize today.) Indeed, based on the coincidence of timing, I would not be surprised if the young witch Kiki and Jiji, the black cat who helps her, were the inspiration for this game.

So that is the rather uninteresting tale of how I ended up with a copy of Little Wizards. Story ideas have been bouncing around in my head, and now feels as good a time as any to begin exploring them more.