#0 The Children of Heca-Tea - A Flabbergasted Story
Greeting and salutations wanderers!
As you may have seen in our previous blogpost (or plastered all over our social media), we are currently in the process of developing our first Tabletop Roleplaying game, Flabbergasted!
As part of the development and testing process, we are running a complete campaign of Flabbergasted with our friends which we will be chronicling here. This series will not only serve as a place for us to gather our testing and iteration process, but also serve as inspiration for your future campaigns!
And with that, let’s begin with Episode #0!
Episode #0 - Making New Acquaintances
In our first session we created the 4 protagonists that will star in our story, and a rather unique social club that got the players very excited! We took extra care to go over the rules and discuss the sheets with the players. This was after all our first proper playtest with our latest and more complete revised system. This was so invaluable to us, as we took lots of notes on what edits to make to the sheets to improve usability, as well as got a feel for what excited the players.
With that being said, let’s introduce you to the Social Club and Protagonists!
The Social Club - The Children of Heca-Tea
The Children of Heca-Tea is a Tea and Occult appreciation social club. It is based out of a defunct and run-down teashop nestled in the city centre. The members here indulge in their love of the unknown, from palmistry, tarot reading, astrology and tea-leaf reading! They also boast an impressive collection of fine blends… because if you’re reading tea-leaves everyday, it sure as heck isn’t going to be from a cup of earl grey.
Before the club can even take-off, there’s a Big Trouble threatening to put a stop to their endeavours. They find out that their tea shop is built over a historic cemetery and a local church is trying to repossess their land and demolish the tea shop… and if they can put a stop to a rather blasphemous club in the process, all the better for them too.
Club Slogan - “Spill the tea. Read the Leaves.”
The Protagonists
The Well-To-Do - Javiar Nox [Played by Ian]
Flaw - Superstitious mind
Javiar Knox is a 33 year old university “Professor & Researcher”. He was born into a privileged family, with his mother being a big-shot lawyer and his dad a surgeon. His parents insisted he get a university education and a distinguished career to go along with it. He struggled to get any good grades, and would often neglect his studies to dive into his true passion - learning all there is to know about the occult and esoteric.
His parents were concerned that he’d never make a name for himself, and in the process tarnish their reputation. They rectified this by giving a very sizable donation to the university and in exchange they would employ him in some capacity. To his parent’s knowledge, Javiar is a respected history professor, but what he really did was open up his own occult studies department, to which the university were hesitant to accept. They gave him some token resources and an office tucked away in the basement right next to the boiler room.
His dilemma is that his parents don’t know the truth of what he does at the university and has been keeping up this history professor charade for many years now. Can he keep this up?
The Aristocrat - Madame Artemisia [Played by Audrey]
Flaw - Snoop
Artemisia is a 29 year old woman of noble birth. She was born in a large family, and being one of the youngest, she was never burdened with the same duties and expectations that her older siblings had. With that being said, she still found ways to disappoint her family and receive their ire.
With her freedom and plenty of time on her hands, she took an interest in occult studies and built up an extensive library and collection. Her unconventional interests and appearance did not make her very popular amongst her peers and those few who did spend time with her did so more out of curiosity.
With her family disappointed in her unwillingness to conform to their standards, they sent her off with a modest stipend, a city apartment and a lady’s companion.
Her biggest dilemma all started after performing a card reading session for some of her acquaintances. During this reading, she offered some divine advice that ended up ruining the financial and social status of one Lady Amelia Barbery and she’s now made it her life’s mission to ruin hers.
The Help - Rosie Smith [Played by Gaby]
Flaw - Ghastly Gossip
Rosie is a 25 year old woman who has worked in the service industry since her early teenage years and is now serving as a Lady’s Companion to Madame Artemisia. Her parents served in great houses, as there the generations before them. Rosie would be no different. She entered into service as a teenager and worked her way up into more coveted roles like lady’s maids or companions.
She currently finds herself in the employ of Madame Artemisia, a woman who she was apprehensive to work for due to her grim reputation. What she didn’t expect to happen though, was develop her own interest in the occult…
Her dilemma is a classic tale of star crossed-lovers. She made the mistake of falling in love with her employer’s son, the handsome and charming Lord Noah Cromby. After their affair became public knowledge, she was let go and forbidden from interacting with the family again. Rosie now finds herself disillusioned with this division of working class and nobles, and is embracing more modern mentalities. She will do what she can to win back her love…
The Bohemian - Nathaniel Hyde [Played by David]
Flaw - Boisterous
(Under revision as the player wanted to make some changes)
And that is our introduction to the 4 main protagonists and the social club! I’m really looking forward to playing with these characters. The players were also very enthusiastic and once we came up with the occult theme it all fell into place. It will be curious to see how wildly different other playtest groups will be depending on their chosen social club. There’s a lot of freedom with the theme and I have a hunch that it will give each group a distinct flavour and result in lots of different story hooks.
Now all that’s left is for me to plan their first episode! I will probably start them off with a public challenge. After that, I will start to work in the player’s backstories and give everyone a player-centric episode where I can have some fun with their dilemmas hehehe…
See you in the next update!
- Fleur & Chelsea
