The Bathhouse |
This is a game about gods, queerness, the power of shared myths, and the intimacy of bathing together. A group of old friends take a trip to a bathhouse together, to reminisce and share stories. In the intimate sanctuary of the bathhouse, as protective layers and long held feelings are stripped and encrusted dirt is washed away, who will they become? Will the gods awaken? This is a 3 hr LARP for 4 or 6 players designed to be played online in the comfort and safety of your own home. Players take a bath together in the middle; this section is played as an audio only experience, allowing you to lean back and wallow in your bath. It is also possible to simulate the bathing experience with a warm blanket if you don't have a bathtub. The players will develop their characters and group dynamics in the first half hour. The main bulk of the game takes place inside the bathhouse, which is played audio-only while the players take a bath together. Conversation is inspired by prompts in the character sheets: a mixture of scenes glimpsed in the bathhouse beyond the camera’s view, memories of their youth, and stories from their old game of myths and gods. As play continues, those magical stories become more prominent and the bathhouse scenes stranger and increasingly tangled with the myths. Are your characters truly incarnations of mythical beings, their other selves reawakened in the liminal space of the bathhouse? Or are they ordinary people choosing to imaginatively embellish and use stories to express things they find difficult to say? |
| Author(s): | Rei England | |
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| Game EMail: | solitude_saiyajin AT hotmail DOT com | |
| GM(s): |
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| Lead GM: | Rei England | |
| Information for Players: | Characters all have some central dilemma and have felt 'other' as awkward teens; one character was a young carer. May include exploration of sexuality/queerness if players choose to pursue this theme. Players should be comfortable taking a bath (or bathing equivalent with a blanket against your skin) when people can hear them (note: video will be switched off for this section). The whole game document is 3 pages of game description + 1 page each for each character, but reading them pre-play isn't necessary. | |
| Male Players: | Min: 0 / Max: 0 | |
| Female Players: | Min: 0 / Max: 0 | |
| Neutral Players: | Min: 4 / Max: 6 | |
| Total Players: | Min: 4 / Max: 6 |
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England, Rei
Rei was born in a vast industrial wasteland where the sky glowed burnt orange at night and the odd explosion rocked the nearby houses. Rei is descended on one side from a mysterious orphaned farm boy, which may explain the suspiciously hobbit-like traits, and on the other side from a fierce war veteran matriarch. Rei's early diet consisted almost entirely of books, and later years involved being inducted into a mysterious local group listed in the phone directory only as a satanic cult, where Rei learned to wage war and perform magic while hordes of people insisted on giving Rei expensive pieces of cardboard. Rei finally escaped, and ran away to spend the next few years in an ivory tower to study the workings of imaginary universes, thankfully well populated with books and fellow cult members. Rei now spends weekdays disguised as a mild-mannered insurance risk mathematician, and evenings and weekends learning how to fly, poledancing, climbing silks, studying whichever subject seems fascinating this month, making music, sailing, riding, diving, and occasionally hitting people with things, although sometimes Rei gets confused and turns up at work in silly costumes. Rei uses a time machine to fit in freeform writing into this busy schedule, which is the only explanation for the 5 theatre style LARPs, several combat LARPs, a couple of tabletops, and a number of play-by-e-mail games that Rei has nevertheless managed to churn out. Rei's concentration span is often ooh shiny.