A Cursory Guidebook To The Forest Hymn & Picnic

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DIGITAL ILLUSTRATIONS: Casey Cookson, Sam Mameli EDITING & PROOFREADING: Shasta Howe SONG LYRICS: Gabe Soria WRITING, ILLUSTRATION, LAYOUT: Cecil Howe BASED ON PRIOR WORKS BY: Robert J. Schwalb SPECIAL THANKS TO: Ofelia, Adelaide, Shasta, Herman, several hundred Kickstarter backers, as well as dozens of playtesters, tom fools, well-wishers, advice givers, and friends.

© 2019 Cecil Howe Backgrounds, cartography, and page ISBN: 978-1-7335743-1-0 arts by Cecil done in traditional https://www.theforesthymn.com mediums. Characters by Casey and Sam done digitally. Type is EB Best viewed as a book, or with right Garamond and Old Cupboard facing pages! throughout.

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hat you're having a gander at just now is A Cursory Guidebook To The Forest Hymn & Picnic. You might think of it as a quick guide, or an initial primer to the fuller tabletop adventure game that is simply called The Forest Hymn & Picnic. As it is cursory, it has nearly everything in the game but in a smaller amount and quickly abridged. As well, this guide only covers adventurers at level 0, and not beyond. Keep all of this in mind as you read, and temper your expectations accordingly! This guide is ordered in a way to quickly introduce the world of The Forest Hymn and explain how the game is played. After that are the sections on creating adventurers, a short bit on magic tricks, tips for narrators, an extracurricular activity, and several short lists of things.

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I NTRODUCTIONS A RE I N O RDER ....

Setting Up ....................................................

THE FOREST HYMN ......................................

Forest Facts ................................................... Life In The City ........................................... Among The Scary Trees ...............................

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PLAYING THE GAME; THE BASICS ......... 4 Questions & Answers .................................... 4 Throwing Dice ............................................. 1 The Conversation ......................................... 1 Testing Your Luck ........................................ 7 A Time & A Place ........................................ 8 Time & Place In Play .................................. 9 An Example Q&A Roll ............................... 19

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C HARACTER C REATION .......................... 3 Fair Token .................................................... 3 Choosing A Forest Dweller ........................... 3 Animal Folk ................................................. 4 People ............................................................ 5 Ghosts ........................................................... 2 Characteristics .............................................. 2 Assigning The Numbers ............................... 2 Signatures .................................................... 0 Background Parcels ...................................... 2 Subjects, Grades, And You ............................ 4 Filling Your Pockets ...................................... 7 In Conclusion ............................................... 7

PLAYING THE GAME; MORE STUFFS ..... 8 Brawling ...................................................... Helping Hands ............................................. Getting Hurt ................................................ Health Concerns ........................................... Getting Unhurt ............................................ Spending Money .......................................... Magic Tricks ................................................

8 8 9 9 0 1 3

NARRATOR FACTS .......................................... 6 SEVERAL LISTS .................................................. 4 ON THE POND ................................................. 0

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he Forest Hymn & Picnic is a tabletop adventure game. Like its cousins it's played with books and pencils and papers, usually at a table crowded with people all talking over one another and spilling their drinks. It's a game that uses a book and dice to play make-believe. There are rules to this particular kind of make-believe though—rules that help mitigate the details of whatever mischief you bring upon yourselves. This book contains those rules and procedures you'll need for playing pretend in a world of ghosts, animals that talk and wear hats, lost people, witches, tea parties, and trees with scary faces. In this game, there are two types of players. There is the narrator, whose task is to create plot for the others to upend, introduce a cast of characters to meet, and to preside happily over the rules. Everyone else will pick one of the three types of Forest Dwellers and act as adventurers who'll be exploring the woods, diving into small town politics, uncovering dastardly plots, and exploring old haunted ruins. There may be a bit of theft of services here and traveling theatrics there, or even a fall festival bake o too! Above all else, TFH&P is a game of passing times and changing seasons. Each adventure may not be related to the one before it or after it, but they are all quick glimpses stolen from the window as the adventurer's lives move on.

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laying this game requires a few supplies: this guidebook, printed character sheets, pencils, and erasers. You will also need a smattering of dice with sides of 6, 12, and 20. To round out your list you will need some spare paper and a coin. The Forest Hymn & Picnic is best enjoyed by three to ve people, two to four hours at a time.

One of those players must be the narrator and the rest the adventurers. Narrators will decide how the adventure will start, task challenges to be overcome, and generally oversee how everything plays out. Adventurers will create and play Forest Dwellers who will attempt to overcome those challenges, interact with plot points or characters, and whose actions will decide how the adventure ends.

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efore you can play in The Forest Hymn you should at least have a bit of knowledge of these strange woods. It is an old and odd place. The entirety of the world, from one edge of the map to the other, is covered in thick copses of trees, haunted ruins, crisscrossing creeks, and rarely traveled highways. When not giving pause to the occasional town, the forest is full to the brim with strangeness; a gang of Raccoons and Rats might leap from an alley with their pistols drawn to demand your purse, Ghosts bring up vegetable gardens on the grounds of their lonely estates, and travelers might be drawn to a night's rest by following the gentle smell of a pie cooling in a window. Brigands terrorize the road in broad daylight, a band of Dogs take up as funeral musicians, woodwitches trade lies over drinks and cards, and folks everywhere seem to constantly be readying the place for whatever the next celebration may be.

Adventurers have their choice of three types of Forest Dweller in this world, each covered with more detail in character creation. There are the aloof and ever pragmatic People, who've been dropped into the laps of other dwellers by The Stork and are bit out of place. Animal Folk are the most commonly encountered dweller, and they are the walking and talking civilized relations of the more wild animals of the forest. Finally there are the Ghosts; becostumed spirits with a penchant for the supernatural and a curiosity for exploring the similarly strange Forest Hymn. What follows is a brief overview of the world in which this game takes place.

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his book is only a cursory guide, and as such it deserves an equally cursory guide to the woods you'll be traipsing in and out of. Do not think of this as the only information true of the world, however, as Forest Dweller descriptions, adventure prompts, magic tricks, and many other facets of this game each work hand in hand to illuminate the ner details of The Forest Hymn. Magic seems to permeate everything in the woods. It ebbs and ows as the seasons change. Forest Dwellers attuned to the seasons can use magic for very neat tricks! Very bad things and very good things can come from these parlor illusions. Despite being very full of scurrying Forest Dwellers all coming and going on their curious business, the woods seem to always feel empty. Ruined towns, manors, estates, and villages can be found hiding secrets throughout the woods. They were left unguarded by Old People and others have since moved in—some not so nice! Those who live in The Forest Hymn are called Forest Dwellers, and the three most prominent would be the curious People, the gumptious Animal Folk, and the reclusive Ghosts. There are other creatures in the woods—Riverbelles, Fellers, and Skeletons, to name only several—but the bulk of this game concerns only these three. The forest gives pause here and there to low hills, small clearings, and shadowy hollows where the Forest Dwellers have built their small towns. Old highways and trails that connect one town to another tend to disappear or change their ways, and no one can explain this nor predict it. As a result there is no known atlas. Only the Postal Carriers seem to go unbothered by this.

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The witching hour in The Forest Hymn is twilight; just before supper, before a stomach can be too full to get anything productive done. Festivals, celebrations, holidays, and fairs are all storied a airs. If they could, Forest Dwellers would set the gears of their pocket watches by whenever the next shindig is scheduled. Manners and customs are likewise important in The Forest Hymn. To be caught wearing an unfashionable cap or to be overheard singing the wrong words at choir practice is to be the subject of much gossip. If one were to walk into the village public house to nd a brawl has broken out over which meal of the day is best, it would be business as usual. Usually these quiet down until an argument begins over whether bourbon or wine pairs better with breakfast. Forest Dwellers are deeply superstitious and prone to being easily scared. Most never venture very far from their homes and only the bravest will step o the road in search of adventure. Food is venerated among all who live in the woods. Family recipes are invaluable treasures, a garden of heirloom vegetables is consecrated ground, and every meal is a feast. A plate is o ered to even the worst of enemies. The forest is far too thick and woody for traveling any way other than on foot, but the highways are often navigated by bicycle or cart. As well, at bottomed boats driven by pole and the occasional great big paddle-wheel boat can be spotted on the rivers. Outside a town's wooden post and rail fence, nothing is ever as it seems—lies, cheats, illusions, mischief, magic, and thievery run amok through the woods. In some towns, the situation barely fares better.

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otting the tops of hills and sleeping deep in the hollows are the many towns and villages of The Forest Hymn. Each varies in size from just a few or so Forest Dwellers to several hundred. Many creatures live in the woods and in the country, but those lonely estates and noisy boarding homes are not covered in this book! What is included, however, is a cursory look at a typical town you might stumble across.

01. School houses are one or two room a airs curiously found on the edge of town or further a eld. Some think this is so students living in the woods are not tardy, and some think it is so Monsters creeping from the Spookwood will get the children rst. 02. Town Halls are where Forest Dwellers gather for important town matters, mayoral elections, and other very o cial, bureaucratic matters. 03. Libraries can be found in almost every village and town the forest over—they are great centers of learning and research. Despite agreeing that libraries are very good, most dwellers never set a foot inside of one. 04. Public houses and shops tend to dominate the lots closest to town halls and commerce chambers. In larger towns with many business owners and very wealthy dwellers, you would nd a Third Bank Of The Stork nearby. 05. Farms and elds can be found on the edges of town and creeping dangerously close to wherever the woods begin and city life ends. Farmers grow crops not just for eating, but for show as well. Most holidays and fairs have a competition for the largest vegetables or things pickled well. 06. Homes have beds and Forest Dwellers are fond of sleeping! Every house in the woods—nestled into town or otherwise—has a unique smell of whatever that family's best recipes are, having been cooked most often. 07. Greens and lawns can be found between buildings or up against the fences that keep the woods from reclaiming towns. During holidays and festivals and fairs, these public areas are teeming with well wishers and merry makers, carnival games and rides, grange displays, and great spreads of food. Local grumps quite enjoy letting the mayor know how much a nuisance these areas can be. 08. Mills, whether they are the watermills of towns in low hollows or windmills on high hilltop towns, are vital in making bread. In The Forest Hymn bread is highly regarded as a symbol of all foods, which is of course a constant conversational topic. 09. Post O ces are in every single village and town throughout the woods. Without exception, every town has one. The Postal Carriers are themselves a bit of a mystery, as no one else seems to be able to navigate the labyrinthine roads as well as they can. 10. Barns have horses and cows, the latter of which is very important for cake.

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mproper and disingenuous is what you might call it if you were only provided a cursory guide to the more pleasant sides of The Forest Hymn. So presented thusly, like the warnings of a concerned mother, are a few cursory details of the more sinister side of these strange woods. On a dry, well-lit day the woods are quiet and nice enough. If you can nish with your errands unbothered before the sun sets, or if you avoid becoming lost, then The Forest Hymn is a downright pleasant place. But Spookwood is the death of that, the end of health and good tidings. Wherever patches of this haunted wood roam, only nastiness and ruination and catastrophe can be found. You'll know you've stumbled into this by the agonized looks the trees give you, their trunks twisted into faces of horror and contempt. The sky will darken, the only bird song you'll hear will be the shrill caw of the crow, and the air is cold enough that even on the hottest summer day you will see your breath. It is a dangerous place where the trees trip you at every step or knock the hat from your head as you pass beneath their naked branches! But the trees are not the worst of it—not by far—as that would be the vicious and ribald Monsters that call Spookwood home. They are creatures of fear manifested. Superstitions, misheard bumps in the night, whatever lurks under the bed, or even being afraid of trying split pea soup are all fears that can transform the malevolent magic of the Spookwood into a terrible Monster. There is a light however, and it is the Skeletons who call the Spookwood home. Unlike the Monsters, Skeletons aren't involved with any disastrous and villainous behavior. They gather to play their upbeat funeral music, gamble at cards and dice, and will heartily welcome anyone lost among the dead, scary trees of the Spookwood. While Monsters can and will leave the Spookwood, the Skeletons can not—not a single bone can be set across the line that separates the sunlit forest from the haunted one. There are tales of Skeletons trading secrets and magic tricks to any lost fool who can help them keep their instruments in good repair.

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ow that you are a bit more cozy with the woods, you could perhaps make your rst adventurer. But that would be a small mistake, as you wouldn't know what each of the bits and baubles on your character sheet do. This section will explain the game's procedures so that when you are truly ready to create your adventurer you will not be lost in the woods. Have a blank character sheet on hand to easily reference as you read. In tabletop adventure games there are rules to resolve challenges that crop up in play. Looking for tracks on the road, shooing over-stayed company from a friend's cottage, or attempting to decipher some ancient recipe for pudding are a few examples of actions that are resolved with dice. A dice roll is best used when the narrator presents a challenge to the adventurers and the outcome is not easily predicted. Walking from one house to the next in broad daylight needs no dice roll, but sneaking between bushes at night would certainly require it!

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hen the narrator prompts you with a challenge or obstacle with unknowable results, you will make a Question & Answer (Q&A) dice roll. The question is the challenge at hand and the answer is the total result of your dice roll. For example, the question might be "can I outrun these bandits on the road!?" and after your dice roll the answer could be "I only rolled a 7 and could not outrun those highway robbers." After which, you and the other adventures would get a chance to react to whatever happens next. Nearly every roll you make must meet or exceed 10 for a success. Your answer results are not only just a failure or just a success, however. Answer results of 1 to 4 are utter failures, or ops. You may not attempt the same thing in the same way, and must nd another way to overcome a challenge. A locked door cannot be opened and whoever locked it might spot you in your burglary. Flops generally lead to retreat or defeat.

Answer results of 5 to 9 are only partial failures, or ukes. You may have failed your attempt, but there is still hope. A locked door might not open but a passersby might tell you they believe the second story window is loose enough to open, if you can reach it. Flukes generally add a new challenge in reaching the same goal, without causing any real harm or alarm.

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Answer results of 10 to 15 are normal successes, or favors. Nothing bad happens, nothing stupendous happens. A locked door is opened and the adventure can continue. Answer results of 16 to 20 are resounding successes, or fortunes. Not only is the challenge overcome, but some additionally great thing might happen. A locked door is unlocked, and whoever locked it is out for the night. And they've left the lights on for you! Fortunes generally lead to removing further challenges.

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hese Question & Answer rolls use a combination of the twenty-sided die (d20), characteristic modi ers (MOD), and additional six-sided dice (d6) in the form of gifts or gags. Gifts add to your rolls while gags subtract from them; but you only ever use the highest result of your gifts or gags with your answer total. For example, if you are adding two gifts to your Q&A roll then you would roll 1d20 plus the highest result of 2d6—if the d20 lands on 11 and your d6s come up 3 and 5, then your total answer is 16. 5 is the higher of the two gifts, and is added to the 11. In the case of two gags it would be subtracted; you would roll 1d20 minus the highest result of 2d6. If your results are again 11 on the d20 along with 3 and 5 on the d6s then your total answer is 6. Again, 5 is the highest of the two gags and is subtracted from 11. Gifts and gags cancel one another out on a one-to-one ratio: if your Q&A roll has 2 gifts and 1 gag, you would only need to roll a single gift because the gag took away one of the gifts.

Modi ers come from your primary characteristics, and contribute only small numbers to your Q&A rolls. For example, you may have an agility MOD of +2 that would add 2 to your answer total, or subtract 2 from the answer total if your agility MOD is -2. Gifts and gags come from your subject grades. If you have a grade of +1 in a subject, then you would add a 1d6 gift to your Q&A, or if the grade is -2 then you would add 2d6 gags to the roll. Characteristics, MODs, subjects, and grades

are all outlined in the character creation section of this guide.

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urmounting challenges with Q&A rolls requires a quick back and forth conversation between the narrator and the adventurers. Adventurers must tell the narrator how they want to overcome the challenge or what they want to do. Narrators would then tell adventurers what trouble might come with that plan, or at least give them time to discus the various pitfalls therein. It is during this conversation when both the adventurers and narrator would decide which subjects and characteristics would apply to a Q&A roll.

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Imagine an adventurer wants to somersault over a rushing creek to audition for a traveling circus, and imagine that they are good at acrobatics and strong in the leg. They would tell the narrator that the plan is to apply their agility MOD as well as their grade in the funambulist subject to their Q&A roll. The narrator would then tell the adventurer that since this is an audition, they would need to impress the ringmaster to get the job, and would need to apply whatever their grade in entertainer might be. Looking over their character sheet the adventurer sees a grade of only +1 in funambulist and -3 in entertainer, which would give their roll two gags. At this point the adventurer could either continue with the Q&A roll or devise a new plan. Adventurers can and should apply their subjects and modi ers in any combination that they can devise, as long as it seems feasible and everyone at the table agrees it makes sense.

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ou may notice on the blank character sheet you've been cross referencing as you read, that there is a characteristic for luck, and a spot for your fair token. When you rst make your adventurer you will get a luck score and you will ip a coin to determine whether your fair token is heads or tails. Both your token result and luck score can be used whenever you make a Q&A roll to attempt changing your fate. Testing your luck gives you a chance to turn a op or a uke into a favor—or, a failure into a success. Choosing to test your luck should be done sparingly, as it depletes your luck score, and you cannot test your luck if your score has been reduced to 0. To test your luck you must have at least a score of 1 in your luck characteristic, and you must declare before you make the Q&A roll that you intend to test your luck. First subtract 1 from your luck score, then make both your Q&A roll and ip a coin at the same moment. If your answer total is less than 10, a op or uke, but your coin toss lands the same side up as your fair token then the failure is ignored and the answer is considered a success of 10, or a favor. Testing your luck can only change answer results to 10; if you test your luck and your answer result is a favor, it does not become a fortune upon having good luck. No one is that stupendously lucky.

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s it were, time is very important in The Forest Hymn. Animal Folk keep it meticulously, Ghosts are intrigued by it, but People are bored by it. Arriving on time for appointments is duly expected. Even magic and the supernatural operate on a schedule. Place is paramount as well; everyone has a place at the table, every Forest Dweller has a place they feel at home—each lost thing is in the last place you look! These are not just facts true in the world of The Forest Hymn, they are true of the rules to this game as well. As you make your way through the woods and dabble in adventuring you do so in places and each action takes time. Below is a cursory overview of the times and places this game uses, with more speci c details throughout the guide as needed.

Theaters are large, abstract places. A theater could be an entire town, a haunted manor, a low valley, or even a particular stretch of woodland highway. The size of a theater is not as important as what it contains, which are the various stages linked by something in common. Think of theaters as areas that would take quite some time to explore or navigate. Stages are smaller abstract places. If the theater is the town, then the stages would be the individual buildings within it. The public house would be a stage, the mayor's basement would be a stage, and the neighboring tailor's house would be yet another stage. In a highway theater, a portion of the road would be a stage and a covered bridge over a river might be another. Like theaters, the size of a stage is not as important as what it contains; a small area of space an adventurer might easily move about or explore by eyesight alone. The schedule is how a narrator tracks each day. On the narrator's script the schedule is divided into 10 boxes. Like places, the schedule is abstract; a single box is not a speci c hour in the day, rather it is a portion of the day. Two of the boxes, however, are labelled sunrise and twilight to give everyone their bearings. As time passes the narrator will check o schedule boxes to show the day passing by, and once all of the boxes are checked a new day begins. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter are the four regularly occurring, predictable seasons in The Forest Hymn. Each lasts approximately 90 days and makes up the 360 day year of the Banquet Calendar. Years are not numbered, rather they are ordered and named Breakfast, Lunch, and Supper. Each new year begins when the mealtime of that year is enjoyed—a great celebration of pancakes and eggs, hazelnut crepes and blackberries, sausage and co ee at sunrise would ring in a new Breakfast Year! As you might expect, once a Supper year has ended the next year begins with a Breakfast year and so on and so forth.

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lace is primarily a narrator's tool, and one way stages and theaters are used is to add and remove di culty to situations. For example, you might be preparing to make a Q&A roll to eavesdrop in a very crowded ballroom. The ballroom is the stage, and because it is crowded and loud—all that waltzing and whatnot—it becomes much harder to eavesdrop. In this case the narrator would impose an extra gag on your Q&A roll because of how loud the room is.

Place is also used as a way to contain the signature moves or magic tricks you gain during character creation. For example, a magic trick that causes a very swift gust of wind may e ect the entire theater you're in, thus creating mischief in stages other than the one from where you used the trick. Time and place intersect mostly in travel; traipsing about the woods through various stages and theaters moves the schedule forward block by block. Some signatures and magic tricks work di erently depending on how far along the schedule is. The schedule is also used when recovering wounds, which is covered later. Finally, seasons can provide a way for narrators to add a variety of weathers to their adventures. More importantly though, seasons e ect magic; some magics ow through the forest easier during certain seasons. For example, Starling's Note is a well known spring trick that will compel a ock of starlings to write a note in the sky. If you were to use this trick in any of the other three seasons, it will be much harder to pull o . It may even have a completely di erent outcome! This guide has a small excerpt of magic tricks in the following pages.

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ow we will turn all of this into a cursory example of play; a sum of all its parts in working order. Imagine your good friend Fiona is playing this game through the eyes of an Animal Folk, a young Deer called Petal. In this example Petal needs an evening primrose—a yellow ower that blooms only at night—to ask their darling to an upcoming dance. The example includes the initial challenge, with an example of each potential outcome.

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Petal—a Deer played by Fiona—is attempting to steal some evening primrose in their hometown. We join Petal peering over a stone wall into Young Oak Sonnet's cemetery, where the Ghost lives and is known to grow this particular ower.

NARRATOR: "The schedule is just after twilight, making it harder to see and putting a gag on any Q&A rolls unless you use a light. If you're trying to spot some primrose without going over the wall, use any grades you have in bouquet, reconnoiter, or slink to add gifts and gags to your roll." FIONA: "Petal has a +1 in bouquet, a +1 in slink and nothing in reconnoiter, but I still want to make the Q&A roll trying to spot some primrose before I go into the cemetery." NARRATOR: "Sounds great! You can make your roll with one gift; since the nighttime gag cancels out one of your two gifts."

Example 1: Flop. Fiona makes their Q&A roll: 1d20 lands on 2 and the 1d6 gift lands on 1, for a total answer of 3. NARRATOR: "An answer result of 3 is a op; you peer over the wall but are unable to see much of anything at all. Example 2: Fluke. Fiona makes their Q&A roll: 1d20 lands on 8 and the 1d6 gift lands on 1, for a total answer of 9. NARRATOR: "A 9! That's a uke! You peer over the stone wall and see some nearby primrose, but you knock over a stone in the wall and Young Oak comes out of their door! They don't see you, but sneaking will be harder." Example 3: Favor. Fiona makes their Q&A roll: 1d20 lands on 6 and the 1d6 gift lands on 6, for a total answer of 12. NARRATOR: "A 12 is a favor! You look over the stone wall, spotting some evening primrose about twenty feet in front of you. You'll need to go in, but you'll be safe from being seen." Example 4: Fortune. Fiona makes their Q&A roll: 1d20 lands on 15 and the 1d6 gift lands on 4, for a total answer of 19. NARRATOR: "A fortune! 19 is a great roll. Before you look into the cemetery, you notice—just out of the corner of your eye—several beautiful primrose blooms growing at the foot of the wall. This won't even count as stealing!"

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ow that you know the basics of how The Forest Hymn & Picnic is played, you can make your forest adventurer. You should have the following: a character sheet, dice, your coin, a pencil, and an eraser. Think of character creation as playing along; as you read through the following pages each of the spaces and words on the character sheet will be explained as you ll them in. Be sure to use a pencil while writing on the character sheet, as your adventurer will begin to change and become more unique throughout the process and you may need to erase!

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haracter creation begins by determining your fair token. Forest Dwellers are a superstitious lot and you'll nd very few who don't believe in luck. Most adventurers will use their token to test their luck during Q&A roles, and certain types of fortune tellers or witches can change luck through signatures and magic tricks! To determine your fair token, ip a coin into the air and write down whether it lands on heads or tails in the fair token line on your character sheet.

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fter you've marked down your fair token you will need to pick a type of Forest Dweller: Animal Folk, People, or Ghost. In the following pages you will nd brief descriptions of each option. Once you've made your decision, write it down in the character sheet section labeled description. Be sure to leave room to add to this spot as you go.

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Picking a type of Forest Dweller is only the very beginning—adventuring characters for this game start with generic details and quickly taper to become very unique. For example, if you pick an Animal Folk in this step, you will determine exactly what kind of Animal they are in just a few pages. Likewise, if you choose to play a Ghost now, you will pick an outlandish costume for them soon enough!

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hen the rst generations of Old People began leaving The Forest Hymn, the animals walked out of the woods and put on their clothes. They read books, learned to talk, and picked up the rusting tools found in crumbling workshops. The animals moved into the old houses and beat the dust from the drapes, repaired the fences, and they made themselves a comfortable new lot in life. People had all but vanished, and Animal Folk were enjoying their things immensely. These days, the Animal Folk are the most plentiful of the Forest Dwellers; they're a pleasant crowd and most of them are content to lead simple lives. It's rare for Animal Folk to travel too terribly far from the town they've always lived in. They've rebuilt old places and moved in their cousins and sisters and they've elected mayors. They teach the young ones how to read, which fork to use for salad, and how to properly wear a napkin on the tops of their heads. You could describe the Animal Folks as pretending to be people, but they do a good enough job of it that their odd mannerisms are often overlooked. Not all Animal Folk are content to play house and raise vegetables before it gets too cold. These Forest Dwellers have a knack for getting into trouble; they excel at the ner arts of burglary and con dence games, skullduggery and mischief. Even the most well-meaning of them are prone to throwing inhibition into the wind to get what they want.

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here is nearly no such thing as an Animal Folk family secret. Recipes, hidden fortunes, closeted skeletons, and even scandalous a airs tend to become town history in short, due time. Gossip is ensconced among these gabby creatures about as well as a shallow creek holds a heavy rain.

Animal Folk of the bird variety do not y, and no one is sure why. No one seems to be bothered by it either, as going up in a pedal balloon is far more thrilling! It is customary in The Forest Hymn to capitalize the rst letter when writing the type of animal an Animal Folk is. This helps separate the wild animals from the city going ones. For example, a frog might keep you up at night with their endless croaking but a Frog might keep you up at night while drunkenly blowing into a stolen clarinet.

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eople are few in The Forest Hymn. Once upon a time they wandered to and fro without care, cutting back the forest and staking their claims. Where they went is still a mystery to most, but most don't care too much to gure it out. The forest is strange enough without the worry of some mystery in the back of everyone's mind. When they nally did return, it was in the basket of The Stork; a drunkard who let loose a bundle over owing with cooing, crying children into the woods. This has repeated often enough that the People have returned. When they can, Animal Folk and Ghost alike will take in the orphaned People and raise them as proper as possible. But People are naturally lost in the woods; wandering o for odd reasons and nding themselves in constant trouble. People possess curiousness of the wood and a toughness about them that most Animal Folk consider rude or imposing and that Ghosts nd intriguing. Unlike the other Forest Dwellers that prefer to settle down, People prefer to leave their foster homes and wander in the woods—hoping to maybe nd a way out and back to wherever they're from, or to explore the ruinous places left lying about the place by Old People. What few that stay will take up steady jobs or learn some trade, staying as patiently nearby their families as they can stand.

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ot even the oldest Ghost can remember why the Old People disappeared and will often join People in the woods for a chance at jogging their memories, or discovering some forgotten detail.

Even People that take to picnicking in the woods and disappearing for months on end will visit their mothers in the winter. They also often show up out of nowhere to sporting events, hoping to win. People have a penchant for ghting that their foster parents try to drive out of them. Young People who don't shake their bad manners tend to set out into the woods looking for a ght.

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Ghosts are as quick as People and Animal Folk to fall in love with the smell of freshly baked breads or a good roast warming in the hearth. Despite being able to smell, they cannot eat. To keep proper company they will simply pretend to eat or politely decline, feigning having a late meal just prior. Again and despite this, Ghost make excellent cooks! Most Ghosts are quite reclusive—tending their gardens and reading their books in peace are their hobbies of choice. Occasionally, however, you'll nd them as bakers, farmers, or even keeping shop.

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f all the strangeness and unease that slinks among the trees of The Forest Hymn, Ghosts are probably the least worrisome and far more agreeable than those damned Monsters stalking about the Spookwood. Ghosts live among the People and Animal Folk of the woods; they're a mostly polite lot who prefer to keep to themselves or a small coterie of company. Despite that they are essentially the living dead, Forest Dwellers are delighted to call a Ghost their neighbor. A Ghost is a shapeless mist, a gust of life that can be blown away in a light wind to never be heard from again and so they dress accordingly. The clothes they wear are lled to the brim with odds and ends to keep them stapled to the forest oor, and then tightly sewn or tied shut—holding them in and giving them all the faculties of People and Animal folk alike. Of the few Forest Dwellers who view the world with a scholarly lens, most agree that the costumes a Ghost wears has some connection to their former life. There is no doubt that The Forest Hymn is blanketed by an eerie fog of the supernatural; it makes the hairs on the necks of people stand straight and it's what convinces old missus Pig to button the shutters tight when the sun goes down. Ghosts pay it no mind, however, as they seem to have a natural attunement for what many would call the occult.

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nce you've picked your Forest Dweller you will assign characteristics. Primary characteristics are a measure of a few fundamental traits; higher scores mean you do well in an area and lower scores are slight weaknesses. Secondary characteristics are traits that are less set in stone than the others. These characteristics are far more prone to change and are often in uenced situationally. Each of the three primary characteristics have a possible score of 5 to 15—with an average score of 10—as well as a bonus modi er labeled MOD on your character sheet. The modi er is determined by how far above or below 10 the characteristic is. For example, if you start with a strength characteristic of 11 it gives you a modi er of +1. If you happen to start with a strength of 9 then your strength modi er is -1. Secondary characteristics do not have modi ers. Over the course of the game your characteristics may change, going up or down, and each time they change you must be sure to change the modi er as well.

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or primary characteristics you will assign and record on your character sheet the following numbers in any order to strength, agility, and resolve: 11, 10, and 9. After you've chosen which number will live where, remember to determine each modi er. Once you've done that, determine your secondary characteristics by assigning the following numbers to health, wealth, and luck: 4, 3, and 3. Your defense score is equal to your agility score.

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STRENGTH is your physical mettle. The number of pies you can eat or how many graves you can dig and then rob before sunrise. This isn't simply a measure of muscle, however; you'd be quite surprised how large a slice of pie a very small Mouse could eat! Great strength can even come from knowing to lift with your knees and not your back. Use for tasks of the body. AGILITY is your re exes and dexterity; how deftly you can get away from Old Man Buttons after you've quietly stolen apples from his cart. But it isn't enough for agility to be speed alone, so much as it is a measure how well you move your body in whatever way you can. Keep in mind that a Forest Dweller who's bound to a crutch is still capable of being very agile. Use for tasks of movement. RESOLVE is power of concentration and determination, willpower, and your connection to the supernatural. This characteristic is a measure of heart and mind, something deeply personal and found in many di erent ways. Use for tasks of the heart, and of magic.

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HEALTH is your general fortitude; a measure of just how hurt you can get before you are too hurt. Beside the box where you record your health is a box to record wounds . If the number of wounds you have becomes the same as or higher than your health score you fall unconscious. WEALTH is your purchasing power. Rather than tracking each and every penny you pick up o the ground, wealth is used to generalize the amount of money you have access too—whether it comes from your coin purse, a debt owed to you, or from the deep pockets of your rich aunt. LUCK is precisely as it sounds; the chance that you bump into the love of your life on the street rather than a pickpocketing piller. DEFENSE is the barrier that separates you from not taking a wound or taking one. Your defense can be bolstered by magic tricks, signatures, or even by wearing a thick barrel around yourself. Your defense score can never be lower than your agility score.

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ne of the neat things that comes with each adventurer is a signature. These are useful faculties and techniques you can use to accomplish things in ways simply using your subjects could not. Some of them may even seem magical! You will gain and lose signatures as you level up and nd your Way in the Woods. Find the signature that matches the type of Forest Dweller you've picked

and write it on your character sheet in the appropriate area.

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Whenever you make a Q&A roll to exit a situation—be it running away from someone you've slighted, retreating from a brawl, or generally trying to remove yourself from a bad situation—you may do so with 1 extra gift.

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Whenever making a Q&A roll to use an object in your inventory for a purpose other than it's explicit intent, you may do so with 1 gift. Examples of this include using a loaf of bread to plug a leaky boat, using mail to start a camp re, or riding a chair down the roof.

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You may take one wound to use your lling on a friend or foe. Keep in mind that your lling from the background parcel either cause wounds or removes them. Any living creature you use your lling on can make a Q&A roll with their resolve modi er to dodge this.

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very adventuring Forest Dweller begins with a series of vagaries, anecdotes, histories, and little facts that you can use to develop a unique personality and character to play. Some of these even include bene ts or detriments to your adventurer's various characteristics and subjects. As this is a cursory guide, instead of including the myriad options and tables you would normally use to develop these details, four parcels for each Forest Dweller have been provided for you to choose from. Find the group of background parcels that match your Forest Dweller type, and choose one parcel you like most. Paraphrase your choice into the description section of the character sheet, and be sure to make any adjustments to your adventurer as instructed by bolded terms. If you are playing an Animal Folk, you may replace the animal in your background parcel with any of the following: Badger, Bear, Crow, Crane, Deer, Fox, Grackle, Goat, Hedgehog, Hare, Hound Dog, Hen, House Cat, Mouse, Opossum, Otter, Pig, Rat, Toad, Skunk, Weasel, Wolf.

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1. You are a Pig who has recently traded in the short pants of your youth for the blouses of adulthood. You've stolen every piece of clothing you've ever owned, you are prone to dancing, and you require ne cutlery at every meal. As a young child you were lost in the woods for several weeks. Add 1 to your Resolve. 2. You are a Crow who has reached your later years, hoping to nd a place to settle soon. Your clothes are very ne and formal and you have many powdered wigs, you sing when it would be impolite, and have poor manners. Your family made a fortune selling chairs with three legs for the price of a four-legged chair. Add 1 to Wealth. 3. You are a Hare in your teenaged years. Your clothes are all secondhand, you are small and often unnoticed, and you are quite uncomfortable in the rain. You lose your shoes and hat often; daily sometimes. Add 1 to Resolve but subtract 1 from Luck. 4. You are a Toad of middling age. Your clothes are loud and brightly colored, you often correct the perfectly good posture of others, and you are scared of the dark. When you were a young Animal you ate a prize-winning vegetable and blamed it on someone else. Add 1 to Health.

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H S S 1. You wear a wide, formal hat decorated with dozens of fake owers atop your head, which is a sack of hay with buttons sewn into a face. Your costume is shoddy clothes t for gardening but not company, and it is lled with spiders that wound. Add 1 to your Bouquet subject. 2. You wear a moth-eaten tricorne cap and short powdered wig atop your head, which is a large tea kettle orally decorated with a corked spout. Your costume is old sporting clothes, and it is lled with whiskey that removes wounds. Add 1 to Strength. 3. You wear a white bonnet of ne lace atop your head, which is a pumpkin with a crudely painted face. Your costume is stolen from a moldering scarecrow, and it is lled with bees that wound. Subtract 1 from Resolve. 4. You wear a very long and curly, bright orange wig atop your head, which is a log with a poster stapled to it. The poster is a portrait of a criminal with a wanted notice. Your costume is formal ballroom attire lled with assorted hard candies that remove wounds. Add 1 to Wealth.

AUTHOR'S FOOTNOTE: click each dweller type to randomly generate a background parcel using the full game text !!

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ach adventurer has a set of subjects that reward you with gifts or jabs you with gags when making Q&A rolls. For the purpose of this game, subjects are broad skills and abilities picked up through apprenticeship, study, or use. However, no one is so great at one discipline without lacking in another; there are some subjects that you will have a weakness in. A positive grade in any given subject awards gifts and a negative grade gives gags. Grades range from -3 to 0 to +3, and the amount of gifts and gags rolled is equal to your grade in the subject. A grade of +2 becomes two gifts, or a grade of -1 becomes one gag—a grade of 0 means no gifts or gags are to be used. Subjects are applied to Q&A rolls whenever possible, whether you decide to apply them to a roll or as the narrator requires. To determine which subjects you'll begin with, rst read over each one on the following page. Choose four subjects and record them in the appropriate area of your character sheet each with a grade of +1. After that, choose ve subjects and record them on your sheet with a grade of -1. The grade you have in each subject will change over time, generally when you begin to pick your Way in the Woods—or level up.

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B OUQUET : Knowledge of owers, grasses, trees, vegetables, and most natural plants in the forest. B REWER : Knowledge and ability in the cooking of soups, spirits, tinctures, or poisons. C HICANERY : Skill in petty con dence games, burglary, thievery, general criminality, and bullying. C OLONEL : Ability to lead and direct, especially under stress. C OXSWAIN : Understanding of boats, carriages, bicycles, pedal balloons, or any other kind of moving craft. DAGGERS : Skill and ability with weapons held in your hands. D ECORUM : Public manner and etiquette, knowledge of custom, procedure, and pomp. E NTERTAINER : Skill in performing drama and music; acting, busking, or puppetry. F UNAMBULIST : The ability to perform feats of daring movement such as somersaults and dives, vaults and rolls. G AMBLE : Playing the odds and counting the cards; earning pennies from chance. J OCKEY : Ability to care for and pilot animals. L EDGER : Studied knowledge of commerce and all that is pecuniary. P ISTOLS : Skill with weapons that shoot or are thrown. R ECONNOITER : Ability to gather information and spot what is intended to be hidden. S LINK : Ability to move or hide silently, often in daylight or plain sight. S ORTILEGE : An ability to tap into the world of the supernatural and skill with magic tricks. S URGERY : Knowledge of medical procedures, ailments, and cures. TRADE: Skill in the making of goods or providing a service; smithing, painting, cobbling, tending bar, and more.

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he instruments, food, baubles, and other whatnots you carry on your adventures are important, but you will not have room to pick up every shiny thing you see. You can only carry so much! Most items have a size: they either take up one (1) slot of your inventory or two (2) slots. Some items are large (L), and only one large item can be carried at a time. Your carry limit is determined by your bag. To begin, choose whether you have a rucksack, backpack, or fancy suitcase. Each bag has a capacity of 7 slots, and the section of your sheet labelled capacity should be marked 7. Before choosing what things to begin your adventure with, account for any stu s you acquired when making your character by adding them to your inventory with a size of 1. This includes presents and heirlooms and anything else you may have gained. Then, pick and choose items from the Knicks and Knacks list, noting on your sheet how many slots you lled by adding the size of each item together. You do not have to ll up all 7 slots of your bag, but you cannot carry more than your capacity. Any time you encounter a list of items, numbers appearing in parenthesis will always be its size. Each item on the Knicks and Knacks list also includes a price for narrators to use as needed, but you may ignore this for now.

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inally, the very last step in drafting your Forest Dweller is taking all the individual pieces from character creation and establishing a consistent personality. Think about all you know of your adventurer thus far —characteristics, background parcels, brief histories, and your subjects. Each of these morsels are scant details of an overall picture and you must now ll in the blanks. You should now ll out the description section of your character sheet with a brief but overall impression of your Forest Dweller. That's that! You now have a cursory understanding of how The Forest Hymn & Picnic is played and your very own adventurer with which to play. The following pages are additional, minor rules of play as well as advice for narrators, information about magic, and an extracurricular activity!

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nfortunately you may nd yourself with a need to raise your sts and weapons to brawl with some upstart, or to defend yourself from an attack. This works just like any other Q&A roll with some slight di erences. To begin, you may only brawl with a foe who occupies the same stage as you—unless you're using some sort of projectile or special ability. If that is the case, the foe must at least be in the same theater as you and within eyesight. Second, when you are making Q&A rolls to brawl your answer result must be the same as or higher than your foe's agility or defense scores; whichever is bigger. If your answer result is lower than their agility or defense then your Q&A roll is a failure and they will have a chance to brawl back at you. And thirdly, using a Q&A roll to brawl does not have the same range of success or failure as a normal Q&A roll. If you intend to wound, you either do it successfully or miss. Combatants take turns trading attacks until one party is defeated or capitulates! Brawling uses each of the same things a regular Q&A roll might: subjects, characteristics, signatures, items, and magic tricks. The di erence between brawling and doing anything else is that you intended to wound your foe or otherwise avoid being wounded. Keep in mind that an exchange of blows can be avoided; if you nd yourself on the cusp of sticu s you could try to use decorum to parley, entertainment to distract them, or even chicanery to throw dirt in a foe's eyes and run away.

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rom time to time there will be a situation where you want desperately to help a friend as they make a Q&A roll they may fail. Perhaps they are out of luck to test, or they're under some health condition working against them. Whatever the case may be, in some situations you can extend a helping hand to your comrade. If your friend is attempting a Q&A roll and using a subject you likewise have a positive grade in, you can plan to help them out and add 1 gift to their roll. For example, if Arturo is using their +1 in reconnoiter to nd the deed to some old house among a very messy desk, Sanni—who also has a +1 in reconnoiter—can add one gift to Arturo's Q&A roll. However, if Arturo rolls a op for their Q&A roll despite the help, Sanni cannot then attempt to do the exact same thing.

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ou are not invincible! As you adventure further into the woods you will get scrapes and bruises, you may have your heart broken, and you may even fall o a ladder while dropping presents down some family's chimney during a blizzard. Bookkeeping these injuries is done through your health characteristic and the character sheet box labelled wounds. These are abstract things, however, and not just a measure of actual physical injury. Health and wounds work together to paint a picture of your overall wellness.

Getting hurt will usually come from failing Q&A rolls, and when that happens you will put a number, usually just 1, in the box labelled wounds. When the number in the wounds box is equal to or greater than the number in the health box, you are unable to do anything. Either you've become physically incapacitated or you've become too emotionally distraught to act. Your coterie of friends will have to nurse you back to good—or at least decent—health. The narrator will say how many wounds you accrue, and possibly impose more consequences such as a broken limb or an inability to play songs in major chords.

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hroughout your time in the woods you will certainly come across strange a ictions; each with its own e ect on your health and wellness for good or for worse. These health concerns come from a variety of sources and should be taken quite seriously—here is a cursory list of several: Jubilant: A moment of pure happiness that gives you an extra gift on all of your Q&A rolls until the schedule advances 1 block. Bedridden: A terrible sickness or poison strikes at you and causes a great amount of fever and pain. If bedridden, su er a -2 on each of your Q&A rolls until the schedule advances 2 blocks. Spooked: Paralyzing fear—you've been absolutely terri ed by some terrible thing. Becoming spooked means you are completely unable to do anything at all until the schedule advances one block. Woodslost: A fever dream caused by spending too much time alone and lost in the woods. If you become woodslost you cannot use signatures or magic tricks, or any of your subjects. This a iction lasts until you spend at least a full schedule recovering, but can cause permanent damage!

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ursing yourself or your pals back to good health can be done through the right medical supplies and a Q&A roll with the appropriate subjects —surgery, bouquet, brewer, and even sortilege are all subjects which might be used for healing. Attempting to heal someone this way is at the mercy of your answer results, which could go something like this: On a op (1-4), healing is not successful and the medical supplies are destroyed. On a uke (5-9), the patient removes 1 wound but the medical supplies are destroyed. On a favor (10-15), the patient removes 1 wound. On a fortune (16-20), the patient removes 2 wounds. A second way to recover wounds is by having a picnic. If the entire party has something to eat, and at least one block of the schedule is spent relaxing within a safe stage, then each adventurer can reduce their wounds by 3. Healing those who have fallen unconscious requires at least two schedule blocks and a Q&A roll for each block. Food and appropriate medical supplies must be available, and the entire theater where you picnic must be safe. When attempting to heal a Ghost, the trade subject is used rather than surgery. A needle and

thread, or rope of some kind must be used to seal them back up before they leak into the sky.

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hen you've come to a point where you are ready to make a purchase or otherwise use your hard earned pennies, you will use your wealth characteristic. As mentioned, wealth is not the Pennies are the only currency in The Forest Hymn. That's exact number of pennies you have but it is a not cents, pence, coin, bean, general idea of just how much purchasing or farthing—it's just penny. power you have. To make a purchase, ask the Each one is a small, round narrator how much something costs. If the copper a air with a portrait of cost is the equal to or lower than your wealth The Stork stamped on one score, you can a ord it and may acquire it. If side and a large 1¢ on the other. No one is sure where the cost is higher than your wealth score then these coins are minted or who you can buy it by subtracting the di erence rst started trading them for between the cost and your score from your goods and services. current score. For example, you spot a Fancy Tea Set with a cost of 5¢—you wish to have it to impress a lover—but your wealth score is only 3. You could purchase the tea set by subtracting 2 from your wealth, which would leave you with a wealth score of 1 and a fancy new tea set.

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Sometimes you may not have enough to make a purchase, but must anyways. This is a situation where you may end up in debt, creating quite a pickle for yourself. Whatever arrangement you come up with is between you, the narrator, and whichever character you're getting into business with. Keep in mind that you can also try to negotiate prices, steal things, or otherwise attempt to get what you want by any tool you have available! You may be able to sell your gently used things back to some vendors or by running classi eds in the local paper. Please do not litter the woods with your unwanted things.

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cholars of magic have known for quite some time that the supernatural moves through the leaves of trees the same as the seasons change. There is a di erent type of magic most prominent in summer, spring, autumn, and winter each. As you make your Way in the Woods, you no doubt will cross paths with magic tricks of all types! Using a magic trick in this game requires a Q&A roll just as any other challenge requires. Like brawling, however, there is a slight di erence in how a magic trick Q&A roll works. Namely, if you are attempting to use a magic trick during the season with which it belongs then it is business as usual; you would perform the Q&A roll using your sortilege grade as well as your resolve MOD. If, however, you are trying to use a magic trick in the o season—a spring spell deep in the heart of winter for example—then that trick is much harder to pull o . When you attempt to use a magic trick o season, you su er a -3 or a -5 penalty to your Q&A roll. The penalty depends on just how out of season your magic trick is: if it is the season directly before or after the trick's required season the penalty is -3, but if it is the season furthest from the required one then the penalty is -5. For example, the spell STARLING'S NOTE is a spring magic trick that allows you to have a ock of starlings write out a short note in the sky, nearby whomever needs to see it most. As it is a spring trick you may use it in spring with no penalty. If you use it in either summer or winter you must subtract 3 from your nal answer result before you determine if it was a success or not. Similarly, if you've decided to use this trick in autumn, you would subtract 5 from your answer result before determining success. There is no limit to how many magic tricks you can use or when you can attempt to use them, but some require a minimum subject grade or characteristic score before they can be learned. Magic tricks also have a duration, or a length of time the magic remains in e ect. Some tricks happen instantly with no lingering e ects, some e ects last an entire day, and some last only a portion of the schedule. If a magic trick has a duration that is a number, its e ect lasts that number of schedule blocks. While some magic tricks will instruct you to use di erent subjects and characteristics when making your Q&A roll, all magic tricks require you to apply any grade in sortilege you may have, as well as your resolve modi er.

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REQUIREMENTS: Resolve 11; DURATION: Entire Day If used on a building, it will sprout two or four bird legs and have a mind of its own for an entire day. The building will act similar to a domesticated chicken unless controlled through other means, and if it isn't stopped the building will nd a smaller building to nest atop at sundown. On a op, the building grows wings instead and ies away.

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REQUIREMENTS: None; DURATION: Instant Starlings from all over the woods dash from their nests to the sky, spelling out a message of your authoring. This ock is big enough that whomever you need to see the message will see it. Not uncommonly, pen pals will use this trick to reach one another in the case of an emergency or urgent good news. On a op the birds spell out swears.

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SUMMER

REQUIREMENTS: Sortilege +1, Resolve 10; DURATION: 2 Turns your eyes into spotlights! Wide beams of light shoot from your eyes and can illuminate an entire stage. The beams of light do not intersect at all, but they are hot enough to burn thick paper instantly, or even melt snow.

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SUMMER

REQUIREMENTS: Resolve 10; DURATION: 1 Sneeze out some doves and everyone occupying the same stage as you bursts into uncontrollable laughter. They are unable to do anything but laugh. This laughter is contagious, and anyone entering the stage during the ruckus will begin to laugh deep from their belly as well. Everyone a ected becomes Jubilant.

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REQUIREMENTS: Strength 10; DURATION: Instant Conjure a ghostly wind that tricks a tree into shedding all its leaves in a pile, anywhere in the stage you occupy. This can be used regardless of the season, and is often used to cover tracks or hide the evidence of some crime. Trees will begin to grow their leaves back the next day.

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AUTUMN

REQUIREMENTS: Agility 10, Sortilege +1; DURATION: Instant Disappear in a cloud of purple, glittering smoke and appear instantly stepping from any container in the same theater you occupy. This container can be a purse, a barrel, or any spacious thing meant to hold other things. The size of the container does not matter. On a op you disappear and reppear in the same spot, only 1 schedule block later.

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REQUIREMENTS: None; DURATION: 1 A short lullaby that will extinguish any light source in the stage you occupy. This trick will draw shades and curtains and make every attempt to turn the stage pitch black, but cannot extinguish the sun. On a op, this trick will instead make the stage bright enough to blind all occupying creatures.

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REQUIREMENTS: Resolve 11, Sortilege +1; DURATION: Entire Day Snowballs rise from the ground and begin to circle your head. Each one can be told to y in any direction you wish, landing with enough force to knock down a child. They must hit a target occupying the same theater as you. When making the Q&A roll for this trick, a favor grants you 3 snowballs and a fortune grants you 6.

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nowing the rules and procedures of The Forest Hymn & Picnic is the shared responsibility of everyone at the table—narrators and adventurers alike. The narrator, however, has a responsibility to create the initial morsels of adventure and to react spontaneously to the decisions the adventurers make. If you have read each section of this guide, then you should be well acquainted with how the game is played. Collected here, however, is a cursory list of advice and procedures you'll no doubt nd helpful and useful all the same. This is a game of hijinks and jocularity; keep the mood and tone silly, but don't be afraid to pepper a few melancholic bits here and there. For example, open an adventure with a funeral where the procession drops the co n and a dozen jars of beans falls out. The plot could revolve around a mayor faking their death to run o with the festival decoration fund! Create adventures where the end is not that important, but how the adventurers get to the end is. If you dangle candy in front of the players they will take it, but if you leave several trails of candy around the place it could lead to new, interesting and ne places. Let the adventurer's actions drive the story to new places. Hand the adventurers a task to solve and encourage them to use every tool at their disposal to succeed. Items, signatures, and subjects can all be strung together to overcome challenges in whatever way the player can imagine. The only time a narrator should object is if the solution to a problem makes absolutely no sense. For example, using coxswain and bouquet to ride a tree down a hill isn't so absurd but using a candlestick to pick a lock wouldn't work. Use the narrator's script liberally to plan loosely for each session. It has sections for plots, side plots, plot twists, characters, theaters, and stages. Make the plots thin and malleable, make the side plots quick to nish, and make the plot twists delicious. There are also places to list characters, notes, and rewards.

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Here is a cursory process to create the menagerie of oddball characters the adventurers will meet: give the characters 3 personality traits, 2 secrets they are hiding, 1 motivation, and a friend or a special item. If you think there is any chance the adventurers will be brawling with that character then you will need a few numbers—defense, resolve, and sortilege if they use magic. Adventurers do have a habit of picking up friends along the way, and if they want to bring a character with them then make the adventurers ll out a character sheet for their new friend. The schedule, theaters, and stages are strong tools for storing information you need for adventures. Use the schedule to trigger events at certain times of the day, or a way to limit time adventurers have. Bake Q&A gags into theaters and stages; a loud room (stage) makes it hard to hear and a gambling riverboat (theater) with a lot of expert criminals aboard makes it harder to steal. It would be extremely hard for the adventurers to cross a river (stage) in a particularly thick part of the woods (theater) under the darkness of midnight (schedule). The schedule should be lled out as the adventurers travel; the average distance between two interesting things is half a day. Travel time can be reduced with a means of travel and a Q&A roll. Pay attention to the adventurer's descriptions and backstories and details to nd ways for incorporating their stories into yours. Do not, however, pay too much attention to their subjects, signatures, and items. Create challenges regardless of what abilities the adventurers have —encourage them and cheer for them to overcome those challenges using whatever they have at their disposal. As narrator, your hardest task is reacting to Q&A rolls when they veer in a direction you're not prepared for. You can shift some of this weight to the adventurers by asking them leading questions before they make their rolls. Don't be afraid to break the veil between story and games, either. For example, ask a player what they want if their roll is a fortune, and ask them how they think a op should play out.

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ometimes the adventurers will need to pass a few blocks of the schedule, and some of those times they may pass it next to a river or pond or lake. Perhaps they would enjoy a bit of shing? ON THE POND is an extracurricular activity of patience and leisure. It requires the adventurers have shing poles and bait for each person shing. As well, each participant will need 5 six-sided dice, called 5d6—be prepared to share dice if needed. Begin by setting the scene and deciding how much of the schedule the adventurers plan on shing. It takes at least 1 block of the schedule to have a go at catching sh. Adventurers with time to spare and patience to suit can choose to spend more of the schedule on the pond. When an adventurer is ready to sh, they cast their line and roll 5d6, hoping to get consecutive results with at least three of the dice. For example, three of the dice results can be 2, 3, and 4 or 4, 5, and 6, etc. This is a snag, and if an adventurer snags a sh they roll 2d6 and consult the table on the next page to see what they catch. However, adventurers can choose to exercise a bit of patience and toss the catch back to spend another block of the schedule shing. If they make another snag, they can add or subtract 1 to their catch roll by tossing it back. Adventurers may toss and snag up to 5 schedule blocks, potentially turning their bad catch roll into a more pleasant one! At the end of their time on the pond, adventurers will roll 2d6 and add or subtract the number of snags they hooked to see what their nal catch is. Additional snags can be added to, or subtracted from, the catch roll in any combination. Additionally, adventurers can test their luck when they roll for their catch. If they are lucky and the coin lands facing their fair token, they can roll 1d6 on the treasure table.

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A large, legendary sh of your own design; you will be quite famous!

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The rarest possible milk sh; sells to the highest bidding chef.

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It coughs on you as you bring it in; wake up tomorrow bedridden.

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Unremarkable in every way. Not rather delicious, even.

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Add +3 to luck if you toss this sh back, but -5 to luck if you sell or eat this sh.

E 1. The sh has a mouth full of pennies; +1 wealth. 2. You also pull up a pair of S 3. You reel in a

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x (1) that holds another box. You have two boxes now.

4. The sh teaches you sh secrets. If you toss it, you now roll 6d6 to snag sh. 5. The sh has another sh in its mouth. Roll again on the catch table. 6. You also reel in 1 item of your choice from the Knicks and Knacks list on p. 36.

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his is just the beginning! The Forest Hymn & Picnic is coming winter 2020 and here is some more things you can expect to nd: The full, unabridged manuscript including detailed rules with examples for each procedure, a hefty narrator's section, and a complete overview of the forest. There are other dwellers messing about, including the Lumberists, the Riverbelles, and even a secret war between nightshades and gourds! Many more exiciting extracurricular activities including fair games, sack races, and occult garden planting! Lifepath leveling up, including thousands of combinations of Ways in the Wood. In TFH&P your numbers don't go up, they change as you get older. Some Ways include Librarian's Assistant, Rakehell, Drum Major, Beleaguered Poet, Engineerist, Friend of Bees, Almanac Witch and so many more! Lists and lists of usable material for your game including adventure prompts, random sightings, several dozens of magic tricks, interesting characters, items, and even example names of things! More whitespace in the layout! The cursory design of this book has left little room for breathing and resting your eyes. TFH&P will be coming in a reasonable 6 inch by 9 inch format, with larger text and wider margins! Much more art, including an interior cover illustrated by Levon Jihanian. For more information and to be noti ed when the full game is released, visit theforesthymn.com!