Adventure Report Mini – Cairn 2e + Barrow of the Elf King

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

The Darkness Over Nijmauwrgen #5

The Ancient Tomb of Kahnvisser (played 29/03/2024)

System: The Black Sword Hack
Adventure: The Darkness Over Nijmauwrgen (from The Chaos Crier issue #0)
Players: Faaya (Capingreen), Kvam (Janitor911)
GM: Me (Feirsteax)
Session length: 3h ish

Figure 1: Area explored by the party in the old tumulus.

The Ghost

Icy rain stung the explorers’ faces as they huddled at the foot of the black, wind-battered cliffs. A strange glow above them caught Faaya’s eye. A ghostly form, cloaked in a blue-green robe, loomed in the sky. Faaya stood motionless as its faceless hood stared directly into her soul. As it drew nearer, it began to radiate an eerie green glow in the rain-soaked dark of the night.

Piercing through the raging storm, the spirit’s baleful cry filled the air. Slowly, strained screams seeped through the torn veil of mortality and formed into words. “Take what you need,” it commanded, “and no more.”

Lighting their torches, the explorers stepped into the tomb. Though the ghost had not directly threatened them, they knew that to try and deceive the otherworldly entity would be the last mistake they would ever make.

Report

Last session ended with the party of three (Faaya, Kvam and the NPC Sfen) in Bonifacio’s shack. They’d planned to hold a secret meeting in three night’s time with Alcantor to build a resistance movement against the Black Sun.

But the meeting would be a flop without Alcantor there, not just in body but in spirit, and that meant finding a way to break his Mnemophagia curse. Duke Taineri already told them that he would be able to cure it if he had a strand of the town’s founding hero, Kahnvisser’s beard. So, they set off to find Alcantor and head out on an expedition to the ancient tomb to the west of the city, where it’s said Kahnvisser’s remains still lie to this day.

I didn’t roll any random encounters for city travel this time. The party were on their way to an actual dungeon, and I didn't want to risk not having enough time to run it.

Alcantor was hiding in an abandoned villa, camped out in a makeshift den. When the party told him their plan, he was on board straight away. He’d been dreaming of the Roodr, the ancient trident of Kahnvisser that could be the key to defeating the Black Sun and had been planning to search the old tomb to try and find it.

The Roodr is not in the tomb, but stowed away in an encampment, two days journey beyond the city walls. Alcantor himself put it there, but his Mnemophagia has led him to forget this. In bread.wizard’s review of this module, he mentions that he ignored all the stuff about Mnemophagia. I can understand that, as it mainly serves to prevent the party from finding Roodr right from the beginning. However, I liked the idea of slowing the pace down and inventing a quest related to Alcantor regaining his memory, so I ran with it.

A problem I’ve encountered with Roodr is motivational. The players don’t have any idea why it would be beneficial to even have the trident in the first place. I began dropping hints via NPCs that the trident would be able to slay a sea monster in a single strike. Hopefully that will be enough to whet their appetite.

As they made their way west towards the old tomb, the party saw the Black Sun’s templars nailing posters to the walls and doors of various buildings. They were missing person posters for Hans and Klees, two of the templars who were foolish enough to try and arrest Faaya and Kvam back in session #3. Not wanting to look suspicious, the two hurried on to the tomb.

The tomb was a little way out of town and was set into the side of a black cliff face. The rain hadn’t let up all day and was only getting worse as they arrived, with the wind howling and thunder rolling in the distance. But amidst the din of the raging storm, Faaya thought she heard a moaning noise above them. It was a ghost!

The ghost was not immediately threatening - the adventure text specifies that a “curious ghost” is haunting the tomb on a roll of 1 on a d6. However, if the party take anything from the tombs that they have not asked permission for, then it will try to take it back off them by force.

The ghost asked what their purpose was in coming here and Faaya bravely spoke up, telling it that they had come for a strand of Kahnvisser’s beard. The ghost allowed them to pass but warned them to be careful and listen for the sound of waves.

I thought it would be cool to give them a hint since they had engaged the ghost in a friendly manner. It told them to listen for the sound of waves, which was a clue on how to find the true resting place of Kahnvisser. One player took the message on board and very keenly listened out for noises at different places throughout the tomb, which led them to the right place.

They entered the tomb and came across some traps and various pieces of treasure. There were secret tunnels and strange pulsing noises coming from side areas that the party did not investigate, thinking it better to stick to the main task (see Fig 1, at the top of this post).

Something came up during this session that we hadn’t thought about until now, which was dungeoneering equipment. The party didn’t have any torches, rope, ten-foot poles, or anything of that nature on hand and I didn’t want to stop play so we could retroactively spend half an hour shopping, so I decided to try a remix of a solution that I had read before.

After I read episode 2 of diregrizzlybear’s Beneath the Missing Sea campaign report, I thought I’d yoink the bit about quantum inventory. However, to give it some uncertainty I decided to base it off a Usage Die rather than just a specific number. I gave them a Ud6 and said that if they wanted to retroactively buy a piece of adventuring gear, they could do that. Each item they retroactively bought this way caused a roll of the Usage Die.

After the session, we discussed this and I thought it was a little too lenient, so I made some changes which I’ll post at the bottom of this post.

After traversing some rooms, including a false tomb that contained a skeleton and the corpse of an unlucky tomb robber of times past, they eventually made it to the real tomb of Kahnvisser. This small alcove was set into the other side of the cliff face and had a direct view of the sea. The sarcophagus of Kahnvisser was extravagant and tempting, made entirely of gold, and inlaid with gems and pearls. What’s more, the tomb itself was full of gold coins!

Sfen was extremely tempted by all this wealth and wanted to take some home. Faaya, however, was the voice of reason and reminded him of the presence of the ghost. She suggested they come back later, perhaps approaching this cave from the other side using the Babaselem once it was repaired. You can’t outrun a ghost, but you might be able to outsail one!

Faaya’s player probably saved the party’s lives here, the ghost is immune to all attacks that aren’t made with weapons dipped in the wielder’s own blood. I’m not sure how the party are supposed to figure that out, I think it’s left to the GM to provide a clue. Either way, it could have been a nasty fight. But thanks to Faaya, the party only took exactly what they needed and no more, so the ghost never attacked them.

I also really like the idea of them coming back once the ship is repaired and grabbing all the loot. It could make for a satisfying epilogue / finale / escape from the city!

Kahnvisser’s remains were also inside the sarcophagus, including his full, fiery red beard. After taking a strand of his beard hair, the party paused briefly to rest and take in the sights. From here, they had a view of the rocky crag that jutted out of the ocean to the north of Nijmauwrgen. The storm was as furious as ever, but they could just make out the distant flicker of a bonfire on the crag behind the rain.

However, their brief reverie was interrupted by two fish-like beastmen, clawing their way up the cliffs and into the cave. Faaya immediately cast her Darkness spell and incapacitated the two fishmen for two rounds each. Stumbling blindly and clawing wildly at thin air, they were easily dispatched by the party. Only Sfen suffered a wound, taking a nasty bite on the shoulder from one of the blinded creatures.

I still don’t know all of Faaya’s powers, and the Darkness spell came as a great surprise. It was extremely cool and really made the encounter a lot easier. To simulate the chaos it created, I rolled a d6 and used it to determine the creatures’ movement direction. Since any movement to the north, northeast or northwest would cause them to walk off the cliffs, they had a 3-in-8 chance of plunging to their doom. Surprisingly however, neither did, and the party had to finish them off by hand. 

With a strand of Kahnvisser’s beard hair acquired, the party made their way back the way they came, and the session ended.

Thoughts

I loved this session. It was mostly just a straight dungeon crawl, with not a whole lot of NPC dialogue or city encounters to deal with. The dungeon crawling felt like such a breeze compared to the other stuff, which I’m still struggling to run in a way I find satisfying.

This part of the adventure is well laid out and easy to run. In contrast, the city stuff can be dense and page-flippy. In the heat of a game, you sometimes end up scrolling frantically to find a certain piece of information. It’s something that I think could have been done better, especially since the occasional typo (Roodr printed as Noodr, NPC names misspelled) means that ctrl+f will sometimes fail.

Another thing I think could have been better is the interconnectedness and dynamism of the adventure and its factions. The archpriest of the Black Sun, Sarakasas, is presented in the text as this terrifying, chaotic warlock. As far as I can tell, though, he only appears in one random encounter in the city and otherwise sits at the bottom of his temple, waiting for the players to come and kill him. The problem with this is that the players don’t really have a sense of who he even is, and he hasn’t yet caused them any direct problems, so they don’t really feel driven to defeat him.

However, the Anonymity Die will probably reduce to a d6 soon, which is the point at which the Black Sun starts following the party and interrogating everyone they talk to. It also means they get introduced to the Thieves Guild who are also enemies of the Black Sun. I am hoping to use this opportunity to add some chaotic energy to the city and provide motivation for them to fight back against the Black Sun. I’m thinking Sfen (who is now the player’s full-time companion) could be a prime target for interrogation, possibly even arrest!

The quantum adventuring pack idea I mentioned above seemed to make it too easy for the players to just completely ignore equipment. I tweaked it a bit, and here’s how it works now:

At a market, you can buy an Adventuring Pack (Ud4) for d6 x 10gp.

• In the dungeon, you can use the Adventuring Pack to roll its Usage Die and retroactively buy another item and have it in your inventory.
• You still have to pay for the item. If you don’t have enough gold, you waste a use of your pack.
• If you roll a 1 or a 2, the pack runs out.

I’m still testing this out, the balance might be a bit out of whack, and we might find later that it needs to be tweaked again (less / more expensive, starts off at a higher Usage Die, other ideas). So far, it’s worked okay, but I have a feeling it might be needlessly complicated. We’ll see how it goes!

Good morning,

Feirsteax