The Other OSR: Omega City

In the far future of broken landscapes, stretched landscapes, and lost landscapes there is often only the appearance of the Gunslinger and the power of his Gun to bring order to the mouldering settlements and ruins of the uncertain past, to drive back the strange creatures, lurking, ready to pounce and rend the unwary, and to stop the ambitious and the foolish attracted to the power of magic which threatens what remains. The Gunslinger is a wanderer, a member of a brotherly order, arriving unbidden one day, dispensing justice and order, stopping the monster, perhaps engendering a little hope, all before finding the next Slip Door and the next world. Their peripatetic existence is the only constant and perhaps the only certainty they know. This is the Drifted World of We Deal in Lead, an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game published by By Odin’s Beard. It is set in a post-apocalyptic dark and weird west that combines a stripped-down presentation with the mechanics inspired by Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave and it is very much inspired by Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series of novels, but also has the feel of a weird Spaghetti Western with genre-hopping possibilities.

Omega City – Ashcan Edition is the first supplement for We Deal in Lead and presents something very different, almost a point of permanence, even though, like much of the Drifted World, it is subject to decay and decline. It arose out of the Dungeon23 challenge, the aim of which was to design a mega dungeon in one year, one room per day, over twelve levels. Each day creators would add something to their dungeons, but creators also switched format, one of which was ‘City23’. Omega City was born of this switch, a city inspired by two things. One was the city of Lud from The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands, part of the series that inspired we We Deal in Lead, and the other was the author’s home city of Edmonton, Canada. This being the Drifted World of We Deal in Lead, the universe is still breaking down and so this supplement mixes more than it matches its various locations, drawing on a wide variety of locations, situations, and creatures from different time periods and genres. In this instance, the actual setting and its disparate nature means that the designer had more freedom of design than his counterparts working on a more traditional Dungeon23 creation.

Omega City does not so much detail individual locations within a city, but provide small regions—a total of twelve—each with five or six buildings, locations, and landmarks. These are presented over a two-page spread, with the places listed on the left-hand page and a corresponding map on the opposite side. Each location is accorded a listing of two or three bullet points. Each location is accorded a listing of two or three bullet points. For example, Region 9 has five locations, a ‘Shanty Town’, a ‘Cracked Riverbed’, a ‘Lumber Mill’, a ‘Colossal Skeleton’, and a ‘Writhing Mass Grave’. The Shanty Town is described as a “Collection of lost souls and broken travellers”, being home to “Residents from different worlds and times, the languages spoken number in thousands”, and the inhabitants suffer as “More and more victims vanish each night, lost to the red claws in the sands”. Meanwhile, the Lumber Mill is “Overgrown with pungent thorns that ooze vicious orange liquid”, as “Flies swarm constantly, adding to the ooze”, and “Great grey swarms cover the dead trees of the nearby woods”. All of the entries are like this, a clash of the old and new, of the ordinary and the outré.

However, amidst the ‘Burned Out gas Station’, ‘Pitted Gibbet’, ‘Spiral Slough’, ‘Corpse-Corrupted Reservoir’, ‘Flesh-Warping Runoff Pond’, and ‘Partially Phased Office Building’, there is no room for the individual. There are groups of people, such as at the ‘Shanty Town’, but no individuals, and also no hooks. The individual descriptions are intriguing, but possibly not quite enough to get the Gunslingers to investigate every case. Also, ‘Omega City’ itself does not have an overview or broad description. To be fair, both are due to the intermittent nature of the creation process involved in Dungeon23, the creator coming back to the process day-by-day rather than sitting down and working at it. On the other hand, this nature means that lack of connections between locations means that the Warden—as the Game Master is known in We Deal in Lead—can pull them out and insert them into her own content as much as she can develop her own hooks to them.

Physically, Omega City is not yet fully formed. Only an Ashcan version is available. It is handwritten and not always easy to read, whilst the map, though serviceable, are rough. The writing though, is by intent short and punchy, often spurring more questions than answers.

Omega City – Ashcan Edition is by its very nature rough and ready, but it does present some sixty or more locations that present mouldering mysteries and decaying dangers in a minimalist fashion that the Warden can use and interpret as is her wont. In this way, Omega City – Ashcan Edition can serve as a series of prompts for the Warden’s own city or prompts for her own version of ‘Omega City’.

The Other OSR: Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms

Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms is an anthology of short one-page scenarios and encounters for use with Runecairn: Wardensaga (or its earlier version, Runecairn), the Norse fantasy tabletop roleplaying game published By Odin’s Beard. Unlike most Norse- or Viking-themed roleplaying games, Runecairn: Wardensaga takes place after Ragnarök has come to pass, leaving a world without gods and beset by darkness and danger, into which a lone hero strides, ready to defend the innocent and the weak who still survive amidst this chaos. It is specifically designed to be played by a single Game Master—or Warden—and a single player (although the rules do provide for other options), whilst mechanically, it is inspired by minimalist Old School Renaissance roleplaying games such as Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave. What this means is that the sixteen entries in Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms can easily be adapted to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice and their minimalist format makes the processing of adapting that much easier.

The format for Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms is very simple. A single page dominated by a map of the encounter with the accompanying text providing a brief overview and almost as equally brief descriptions of the various locations, plus a legend for the map. The maps are all hand drawn and possess a certain roughness. This does not mean that they are bad maps, but rather they are not as polished as they might have been. There are no stats given for any of the monsters, the Warden expected to simply use those found in the Runecairn: Wardensaga rulebook or the Runecairn Bestiary. The side effect of this means that if the Game Master is adapting the scenarios to the another rules, she can similarly use the stats from the bestiary for the roleplaying game she is using.

The sixteen scenarios in Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms open with ‘Worldserpent Hollow’, a simple dungeon with clearly marked areas of light and darkness, full of skeletons, draugr, and secrets a Dwarf is excavating, and ends with ‘Limbs of Yggdrasil’, the immense ash tree pockmarked with the stumps of branches long cut from the tree behind which the Hero can hunker down for protection as spectral archers pepper his path with arrows. In between, the Hero will face another ‘Storm of Arrows’ as he crosses a kill zone that is already stabbed with ten-foot-long arrows embedded in the ground; come across a settlement already put to the torch and the inhabitants sacrificed by desperate cultists in ‘Mistbound Village’; discover a ‘Grove of Woe’, with its corrupted trees that reach down and grab passing travellers with a noose and are already strung with hanging cultists, whilst a lindworm lurks on the edge of the grove; and break into ‘The Ring Fortress’ which contains a great hammer-shaped cairn and has cultists are preparing for great unknown event whilst two ghost colossuses circle outside, wailing and smashing their hammers on the ground! ‘The Ring Fortress’ could contain the ‘Cairn of Thunder’, a hammer-shaped cairn, hand-dug, ringing to the constant sounding hammering, and home to a massive bone titan which if it climbs from its pits and stands, will bring the cairn down upon itself and the Player Character!

Many of the encounters are linear in nature, with a set entry and exit, so that not only is there a sense of progression from the beginning of an encounter to its end, but also from the beginning of the anthology to the end, as if the Player Character is on a great journey, perhaps searching for something. In some cases, the Warden will need to work with the player (or players) to provide some motivation for the hero to engage with an encounter. Others can simply be placed in the Player Character’s path as he journeys onward. All encounters begin with a bonfire, a sanctuary of light and rest in the darkness of the after-Ragnarök.

Physically, Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms is presented in as simple a fashion as possible. They are all easy to read and in addition, many of them are accompanied by some very good pieces of art. The depiction of the two ghost colossuses circling the Ring Fortress is exceptionally good.

Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms can be used in multiple ways. As a set of one-shots, as a set of encounters to place in the path of an ever onward moving hero, as inspiration for the Warden, or even as inspiration for the Game Master of another roleplaying game. Whether facing a hammer-wielding, niflmare-riding headless Jotunn in a broken village or crossing a water-logged battlefield contested by the living and the dead, there are some great encounters in Runecairn: Into the Nine Realms and some memorable confrontations with chaos and darkness.

The Other OSR: HOWL

Sailing in search of work—the ruler of a distant port is said to be offering a generous reward for investigating a great dungeon under the city—the Player Characters find themselves aboard The Erebus, when it is caught in a sudden storm that brews in ferocity until the ship and its crew, as well as the Player Characters are dashed onto a desolate shore marked only by cliffs! When they awake, cold and sodden, half the crew are dead and half the crew are missing, drag marks in the rough sand the only indication of their fate. As the Player Characters stare up at the cliffs a pair of glowing red eyes appear over the lip and a brutally bulky creature stares down at them before letting out a thunderous howl that shakes their very souls! This is the start of HOWL: A Horror Adventure of Dark Folklore for Cairn. Published by By Odin’s Beard, best known for Runecairn Wardensaga and We Deal in Lead, it was previously available as The Howling Caverns, written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but has now been adapted to the micro-clone, Cairn. The name of the ship, The Erebus, the high cliffs, and the howling beast all lend themselves to certain inspirations and HOWL is upfront about them. This is a scenario inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the Yorkshire port of Whitby where Dracula came ashore after travelling aboard The Erebus, English folklore, and Ravenloft, the classic horror setting for Dungeons & Dragons.

HOWL: A Horror Adventure of Dark Folklore for Cairn begins with the Player Characters aboard The Erebus and have the opportunity to help the ship’s crew and so perhaps help save the ship. Of course, that does not happen, but they may be able to keep some of the crew alive who will help them later ashore. What they also discover once they wake up from the shipwreck is a number of skeletons that rise to attack and once defeated, they learn from a note carried by one of the skeletons that they have been cursed! A Barghest—perhaps the beast on the cliff—is abroad and is stalking them. The only solution seems to lie up the narrow cliff path and onwards to the nearby village of Krasnaloz. What is quickly apparent is that the village is run down and its inhabitants disaffected, but they are forthcoming about the Barghest and its legend. This is, that last night, after three days of violent storms, lightning struck a tree and where it fell, it opened up a cave out of which it is said that the Barghest exited and let out its first howl!

The Player Characters have the opportunity to gather more background and clues, many of them freely given by the few staff patrons of the amusingly named ‘The Slaughtered Lamb’. This includes too, the possible means of lifting the cure that they are under and even an offer of help from a bard who recently lost her partner to the Barghest. Other clues can be gathered at a ruined temple, long fallen into disuse, before the Player Characters set out to investigate the caves located in the countryside to the north of the village. Bar a possible encounter or two in the wintery surrounds, the Player Characters will quickly arrive at the cave and begin to explore its depths. The first few chambers in the network show signs of occupation, but have clearly been abandoned, whilst the later ones show signs of exploration and hide secrets. Only in the last chamber will the Barghest be found and in confronting the creature, some secrets will be revealed.

The adventure is linear, but well designed and atmospheric. In the first part, there is a definite feeling of the cold and isolation on a bleak coast, whilst the dungeon itself is a contrasting split between a lair and a magical retreat. The former having abandoned, whilst the latter is being explored, a mixture of puzzles and traps with a dose of the weirdness of the deep thrown in. Altogether, the scenario should provide three or so sessions to play through, a single taking the Player Characters from the shipwreck to the village and the second two sessions into the cave system. At the end though, HOWL may leave the players and their characters unsatisfied. There is resolution, but not one likely to leave them happy. In part, this is due to the fact that HOWL is the first part of an extended campaign, and as yet, the sequel, Colossus Wake, has not been adapted from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. In part, because the Player Characters are going to feel manipulated by the end of the scenario and without that sequel, there is no way in which they can address the issue themselves.

Physically, HOWL is very cleanly and tidily presented. The layout is excellent and although the location descriptions for the cave do not include individual excerpts from the main dungeon map, there is a relationship diagram showing the links between one room and another. The artwork is decent and the maps are good too. The NPC and monster stats are listed at the back, so the Game Master will need to flip back and forth.

As a scenario for the Old School Renaissance, HOWL is easy to adapt to other retroclones, but as a scenario for Cairn, with a little effort, it could easily be adapted to Into the Odd and run more like a scenario for Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales. Overall, HOWL: A Horror Adventure of Dark Folklore for Cairn pleasingly combines Gothic horror with fantasy horror in a very easy-to-use format that will be made all better when the sequel is available.

The Other OSR: Runecairn: Wardensaga

Ragnarök came to pass and the world as it was known came to an end. Yet the world did not end, it was only broken, the gods of the Aesir and the Vanir missing or dead, Jörmungandr dead and flensed, the Jotunn forced to flee back Jotunheim. Yet as broken as the world is, and as full of dread and danger as the Nine Realms are, there are heroes who would stand alone against the darkness, to defend villages against roving bandits, hunt a creature stealing children, reclaim a family cairn overcome by the dead, retrieve a great relic lost to the ages, broker peace between warring clans, protect a caravan passing through dangerous lands, and search lands old and new for secrets and mythical beasts. Such activities are dangerous, but these heroes are strong of heart and even when they die, they will find their way back to bonfires that warm the soul and give life and never dwindle—and even link the Nine Realms. A great hero’s failure is only temporary, until it isn’t. Until then, a hero can try again and again to overcome the danger he faces, to find another way now that he is forewarned.

Runecairn: Wardensaga is the most complete version of Runecairn, the Norse fantasy tabletop roleplaying game published By Odin’s Beard, collecting the Runecairn Core Rules, the adventure ‘Beneath the Broken Sword’, and Runecairn: Advanced Rules into one handsome volume. Like the publisher’s We Deal In Lead: A Weird West Wanders Game, it is inspired by minimalist Old School Renaissance roleplaying games such as Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave. It is specifically designed to be played by a single Game Master—or Warden—and a single player. However, the advanced rules gives options for reducing the players to one and turning Runecairn: Wardensaga into a solo roleplaying game or increasing their numbers for a more traditional roleplaying game.

Runecairn: Wardensaga begins with general advice and then advice for Warden and player alike. It does this as a series of principles presented as bullet points. The general advice states that the Warden’s role is one of neutrality, that the roleplaying game is Classless—the abilities of an Adventurer relying on equipment and experiences, that the possibility of death is ever present though never without warning, that fiction comes before the dice, that an Adventurer has opportunities to grow through his experiences, and that the player should always be presented with choices. For the Warden these include design philosophy—that she is helpful and honest as conduit of information, the context and realism determine difficulty, that the world changes and sometimes changes because of what the Player Character does, the narrative should support the emerging story, that danger is everywhere and obvious, that the player and his character should always have and be presented with choices, and when all that fails, there is occasionally, just luck. For the player, the principles advise agency, exploration, talking, caution, planning, and ambition, and if one path leads to defeat, then he should look for an alternative path. For the most part, these will be familiar to adherents of the Old School Renaissance, but here are not elucidated upon, but rather kept short and to the point. Similarly, the world of Runecairn: Wardensaga has its own principles.

An Adventurer in Runecairn: Wardensaga has four abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Wits, and Spirit, rated between three and eighteen; Vigour and Vitality, which are rated between one and six; and Resilience which is a total of Vigour and Vitality. Vigour is the Adventurer’s self-determination, which Vitality is how hale and hearty he is. A player rolls dice for all of these, and can swap two of the abilities. The player then picks a Class. This can be Warrior, Skald, Scout, or Seer. Each Class provides a range of equipment and skills or special actions that will give the Player Character many of their initial abilities.

Gertrud
Warrior
Strength 17 Dexterity 15 Wits 11 Spirit 12
Vigour 6 Vitality 5 Resilience 11
Def 3
Linden Wood Shield (+1 Def), Chainmail (Bulky, Def 2), Bearded Axe (d8), Ash Wood Spear (d6, 20’), Memento of Defeat, (Free Slots: 4)
Skills: Block (Shield), Parry (Axe), Disarm (Axe), Hack (Axe), Thrust (Spear)

Mechanically, Runecairn: Wardensaga is straightforward. When a player wants his Adventurer to act or react—and it is dramatically appropriate—he rolls a save versus either Strength, Dexterity, Wits, or Spirit, needing to roll equal to or lower than the value. A one always succeeds and a twenty always fails. Standard rules are used for advantage and disadvantage, and can apply to damage as well as standard actions.

In terms of combat, Runecairn: Wardensaga uses the same core mechanic, but in terms of rolling dice, combat in the roleplaying game is all about damage and reactions. Fundamentally, every attack made by an attacker will hit the defender and inflict damage. That is, unless the defender can do something as a reaction. Every Adventurer can ‘Roll’ away from the attack or ‘Withdraw’ from the combat, but each Class adds its own options in terms of Reactions. These require ‘Key’ items, pieces of equipment, that without, the Adventurer cannot perform the Reaction. For example, the Scout’s Key item is a pair of hunting knives. These are light enough that the Scout can perform a ‘Dash’ as a Reaction, which requires a save versus his Dexterity, the Scout able to avoid all damage if successful or impairing it and reducing it to a four-sided die if it is unsuccessful. Attack actions also require an item of equipment and increase the amount of damage inflicted or another effect. For example, the Seer Class has the ‘Clobber’ action. This requires a staff and has the Seer smashing a defender over the head with his staff, granting the Seer advantage for the damage roll, and the defender being forced to roll a save versus Strength or be dazed. Many of the actions and Reactions force the Adventurer to suffer ‘Fatigue’. Each point of Fatigue fills a slot in the Adventurer’s Inventory.

One damage is suffered, the ‘Def’ or Defence value, reduces the amount of damage suffered. Both Classes and monsters and NPCs have a base ‘Def’ and this can be augmented by any armour worn or shield carried. Damage is then deducted from Resilience. If an Adventurer’s Resilience is reduced to exactly zero, he will receive an Omen, a message from the spirits, or gods, or… which can be good or bad. If reduced below zero, damage reduces Strength and counts as a critical strike. This requires a save versus critical damage on Strength, and if failed, the defender dies.

For example, as Gertrude struggles through the last of a snowstorm to get to the next village, she hears yells and screams from up ahead. Over the rise, she sees a caravan which has been ambushed during the storm. It is in disarray as several figures fight the surviving guards and others drag off merchants. Gertrude spots two of the rough-looking fellows attempting to abduct an old woman. Unlimbering her Linden Wood Shield and readying her bearded axe, she charges down the hill. The Warden rules that since the battlefield is noisy and the old woman is screaming, neither of the cultists will spot her charging down the hill and will grant her Advantage on the damage roll. This means that Gertrude’s player will rolling two eight-sided dice instead of one and taking the best result. Gertrude’s player rolls a five and an eight. He chooses the latter and inflicts eight points of damage. The Cultist has a Def of one, reducing the damage he is about to suffer by one to seven. However, the Cultist only has Resilience of six, so it is reduced to zero and the Cultist takes a point of damage to his Strength. It also means that the Warden has to make a Critical Damage save. The Warden rolls against the Cultist’s Strength of ten and rolls a sixteen! The Cultist yelps at the sudden blow and drops dead… At this point, it triggers a special ability which means that when the Cultist dies, a black tentacle bursts out of him and inflicts damage on the nearest person. This requires a roll of one on a twenty-sided die. The Warden rolls seven, so nothing happens.

The other Cultist looks round in surprise. He reacts by throwing the old woman down and drawing his seax, advances on Gertrude. He stabs at the mighty warrior and rolls six for the damage. Gertrude has a high enough Resilience to stop a lot of this damage, but his player decides on a Parry Reaction. This enables Gertrude to deflect the attack and riposte with advantage on the damage roll. Gertrude’s player rolls fourteen, which is under Gertrude’s Strength. Gertrude smashes the seax stab aside and the Cultist suffers enough damage to reduce his Resilience to zero, but not inflict any damage to his Strength. The Cultist screams in pain. This attracts the attention of the other cultists attacking the caravan. They stop what they are doing and move to take down their attacker. She will make a worthy sacrifice.

Two of the Classes—the Skald and the Seer—are capable of casting various forms of magic. These are Runestones and Sagas. Runestones are polished stones into which spells are inscribed, whilst Sagas are memorised tales that are recited to channel the power of the gods. Both Runestones and Sagas take up an Inventory Slot in total and when either a Runestone or a Saga inflicts damage, it bypasses non-magical armour. There is a decent list of spells for the Seer, such as Cloak of Knives or Spectacle, as well as one for the Skald like Laughter or Sense Evil.

As the mighty warrioress comes to her aid and attacks the cultists who would have kidnapped her, the old woman, Tove, finds herself thrown into the snow. She is now free to act, and as Skald, she reaches into the folds of her tunic to pull out her Runic Focus. Concentrating on the key item, she recalls the story in which Thor called down the power of lightning on his enemies. With a crackle of energy, a dagger of lightning appears in her hand. From where she lies, she throws it at the Cultist still standing in front of the unknown warrioress. This inflicts three damage, reduced by one for the Cultist’s ‘Def’. This means the Cultist suffers Strength damage and triggers a Critical Damage save. The Warden rolls eleven for the Cultist, which means that with a zap, the Cultist is blown off his feet. The Warden rolls for the Cultist’s post-death ability. This time she rolls a one and a black tentacle emerges from the dead Cultist and inflicts a six-sided die’s worth of damage on Gertrude!

If an Adventurer dies, it does not necessarily mean that play is over. The Adventurer simply reawakens at the last Bonfire he rested at. He loses all Souls found—Souls are remnants of the power of the gods scattered and hidden across the Nine Realms, that if returned to a Bonfire whilst alive can be used to imbue an Adventurer with power and improve his abilities and Vitality—and has his Strength and Resilience restored to full. However, when this happens, it also reduces his Vigour by one. If his Vigour is reduced to zero in this fashion, the Adventurer truly dies and rises as a Shade… Lastly, any enemy that the Adventurer killed before dying is also returned to life!

This is the extent of Runecairn in terms of its basic rules. What is interesting about Runecairn: Wardensaga is that it shifts what would be the inherent abilities of a Player Character because said Player Character has a Class in another roleplaying game from the internal to external. Much of what a Player Character can do is down to the equipment that he carries and packs into his inventory, and many of them enable the use of skills. What that means is that an Adventurer in Runecairn: Wardensaga could snatch up a spear and carry a ‘Thrust’ attack as per the Warrior Class, enabling him to lunge forward ten feet and make an attack, but suffering from fatigue in return, or after obtaining a Runic Focus, learn spells as can a Skald. In addition to finding Souls and spells, an Adventurer can also find Relics and Rings. Relics are items imbued with magic or spells, often one-use items, which when used do not inflict Fatigue, and sometimes can be recharged. For example, a Skull Beacon, a charred and crumbling skull with faintly glimmering eye sockets, which glows brightly when held. It can be used to light up and area, but only once. To recharge it, it needs to be burned on a roaring bonfire. Rings typically grant a better benefit, but always at some cost. For example, the Iron Ring is wrought of dense metal grants a point of Defence, but at a loss of Speed.

The Advanced Rules of Runecairn: Wardensaga provide two extra Classes, alternate ways of playing the roleplaying game, and a Delve Generator. The two extra Classes are the Berserker and the Pyre. The former is a warrior who calls upon his animal spirit to fight with great ferocity, whilst the latter draws upon fire to burn his enemies and even shield against their attacks. The first of the alternate methods of play is solo play. This suggests playing Runecairn: Wardensaga as a Journalling game, suggesting that the player use an ‘Oracle’ as a means to draw meaning from the randomness of play, such as that created using the Delve Generator. This ‘Oracle’ can be a Tarot deck, but the guidance for solo play in the Advanced Rules of Runecairn: Wardensaga provides a set of tables to roll upon. The co-operative play gives a way of bringing another player into a session, the Adventurer using an effigy stone at a bonfire to summon a fallen hero—from either the past or the future—who will fight alongside the Adventurer, until one of them dies. Conversely, the Adventurer might face a ‘black fetch’ instead of a fallen hero, intent of stripping him of his humanity and vigour. The ‘black fetch’ can be run as a normal NPC by the Warden, or if both players do not object to the situation, by another player, setting up an adversarial situation. Alternatively, the ‘black fetch’ might actually be a fallen hero who believes the Adventurer to be the ‘black fetch’!

The Delve Generator creates locations for play in Runecairn: Wardensaga. This includes locations such as cairn or stronghold, objectives such as infiltrating the mercenary group at a stronghold and convincing its members to join the Adventurer or hunting a cairn for the rock troll that killed the adventurer’s family is hiding out in the family tomb. An extensive set of tables provides encounters within these locations, NPC reactions and actions, and a countdown mechanic which determines how close the Adventurer is to his objective after each encounter. Thus, the Adventurer need not explore the whole of the location to achieve his objective. The process is neatly handled through a flow chart that makes the solo play proceed with ease.

Penultimately, Runecairn: Wardensaga provides a complete delve, ‘Beneath the Broken Sword’. This is designed as an introductory adventure which showcases how to play and how the Adventurer lives and dies. It begins with the Adventurer waking up not know where he is and what he should possess, so the first part is really looking for both, though the inevitable death within the first few locations will teach the player the transient nature of life and death in the roleplaying game and then reinforce the importance of the Adventurer’s possessions as they really are key to his survival. Lastly, the appendices consist of a short, but useful bestiary, and some player options as well as a pronunciation guide.

Physically, Runecairn: Wardensaga is well presented and the artwork is excellent. However, the writing does feel succinct in places, leaving the reader wanting a little clearer explanation. However, there is a good example of Adventurer and a good example of combat. Both do a good job of showing how the roleplaying game works. If there is anything missing from the pages of Runecairn: Wardensaga, it is details of the wider world, of the Nine Realms, which the Warden will have to develop. Another issue is that there is no differentiation within each Class, so that the only difference one Warrior and another is their core abilities. That said, Runecairn: Wardensaga is not designed for that style of play where these are multiple players. Nevertheless, when there are two players involved, they should ideally have their Adventurers each be of a different Class.

Runecairn: Wardensagaa is the complete version of Runecairn, containing everything needed to play, including a beginning scenario, and then more to play further, whether that is just one player and the Warden, as is standard, solo play, or more players. There is a fantastically brutal dynamism to the play of Runecairn: Wardensaga, combined with a strong player agency that the Warden is encouraged to support through the roleplaying game’s principles. In particular, the thrust back and forth of combat is desperate and gruelling, a player whose Adventurer has his equipment, always having choices in terms of how he attacks and he reacts. This reliance upon equipment emphasises the power of these choices and makes the Adventurer feel mortal—even though this is not the case as death returns him to the last bonfire—rather than like some fantasy superhero. Yet the heroic aspect of Runecairn: Wardensaga means that the Adventurer can return from the dead, to come back with the knowledge of what killed him and perhaps be better prepared for the next attempt.

Above all, Runecairn: Wardensaga is a really enticing roleplaying game for two that gives the Warden a set of solid tools with which to create the situations and delves for the Adventurer to get involved in, whilst for the player, there are some great Adventurers to play and bring to life and use their skills, and together the means to explore a broken world. Ultimately, Runecairn: Wardensaga is like a computer game in its one-on-one play-style, but its post-Ragnarök action has all the advantages of a tabletop roleplaying game—player agency, the varied and more reactive world created by the Warden, and the fierce and feisty actions, reactions, and decisions of the Adventurer.

—oOo—

By Odin’s Beard will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

The Other OSR—We Deal in Lead

The world has not so much died as moved on. Landscapes seem to stretch on and on, pockmarked by settlements and the ruins of ages past, as strange machinery rumbles below seemingly straining to keep the sky and the ground moving like they did the day before. Old technology, much of it advanced by the standards of then and now, rusts and moulders where it sits; strange creatures—some said to have been things of legend and myth, lurk, ready to pounce and rend the unwary; and magic weaves a cunning attraction for the studious and the curious, the ambitious and the foolish, its knowledge perhaps lost on this world, but not the next. Figures are seen to stalk this world, sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of beast which seems to understand their every action and word, and never leave their side, sometimes together in brotherly orders, but all wielding the gun, a deadly artefact that they use to kill. To kill the bandit, the robber, the cheat, and the murder, the apostate of their order, and in doing so restore order of society and ensure the men and women of this time can live free of tyranny and banditry. Then they are gone. Perhaps they left with the caravan as a guard, maybe they simply moved on to the next settlement, or they just found the Slip Door they were looking and their Guns knows the location of and stepped through, not to the next settlement, though there is always one, but the next world. This is the life of the Gunslinger, wielder of the legendary gun across the Drifted World and their credo is “We deal in lead.”

We Deal In Lead: A Weird West Wanders Game is an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game published by By Odin’s Beard. It is set in in the post-apocalyptic dark and weird west of the Drifted World that can step sideways into other worlds and genres and back again as legendary Gunslingers stalk the land, perhaps bringing order to the remnants of society, and then moving on to fulfil quests of their own. Perhaps to kill the murder of their order’s elder, retrieve their lost elder’s guns and take up her mantle, restore their honour, or even slay the demon within. It combines a stripped-down presentation with the mechanics inspired by Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave and presents the tools and tables to create wildernesses, worlds, and excursions, whether the Warden—as the Game Master is called—is running for a single player, a group, or a player is playing it as a journaling game and thus solo. As a setting and roleplaying game, it is very much inspired by Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series of novels, but also has the feel of a weird Spaghetti Western with genre-hopping possibilities in terms of other roleplaying adventures.

We Deal In Lead begins with advice for Warden and player alike. It does this as a series of principles presented as bullet points. For the Warden these include design philosophy—neutrality of the role, that the roleplaying game is Classless, death is always a possibility, the players should always be presented with clear choices, and the players share objectives, and so on, as well as the nature of adventures, content and safety tools, how to handle information, difficulty, narrative focus, and preparation, and present danger, treasure, and choice. For the player, the principles advise agency, teamwork, exploration, talking, caution, planning, and ambition, and if one path leads to defeat, then they should look for an alternative path. For the most part, these will be familiar to adherents of the Old School Renaissance, but are not elucidated upon, but rather kept short and to the point. The same is done when describing the Drifted World, a set of principles that are to the point rather than providing any great detail. On the plus side this means that there are going to be basic elements which will be the same from one Warden’s game of We Deal In Lead to another because the principles are presented in a direct and accessible fashion, whilst leaving plenty of scope for the Warden to develop the details. On the downside, this can leave the Warden with more effort required to prepare and run a game, although the book includes numerous tables designed to help with that. Overall, the sparse nature of these sets of principles reflects the open nature of We Deal In Lead’s Drifted World.

A Gunslinger in We Deal In Lead has three Abilities—Strength, Dexterity, and Heart, ranging in value between three and eighteen. Of the three abilities, Strength and Dexterity are obvious in their use, whilst Heart is used for social interaction, carrying out rituals, and in Gunslinger duels. Grit represents his ability to endure and continue rather than health, plus various physical and mental traits and some equipment. He owns a Gun, a firearm out of antiquity with inlaid stock and engraving. He may also be a member of an order of Gunslingers, led by an Errant. This might be a Player Character or an NPC. To create a Gunslinger in We Deal In Lead, a player chooses or rolls on the tables for name, surname, and background, plus any extra traits, and then three six-sided dice for the Gunslinger’s abilities, followed by two six-sided dice for his Grit. He selects or rolls for the details of his gun and his hat, and then some equipment. The Gunslinger is ready to play.

Maggie Chambers
Age: 38
TRAITS
Background: Bandit Physique: Short Skin: Pockmarked Hair: Braided Face: Sunken Eyes: Distant Speech: Squeaky Clothing: Colourful
Virtue: Tolerant Vice: Cold Reputation: Driven Misfortune: Heartbroken
Strength 13
Dexterity 16
Heart 15
Grit 9

EQUIPMENT
Three days’ rations, torch, 12 lead, Rifle with ironwood grip and hawk engraving, galloner hat

Mechanically, We Deal In Lead is straightforward. When a player wants his Gunslinger to act, he rolls a save versus either Strength, Dexterity, or Heart, needing to roll equal to or lower than the value. A one always succeeds and a twenty always fails. Standard rules are used for advantage and disadvantage. Armour provides some Defence, but only against mundane attacks, not against bullets. Damage is inflicted directly on Grit, then Strength, which can inflict critical damage. When Strength is reduced to zero a Gunslinger is dead. Critical damage necessitates checking on the Scars Table, which depending on the damage suffered, can leave the Gunslinger with concussion, bloodied, touched (and aware of the location of the next Slip Door), or even dead. Gunfire is resolved not through a Save versus an ability, but a roll of two six-sided dice on the ‘Shoot Table’ which might mean maximum damage, a hit or a graze, a miss, or a mishap. It is thus random, but because the gun of the Gunslinger is an artefact or relic gun, it grants certain advantages, including Steel Resolve, in which the Gunslinger draws resolve from his weapon to restore Grit and special attacks. These differ by weapon. Thus, there is ‘Fan the Hammer’ for the six shooter and ‘Give It Both Barrels’ for the shotgun. If a Gunsmith and a forge can be found, a Gunslinger can have his Gun upgraded, although the price is high.

Duels—and specifically duels against other Gunslingers—are even deadlier as you would expect. Contests are required to determine who fires first and hitting an opposing duellist necessitates a save versus Heart. Damage is deducted directly from a Duellist’s Strength rather than Grit. Combat can be deadly, especially duels, and opponents will often flee Gunslingers, their morale broken. Gunslingers themselves can also be affected by the loss of morale, though usually only when they lose their Guns or their Errant is killed. Then they are broken.

Beyond the core rules and combat, We Deal In Lead provides for magic and companion beasts. The latter can bond with a Gunslinger and so become a Gunslinger themselves—bar the Gun, of course, a loyal companion who can help a Gunslinger on his quest. The former mostly involves rituals, often cast by groups. No magic itself is described, but rather the rules suggest that it be rare, knowledge of it having been mostly lost, and not without its cost. Unless presented with the means and motive to cast magic, it is likely to remain a narrative aspect of a campaign’s villain and thus the province of the Warden. Further rules cover wilderness exploration, of which there is a lot in the roleplaying game, so turning parts of its play into a hexcrawl, and traversing to other worlds, primarily through Slip Doors. There are threats and legends that stalk the in-between spaces, but a Gunslinger’s Gun never stops working—though he may need to find a world’s alternative to lead. The wilderness rules are supported by a table of wilderness encounter hooks and a lengthier and more detailed set of tables to create excursions, essentially missions on the other side of Slip Doors on other worlds. Both are designed to work with the solo or journaling rules that allow a single player to stalk the Drifted World via his Gunslinger, including a flow chart to track his progress. In addition, the bestiary in the appendix provides nearly forty monsters to face along the way. Some feel drawn straight of Dungeons & Dragons, some have a cryptological bent to them, whilst others like the Mayhem Beast, Serfbot, Skinshift, Ursborg, and Drifted Third are native to the setting. Lastly, in the scenario, ‘Swampwater Shootout’, the Gunslingers go after the turncoat who killed the Errant of their Order. It is a fairly short affair, designed to introduce the game and its mechanics, and should provide a session’s worth of action.

Physically, We Deal In Lead is well presented. For the most part the book is done in cream, but the thick border of every page is colour coded according to the chapter and its subject matter. This makes finding things in the book that little bit easier. The rules are all very clearly presented and surprisingly, for a book of its length, supported by proper examples both of character creation and combat. The latter is quite lengthy, taking up two whole pages and also serving as an example of play.

If there is an issue with We Deal In Lead it is in its openness and often its sense of the ineffable and the beyond. It leaves a very great deal for the Warden to fill in and develop, certainly in terms of anything akin to a campaign or long-term play. For some Wardens this will not be an issue, but for others, it may be the case. By comparison, the short term is very well supported with encounters and excursion ideas. This does though mean that there is a flexibility to We Deal In Lead, the Warden being free to run it in the slightly done setting as presented, create her own endless prairie, or even switch genres to a standard Western.

We Deal In Lead: A Weird West Wanders Game takes the Old School Renaissance and the Wild West to an empty, endless frontier, its sparseness and openness often matched by the look of the book. Whilst the origins of We Deal In Lead: A Weird West Wanders Game may lie in micro-clones such as Cairn and Knave, the designers do an excellent job of building upon them to present something new, in a different genre with the sense of a world that really has drifted on.

The Other OSR—Cairn

The Old School Renaissance continues to evolve although in small steps. Thus we have Cairn, a small Old School-style roleplaying game derived from two other designs, Into the Odd and Knave, both highly regarded. Designed to be played by a Warden—its term for Game Master and a handful of players, it casts the Player Characters as hardened adventurers who undertake to explore a dark and mysterious Wood populated with strange folk, hidden treasure, and unspeakable monstrosities. As a system, it does not use character Classes, eschews Experience Points in favour of in-world experience to gain new skills and abilities, has death firmly placed around the corner, and play has the Player Characters working together towards a common objective. Thus, from Into the Odd, Cairn employs three attributes, deadly combat with automatic hits which make armour a wise choice and forces a player to ask whether combat is always the right solution, armour deducting damage suffered, whilst from Knave, it uses the equipment slot mechanics for everything a Player Character carries, including the one-spell spellbooks and similar tables for determining traits for the character.

Where Cairn starts is in presenting up front its principles of play for both the Warden and her players. For the Warden these deal with how information, difficulty, danger, choice, preparation, narrative focus, treasure, and fate are handled during play, whilst for the player they cover agency, teamwork, exploration, communication, caution, planning, and ambition. For example, when it comes to danger, the Warden is told that the Player Characters face real risk of pain and death; that she should telegraph any danger clearly to the players and their characters; traps should be obvious allowing the players and their characters time to work out to disarm them; and she should provide opportunities to solve problems and interact with the world. For the players and their characters, they are advised to use teamwork, seeking consensus before rushing to act, agreeing to follow the same goals and limits, to respect each other, and consequently accomplish more as a group than single characters. Many of the points are obvious, but here they are placed up front for both player and Warden, and direct and to the point. It is a case of, “Here is what you are playing and here is how you play it to get the best out of it.” It is solid advice and both sections should be read by the Warden and her players.

A Player Character in Cairn has three abilities—Strength, Dexterity, and Willpower. These are rolled on three six-sided dice. He has between one and six points of Hit Protection. This is not Hit Points in the traditional sense of roleplaying games, but rather a measure of resilience, luck, and gumption, rather than health. He has an Inventory of ten slots, which includes backpack, both hands, and upper body. A player rolls for the three abilities, and then on tables for name and background, and various character traits, including physique, skin, hair, face, speech, clothing, virtue, vice, reputation, and misfortunes. He also rolls for armour, helmet and shields, expeditionary gear, tools, trinkets, and a bonus item. In addition, the Player Character has some rations, a torch, and some gold. Optional Gear Packages are listed if the Warden and her players want to play a more traditional style of fantasy roleplaying game. These include Cleric, Dwarf, Elf, Fighter, Magic-User, Ranger, and Thief, but also the odder Dowser, Friar, and Knight. Most of the traits are roleplaying and appearance cues, but the Player Character’s Background suggests an area of knowledge and skills, though this not reflected mechanically in the game itself. It is left up to the Game Master to decide whether that is the case or not, but mechanically, this would have made each Player Character stand out a little more. The process is straightforward and takes a few minutes.

Name: Esme Hunter
Background: Smuggler
Strength: 07 Dexterity: 10 Willpower: 08
Physique: Scrawny Skin: Soft
Hair: Filthy Face: Rat-like
Speech: Formal Clothing: Bloody
Virtue: Courageous Vice: Craven
Reputation: Respected Misfortunes: Cursed

Equipment
Armour: Brigadine
Helmet and Shield: None
Weapons: Dagger, Cudgel, Staff
Backpack: Three days’ rations, torch, Wolfsbane, Drill, Dice Set, Metal File

Mechanically in Cairn, a Player Character rolls a Save against an appropriate ability, aiming to roll equal to or under. A one is always a success and a twenty always a failure. It is as simple as that, and combat does not much more in the way of complexity. In combat, a player will primarily be rolling to gain initiative and to inflict damage. Gaining the initiative—and therefore either the high ground or a point where an ambush can be performed—is important because it means that the Player Character can get a strike in first, inflict damage first, and hopefully defeat an opponent. This is because very attack hits and inflicts damage. Damage is rolled by weapon type, from a four-sided die for sling shots to a ten-sided die for a polearm, but attack damage can be reduced to a four-sided die no matter what the weapon if the combatants are fighting from a position of weakness or increased to a twelve-sided die if fighting from a position of strength.

Armour reduces damage, which is then deducted from the Player Character’s Hit Protection. Once that is reduced to zero, it is deducted from the defendant’s Strength. When this happens, a Strength Save is required to avoid taking critical damage. This is immediately crippling and lethal not that long after… If a defendant’s Strength is reduced to zero, then he dies anyway. If the Player Character’s Hit Protection is reduced to exactly zero without any Strength damage. The amount of damage suffered determines the result. For example, a two means that the Player Character suffers a Rattling Blow, and is disoriented and shaken. The player describes how his character refocuses and rerolls his character’s Hit Protection.

In the long term, Scars are the primary way in which the Player Character improves. Most have the player reroll his character’s Hit Protection. If higher than the character’s maximum Hit Protection, then the new maximum is kept. Others though, do the same for the Player Character’s Strength, Dexterity, or Will. In this way, suffering Scars becomes a learning experience for the Player Character. An uncertain one, but a learning experience nonetheless.

All Player Characters in Cairn can read and cast magic from a Spellbook, each of which holds one spell. The secret to writing spells is unknown and Spellbooks are mostly looted from dungeons and tombs. It is fatiguing to cast spells—modelled by having one Inventory slot filled temporarily to reflect tiredness and ability to carry items. A list of some hundred spells is included, such as Astral Prison, Flare, Ooze Form, or True Sight. Casting a spell can be done again and again, but the caster’s Fatigue grows, until he is exhausted and cannot cast any more. The variety of spells, their relative power, and the fact that they cannot be replicated makes them worth searching for.

Also worth searching for are Relics. These are items of magical power, perhaps imbued with a spell. Although they do not cause fatigue when used, they have limited use and the examples given possess strict means of being recharged. For example, the Honeyclasp is a rusted ring which can shrink the wearer to six inches tall and has three charges. To recharge it, it must be bathed in a thimble-sized cup of royal jelly. The few Relics here are clever and pleasing and different. However, Relics are not Treasure. Treasure—as stated in the principles at the start of Cairn, is always specific to the environment from where it is recovered, tells a story, is highly valuable, likely bulky, rarely useful beyond its worth and prestige, and in terms of game play, used as a lure to exotic locations under the protection of intimidating foes. However, there are no examples of treasure of Cairn and that contributes towards the primary issue with the roleplaying game.

Cairn includes a short bestiary of creatures, such as the Root Goblin, the Wood Troll, and the Frost Elf. These are nicely detailed and possess a certain flavour, and the bestiary is paralleled literally with a guide to creating monsters. Much like the rest of Cairn, these guidelines are short and to the point, and they include guideline for converting creatures and monsters from other Old School Renaissance roleplaying games.

So far, so good. What Cairn does is provide a simple, sturdy set of rules that play quickly and are quick to set up by the players, plus a few examples of what might be found or encountered when playing the game. Then nothing. In fact, not just one nothing, but rather three nothings, all of which could have been addressed in a handful of pages. The first omission is a lack of setting. One is implied, that the Player Characters are exploring a mysterious woodland, filled with all manner of creatures fae and fell, searching and pillaging ancient barrows, stealing powerful spellbooks, and slaying unspeakable monstrosities. Bar the half dozen monsters and four relics presented in the book, there is none of this implied setting on show, and hardly even that… So there is no example of a mysterious woodland at all. One such wood, Dolmenwood, is mentioned in the acknowledgements and that is a possible example of such a wood, but that wood tends towards a certain whimsy that Cairn does not necessarily lend itself to—as written. Nor is there a discussion of what such a woodland might be or any help and advice for the Game Master who wants to create one. That is the second omission, whilst the third is a lack of a scenario, and all three together means that Cairn is not only incomplete, but also fails to follow through on its implication.

Physically, Cairn is well presented, the writing to the point, and the artwork, all public domain, does much to suggest a dark forestial setting.

Cairn feels like it should be suited for a dark and gritty, grubby and mouldering campaign involving intrusions into the wilderness, exploring ancient woodlands, and delving into tombs and barrows of the ancient past, played by fragile men and women who might just learn from their experiences. It has the mechanics and rules to do this, quick and brutal, but backed up with some excellent design philosophies and principles placed at the front of the book. Yet as solid as the rules are in Cairn and as solid as its inspirations are in Into the Odd and Knave, Cairn ultimately fails as a complete RPG because it never follows through on its implied setting. It only tells you what that setting is, it never shows you what that setting is. When Cairn, Second Edition is published with either the setting, setting advice, scenario, or all three that current edition only implies, it will be a complete roleplaying game and all the better for it.

Community & Critters

Once humans walked the world, building cities and creating empires, unlocking the secrets of magic and interfered with the Gods’ designs. For their arrogance and hubris in disrupting the Harmony, the Third Moon fell and humans were destroyed. Not long after this Maelstrom, the Bright Ones lifted up the simple animals of forest and field, giving them the ability to think, build, and stand on their own two feet. In order to keep the newly Favoured or Awakened animals from making the same mistakes the humans did, The Bright Ones gave them the Compact—a book telling them how to live together in Harmony. Yet there is tension between those of the Awakened who want to uphold Harmony and those who would explore the secrets of the Titans—as the humans are known, those who would use too much magic, or those who make too much use of metal alloys. The danger is that should one of the Favoured fall out of Harmony, then he may become a ‘dire’ creature and become a source of Disharmony itself thus threatening the Compact.

This is the background to the Book of Cairn, an anthropomorphic RPG of community, responsibility, and doing the right thing. In Cairn, the players take on the roles of animal residents of the small town of Cairn—mice, otters, squirrels, beavers, even meerkats and duck billed platypi—who as Acrobat/Swashbucklers, Scholar/Wizards, Druid/Scouts, Cleric/Warriors, Barbarian/Minstrels, and other roles, work to protect the village, seek out sources of Disharmony, and uphold the Harmony of not only the village and surrounding lands, but also themselves.

Originally developed by Mike Nystul—best known as the author of the horror game, The Whispering Vault and various titles for FASA—and funded through Kickstarter, Cairn was eventually published by Ross A. Isaacs and Souljar Games. Where the Kickstarter promised “A fuzzy fantasy RPG” and “A Fantasy RPG featuring woodland animals such as mice, badgers and hedgehogs as epic heroes. Tiny critters - Big Adventure!”, the final PDF (and print) version actually delivers something a little deeper than that. In addition, whilst it is possible to see the architecture of Dungeons & Dragons—particularly in the range of professions available, in having the player characters form parties and go off on adventures, and in it being a class and level system—underlying the game, mechanically, the Book of Cairn is a much lighter, more flexible game (and the better for it).

In the Book of Cairn, the players play a range of animals, each of which can stand up right, has fully opposable thumbs, and is capable of speech. Each animal also has its own capabilities. For example, a Mouse is Chosen (meaning that he is more capable of withstanding Disharmony) and Small (reduced Hit Points and limited equipment, but also that he weighs less and takes up less space). Whereas the Armadillo is Big (more Hit Points and a better range of equipment), can Burrow, has Claws, can Curl  (into a ball to increase his Defence), is Plated (natural armour), and has a better sense of Smell, but is Squinty (short-sighted). In addition to the stats, the place of every animal in the community is discussed, for example, Beavers work as architects,  engineers, construction workers, and carpenters—even furniture makers, whilst Platypi tend to be sailors and fishermen. Also included is a useful guide on how to play each creature, with particular attention paid to a typical creature’s ‘Flight or Fight’ response.

In addition to the twenty or so Creature options, a player has another twenty options in terms of Professions—from Acrobat, Alchemist, and Barbarian to Swashbuckler, Warrior, and Wizard. Besides telling what equipment a member of that Profession receives and the skills acquired every other level, each of the Professions has a Virtue/Vice whenever a character rolls a natural twelve for the associated action. When this happens, the character can choose to use it as a Virtue to benefit his friends and gain Harmony, or he can use it as a Vice to benefit himself, but lose Harmony. For example, the Marksman’s Virtue/Vice is Deadeye. As a Virtue, it means he shoots an arrow to distract an enemy who hesitates and so gives an opportunity for his friends to act, but as a Vice, his next arrow will land somewhere niggling and vexing to the enemy.

To create a character in the Book of Cairn, a player selects an animal and decides how it is different to others of his species—faster, cuter, stronger, smarter, and so on. Then he decides on not one, but two Professions. He will gain the base abilities, Hit Points, and Magic Points from both, but will then alternate between each Profession in terms of ability, Hit Point, and Magic Point gain, the player deciding which is his primary Profession and which is his secondary Profession. It is possible to become a Specialist and effectively focus on a single Profession, but he whilst he will gain Hit Points and Magic Points every level, he will only gain abilities every other level.

Name: Nightleaf
Species/Class: Opossum Swashbuckler/Rogue Level 0
Traits: Big (+1 HP/Level), Fainting, Prehensile Tail, Resist Venom, Shadowed
Abilities: Fight +2, Parry 1, Climb, Nimble Fingers
Fight: +1 Shoot:  Defence: 4 Speed: 4 
Virtue/Vice: Panache/Opportunist
Hit Points: 23 Magic Points: 9
Harmony: 09 (18)
Equipment: Dagger, Rapier, Fancy Clothes, Bottle of Dandelion Wine, toolkit bundle

Some Professions—Druids, Enchanters, Healers, Priests, Sorcerers, and Wizards—can cast spells. Every Profession receives Magic Points, primarily because the Magic Points of a character’s non-spellcasting Profession complements those of his spellcasting Profession. Of course, there is nothing to stop a character selecting two spellcasting professions. In most cases, a character with a spellcasting Profession must purchase his spells and do so by permanently expending Magic Points. He must still temporarily expend Magic Points to actually cast the spells, so needs to balance the need to purchase spells and the need to power them. For the most part, spells in the Book of Cairn are anything other than flashy.

The Priest, is of course, slightly different. It cannot be combined with the Sorcerer or Wizard Professions. Instead of purchasing spells, a Priest selects spells from one day to the next, investing Magic Points in them to cast later.

Name: Woodwatch
Species/Class: Squirrel Druid/Shifter Level 0
Traits: Climb, Dash, Leap
Abilities: Companion (Squirrel), Novice Spells, Affinity (Squirrels)
Fight: +1 Shoot:  Defence: 6 Speed: 6 
Virtue/Vice: Nature’s Blessing/Adapt
Hit Points: 18 Magic Points: 7
Harmony: 15 (20)
Spells: Surestride, Sustain, Whispertread
Equipment: Treestaff, Rugged Clothing, Totem, Quarterstaff

Mechanically, the Book of Cairn is fairly simple and straightforward. When a character wants to take an action, he rolls a Test. If he needs to react against something, he rolls a Save. Either way, a character rolls a twelve-sided die and attempts to equal or beat a Difficulty—6 for Routine, 8 for Challenging, 10 for Heroic, and so on. Rolls of a natural twelve count as an overwhelming success, but a character will receive a +1 bonus for each appropriate element—Trait, Ability, Tool, and so forth— on his character sheet. For example, an Armadillo is Big and could use that to add a bonus when intimidating some rats.

At the core of the Book of Cairn is the concept of Harmony. As a Favoured One, every character is—to some degree or other—in Harmony with the Compact and the community at large. Measured between one and twenty, if character’s Harmony is sixteen or more, he is said to be in a state of Grace; if between one and fifteen, he is in a state of Balance; if between zero and minus ten, he is in a state of Disharmony; and below that, he is in a Dire state! There are benefits to being in a state of Grace and penalties for being in a state of Disharmony, but once in a Dire state, a character becomes a source of Disharmony and an NPC!

There are multiple ways in which a character can lose Harmony. For raising the stakes to gain re-rolls of Tests and Saves, for wearing and wielding arms, armour, and equipment made of metal alloys, for encountering sources of Disharmony, for acts of violence—especially when better alternatives are available, and for using magic. It can be gained for acts of heroism, kindness, generosity, and friendship as well as for defeating the Dire and the Unnatural. The biggest source of Harmony is not defeating the Dire or the Unnatural though force of arms, but rather addressing the sources of the Disharmony behind the Dire or Unnatural and thus restoring the natural balance. This is of course, more difficult than simply fighting it. Lastly, the Favoured Ones can engage in celebrations—and often do—and so regain Harmony. This can be anything from doing a small favour or cooking a meal for friends to meditating or participating in a festival.

To return to the parallels with Dungeons & Dragons, Harmony and Disharmony is the equivalent of the Alignment system in the Book of Cairn. It is more mechanical in nature though and consists of two alignments—Harmony and Disharmony—compared to the nine found in Dungeons & Dragons. Naturally, the punishment of being in Disharmony is greater than the reward of being in Harmony, but the Harmony/Disharmony duality of the Book of Cairn is much simpler and easier to understand and it encourages and rewards positive behaviour and action. As does the Virtue/Vice mechanics for each Profession.

Another aspect of the game that encourages positive behaviour and action is its sense of community and home. A community is measured by four statistics—Food, Resources, Morale, and Security—that can be affected by random events and by the actions of the player characters. For example, a bandit raid on a caravan might reduce a community’s Resources and Security by one each. If the heroes decide to track down the bandits and put a stop to their predations, then they might be able to increase either the Community’s Resources or Security by one, but not both. Further, such an adventure can only happen once a season, though not during the winter. This is in addition to the other adventures that the heroes might have, such as ‘Can you stop the Witch before she curses all the berries of the forest?’, ‘ Will you find the source of corruption withering Farmer Cottonstar’s fields?’, or ‘What of the growing threat of otters and moles working outside the town?’. A random event that affects the town happens every season though… 

This is the default set-up, and to be fair, Cain does not readily support others. So the GM will need to work hard if he wants to do something else with Cairn other than have the player characters  working to keep their community safe and strong. The default community for the Book of Cairn is the eponymously named Cairn, a small town located where two rivers merge above an estuary. Named for the mysterious stack of stones piled up by the Titans, it is home to a range of bucolic creatures—Beavers, Otters, Mice, Squirrels, and so on. Of course this does not mean it cannot also be home to the odder Awakened—Duck Billed Platypi, Meerkats, Lorises, and so on. The description of Cairn focuses upon its primary buildings, such as the Town Hall, the Cider Mill Inn, and Professor Puddleleaf’s Observatory. Not only are these described, but they are each given six adventure hooks, each of which has the potential to improve the stats for the community and thus involve the characters in the life of the town.

Physically, the Book of Cairn is nicely presented and the artwork has a certain charm. The same can also be said of the Book of Cairn as a whole. This is charm though—and not cute. For the danger in presenting an anthropomorphic fantasy RPG is that it turns into little more more than a cutesy, fuzzy version of Dungeons & Dragons, yet there is merit in the ‘fuzziness’ if not the ‘cute’, because the ‘fuzziness’ still makes the game accessible to a younger audience. Whilst this is true of Cairn, its emphasis is on community, Harmony, and non-violent solutions, actually makes it suitable for a younger audience as much as its ‘fuzziness’ does. Nevertheless, whilst there are strong parallels between Cairn and Dungeons & Dragons, they are not so strong that they threaten to smother Cairn. Rather, the Book of Cairn takes takes those parallels and develops them into strong motivations for player character action whilst coupling them with light and easy mechanics.