Like it always happen with a creative endeavor, it’s impossible to set in stone the exact moment in which Pumpkin Spice came to life in my mind. It’s always some sort of magic (pun intended), composed by various moments, ideas, impressions that get mixed together in some alchemical and mysterious way, the get transformed by this process and are born again.
But there are also moments and places that are most certainly part of it.
The first one was on October 2024. I was in Philadelphia, for my first Pax Unplugged. I am Italian but I love the USA very much, and when I happen to be in the US I always feel like I have a naive gaze (almost childish) on everything that surrounds me. In those days we had many meetings, dinners with friends, and some jet lag, but I always tried to find some time to watch Scary Stories to tell in the dark, based on the book by the same title written by Alvin Schwartz, of which I am a big fan. The main song in the soundtrack is Season of the Witch, a psychedelic rock track by Donovan. Those days I listened to it constantly, on a loop, and maybe, between the music, the convention, the great company, and the fascinating atmosphere of Philadelphia, a seed secretly started to bloom.
What is that? “The folk horror tales by Schwartz aren’t cozy at all?”. Well, but this is the magic of creative creations: different things meeting and mixing and born again in something new.

Some time later, it was Fall, and during one of my travels to New York, where Acheron headquarters are (which gives me a great excuse to go there several times a year), I stumbled upon a good number of ads for “Pumpkin Spice” drinks, around the whole of Manhattan. As an Italian, that was for me a new, fascinating term. It sounded awesome, and I said to myself “This would be the perfect name for… for… yeah, what for? I didn’t know it yet, but I knew that, when the time was right, it would have been perfect.

The, there was also the fact that during my latest trips in the USA I became fascinated with coffee shops. As you may know, the modern, pop culture of coffee shops is deeply Italian: just take a look at the beverages names on menus, or think that Starbucks was first inspired by an historical coffee shop (we call the bar) in Milan, my city. As a passionate coffee drinker, I always try different coffee shops and specialties wherever I go (for example, I discover the Vietnamese egg coffee in Berlin: beware, it’s addictive). In that same time period I visited to shops that really struck me. One was “Goddess and the Baker”, in Chicago, where I tried a mushroom chagaccino (but this is linked to yet another story that may call for a whole separate RPG). The other was a very small bar in Sleepy Hollow, which I visited because I was writing the script for a comic book about the famous Headless Horseman. Here they ground coffee in a large, antique machine located literally between the tables. Despite their different styles, both places had such a charming atmosphere that other seeds began to grow. I began to wonder what it's like to run such a lovely café...

Before, after, and throughout all this, I followed SimzArt, considering him one of the best artists on the web. Without even knowing who he was or what his name was. So imagine my surprise when I discovered he was Italian like me, and that we live only three hours away by train...
During those months, I was also thinking about a new role-playing game that was different from the average, one that had a different aesthetic, and that was less about conflict and more about narrative, encounters, and, indeed, a more relaxing atmosphere. Cozy, indeed.
Well, by then, the seeds were all there, and they sprouted naturally and at the right time. A cozy role-playing game centered on the witches Donovan sang about, with Simz's aesthetic, and based on the management of one of my favorite coffee shops. All that was missing was a name. What name to give it?
 
Oh, yes, of course, I almost forgot: there was that certain drink you can get in New York in the Fall...
So here's magic served piping hot and fragrant in the form of arcane mocha. After all, that's how all good things are born: with a little magic...