System: Cairn 2e (April 2024 Playtest)
Adventure: Barrow of the Elf King
Players: Storm (Mum), Aldrick (Dad)
GM: Me
Session length: 3h30m ish
The Game
My first time trying Cairn after hearing about it for years. I love Into the Odd and Cairn has a lot of the same mechanics, but for some reason it didn’t interest me too much until I saw the Kickstarter for the second edition. One thing that jumped out at me was the list of 20 different player backgrounds that were inspired by the excellent failed careers from Electric Bastionland, among other things.
What I love about these backgrounds is that they provide flavourful, unique character ideas that also hint at a wider implied setting in really cool ways. Every background comes with a unique item or trait, and in my experience each one was useful and interesting. They're easy to adapt to the adventure you're playing and they are fantastic for sparking ideas.
Cairn 2e also has some good player principles and procedures for the Warden to follow, which I printed out for the players to read beforehand. Setup and character creation took about half an hour, explaining it as I went through it with the players. Before long, the players both had rad, interesting characters (a hexenbane and a rill runner) and I had rolled a half-witch NPC that I was going to use to give them the "quest" to go into the Barrow of the Elf King.
Barrow of the Elf King is a short, sweet dungeon by Nate Treme (https://natetreme.itch.io/botek) that's got a kind of forest fantasy theme, which fits with Cairn's forest folk setting very well.
In addition to creating the NPC that would give the players their quest, we also used the Omen table from Cairn 2nd Edition to provide some background colour and inspiration as to why they might need to go on this quest. The omen they rolled was that the Mother Tree in the village was dying and red sap was leaking out of it.
Report (Spoilers ahead for Barrow of the Elf King)
After character creation and rolling the omen, I introduced the adventure by improvising a short scene wherein the players arrive at a village, told to meet the half-witch Solara under the bough of the mother tree. The mother tree was dying, she told them, and the only way to fix it was to retrieve the old Elf King's wooden sword from his barrow in the woods. The Elf King's soul wishes to pass on but because the tomb is stuck in the world of mortals, he can't properly leave. If the players put him to rest and get the sword, perhaps they can restore the mother tree to its former glory.
All that stuff was just made up in the space of about 20 minutes during character creation, but the players didn't know that. It was a fun way to add a bit of meat to the simple dungeon crawl and create a sense of a broader world around it. The combination of Cairn's character and setting tables and the Barrow of the Elf King really shone, I loved it.
There was also a lot of time spent in the village, which we collectively decided was called Blackfield, talking with locals, gathering rumours at the tavern and buying some equipment. The players had just enough coins cobbled up to buy a donkey called Kicky who they took with them to carry their load.
The donkey didn't end up being all that useful, but it added a lot of charm to the adventure. The inventory system in Cairn is quite strict, which I like. It means that a party that wants to loot and pillage all round them will inevitably have to engage with things like backpacks, carts, pack mules, etc. Cool!
After a night in the tavern, where Storm the rill runner played her reed whistle for some money, the players got up early and delved into the forest. They went deeper and deeper and soon Storm had to light her torch to see the way forward. Along the way, they came across an oak tree covered in cobwebs, huge and hanging from the branches. A giant spider emerged from the dark canopy and started peering down at them!
I had rolled a random encounter as they went into the forest, and since the adventure featured quite a few spiders I decided to make it a giant spider encounter to foreshadow the possibility of meeting them again later. It also has an entrance to the dungeon through a hole in the oak tree that the spiders use to get in and out, so it doubled as a possible entrance if the players decided to chase the spider.
Aldrick lit his torch and together they waved the torches at the spider to ward it away, as they continued deeper into the forest. It worked, and they never saw any sign of it again. With the help of Aldrick's pocket leyfinder, they found the secret burial mound of the Elf King and managed to find an entrance into the tomb.
This was a creative way to deal with the spider, and I decided to roll a morale check for it to see if it would work. It did!
At this point we were much longer in the session than I initially had planned. My mum and dad have a tendency to discuss options over and over and not actually take any actions in these kinds of games, so things took a bit longer than usual. I think that's just something you learn as you play more games, how to take the initiative and push the story forward on your own. I did step in once or twice to help them along though, including a moment where I had Solara the half witch appear as an apparition and give them advice.
Luckily, they found the secret entrance that led directly to the Elf King's grave. There were a few gem-inlaid skulls lining the entrance to the passage, but after a lot of agonising discussion, they agreed that it would be disrespectful to take any and instead left them for the Elf people as a mark of respect.
This was miraculous luck. In the adventure, anyone that takes a skull will risk breaking a silver wire attached to it and causing a potentially fatal cave-in.
My dad loved this part of the dungeon. He loves Irish history and has visited Newgrange and he said this barrow reminded him of it. I must get seeing it some time soon, somehow I haven’t yet.
They made their way in and found the old Elf King's remains. There were a few interesting things in this room that caught the party's attention. A large hourglass attached to a crank in the wall, a door to the east and a passage leading deeper into the barrow to the South. Because it was so dark, they couldn't see beyond the passage, but they did hear some wood banging and a strange, muffled squeaking.
A cold gust blew in from the entrance and whipped around the tomb, extinguishing their flames before dying down again. This led both Storm and Aldrick to panic and drop their weapons, unable to calm themselves down. Alone in the dark, they heard a weird, fleshy sucking noise coming from the east, and both scrambled to relight their torches.
After relighting, they noticed the door to the east had some slime seeping from under it, and the fleshy chewing noise hadn't stopped. Not knowing what else to do, they turned the crank on the wall and watched the hourglass turn over, the sand slowly flowing down.
This was the result of a dungeon exploration roll result of a resource loss on one turn (torches extinguished) followed by evidence of a nearby encounter on the next turn (noise of the barrow worms from area 6.). The panic effect is an optional rule from Cairn and it added a little bit of tension to the moment. It reminds me of a similar mechanic from Call of Cthulhu, which I love.
As the hourglass began to pour, a huge, towering figure emerged out of the old Elf King's burial slab. It was the spectral, undead form of the Elf King himself, wielding a huge, white, oak greatsword. This was the sword they needed to save the mother tree!
After a few rounds of decisive, perilous combat, it looked as though Storm and Aldrick might be about to meet their demise. However, the barrow worms burst through the door and began flailing around, trying to feed on anything within sight. This bought them some time as the Elf King was distracted.
Storm lay critically wounded on the floor and crawled towards the exit as Aldrick racked his brains for a plan. Before long, most of the worms had been pulverised into mush or blasted aflame by the powerful Elf King and things were looking desperate. In the final moments, Aldrick remembered that Solara had given him a strange letter, within which was something precious. He pulled it out and read it – it was the Elf King's true name, Vex.
This was something that happened right at the beginning as I was setting the scenario up. As I was rolling the half witch character, part of the starting equipment that I randomly rolled was that Solara knew the true name of a powerful fey creature. The coincidence was too good to ignore, and I decided she knew the name of the Elf King. The Elf King doesn't have a name in the original text, so I made one up that sounded cool – Vex.
Aldrick stood and cried "King Vex!" At this, the undead king stopped, shocked that a mere mortal knew his name. "Solara sent us!". The fury on his face turned to confusion as he cried "My daughter…?" before he was mercilessly struck down by an errant barrow worm. Finally, the Elf King was dead, for real this time, and he could rest in peace.
The idea that Solara was the Elf King's daughter hadn't occurred to me until my dad had shouted that Solara had sent them. It all just seemed to fit perfectly, and it was a fantastically dramatic, emotional highpoint to end the adventure on, so I rolled with it. Both players gasped and were astounded that this actually worked, it was a great moment.
The oak greatsword clattered to the floor as the remaining worm slithered to feed on the remains of its dead kin, seemingly uninterested in the two humans as it had found something to eat. Storm and Aldrick took the oak greatsword and escaped with their lives.
I wrapped up the session quickly, handwaving the return to the village before playing out the final interaction with Solara. The mother tree quickly reinvigorated and its leaves turned green, and the village mayor rewarded them for helping.
Solara was very sad to hear the news about her father but was also glad that he was now resting in peace, no longer tormented in limbo. She thanked the two wanderers and told them that if they plant the oak sword, it will grow into a great tree that will act as a portal to Elfland, where they will be warmly welcomed forevermore.
Thoughts
This was fantastic, even just writing the recap I am reliving some of the emotional highpoints of the night. The combination of Cairn and Barrow of the Elf King was just perfect.
I have Nate Treme's Haunted Almanac, which includes many other small adventures, and I have Into the Odd as well. I'm hoping to run more one-shots using Cairn and Into the Odd with the Haunted Almanac. If they're half as good as this one was, it's going to be a lot of fun.
The Power of Vex Compels You!
Feirsteax