The Upper Valley. Map by Amanda P.

Introduction

I'm back again, Gentle Reader, with another play report from the ongoing West Marches game being run by Yochai Gal, creator of Cairn, in order to continue to refine the Cairn 2nd edition rules. My apologies for the delay with this post. I've started a new job that is demanding a great deal of energy from me at the moment, but I've decided to put my nose back to the grindstone so I don't end up too far behind on these session reports.

This particular session can be considered a bit of a social adventure, which occasionally people pop out of the woodwork to ask for examples of. I am one of those people, so it should come as no surprise that I consider this to be one of the best sessions I have had as a player in recent memory. So buckle up and get ready to hear about some town antics.

Spoiler Alert: Yochai has written these locations up in a form that is publishable, which means they may end up in some sort of physical form at some point. No promises or anything, I just mention it because if you're the player in a Cairn campaign you may want to duck out now in case your Warden ever wants to use them.

Player Characters

• Harrow (Derek/Me) - Fieldwarden Background

• Aster (Zedeck Siew) - Beast Handler Background

• Snowdrop (Bobby M.) - Foundling Background

Play Report

1st of Highwater, Year 7728

Omen: (I need you all to imagine a faux-British accent Princess Zelda saying this): "The moon turns a deep crimson, bathing the night in an eerie, blood-red light. Some say it heralds a time of chaos and strife, as the boundaries between The Woods and the mortal realm grow thin."

The group decided to take the job Swallowed Whole, which involved discovering the reason for the disappearances of several individuals in and around Isthmus Town (this is based on the Omen that was rolled the previous session). Aster and Harrow were accompanied in this venture by a man named Snowdrop, and together they opted to travel by foot rather than pay for Donkeys to travel up the Mill Pass. They passed the Deadmill on the way to Isthmus Town, but decided it would be better to get information from Reeve Trellis before investigating. Aster inquired from passerby if Deadmill was so named because of abandonment, or undead presence. The former was confirmed, much to the relief of the group.

The party headed straight to Reeve Trellis's office at the Stuffed Inn, the only lodging available in town. Inside the Reeve's office, they were struck by the shabby trappings of the room. An Ugly, stained rug with a flimsy-looking desk on top were both on display. They were informed that there had been strange reports of tapping at windows at night, red eyes in the darkness, etc. The Reeve suspected some sort of supernatural force at work.

Three people were missing: Aldra the butcher (well-liked by the community), Fasha the farmer (disliked by almost everyone), and a courier for The Southern Valley Coalition who was seen actually sinking into the ground near the Deadmill.

Interestingly, Aldra and Fasha were considered friends despite their different reputations.

The group felt that it was too late to visit Deadmill that day, but agreed that they would go first thing in the morning. In the meantime, Aster suggested that the party talk to the children who saw the courier and the people whose windows were visited. The party splits up in order to visit everyone before nightfall.

Aster visited with one of the boys who saw the courier vanish, a boy by the name of Drum who happened to work at the Inn. He discovered that the local children play a game where they see who can get closest to the Deadmill and then turn around. Drum was attempting this when he turned around and saw the courier get sucked into the ground. He also mentioned that he saw something flashing inside the mill as this was happening.

Aster also learned that Aldra is (was?) a Tideborn, while Fasha was considered a scoundrel who often tried to do things like sell people bad goods. They both apparently disappeared on the way to Reprieve, the last stop on the river before the waterfall of God's Spill.

Meanwhile, Harrow visited a widow by the name of Giva who was one of the victims of the strange tapping at windows in the middle of the night. She proved to be fairly unhelpful, insisting that there were no monsters, that Reeve Trellis was a moron, and that she could think of a few more people she would like to disappear as well. A dead end.

Snowdrop, on the other hand, made his way to Fasha's farm on the outskirts of town, where his initial impression was that of failed crops and neglected sheep. Inside the homestead he found mold-ridden blankets, a busted roof, and a general sorry state of affairs. He also found the seal of Waterfall City amongst some burned papers in the oven, which suggested that Fasha was trying to hide something.

Aster, not having to travel to find answers, had time to visit the wife of the butcher, Aldra. He learned that the reason Aldra and Fasha were traveling to Reprieve was due to an "opportunity" that Fasha knew about. The Beast Handler also discovered that Aldra has been hoping to convert the farmer to the Tideborn religion. Aster bonded with the grieving wife due to his burgeoning faith in the Tideborn religion, making assurances that they would do what they could to solve the butcher's disappearance.

The three met back at the Stuffed Inn to discuss their findings, ultimately deciding to take the seal that Snowdrop had found to Reeve Trellis. The Reeve confirmed that the Waterfall City seal had been attached to a tithe that Isthmus Town regularly paid to said city, and that some had gone missing as of late. Reeve Trellis seemed more nervous than outraged at "discovering" this information, leading the group to suspect that he was involved in some sort of plot.

When he "grew tired" and retreated to his room, the party decided that the best course of action was to set up a watch in order to see if they could spot anything going on at night like people sneaking away from the inn, creatures sneaking through the night, or a nervous Reeve coming to slit their throats.

Harrow agreed to take the first watch, and during it he spotted shadowy figures skulking in the dark outside of people's houses. Stripping out of most of his garments, he exited via their room's window and transformed into a Werewolf (surprise!). Wolf-Harrow was able to easily sneak up on the figures, who proved to be robed individuals with clawed hands.

Zedeck continues to graciously share his wonderful visual notes of our sessions.

With his lupine senses, Harrow was able to easily tell that the figures beneath the robes were human, their claws made of metal. He followed them to several houses where the continued their bizarre harassment of the people of Isthmus Town. He overheard enough conversation to pick out the phrases "meet back at farm" and "gone tomorrow", but he was unable to determine more. The two eventually split up, with one heading out of town and the other heading back towards the Stuffed Inn. Harrow opted to follow the latter, hoping to learn the identity of the individual (and not wanting to leave his two companions undefended from a potential threat).

He trailed the cloaked individual from a safe distance, relying on scent more than sight, and so was surprised to find the trail suddenly end at a patch of ground behind the inn. Harrow suspected some sort of strange Relic was being employed to manipulate the earth, and that this same method used to pull the courier into the ground. He decided to return to the others, successfully overcome his urge to stay in his wolf form (WIL save!), and woke up Snowdrop to both allow him to take his Watch shift and also to inform him as to what had happened.

After Harrow had passed out, the strain of transformation having taken its toll, Snowdrop decided that further investigation was necessary. The Foundling snuck out of their room and began to search for a way into the Stuffed Inn's cellar, hoping to surprise the person who must surely be below. He found no entrances where they are commonly found in inns and taverns, but could hear some sort of movement down below.

Finally, Snowdrop heard a noise coming from Reeve Trellis's office and slowly moved to investigate. As he approached, he noted that the curtain that acted as the room's door was moving as if there was a wind or someone had recently passed through it. He successfully navigated the creaky floorboards (DEX save!) to make his way quietly inside.

Inside the office, he moved the ugly rug underneath the Reeve's desk aside to reveal the outline of a trapped door. As he leaned in to inspect the trap door his Heirloom Amulet began to glow, indicating the presence of magic. Knowing he was unlikely to be able to move the desk noiselessly by himself, he retreated back to the room and woke Aster up take the last watch.

Aster spent his watch sipping tea at the bar-top waiting for further developments, but the rest of the night proved uneventful.

In the morning, the boy Drum showed up to take them to the Deadmill as previously discussed, but the party had a sidebar where they brought up concerns that going to that location was now almost certainly a trap. Meanwhile, Reeve Trellis arrived and tried to rush the party out to Deadmill, insisting that more disturbances had happened again in the night. This helped to confirm the fears of the group, and they decided to sneak into the cellar through the trap door in Reeve Trellis's office instead.

Aster attempted to get the Reeve to take him to a wise woman to get supplies and information regarding the "supernatural threat" the town was facing, but Trellis insisted that no such person existed. The old Beast Handler pivoted, asking instead to be taken to the sites of the last night's disturbances. The Reeve reluctantly agreed, and Harrow likewise convinced Drum that he needed to go pick up an urgent missive from the mean old lady that the former Fieldwarden had talked to the previous evening (and to "not take no for an answer!")

Potential witnesses taken care of, Harrow and Snowdrop snuck into the Reeve's office, removed the surprisingly flimsy desk from atop the rug, and opened the trap door. The room below was unlit, and so they borrowed a lantern from the desk and ventured below. They found a workshop with a work bench, barrels, and a string hanging from the ceiling.

Harrow investigated the string, confirming that it was a means of bring down a hidden trap door. What he had suspected was a supernatural ability was really just clever camouflage. Snowdrop found a strange amulet with markings (three wavy lines and two black dots) that seemed familiar and yet were ultimately unknown to him, but his own amulet indicated that the new-found jewelry was magical in nature.

Meanwhile, Aster found himself being escorted by Reeve Trellis at an aggressive pace, the town leader clearly eager to get rid of him.
He feigned clumsiness, running into someone carrying goods to market and causing both a mess and a scene. The Reeve's affable mask began to crack, and he impatiently waited for the older man to pick himself back up and continue on their way.

They stopped at the same house that Harrow had visited the previous night, the residence of the widow Giva, and the Reeve tried to extricate himself from the Beast Handler's social clutches and return to his office. Desperate, Aster clutched his chest and pretended to have a heart attack. This had the effect of not only stopping the Reeve from leaving, but also caused Giva to come out of her house to see what all the fuss was about.

All patience lost, the Reeve attempted to leave Aster to questioning Giva about the disturbances she experienced last night, but the crafty widow inquires as to how the Reeve knew that she had experienced a disturbance when she had yet to report it to anyone. Caught in a lie, the Reeve ended up meekly accepting the invitation the tea leveled at him by Giva, and the widow arranged for Aster to sneak out of the back of her house in order to get to the bottom of what was going on.

By the time Aster arrived back at the Stuffed Inn, Harrow and Snowdrop had already hauled most of the barrels (which proved to be missing tribute money) from the cellar and into the light of day. Harrow confronted Reeve Trellis as soon he made an appearance, denouncing the man's acts of theft and corruption in front of the townsfolk. The Reeve attempted to flee, but didn't make it far before Harrow brought him down with a well-placed stone from his sling.

Once Reeve Trellis regained consciousness, a variety of persuasive methods were used in order to try and get him to talk:

• Snowdrop opted to smoke some Pipeweed with the man, while Aster used his bond with snakes to make his bite venomous.

• Aster's method rather quickly diminished the benefits of Snowdrop's approach, but it did serve to get the man to admit to some wrongdoing.

• However, it was Harrow's attempt to assure the Reeve that cooperating was more likely to be looked on more favorably by The Southern Valley Coalition that ultimately broke the man and caused him to talk.

He revealed that Aldra found out about the stolen tithes and revealed this knowledge to Reeve Trellis, not knowing the man was secretly working with Fasha. The two lured the butcher out of town on false pretenses and then drowned him in the river, taking his amulet because it seemed valuable. Aster recognized the markings on the amulet as signifying the god Rivulus, and now understood what it had been doing with the two thieves.

Frustratingly, the Reeve claimed to not know the nature of the amulet, what actually happened to the courier, as well as where Fasha had gotten off to. He did mention, however, that the farmer assured the Reeve that he would "take care" of the party.

Witness acts of great heroism, such as hitting an old man with a sling bullet as he runs away and snake venom torture! Art and words by Zedeck Siew.

Having solved the disappearance of Aldra, the party decided to go to Deadmill and try to sort out the disappearance of the courier and deal with Fasha in the process. It was decided that Aster and Drum would approach the mill from the main path, while Harrow and Snowdrop would circle around to the back of the building using the Foundling's Spellbook of Control Plants to make a path.

As Aster and Drum approached from the front, the Beast Handler noticed that the mill was tilted precariously, as if its foundation had started to give way. As the two stepped closer, a man stepped out of Deadmill, glanced backward into the building, and then stepped forward off the steps and into some oddly-colored sand. Said sand promptly swallowed the man up, giving him just long enough to emit an ear-piercing scream before his head went under.

Drum explained with some confusion that this was the same courier that he had originally seen sucked into the ground. About 30 seconds passed, then the same man stepped out of the mill, glanced back, and promptly fell and was swallowed once more. Seeing this, Aster shouted a warning to the others and prepared to try and save the man.

Meanwhile, Harrow and Snowdrop approached Deadmill from the side, getting close enough to see that the blades of the mill were in pristine condition and covered in a strange script. They heard the shouting, but couldn't make out what the old Beast Handler was saying. Out of an abundance of caution, they decided to circle around the mill to where Aster and Drum were waiting.

Another 30 seconds, and once again the man stepped out of mill. Aster tried to shout to the man and warn him of his predicament, and the man seemed to be listening, but he was moving forward too quickly as he stepped onto the steps of the mill and ended up tumbling into the sand anyway. Aster tossed the man his Silk Rope and Grappling Hook, and pulled the suspected courier to safety.

Harrow and Snowdrop had arrived at the front of the mill by the time the man had been successfully fished out, and it was confirmed that the man, Jandy, was a courier for the The Southern Valley Coalition. He had been sent to Deadmill to retrieve a Relic, but had found said Relic to be wedged between the millstones. When he attempted to manipulate the mechanisms within the mill to free the Relic, the Deadmill began to tilt precariously. He went outside to investigate, was startled by a bright light from behind him, and fell into the sinkhole outside.

He had no memory of any of his previous fatal falls, and insisted that he had left from Reprieve that morning. He was quite alarmed to learn that in actuality a whole week had gone by. The party decided to try and retrieve the Relic (the Echo Spark).

Harrow suggested that they use Aster's grappling hook and rope to pull the mill's blades the opposite direction, which would cause the millstones to give up their shiny prize. This didn't solve the problem of how to get it once it had been freed, and so Snowdrop circled around the side of the mill and entered a window through on the opposite side of the sinkhole.

The Foundling slid down the sloped floor, caught the Relic as it was freed from the wheels, and avoided getting tangled in the machinery (DEX save!).

This manipulation of the Deadmill, combined with Snowdrop's acrobatic efforts, caused the mill to begin sinking further into the ground. Snowdrop pulled himself out of the window he came from and made it clear of the building just before the whole structure sunk into the ground.

The party successfully rescued the courier, solved a murder, and discovered a tax evasion scheme. Sadly, they had to return the Echo Spark to Jandy in order to maintain their good relations with The Southern Valley Coalition, which were no doubt strengthened by their uncovering the plots of Fasha and Reeve Trellis.

Rewards

• 50 GP each.

• Possibly the magical amulet of Aldra, given Aster's status as a believer?

Mysteries

• Where did Fasha flee to?

• What does the magical amulet of Aldra actually do?

• What does The Southern Valley Coalition actually do with all of the Relics they collect?

Reflection

Like many in the OSR/NSR space, I'm pretty fond of Dungeons. Mostly because I enjoy exploration and uncovering secrets, and a good dungeon rewards such behavior. There's nothing like an actual mystery, though, to really get the blood pumping. However, I think of Social Modules as a bit of an unexplored area within the space compared to Adventure Sites, so I was pleasantly surprised by how this job turned out.

In case it isn't clear, this adventure came about as a result of Omen Result from the previous session, "The night sky grows dimmer each evening, as if stars are disappearing one by one. Rumors of hellish creatures capturing farmers and pulling them into The Roots are spreading like wildfire. Village elders believe the two are connected." I'm not 100% sure if Yochai took this result and made the whole scenario up wholecloth, or if he simply incorporated the courier sinking into the ground into an existing intrigue he had previously cooked up (the disappearance of Aldra).

I think what really made this work was the fact that there were two events that had happened that were unrelated but seemed to be connected (something that the Reeve was happy to encourage). This caused us (or maybe just me) to come to some false conclusions early on, such as the fact that the robed figures must be using a Relic to move through the earth because how would they suck a courier into the ground otherwise? If the party hadn't heard that story about the courier, Harrow would have likely actually investigated the ground where the figure (the Reeve in disguise) had disappeared and discovered the trap door.

Playing a character that is a secret werewolf proved to be just as much fun as I thought when I initially rolled it. In many games starting with such an ability would be considered overpowered and require a long entry of rules and caveats, but in Cairn it is pretty straightforward. Nothing transforms with Harrow, and people aren't really going to be cosmopolitan about a lycanthrope being in their midst, so wolfing out is incredibly useful but not always the best option.

Aster also made "good" use of his Beast Handler ability of assuming animal traits by using snake venom to torture the Reeve, and Snowdrop demonstrated that Control Plants is an incredibly useful Spellbook to have in any kind of wilderness context. Honestly, though? My favorite action during the whole session was Aster faking a heart attack to delay the Reeve's return. Never underestimate the power of well-timed bullshitting.

We scored a lot of points with The Southern Valley Coalition this session, though I'm not sure that is a good thing given that they have a thing about not letting people have Relics. The Echo-Spark would have been a useful thing to have in future sessions, but hopefully making nice will pay off in the long run (where do they keep all their Relics, I wonder...).

That's all for now. We've already played the third session, which proved to be quite harrowing (heh), but that is a story for a later date.