a story from The Floating Isles
The Lost Lantern Festival
Tonight is the Festival of Lights. Every year the families of the Floating Isles send glowing sky lanterns up into the calm evening sky. But when you look...
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Same story, gentler or richer words.
The Floating Isles
The Floating Isles are islands adrift in a calm sky, in a realm where magic only ever helps: it grows, it heals, it changes one thing into another, and it lets you speak with animals and objects. It never harms. On the home island, the House of the Little Mages sits at the highest point, where young mages learn their first spells, and the city where the families live spreads below. Inside the school grounds lies the Great Garden, the green heart of the whole island. Here nobody loses; you find your way by being kind and full of ideas.
Read aloud, slowly and warmly. Stop often to let the children answer. There are no wrong answers here, only new ideas to try.
Read aloud, or let an older child read. Pause at the questions and let everyone share their ideas. There are no wrong answers, only new ones to try.
Before you begin
Tonight is the Festival of Lights. Every year the families of the Floating Isles send glowing sky lanterns up into the calm evening sky. But when you look out from the House of the Little Mages, the sky is dark. Lantern Square is grey and quiet. The lanterns have floated away.
You are little mages. You pick up your bag. You look at each other. "Let us bring the lights back," you say together. The path to the square is waiting.
What is your mage name? Which magic do you choose: Light, Grow, Change, Voice, or Float?
Tonight should be the best night of the year: the Festival of Lights, when every family on the Floating Isles sends a glowing sky lantern drifting up into the calm evening sky until the whole heavens shine. But from the high windows of the House of the Little Mages, you can see that something is wrong. The sky is empty and dark. Down below, Lantern Square sits grey and silent, and not a single light is rising.
You are young mages, and tonight the lights are yours to find. You shoulder your bags, share a quick and certain look, and set off down the winding path. "Let us bring the festival back," you say, and the dark square waits for you below.
What is your mage name? Which magic feels most like you tonight: Light, Grow, Change, Voice, or Float?
For the grown-up Setup, the rules, and the answers. Open it when you are ready (it has spoilers).
The Lost Lantern Festival: Rules for the Grown-Up
The Guide for the Grown-Up explains how the game works (the bands, the energy stars, helping, twists, all of it). This page has only what is special about this adventure. A failed roll is never a defeat; nobody loses.
Setting up
- You do not need a printed map for this one. Picture the journey from Lantern Square up to the clouds, or lay out three small spots to be the three stops.
- Each player chooses one magic: Light, Grow, Change, Voice, or Float. Two different magics work best, because combining them is half the fun.
- Give each player five energy stars (five small tokens or bricks). These are spent and refilled during play.
- Build the things that come up (a paper lantern, a vine, a little hook) from household bits and bricks as you go. Anything can be anything.
- Keep your dice and the dice-band table from the back of the kit beside you.
The surprise
Once at each stop the players may roll for a twist; read the matching line. The Guide explains how it works.
| Roll | Surprise |
|---|---|
| 1 | A Messenger Butterfly drifts past and gives you one free hint. |
| 2 | You catch a spark of warm light: take back one energy star. |
| 3 | A kind, steady breeze: the next challenge is Easy. |
| 4 | The Mist Cat appears and purrs. All is well; carry on. |
| 5 | A friendly lantern lights your way: keep one roll to use again later. |
| 6 | A little festival song drifts by and everyone hums along for one happy turn. |
How it ends
The festival is not won by catching anyone or putting anything right by force. The one who gathered the lanterns is Nimbo, a young cloud-whale who was lonely and loved the lights too much to let them go. The adventure is won when the children offer Nimbo their friendship and a place at the festival. Let that land gently; it is the whole point. See the puzzles page for how to play the ending, and for the solutions to the three stops.
Stop 1: The Dim Square
You come to Lantern Square. It should be bright and full of song. Instead it is dark. One last sky lantern sits on a stone, but its little flame has gone out.
A soft grey cat steps out of the mist. It is the Mist Cat. It looks at the cold lantern, then up at the sky, where a faint trail of light leads toward the clouds.
How do you light the lantern again? And how could you find out where the others have gone? Try something and see.
When the lantern glows once more, it lifts gently into the air and floats up the trail, as if to show you the way. Up toward the clouds you go.
Lantern Square should be ringing with music and warm with a hundred small flames. Instead it is hushed and shadowed, and only one sky lantern remains, sitting forgotten on a cold stone with its little flame snuffed out.
The Mist Cat pads out of the evening fog, soft and grey, and settles beside the lantern. It looks from the cold wick to the sky above, where the faintest ribbon of light still hangs in the air, drifting up and away toward a distant bank of cloud.
How will you wake the lantern's flame, and how might you discover where all the others have gone? Try something, and see what the night gives back.
When the little flame catches and glows, the lantern lifts from the stone and rises gently along that ribbon of light, as if inviting you to follow. So you do, up and up toward the waiting clouds.
For the grown-up: the solution
The challenge. The last sky lantern has gone cold and dark, and the players need to relight it and work out where the other lanterns have drifted off to.
Intended solutions. Any of the magics can help:
- Light wakes the little flame at once, and lights up the faint trail leading to the clouds.
- Change turns a cold ember or a pebble into a warm, glowing one.
- Voice: ask the lantern itself, or the Mist Cat, where the others went; both are happy to point up toward the cloud bank.
Fallback. If a roll misses, the Mist Cat nudges the lantern and looks pointedly up at the trail of light, then the players spend an energy star or combine two magics to finish. Nobody waits in the dark for long.
Make it simpler. For a very young child, hand them a torch and let switching it on be the magic that relights the lantern.
Stop 2: The Cloud Bank
At the edge of the island you reach a low bank of soft clouds. Some of the clouds feel warm, and if you look closely, they glow a little from inside. The lost lanterns are hiding in there.
A bright Messenger Butterfly flutters down to help.
Which clouds are hiding lanterns? How can you tell, and how do you reach them up there? Try something and see.
When you gather the glowing lanterns out of the clouds, they bob around you in a happy little cloud of light. Only the biggest lantern of all is still missing.
At the very edge of the island, where the ground gives way to open sky, you come to a low bank of clouds, soft as wool and faintly warm. Look closely and you will see it: here and there a cloud glows quietly from within, as though it has swallowed a little sun. The missing lanterns are tucked away inside.
A Messenger Butterfly, bright as a coal, comes spiralling down to lend a wing.
Which clouds are keeping a lantern, and how can you be sure? And once you know, how will you reach so high and gather them in? Try something, and see.
One by one you coax the glowing lanterns out of their cloudy nests, until they bob and circle around you in a soft, happy swarm of light. Only the grandest lantern of all, the great one that crowns the whole festival, is still nowhere to be seen.
For the grown-up: the solution
The challenge. Several lanterns are hidden inside a bank of soft clouds. The players must work out which clouds hold a lantern, and how to reach them.
Intended solution. The clue is that a hidden lantern makes its cloud glow softly and feel warm, while the empty clouds stay cool and grey. This is an observation moment: pick out the warm, glowing clouds. Then reach them with Grow (a vine ladder or a tall reed), with Voice (ask the Messenger Butterfly or the breeze to carry them down), with Float (lift a player gently up to the glowing clouds), or with a combined magic.
Fallback. If the children are unsure, have the Messenger Butterfly hover beside one glowing cloud to show them what "warm and glowing" looks like, then let them find the rest. Getting there with a nudge still counts as a full success, and tops up an energy star.
Make it simpler. For a very young child, hide one lantern under a single cotton- wool cloud and let them lift it to find the light.
Stop 3: The High Ledge
You look up. High above the square, the biggest festival lantern has drifted against a rocky ledge and caught there. It is too high to reach, and you want to bring it down gently, with no one in any danger.
The evening breeze curls softly around it.
How do you bring the big lantern down safely? Could you grow something soft below? Could you ask the breeze for a gentle nudge? Try something and see.
When the big lantern floats safely down into your hands, the whole square seems to hold its breath. There is just one thing left to understand: where did all the lights go in the first place?
You tip your heads back and find it at last. Far above the square, the biggest festival lantern has drifted up against a jutting rocky ledge and snagged there, glowing stubbornly out of reach. It is much too high to climb to, and in any case you would never want anyone to risk a fall. This one must come down softly and safely.
The evening breeze loops and curls around the ledge, patient and willing.
How will you bring the great lantern down without anyone in danger? Could you grow something soft to catch it, or ask the breeze for the gentlest of nudges, or change a pebble into a kindly hook? Try something, and see.
When the great lantern drifts down at last and settles into your waiting hands, the whole square seems to hold its breath. Every lantern is found now, but one question still glimmers unanswered: why did the lights leave at all?
For the grown-up: the solution
The challenge. The biggest festival lantern has caught on a high rocky ledge, out of reach. The players must bring it down gently, with no one climbing into any danger.
Intended solutions. This is a kindness-and-care puzzle, not a daring climb:
- Grow a thick cushion of leaves or a soft vine below to catch the lantern.
- Voice: ask the evening breeze for the gentlest nudge to float it free.
- Change a pebble into a soft hook on a long grown stem to lift it down.
- Float the lantern gently off the ledge and let it drift down into waiting hands. Any plan that brings it down safely works. Make a point of the fact that nobody needs to climb or risk a fall.
Fallback. If the children freeze, have the breeze give a small, hopeful puff that rocks the lantern, so they see it could be coaxed rather than grabbed. The moment they try a gentle idea, let the lantern drift down into their hands.
Make it simpler. For a very young child, put the lantern on a shelf and let them puff a big gentle breath to float it down into a cushion below.
Nimbo the Cloud-Whale Calf
Up among the clouds you find a small, shy cloud-whale calf. Its name is Nimbo. Inside its soft cloudy body, a warm light is glowing. It was Nimbo who gathered the lanterns. Not to spoil the festival. Nimbo was lonely up in the empty sky, and it loved the warm little lights so much that it wanted to keep them close.
There is no fight here. There never was a real villain.
What do you say to Nimbo? How can you show it that it is not alone, and that it can come to the festival too?
When you offer Nimbo your friendship, it gives a happy little rumble and lets the gathered light go. All at once the sky lanterns rise together, the whole evening fills with warm golden light, and Nimbo glows brightest of all as it floats down to join the festival. The Festival of Lights has begun.
You did it together. You were kind, and you were full of ideas. Well done.
High in the quiet clouds you find the answer curled up small: a young cloud-whale calf, shy and round, made of pale drifting cloud, with a soft warm glow shining deep inside it. Its name is Nimbo. It was Nimbo, you understand now, who gathered every lantern, one by one, into the sky.
Not out of mischief, and not to spoil a thing. Nimbo had been alone for a long time in the wide empty evening, and when the warm little lights began to rise, it loved them so dearly that it could not bear to let them drift on by.
There is no battle here, and there never was a villain.
What do you say to Nimbo? How can you show it that it has not been forgotten, and that there is a place for it down at the festival too?
When you offer Nimbo your friendship, it lets out a happy, rumbling sigh and opens its cloudy heart, and all the gathered light streams free. The sky lanterns rise as one, the evening blooms into warm and endless gold, and Nimbo, brightest of them all, drifts gently down to take its place among the families. The Festival of Lights has begun, and no one is alone in it.
You did this together. You were kind, and you were full of ideas, and on the Isles that is the only way anyone ever wins.
For the grown-up: the solution
This is the resolution, not a puzzle, so there is no band and no roll. Up in the clouds the players find Nimbo, a young cloud-whale calf, with the gathered lantern light glowing softly inside it. Nimbo took the lanterns because it was lonely in the empty sky and loved their warmth, not to spoil the festival.
Play it softly. Let the children decide how to reach out: a kind word, an invitation to the festival, a promise to visit the clouds. There is no fight and no trick. When they offer friendship, Nimbo lets the light go, the lanterns rise all together, and Nimbo floats down to join the families, glowing brightest of all. End on that warmth. The children have won by being kind and full of ideas, which is the only way anyone wins on the Isles.
Here nobody loses. If a try does not work, you just find another way.
Read aloud together, pause often, and try ideas. There are no wrong answers.
