Catch Rave running a session of her game ‘Tui: Birds of a Feather’ as a part of KiwiRPG Week 2026 live on our Twitch on Monday 6th July, 7pm-10pm NZST / Monday 8am BST / Monday 3am EDT. The VOD will be linked here after the panel.
Prepare yourself for shenanigans with one of Aotearoa’s native bird species. Tui are known for three things – song, style, and rage. The newest crew in the tui mafia are looking to make a name for themselves, and maybe score some points with the Dui.
Written by Rave, who writes games as Wayward Masquerade. Find her game Kea: Mountain Trolls here.
Awakening
One of my all time favourite memories of tabletop gaming was played without a tabletop.
RPG Alley: a space filled with the clatter of dice, the rustle of paper, and the buzz of a dozen stories unfolding at once.
We are overrun. The GMs on shift are running games, the surge GM is running games, the shift manager is running games. We’re out of GMs, hell, we’re out of tables. Fortunately we are not yet out of snacks.
In walks a man. Hiding behind him is his daughter. Kiddo is knee high to a grasshopper, peering around her dad with wide eyes. They want to try a game. In the background, someone rolls a crit and a cheer goes up. I look around, spot a bit of clear floor, dig through my game folder, pull out “Three Goblins in a Trenchcoat” and snag one more player.
Sitting cross legged, armed with pecils, paper, and D6s, we begin. My goblin games usually start with a comically badass matriarch giving a mission to three hapless goblins who will no doubt engage in hijinks, shenanigans, and various forms of crime. There’s lots of waving arms and voices of varying quality.
Kiddo starts out declaring her actions by whispering them to her Dad, who relays them to the group.
They track down a human mage, and here’s where I make the first (best) mistake. I let the goblins see the fireball staff in the mage’s hand. One bad roll later, it’s a *malfunctioning* fireball staff, sans one human mage.
Kiddo grabs the staff and shouts “Fireball!”. It might have been the first time she spoke directly to me. I roll to see how bad it’s gonna be. They accidentally blow up the human town. Whether this is a net positive remains to be seen.
After a judgmental stare from a singed sheep in the feild where they landed, the goblins make their way back to the goblin town, situated in a series of caves. Every obstacle, every challenge, every *polite greeting* is met with a shout of “Fireball!” and a variety of magical mishaps. Kiddo is now half standing up, defiantly raising an imaginary staff and cackling at the destruction she was wrought. The rest of the group has accepted their new flame lord. Her Dad is trying to decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
Finally, they meet the Matriarch. The delicate art of diplomacy is deployed by way of “FIREBALL!”.
There is a battle, and the dice do what dice do. True to form, our goblins blow up the goblin town, riding a column of fire to the surface, which now resembles a volcanic eruption rather than the gently rolling hills of just a moment ago. They crash into a narratively convenient body of water a ways off.
Hijinks – Check
Shenanigans – Check
Explosions – Definitely Check.
A final scene where kiddo’s fire lord rises from the water, and burns herself a permanent place in my catalog of inspiration for future villains – Check.
All players agree, a job well done. The faithful pay homage to the tiny avatar of fire and murderhoboing. Across the gaming world, a disturbance is felt in the aethyr. A murderhobo has awakened.
Kiddo found the spark, and she used it to barbecue a significant portion of an imaginary land.
I’m so proud.