a timeless forest venue for relaxation and immersive role-playing
Sun &Thurs 10:00PM - 2:00AM ET (7:00PM -11:00PM PT)
Closed the 4th Sunday of every month
Sate your hunger with the rich flavors of the Twelveswood or the complex spices of the Azim Steppe, or simply relax with a pastry and one of our many teas.
We make announcements regarding special events (as well as unexpected closures) through our in-game fellowship. Search for 'Roleplaying' in the main interest field of the Fellowship Finder.
Please note that the Endwalker spoiler embargo has been lifted.
This venue is NOT spoiler-free!
about · rules · menu · gallery · new to rp?
sargatanas · shirogane · ward 6 plot 54
Broceliande is the name of the mythic forest in France said to be home to the tomb of Merlin. As a venue, we aim to offer a classy environment that feels timeless and comfortable.We offer a wide variety of delicacies to satisfy any appetite, and a relaxing atmosphere. Additional chambers, such as the baths, are available to visitors looking to refresh themselves or have in-character meetings and discussions during our operating hours. (Use of the cafe during off-hours may be granted on a case-by-case basis. Please talk to a staff member.)These rooms are open to the public for gposing or role-playing purposes, although we caution our guests that the doors do not lock.
staff
Cid Avagnar: A Duskwight white mage, native to Gridania. He moved to Shirogane for love, and opened the cafe to have something to do while his husband works.
Idel'a Zalawi: A native of Limsa Lominsa who was taken under Cid's wing. He helps run the cafe when he can.
vibe check
Broceliande is an 18+ roleplaying venue, but we are not a brothel or sex club. It's an adult venue in the sense that a real-world bar is an adult venue.What that means: a place for adult players to have an immersive role-playing experience without having to watch what they say around younger players. Discussions that stray into adult topics such as sex, drugs, or murder need not be curtailed by the host, allowing character development and relationships to happen naturally.What that doesn't mean: sex in public, even while in /tells. No sitting in laps or heavy petting; if you're reaching that point, it's time to take your sweetheart and find someplace more private to continue your liaison.
rules
¤ This is an immersive role-playing venue. In-character interactions are encouraged as much as possible so that everyone can have a good time.¤ Our FC house is our home, and is closed to cafe patrons when the cafe is not open to respect the rest of our free company.¤ Please dismiss your minions and hide your weapons while in the cafe.¤ The venue is downstairs; no service will be provided in additional chambers or in the free company lounge upstairs.¤ Please leave use of /yell and /shout to the host.¤ Please don't emote spam. It makes it very difficult to follow conversations.¤ You don't have to buy anything to sit in the cafe or use it as a meeting place, but we will offer you a menu. Purchases will get you an in-game high quality food item.¤ Payment in gil is due at the time services are rendered. Any payment over the required amount is taken as a tip for our grateful staff. All sales are final.
If your vibes are rancid, we will kindly ask you to leave.
cafe
additional chambers
immersive roleplaying: what to expect
Many people are very open to the idea that when you love something, you want to do it well. This is the idea behind immersive roleplay: telling a story that is a whole-hearted, in-depth exploration of a world, and the characters that populate it.
The cafe is best thought of as a coffeeshop AU for the larger immersive world of Final Fantasy XIV. We exist in Eorzea, but primarily as a place for connection and reflection. This page will serve as an introduction to our cafe, and a very loose introduction to the etiquette of roleplaying (RP) in immersive venues on the Aether data center as a whole. The aim of this page is to tell you what to expect, and provide you with tools and tips on how to interact.
quick tips
Use the /roleplaying tag to indicate you're looking for someone to talk to.
RPers often use parentheses ( ) or nested parentheses (( )) (or end a line with either one of these) to indicate out-of-character thoughts or discussion, or to correct a typo. It's best to limit this to notifications to your conversation partner about IRL things, like going afk for a moment.
Many immersive roleplayers will have information in their search comment about what kind of roleplay they're interested in. Just examine the player and mouseover the speech bubble near their name to see the search comment. They may even have a roleplaying profile link.
The /lfp and /lfm tags are usually used by staff in a venue, so avoid using those. (On Aether, the green tag is usually for SFW staff, and the yellow tag is usually used for NSFW staff. Check with the venue to make sure.)
If you are RPing a scene that you don't want broadcast to the room at large, we suggest using a 'safety linkshell' or party chat as your default chat channel to avoid potentially embarrassing mistells. If it happens, it happens. There isn't a single RPer who hasn't accidentally sent something to the wrong channel/chat. Just apologize for the mistake and move on.
chat conventions
There are two main styles used in immersive RP: prose style and 'open RP' style.In both styles, your prospective writing partners will generally expect correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Examples of chat input and the resulting output are given below.
prose style
This style is commonly used in party chat, private linkshells, or tells. If you're in an RP scene where you want to conceal both actions and words from the space you're in in-game, then this is the style to use. Your RP scene will not be visible to anyone around you (unless you accidentally mistell). Unlike open RP, this style includes quotation marks to indicate speech.
/p Cid frowns at Idel'a Zalawi, gesturing with the empty dish. "If you didn't eat all the konpeito, then who did?"
open RP style
This style is used in 'open RP', or situations where it's fine if what you're saying and doing is revealed to your location. Either /em or /emote may be used.
/em frowns at Idel'a Zalawi, gesturing with the empty dish.
/say If you didn't eat all the konpeito, then who did?
While performing actions in /em, it is not uncommon to see speech delivered in-line with a custom emote, resulting in a blended style. This is typically used when chat is moving quickly, and/or you don't want your speech separated from your actions.
/em frowns at Idel'a Zalawi, gesturing with the empty dish. "If you didn't eat all the konpeito, then who did?"
A modified version of 'open RP' has speech delivered in /tells, as if you are whispering at a table. Your actions with /em are still visible to the room. Some venues consider this kind of RP rude, as it doesn't allow the rest of the room in on the scene, while others enjoy imagining what the characters are actually saying as a form of people-watching.
venue etiquette
Pick a character. Arguably the biggest hurdle to getting started: it's hard to know how to act in-character (IC) if you don't have one! We have had guests come into the cafe, and decide right then and there what their character is like through deciding how they'll respond to others talking with them. This is a fine way to decide it. Sometimes you have a whole character concept and profile already worked out before you decide to come in. This is fine too. There's no wrong way to do this, so do whatever feels natural and good to you.We welcome open RP. Not all immersive venues are like this. We feel that open RP (which is RPing in /say and /emote chats) makes the cafe seem more alive.Meeting friends for roleplaying is encouraged. Bring your characters in when they already have something to discuss, like an adventuring job that got a little hairy, or a character who recently discovered they have a long lost sibling and doesn't know what to do. If you choose to do these kinds of discussions, don't be surprised if mentioning something prompts another guest to comment: these are normal in open RP situations. Most roleplayers will take open RP as an invitation to join in a scene if something piques their interest. Keep that in mind when deciding if you want a conversation to go smoothly, or if you're willing to invite a little chaos.If you're dealing with more sensitive topics that you don't want to air out to the cafe at large (for example: a murder plot, unexpected death/trauma, or discussing a failed relationship), then forming a party to discuss those will be more appropriate. Remember, this is a coffeeshop AU. It doesn't have to be all good vibes all the time, but we're trying to provide an entertaining, relaxing experience which can be thoughtful, and sometimes funny.
It's considered rude in XIV RP to claim to be the Warrior of Light (WoL) in a public setting. Everyone who is playing the game has their own ideas about how the Warrior feels and acts. Asserting that your character is The WoL doesn't invite others to join in writing with you. Being the WoL should not be so central to your character's thoughts and motivations that there's no room for anyone else to strike up a conversation. In your own private roleplaying, or roleplaying groups, do whatever comes natural to you and your writing partners.If you just want to lurk or idle, that's fine. You can send a tell to the host if it's our cafe, or just mark yourself /afk or /busy if you don't want to be bothered.
general roleplaying advice
Be considerate. Being mindful of the other guests will go a long way towards forging new bonds of friendship between your characters. When talking with others, don't forget that they want a chance to play as well. It doesn't have to be exactly 50/50 down the middle, but try to have a good back-and-forth that feels like natural conversation. If you're not clicking with someone and their RP style, it's perfectly acceptable to excuse yourself and either try to find another conversation partner, or head out for the night.Practice narrative restraint. You wouldn't tell a stranger about your most painful experiences as soon as you met them; doing this in RP is just as awkward as it is in real life. Reveal your character's story through their interactions with others rather than an information dump in a chat box. A character who is afraid of fire might move away from a character that is smoking, or nervously eye a burning candle. Writing these 'tells' can encourage others to notice your character and ask about them.Roleplay in a variety of settings, with different people. Different characters will challenge you to think and write in different ways. The more people you roleplay with, the more fleshed out your character will become, because each person you interact with will ask you different things and encourage development in different directions.Respect the Veneer. This concept explains that every roleplayer you interact with is a person, and the character they play like a veneer they wear over the top, completely hiding their true self. Some roleplayers will talk about "maintaining the veneer", which is to encourage the illusion that their character is a whole person on their own in Eorzea, not a character that is being written. Roleplayers that want to maintain the veneer will usually refuse to be contacted outside the game (e.g., in Discord), or refuse to engage in out-of-character (OOC) chatter about game mechanics or storyline experiences.Let people be "off" when they're not RPing. Writing takes a lot of brain power and being in the right mood. In a venue, it's a safe bet that a player feels up to writing and made the choice to come in. But if you see someone outside a venue setting and their RP tag isn't on, they're 'off-duty'. Don't pester them about RP. Doing so makes them feel as if they have to be 'always on', and will create resentment.Not everyone is going to work well together, and that's okay. One person might be a Doman exile, another person a Garlean sympathizer: not every character concept is going to mesh well with everyone else. That's okay! The world of Eorzea is big enough for all these character types. But some characters will work better in this cafe than in other venues. A Garlean ex-assassin with a chip on his shoulder might have little to talk about with a Plainsfolk cook from Ul'dah. You can still have a cup of tea together, but keep the conversation simple and light, and try to find the common ground rather than looking for disputes. Once you know if you have a good rapport with someone, you can try to test out things more personal to your character. If all goes well, you'll end up with an RP partner and maybe a new friend.The real world is not Eorzea, and vice versa. People acting IC are often very different from people acting OOC. In broad strokes, this means that people who are fighting in-character can be working out-of-character together to write something tense and dramatic together. Don't assume that someone whose character is snappish or rude, is themselves snappish or rude. Conversely, someone who plays a character that is a cinnamon roll might actually not be a good person IRL.More importantly: a romantic relationship between two characters is not a romantic relationship between the two players. The feelings we experience when we write infatuation, passion, and romance are very real, but they are not real love. Recognizing that you are just emoting normally (as you would when you watch a movie!) about a story will give you the ability to see your character's interactions as separate from yourself, and protect you from getting invested in characters or storylines in a way that is unhealthy or obsessive.