The Bathhouse

A group of old friends take a trip to a bathhouse. As protective layers and long held feelings are stripped and encrusted dirt is washed away, who will they become? Will the gods awaken? Players take a real bath together (this bit audio only).

Long Description

This is a game about gods, queerness, the power of shared myths, and the intimacy of bathing together.

A group of old friends take a trip to a bathhouse together, to reminisce and share stories. In the intimate sanctuary of the bathhouse, as protective layers and long held feelings are stripped and encrusted dirt is washed away, who will they become? Will the gods awaken?

This is a 3 hr LARP for 4 or 6 players designed to be played online in the comfort and safety of your own home. Players take a bath together in the middle; this section is played as an audio only experience, allowing you to lean back and wallow in your bath. It is also possible to simulate the bathing experience with a warm blanket if you don't have a bathtub.

The players will develop their characters and group dynamics in the first half hour. The main bulk of the game takes place inside the bathhouse, which is played audio-only while the players take a bath together. Conversation is inspired by prompts in the character sheets: a mixture of scenes glimpsed in the bathhouse beyond the camera’s view, memories of their youth, and stories from their old game of myths and gods.

As play continues, those magical stories become more prominent and the bathhouse scenes stranger and increasingly tangled with the myths. Are your characters truly incarnations of mythical beings, their other selves reawakened in the liminal space of the bathhouse? Or are they ordinary people choosing to imaginatively embellish and use stories to express things they find difficult to say?