Frog in a Bog

Halloween in Cairn

Happy October!

In this blogpost I discuss writing six Halloween-inspired player backgrounds for Cairn, doing the same with spells and relics, coming up with a potions system for Cairn, playtesting it all by running CAS-4, and coming up with some extra items for CAS-4!

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I love fall. I've been living in the woods of northern Pennsylvania for the past few months, surrounded by trees growing ever more colorful as the year goes on. My partner and I have been watching a fall playlist: everything from Over the Garden Wall (a yearly watch for me) to Sleepy Hollow (my first watch—loved it) and The Crucible (also first time, also loved it). This media has been bubbling in my head like a witch's brew, and I knew I had to write something about it. And what better system to write a spooky adventure for than Cairn?

Stalled Halloween Adventure

I started writing an adventure that essentially plagiarized the plot of Sleepy Hollow. I quickly realized that writing a mystery is very difficult, and that I wouldn't be able to write, illustrate it, and do layout in time for Halloween. I've since sidelined that project for next year's spooky season.

But—working on the adventure was not fruitless. A central part of the adventure was a series of spooky Player Backgrounds for Cairn, like those found in the Player's Guide—but, you guessed it, spookier. The 20 original Cairn backgrounds are awesome, and I have a great time whenever I use them, but while some of them are spooky-ish (particularly the Barber-Surgeon, easily a Dr. Frankenstein-type character, and the Bonekeeper—any spooky story needs its gravediggers), none of them are especially Halloween-y. In this Sleepy-Hollow type adventure, I needed stock characters from horror and Halloween classics.

Cairn Backgrounds

Barber-Surgeon Bonekeeper

The Barber-Surgeon and Bonekeeper backgrounds from Cairn 2e. Text by Yochai Gal, art by Keny Widjaja, layout by Adam Hensley.

Cairn's Player Backgrounds are great because they give your PC a history, skillset, and some cool items. The real fun of the backgrounds are of course the two d6 tables that players roll on (a model first used, I believe, in Electric Bastionland), giving further specificity to your player and some more cool items or abilities.

666: Spooky Backgrounds for Cairn

I felt there was a dearth of gothic and spooky backgrounds for Cairn, so I decided to make my own. (Pick them up for free from my itch page!)

Each background would be Halloween-coded and, where possible, have unique light sources, rations, and money. The d6 tables would give flavor to your character and provide generalized lore about the spooky and supernatural happenings in Vald. When coming up with these backgrounds, three of them came immediately to me: Constable, Carriage Driver, and Monsterhunter.

Constable

In the movie Sleepy Hollow (not the original Washington Irving story), Ichabod Crane is a constable. Not really a cop, not exactly a detective, but something like those things, and something that is notably spookier and less powerful than either of those things.

If you're running a Halloween game, it's almost certainly going to have a supernatural mystery as part of the Hooks. Making one of the player-characters a constable means that they have a narrative drive to solve the mystery and look for clues, while also not really making them the "main character" or overpowered.

Constable

The tables for this background also came rather easily:

Carriage Driver

This background might be my favorite. Loads of period-piece Halloween movies have carriage drivers. They're not main characters, but they are excellent set dressing. How did Ichabod get to Sleepy Hollow? Carriage. How did Thomas Hutter and Jonathan Harker get to those castles in Transylvania? Carriage. How do you have a chase scene in a Halloween movie? Carriage.

If you are running a Halloween game with a party of players, you can't have the crew go from place to place by foot. That's not campy enough. Make them go by carriage, and make the carriage driver one of your players. This background makes your PC still a pretty normal person, except they have a freaking carriage and a horse.

Carriage Driver

The tables for this background were pretty intuitive as well:

Monsterhunter

This one is pretty self-explanatory. All the classics have monsterhunters—whether that's their job (Abraham Van Helsing, Buffy Summers, those guys from Supernatural) or a character finds themselves hunting monsters because they have to (all the other ones).

While "monsterhunter" seems a bit overpowered compared to some of these other backgrounds, it too perfect a fit for the season to pass up. Narratively, this character doesn't have to be particularly strong (or skilled), but they are at least very knowledgeable about the supernatural.

Monsterhunter

The Rest

And so on and so forth. I won't go into a full description for the other three, but I'll discuss them briefly here:

Potions in Cairn

I've actually been working on a potions system for a long time, as part of my work-in-progress Bound for the Bogwood, a 150+ page swampy pointcrawl that will be published through Cairn Press. Stay tuned for more on that.

I took what I had been working on from Bogwood and tweaked it to be more generally applicable to Cairn. Here's what I got:

Potions

Potions are magical substances to be imbibed or applied. Each potion occupies 1 slot and has between 1 and 3 uses. The effects are immediate and do not incur Fatigue. Potion duration is per the Warden's discretion—some resolve immediately; others might last for one minute to one hour.

Potion Effects

The effects of a potion are to be interpreted by the Warden and may vary whether drank, applied to the skin, or poured on an object. For example, an Elixir of Invisibility would make the target person (or object) invisible, regardless of how it is imbibed or applied. A Philtre of Fish Lung might grant water-breathing upon either drinking or skin contact, but it would have no effect if poured on a mundane object. Some potions, like poisons, only work when imbibed.

Brewing Potions

Anyone can brew a potion with the right ingredients, materials, and recipe. Wardens should decide a potion's recipe and effect based on the ingredients used. If brewing from a recipe, or if a PC has relevant prior knowledge, brewing is automatically successful. If attempting to brew a potion without knowledge of its recipe, PCs must make a WIL save to avoid failure or adverse effects from the potion. 

Brewing a potion requires the following:

Brewing additional doses does not take more time but does require more of the Key Ingredient and an additional 10gp worth of mundane ingredients per dose. 

For examples of potions, see the table in the Brewbottle background:

Brewbottle

So there you have it: potions in Cairn! Feel free to take this for your own games. What do you think of the system? Any notes? I'm not 100% convinced, but I'm pretty happy with the balance of mechanics, cost, and narrative. Drop a comment!

Spells & Relics

So I came up with 6 backgrounds. Some of the backgrounds came with a spell or relic, so I figured I should come up with some of those that felt especially dark and tailored to Halloween gameplay. That way, I would have 6 backgrounds, 6 spells, and 6 relics. Six-six-six. What's spookier than that?

d6 Spells

  1. Affliction You summon a vision that only the target can see. Pentagram cover, filled with the signatures of previous owners.
  2. Bat Cloud You transform into a swarm of bats (3 HP, 3 STR, 14 DEX, d4 bite, detachment). Black, bat-wing leather tome that occasionally squeaks.
  3. Familiar You summon an animal familiar (3 HP, 3 STR) whose eyes you can see through once per day. The cover must be petted gently to open.
  4. Gargoyle Speech Ask a question or give a command to an inanimate stone sculpture. They must obey. A stone tablet; must be wet to cast.
  5. Saint HĂĄlga's Light A floating yellow light moves as you command, repelling undead creatures. Yellowed pages bound in thin bone covers.
  6. Vampirize Deal 1d4 STR to a target you can see; you restore that much STR. Leather tome, drips blood.

d6 Relics

  1. AlfÌt's Pot (bulky). A cast iron cauldron that heats its contents to a simmer but always stays cool to the touch. 
  2. Fleogan's Broom (bulky, 2 charges). A ratty broom. Straddle it to fly until you land again. Recharge: Use it to sweep a mage's hovel.
  3. HÊafod's Sword (d10, bulky). A huge blade engraved with the names of its victims. On Critical Damage, the target is decapitated. While in your possession, WIL is reduced by 1. 
  4. Horseman's Skull (1 charge). Whisper someone's name into the skull. That night, a headless Ghost will seek out and attack the target. Recharge: Bury the skull with its body for one night.
  5. Jack O' Lantern. A pumpkin with a carved face. At night, it is lit from within (as a torch; it cannot be extinguished).
  6. Saint NĂŠo's Finger (petty, 3 uses). When tossed, the three knucklebones form a finger pointing toward the nearest corpse. Recharge: Kill someone holding the bones.

Playtesting the Backgrounds

I have been very eager to playtest these backgrounds. I only got one chance to do so, when I ran the fourth installment in the Cairn Adventure Series, Yochai Gal's newest adventure: The Forgetting of Lockwood Manor. I have read this adventure five or six times because I helped Yochai with some light editing and print prep, so I knew it pretty well. (That said, it's very easy to run at the table—you could skim the whole thing once and run it straight from the book.)

Last week, I ran CAS-4 for my partner, C. While one-on-one play isn't my favorite way of playing RPGs—there is so much gained from players interacting, arguing, bouncing ideas off each other—it's a very fun and special experience. Even more so when you play with your best friend. I want to do it more!

Since one PC going into the manor would have been a death wish, C rolled two backgrounds: she got a Monsterhunter named Abraham (Abe) and a Brewbottle named Hildegard (Hildy). Abe, her main character, specialized in the Undead and carried a Censer of Steorfan (blast, 3 uses, repels zombies and skeletons) and a Shade Dagger (d6, allows you to pin a creature in place by stabbing their shadow—this was stolen wholecloth from a spell in A Familiar Tower). Hildy, the sidekick, carried Milk of Death (the drinker dies immediately) and a spellbook of Affliction (You summon a vision that only the target can see.)

I will put the full play report at the bottom of this blogpost. If you don't want spoilers for CAS-4, don't read that part!

Summary

I love Halloween. I think that Cairn is a perfect system for it—it's a little less high-fantasy than traditional B/X, AD&D, etc, and a little more Victorian. It's also not straight-up horror like Liminal Horror. With some minor tweaking (like the backgrounds), it's just right (for me).

Do you play a Halloween game every year? Do you run it in Cairn? I'd love to hear about it. If you are looking for some spooky backgrounds, please do pick up my supplement 666! Let me know how they work for you and whether you'd change anything.

Thanks for reading. Happy gaming, and happy Halloween!

Maxim

Play Report: Spoilers for CAS-4 ahead!

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Abe and Hildy rolled up to the Manor and entered the gate. Abe found the lock with a red key in it and removed it: it melted in his hand, much to C's chagrin. Then they approached the manor's entrance and did a counter-clockwise perimeter of the property. They saw: the bedsheet-rope coming out of the Yellow Room's open window, the Greenhouse, the Well, the back door into the Workshop, and the collapsed Servant's Quarters. (They looked it over briefly but did not root around, so they never found the ruby necklace with Isobel's name on it—this proved to be a minor problem for the party later on and led to some confusion.)

After they finished the perimeter (hearing some creepy Mossling giggles thanks to an Environment roll), they returned to the back door and entered the Workshop. Per the module's description, Marius (the big bad Shambling Mound) is here if he is not encountered before. Since we had just started playing, I decided to give the PCs a round before he arrived. They explored the workshop and found Marius' journal and a vial of Essence of Bat Wing. Then they heard Marius' shuffling, manor-shaking footsteps and both hid under the table. Their light source, Hildy's Jar of Fireflies from the Brewbottle background, turned out to be a very flavorful item: the light was dim and heatless, so while they hid Abe simply concealed it under his cloak.

I figured that they hid well enough to not require a roll—yet. Marius then shuffled about the Workshop for a while; at least a Dungeon Turn. I asked C to roll a DEX save for the PC most at risk (the one with the lowest DEX) of giving up their hiding spot. It was a fail, and Hildy sneezed, alerting Marius to their presence.

Combat erupted. Abe passed the DEX save to act first; Hildy failed. Abe swung at Marius with his Longsword and rolled a 10! (In hindsight, maybe giving a background a d10 sword was too much.) Marius went from 9 HP and 15 STR to 14 STR, just like that! And then when I rolled his Critical Damage save, he barely passed, rolling a 14. Abe almost killed Marius before he could even act.

The combat ended up lasting a couple more turns, and Hildy took Critical Damage. Abe finished the job and pulled Hildy's body from the viny wreckage. Marius was slain (for now). Abe found the Dried Poultice (heals 1d4 STR, 2 uses) in the cabinet and revived Hildy. The two explored the rest of the manor.

They found most of the clues in the house, except for the blood-stained mattress, the murder weapon, and Mora (they didn't touch her and left her room shortly after entering—I should have made her follow them, since they moved the broom, but I forgot!). Throughout play, none of my Dungeon Event rolls resulted in an Encounter or Sign, so I eventually just forced a sign (followed by an encounter) of Isobel, since her haunting was such a central part of the adventure and story.

At this point, the PCs were a bit confused. They found most of the clues, but it wasn't adding up. I reminded them that they hadn't explored the outside, so from there they went to the Outdoor Theater and Glade where they learned about what happened. Still, they didn't know Isobel's name and weren't sure what to do to help her, so they decided they would destroy the Shambling Mound for good (earlier, they passed through the Workshop and saw that his viny-mossy body was beginning to reform). Through process of elimination, they determined that the Purple vial in the Workshop would do it, so they poured it on him and watched him wither away to nothing. Then Isobel's ghost returned to her grave and dissipated, and she finally knew peace.

Abe and Hildy patched themselves up, took some goods, and set off to report back to Burgess Milo. Huzzah!

Thoughts

I love this adventure. It's very easy to run, has a clear story, and is full of vibes. It's genuinely pretty scary at times. You should run it—especially for Halloween!

I have a list of things I would do differently when I run it again—forcing more Signs/Encounters if they're not happening on rolls, describing the spooky environment more, doing more with Mora, hamming up the horror. I would also do more with the mirrors; they didn't really come into play.

The only thing I would change about the module itself would be to add a bit more meat to some of the rooms. A lot of the time, my PCs rooted around in the rooms and my response would be "yeah, everything's rotted, you don't really find much of interest..." I would like to come up with a little table of "treasure" or "lore items" the players might find. Per the Joesky Tax, here's a crack at it:

d8 Manor items (for now...)

  1. One of Anna's dolls, mostly rotted away. The blue moss does not grow within a foot of it.
  2. A scrawled note from one of the servants: "Meet me in the middle of the hallway. He can't see us there."
  3. A beautiful potted flowering plant, long since overgrown. It mimics the voices of those it hears, like a parrot. (Every few minutes, it speaks a random sentence it overheard from one of the manor's inhabitants—roll a d4: 1. Marius, 2. Luciana, 3. Anna, 4. Isobel)
  4. Luciana's journal. In the months preceding her illness, she laments her husband growing more distant—she fears he has taken a lover.
  5. A pile of moss. It looks like someone has been sleeping on it (a Mossling).
  6. A rat's nest. They used all kinds of materials in building their nest—including a pair of bloody gloves that they chewed-up (the gloves Marius wore when he killed Isobel).
  7. A symbol of a bird (The White Raven, or Flock) carved into the underside of a piece of furniture. (Put there by Isobel as a protective ward.)
  8. Hidden away, a small scroll addressed to Luciana and written by Isobel, detailing her relationship with Marius. The seal was never broken.