Story Family Fantasy: reinventing the card game, from family solidarity to shared adventure

A collaborative, deeply positive card game that starts as a card game anyone can play and opens up, step by step, into a genuine epic of adventure and an introduction to role-playing.

Published on 21 September 2026By ObhéaReading time : 7 min read

A witch, a dragon and a mummy: the family of Story Family Fantasy

We all have an old deck of cards lying at the bottom of a drawer: a worn belote box, or a game of Happy Families we played as children. These games have an immense power: they instantly gather several generations around the same table, with no age barrier and no protocol. With Story Family Fantasy (SFF), we wanted to take hold of this popular memory to build something new, warm and ambitious. Our aim is to offer a collaborative, deeply positive card game that starts as a card game anyone can play and opens up, step by step, into a genuine epic of adventure and an introduction to role-playing.

Group illustration for Story Family Fantasy: a large smiling blue dragon, a pink-haired witch holding a flask, a flying fairy beside an open spellbook, and a chained mummy rising from the water in front of pyramids and ghoul silhouettes. — A world of families, heroes and creatures

A world of islands suspended in the Maelstrom

In the universe of Story Family Fantasy, the ancient world has vanished, swallowed by the excesses of the past. In its place remain the Islands of the Paradigms. These fragmented lands float above an infinite Maelstrom, a primordial storm where raw creation and chaotic destruction constantly mingle. On each island, a community tries to preserve a fragile balance against the turbulence of the void.

A Chimera: an immense bull with curved horns, glowing red eyes and purple bat wings, its tail made of three snakes, leaps forward as embers burst from the ground. — A Chimera, the shared threat

These societies do not seek to conquer their neighbours, but to grow and rise. Each of them reaches towards a harmonious ending, a point of perfect fulfilment embodied by the Apocalypse card, which is not synonymous with the end of the world, but with achievement and ultimate revelation. Facing this vital impulse stand the Chimeras, predatory entities born of the Maelstrom’s entropy, drawn by the communities’ energy to dissolve everything into nothingness.

The anatomy of the game: four lineages facing chaos

The material heart of SFF rests on a simple, evocative structure, understood immediately from the first time you pick it up.

Four great families make up the game. Each gathers thirteen members ranked by age and experience, from the youngest sibling bearing the number 1 to the venerable ancestor marked with the number 13. Each generation brings its own value: the spontaneous energy of the youngest answers the wisdom and protective authority of the elders.

Card 1 of the red family: a cracked dragon egg in its nest, two small blue hands reaching out. — Red family · 1

Card 1 of the purple family: a baby wizard in a large starry hat, lying in a cauldron with a red eye, a frog at its side. — Purple family · 1

Card 1 of the green family: a baby fairy with blue hair sleeping in a nest of leaves, surrounded by glowing orange seeds. — Green family · 1

Card 1 of the orange family: a baby mummy with big blue eyes, wrapped in bandages in a stone cradle, a glow on its belly. — Orange family · 1

Card 7 of the red family: a red dragon with a crest of blue feathers and a gem-studded breastplate, flying among the clouds, a golden glow in the palm of its hand. — Red family · 7

Card 7 of the purple family: a witch with long white hair and a large green hat, a broom in hand, surrounded by a floating spellbook and glowing runes. — Purple family · 7

Card 7 of the green family: a young fairy with blue hair and butterfly wings, vials at her belt, reaching towards a rainbow in front of a waterfall. — Green family · 7

Card 7 of the orange family: a young mummy with a bandage mask and dreadlocks, a cobra in one hand and a glowing flask in the other, in a tomb corridor. — Orange family · 7

Card 13 of the red family: a colossal moss-covered dragon with a white beard and glowing blue eye, carrying a forest and a village on its back; a camp lies at its feet. — Red family · 13

Card 13 of the purple family: a very old smiling witch in glasses and a red straw hat, knitting among balls of wool and small bats. — Purple family · 13

Card 13 of the green family: an old fairy with round glasses and silver braids, writing on a sheet of paper, seated among mushrooms and insects. — Green family · 13

Card 13 of the orange family: a mummy figure in a white gown, swept up in a whirl of bandages, dust and golden light. — Orange family · 13

Four evolution cards per family make it possible to transform these lineages and to move their community forward through trials.

Two founding cards dictate the fate of the table: Genesis, which kindles the spark of life and the unfolding of the islands, and Apocalypse, the horizon towards which the community’s efforts converge to seal its balance.

Four Chimeras complete the set. Monsters of entropy and embodiments of chaos, they represent the shared threat that the families will have to face to safeguard their home.

Two phases of play, a collective victory and the spark of the Hero

Unlike traditional card games where you try to strip your neighbour, Story Family Fantasy puts mutual aid at the centre of the table. The game is split into two high points.

The first phase is one of gathering and solidarity. The people around the table exchange their cards, agree on the combinations to form and bring together the members of one family to prepare the future of their island. It is a convivial moment of discussion and negotiation where selfishness has no place: if one community weakens, the whole archipelago tips over.

The second phase marks the hour of adventure. Strengthened by the alliances they have forged and the generations they have brought together, the participants set out on an expedition to face one of the fearsome Chimeras threatening the Islands of the Paradigms. Each card played combines the courage of the young with the mastery of the elders to repel the monster’s assaults.

At the end of the fight, victory is necessarily collective: either the table triumphs together, or the community is swept away by the Maelstrom. Yet at the heart of this shared victory, legend always remembers one outstanding figure: the person who generated the most Brilliance through their actions receives the title of Hero of the adventure. It is not a crushing victory over one’s companions, but the spotlight on the one whose exploits will inspire songs by the fireside.

An adventure in three steps: growing with the game

We designed Story Family Fantasy to accompany the table over time, through a modular progression in three stages.

The first step offers the pure card game described above. The rules can be explained in a few minutes to children, grandparents or non-gamer friends. Games are quick, dynamic and immediately rewarding.

The second step injects a real tactical dimension. It introduces action cards, equipment, spells and special abilities for the families, and also gives the Chimeras more varied destructive powers. New creatures appear, turning expeditions into tighter confrontations where team coordination becomes indispensable.

The third step builds the final bridge to role-playing. The notion of the Hero comes to life through a dedicated character sheet. Participants choose a classic, stimulating archetype — mage, witch, paladin, bard —, gain heroic talents and face legendary Chimeras through very simple narrative rules. This step comes with a campaign of six complete adventures, making it possible to explore the secrets of the Maelstrom in depth and to make the whole table want to carry on towards role-playing without the slightest apprehension.

A witch with long red hair and a large hat sits on her broom in the starry sky, a skull in her hand trailing a pink streak; a full moon and bats surround her. — A witch under the moon

Playing differently: twisting and enlivening card game classics

Beyond its main adventure, Story Family Fantasy is also, physically, a versatile deck of cards. With its four families of thirteen members completed by its mythical figures, it can simply replace your ordinary decks for your traditional games of poker, tarot, rummy or other family games.

To add a little soul to these familiar moments, we have imagined an alternative use, light and entirely optional. Small thematic tables and dialogue prompts let you spice up your games: when a specific card appears on the table, a line can be declaimed, along with a slight adjustment to the turn order. These little narrative touches surprise the table, imperceptibly change the deal and inject a dose of humour and imagination into your age-old board games. It is not the beating heart of the game, but a playful way of bringing SFF’s characters to life in your everyday rituals.

Vocabulary notes

Islands of the Paradigms: Fragments of habitable land suspended in the void, born of the breaking up of the ancient world and sheltering communities of survivors.
Maelstrom: A storm of chaotic energy surrounding the islands, in which the forces of creation and the forces of destruction constantly clash.
Apocalypse: In the cosmology of Story Family Fantasy, this term does not mean annihilation, but the point of perfect balance and the final revelation towards which each community reaches.
Chimera: A colossal creature born of the Maelstrom’s entropy, seeking to devour the vitality of the islands and embodying the adversity the families must overcome together.
Brilliance (Éclat): A measure of the bravery and ingenuity shown by a participant during the adventure phases, used to name the Hero of the game without breaking collective solidarity.
Playful bridge: A design method specific to Obhéa Éditions that consists in using a familiar, accessible medium to naturally guide participants towards the pleasures of shared storytelling and role-playing.

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