Wanderhome -- Dialogue Writing Sample

The following dialogue is set in the fantasy world Wanderhome, a tabletop roleplay book written by Jay Dragon. In this particular writing sample, I want to present dialogue that would be appropriate for a children’s game like Animal Crossing. 

 

Setting the Scene – The World of Heath

 

The whimsical world Heath is low fantasy, pastoral and agrarian, drawing inspiration from books like Redwall, Wind in the Willows or Peter Rabbit. The Heath is inhabited by animal Kith and Kin, who take the place of humans as farmers, shepherds, villagers and craftsmen. Livestock, beasts of burden and companion animals are represented by insects and other invertebrate creatures, all scaled up or down in size as appropriate.

 

Scene One – Boat Village on Lake Tremendous

 

In this scene the player character is an Aardvark postman named Madge who travels all over the Heath to deliver packages and letters to all manner of interesting Kith and Kin. 

 

It is the month of Firetop, a season in which the gourds are large and the wind is crisp. Madge is on her way to deliver post to a boat people community on the Lake Tremendous. The early afternoon sun is warm on her neck her boat makes its way across the calm grey waters, the sky a hazy shade of turquoise. She is travelling with a small excitable hedgehog named Pip, a gentle old ram named Herbert and majestic snow leopard named Iilya. 

 

As the boat approaches the wooden jetty that juts out of the cluster of boats in the center of the lake, we see a young newt stand up and wave a vigorous welcome to the travelers. 

 

[Flip the Newt] Hello! You must be with the postal service! Is this the catalogue order that I sent for two months ago? I’m Flip, by the way.

 

[Postmaster Madge] Hello! I’m Madge and these are my friends Pip, Herb and Iilya. I don’t open any of the packages I deliver, so I can’t say for sure, but it is addressed to you. Here you go! 

 

[Flip the Newt] Yay! Excellent! But where are my manners? So pleased to meet you all, step right this way, let me show you around!

 

The boat community is centred around a series of lashed together aquaculture raft units. Countless wooden planks criss-cross over a network of just-under-the-surface cages filled with pond weeds, snails, larvae, water louses and so on. The travelling party carefully pick their way across the gangways, stopping here and there to gaze into the water with polite, genuine curiosity and interest. A dragonfly nymph jumps out of the water to snatch at Iilya’s thickly furred tail, which had been flicking back and forth absent-mindedly above. 

 

[Flip the Newt] Watch out, those nymphs can have quite a sharp nip on them! Oh look, there’s Thom Far coming home with the first of the squash harvest! He will certainly want to meet you as soon as he docks. He loves visitors!

 

A majestic, ponderous craft with large sails is making its slow way towards the jetty. Trailing behind in tow are about seven or eight absolutely enormous hollowed out butternut squashes. They have been cut lengthways, and are jostling each other in the water and straining at the tow ropes. 

 

[Iilya the Snow Leopard] Oh what wondrousness! What heft! Why have they all been hollowed out? 

 

[Flip the Newt] We empty out the biggest ones to make small boats, and it’s easier to bring them home if we cut and scoop them on the Island first. Some years we get ones that are big enough to be proper sized boats for living in – see over there? The hull of that houseboat is made of a squash! 

 

Flip points to an ornately carved floating abode. It’s quite a small houseboat, but as a former butternut squash it is definitely King Sized – at least twelve feet in length and six foot wide. The hard, dried out stem has been whittled into the shape of a gurning face. The hull is covered in mesmerising whorls and lines, all intersecting and braiding into and out of each other. Are they a depiction of waves lapping on the hull? Or are they the dance of the lives of the Kith and Kin in this community, interwoven and inextricable?

 

[Iilya the Snow Leopard] Indeed it is! I had no idea that the piths of squash could be so strong and light! And the artistry of the bas relief swirling design is simply gorgeous! 

 

[Flip the Newt] I’ll remember to tell Aunty Flo you said that, she’ll be so chuffed!

 

[Madge the Postmaster] Can I make a wax rubbing of some of those carvings? For my scrapbook-sketch-journal.

 

[Flip the Newt] I’m sure Aunty Flo will be more than happy to allow that, she’s really very proud of them. 

 

Shouts, greetings and genial laughter issue from the newts that have gathered to help unload the squash harvest. A neatly dressed elderly newt, his bright orange and black spotted crest undimmed by age, directs everyone to form a conga line to unload the boat. With a dramatic swish, he flings off the tarpaulin covering the front deck. There’s an audible intake of breath, followed by low murmurs and nods of admiration. Revealed are row upon row of rush baskets all heaving-full with pumpkins – warty, knobbly, wonky, lumpy and bulbous, the shiny dark ones gleaming in the late afternoon light. 

 

[Madge the Postmaster] Can we help? Harvest time can be so hectic, and Pip and I are keen to be good, helpful guests, aren’t we? 

 

[Pip the Small Hedgehog] … (sheepish) But I’m busy playing …

 

[Thom Far the Newt Caretaker] Oh! Hello Postmaster! How wonderful to have you! No, no you mustn’t lift a finger, I insist you and your friends come to my boat to have a cup of tea and a slice of pumpkin pie instead. You’ve travelled a long way and you must be tired. Delivering post is a much more important job and I won’t have you strain yourselves over things the young’uns can handle far better. I insist, truly!

 

[Pip the Small Hedgehog] Pumpkin Pie!!!

 

[Herbert the Goat Shepherd] A cuppa would be lovely, thank you, sir! And a bit of a sit-down wouldn’t go amiss either, frankly, as these old knees are not what they used to be. 

 

[Thom Far the Newt Caretaker] Then lets!

 

Scene Two – Thom Far’s Houseboat

 

Thom Far is a lean, tall, lava-crested newt in his late-middle age. He has kind eyes and elegant, dextrous hands that are calloused from a life of labour. His houseboat is a fine example of such houseboats as populate this particular floating boat village. A small wood-burning stove with painted tile surrounds sits in the middle of the boat’s interior, crackling quietly. Thom Far is seated in a rattan armchair that creaks as he leans back into the well-worn fabric upholstery. 

 

Everyone is replete and happy. A dusting of pie crumbs coats all the floral edged china plates that are perched here and there around the room. A generous array of pie crumbs covers the front of Pip’s shirt, who, tired from a long afternoon of running around poking and ogling undeserving water-creatures, has slipped into a deep sleep. 

 

Herb rarely has had any reason to leave his shepherding hut and seems slightly ill at ease being a guest in Thom’s home. As the oldest person in the group he has been given the nicest armchair and even a footstool to put his feet up on. Sailing newts have a practice of deferring to elders, something Herb has yet to be accustomed to. 

 

[Thom Far the Newt Caretaker] So, what did you get in your package, young Flip? Another hornet? (chuckles)

 

[Madge the Postmaster] Oh? I don’t think it was me that delivered that, or I would have remembered. I’m fairly certain that posting live insects is generally prohibited!

 

[Flip the Newt] It was only that one time, Thom! Five. Years. Ago! I can’t believe you’re still giving me a hard time about that!

 

[Thom Far the Newt Caretaker] So, you see – young Flip here likes to read comic books, the kind with rather dubious mail-order advertisements on the inside of the back page…

 

[Flip the Newt] Please Thom, do you really need to tell that story? I am still sorry, obviously, but I’m much older now! And this time I only ordered some extra-large rubber elastic bands!

[Thom Far the Newt Caretaker] … it was the second to last Postmaster to serve this region – or was it third to last, can’t recall exactly – and yes, it was probably five years ago, maybe six. Nearly drove poor Elsie’s eye out with its gigantic stinger, did that hornet! (Chuckles)

 

[Flip the Newt] (Sighing) I confess I genuinely believed the advert when it said it would send me a rare Tropical Water Hornet egg. Well, the egg was just a regular hornet egg, and it was Not At All Happy to have been hatched inside a small cardboard box. 

 

[Thom Far the Newt Caretaker] (laughing) There was a screaming kerfuffle the likes of which was never seen before or again! The face-melting telling-off that Gramma Isla gave him coulda scraped the clouds from the sky, I tell you!

 

[Madge the Postmaster] Oh dear – and the postman who brought the parcel, surely they would have heard it buzzing whilst carrying it here?

 

[Thom Far the Newt Caretaker] Ah. Poor soul. I don’t think I ever saw him on this delivery route again. 

 

[Madge the Postmaster] Tell me about the island where the pumpkins have been harvested from. Is it that little splodge of mist that hovers North-West of here? My handy dandy postal navigation map calls it Organ Island…

 

[Iilya the Snow Leopard] Yes I was wondering about that also. The harvest boat came from that direction when it sailed in. 

 

[Thom Far the Newt Caretaker] Indeed that is where all our squash come from. Organ Island is off limits to everyone after dark. The Far family have been Caretakers for not just this community, but also for that Island and its ruler the Duke Tansha for as long as anyone can remember. In return we are allowed to grow squash there. The Island has a good climate and few pestilences have touched it when they have affected the squash crop on the mainland. 

 

[Iilya the Snow Leopard] Intriguing. Duke Tansha – name rings a bell, can’t quite put my paw on it, however… What happens there after dark?

 

[Thom Far the Newt Caretaker] Nobody knows. The place has an air of ill magic about it. I met Duke Tansha once, when I was but a wee lad. My mother took me up the mountain to pick cherries -- there is an orchard at the top of the long staircase leading up to an enormous summer palace. 

 

[Iilya the Snow Leopard] A Palace?! On top of a mountain?! How is that possible?! It is a rather small Island, is it not?

 

[Flip the Newt] I’ve sailed around the whole island and measured its diameter – it is in fact a very small island, though I’ve heard people say that it feels a lot larger than it looks. There’s a fog over the whole island thats always there, so you can’t really see the palace, the mountain, or the staircase at all, except when you’re actually on the island itself. 

 

[Herbert the Goat Shepherd] How utterly curious! I wonder if I can take my little herd of bumblebees ashore for a little bit of a graze before we sail north away from here. They’ve been away from dry land a couple days now and would appreciate a bit of purple clover, or maybe a few daisies, though it be nigh the end of Firetop, and rather sparse by now. 

 

[Thom Far the Newt Caretaker] Of course! By all means you are very welcome to graze your bumblers there. Although I really must insist you return well before darkness falls.  

 

[Madge the Postmaster] A trip to a mysterious island! I daresay this Duke Tansha might give the Postal Service permission to construct a moth tower in that orchard that you mentioned? That way, Flip can receive his postal packages via the delivery moths. Flip – would you like a leaflet on basic moth feeding and care? 

 

[Flip the Newt] Super idea! I would love to be able to receive mail more often! 

 

[Madge the Postmaster] So, we’ll need a hammer, some nails, a few small bits of driftwood, some tar paper…

 

[Pip the Small Hedgehog] (snores lightly)

 

[Iilya the Snow Leopard] Sir Thom why is it named Organ Island? 

 

[Thom Far the Newt Caretaker] It is named for the basalt-rock organ that sits on the western ridge of the island’s tall, inscrutable mountain. The hexagonal basalt columns have been fashioned rather ingeniously into an incredible working pipe organ. The Dukedom of Tansha was once much larger, you see. The whole of Lake Tremendous, the pine forests to the west and the bamboo groves to the south were all part of it – and the Tansha Clan was wealthy from the tithes of the people who farmed this rich and fruitful land. For his lasting legacy, the current Duke Fia Tansha commission scores of engineers and stonemasons to build the most impressive pipe organ the Heath had ever seen. 

 

Wait – I think you can hear the pipe organ humming now! I’m not surprised actually, as it’s a breezy evening outside. Come!

 

Everyone climbs up onto the top deck to admire the full harvest moon, which is heavy and bright with imagination of the journey ahead. Flip takes out his pipe and plays a lonesome tune. The wind carries the notes over the lake’s flickering moonlit waters, bouncing them over the surf. In the distance, the basalt-rock organ sighs out a deep and hollow reply. 

 

End Scene