What This Is

The Flora is a meditative structured freeform game for 1-6 players. 

In it you will play a long-lived plant, rooted in place, their history and responses to the elements, fauna, their human caretakers and the human-shaped world. The game starts with fledgling Flora growing in our present day, you will feel the marks of human activity, the shifting seasons, and the changing climate as you adapt and grow, and eventually decay and die. 

You’ll be answering questions, choosing options from tables, telling or writing stories about the Flora and the different caretakers in the Flora’s life, drawing and updating a map of the Lot on which they live, and drawing the Flora throughout their lifespan. 

We hope you will develop a feeling for the Flora as you play.

Inspired by The Skeletons by Jason Morningstar, Artefact by Jack Harrison and A Feeling for the Organism by Evelyn Fox Keller

“In some Native languages the term for plants translates to “'those who take care of us.'”
 -Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

What You'll Need

• An hour or more of time.
• One to six players.
• A notebook to record your play for solo players. 
  
• A quiet place to play and access to the outside. If you have neither quiet nor access to the outside, you can close your eyes and listen to nature soundscapes. 
• Printouts of these rules and the Flora sheets, a large sheet of blank paper, pencils and erasers, and a timer of some sort. 
  • Optionally: Buy the paperback edition for $15.00
• For extra Flora Sheets, download and print out the demo "Flora Sheets"
• Optionally: Our Nature Soundscape playlist  (also below)

If you are comfortable doing so, share a picture of your Flora sheets, stories of your Caretakers and/or Lot map on social media using #TheFlora hashtag, or share with us at [email protected]. We’d love to see what you’ve created!