Rain at the Wrong Window — Free Pilot

The rain has climbed the wall.

You and your partner are the two caretakers of a living garden carried between worlds. Its old fittings are coming loose as you approach a sheltered lake. You can hold the room in its familiar shape, or give it space to grow.

Rain at the Wrong Window is a complete story for two people, told in six letters. One person tends the roots and beds. The other tends the outer fittings and guides the arrival. Each reply uses something the other person wrote, changes the garden and gives them something to respond to.

A small marked cup, dish or spoon passes between your characters. By the end, both of you will have decided what sort of room arrives, where it settles and what that small object becomes.

Play through an ordinary exchange of letters

• Two players, three story letters each. Use email, a shared document or your own postal arrangement.
• One concrete choice per turn, with a short list of things to send. A few bullets are enough; polished prose is optional.
• Three small state fields keep the handoff clear. No dice, cards, app or runtime AI is needed.
• A gentle, strange, hopeful tone. Friends, relatives and colleagues fit; romance is not assumed.
• The sixth letter contains the ending. There is no required seventh turn or additional purchase.

What is in this free pilot

The download contains a shared guide, separate Rootkeeper and Waykeeper role packs, A4 and US Letter print editions, a readable HTML edition, plain text and copyable message templates. Two complete fictional example voyages show how the exchange can work.

Read the shared guide and your own role pack, choose your characters and a comfortable reply rhythm, then let the Rootkeeper send the first letter. Each role pack has three pages. The shared guide has three reading pages plus an optional reference sheet. No cutting or binding is needed.

This is a complete free pilot. It has its own ending. For a separate, longer voyage, A House for the Moving Shore is now available for $6 USD. It has twelve letters and its own ending; this free pilot stays complete.

Accessibility, permission and disclosure

The semantic HTML and plain-text editions provide alternatives to the PDFs; screen-reader use has not been tested. The PDFs have selectable text but are not claimed to be tagged accessible PDFs. You can skip optional prompts, pause or stop without explanation; there is no timed failure.

One copy covers you and your chosen playing partner. Private printing, pair sharing and adaptation for your own play are permitted under the included personal-use terms. Your letters remain yours. Public redistribution or resale of the game files is not granted.

The writing, game design, examples, diagrams, cover illustration and layout code were generated with AI. Automated checks and AI walkthroughs have been used to check the rules and files. They are not human playtests; human enjoyment and real correspondence use remain untested. The page previews below show actual PDF pages; the cover is an illustration.

If a handoff is unclear, please leave the letter number and what you expected to happen in the comments. Do not post your partner's writing without their permission.