Introduction

Today is a bit of a combination blog post, Gentle Reader. I was recently given the opportunity to run a game for my wife and a married couple we are friends with, and so naturally the game that I chose to run was Cairn 2e. Though it probably doesn't seem like it from my play reports, for most of my gaming history I have been the one behind the screen. This group ran the gamut of experience levels: a person who had never played any sort of TTRPG before (my wife), a seasoned veteran of games such as 5e and Pathfinder, and a person who had dabbled in TTRPGs but found the experience kind of alienating and unsatisfactory.

I wanted to run a module that would be a great introduction to the OSR playstyle, and so I decided to run what many consider to be the unofficial one-shot of choice for introducing new players to Cairn. I am, of course, referring to Barrow of the Elf King by Nate Treme of Highland Paranormal Society fame. The only problem is that I am rarely satisfied to run any module by the book. I have internalized so many things from reading OSR blogs for over a decade, and so I can't help but tweak things to my taste.

Confession time: I wrote about a fourth of a play report in my typical prose-heavy style before I realized most of you probably don't need a fictionalized account of a dungeon you've probably at least read and quite possibly run on more than one occasion. It's not like this is Yochai's unique West Marches setting or Gus's unreleased Bronze Bones/Iron Barrow module, now is it?

So follow along with me as I allow a peek behind the curtain of this session. I shall reveal the fate of my would-be barrow plunderers, what I changed in this module and why, and at the end even some musings about why introducing people to Cairn is so satisfying for me.

Roster

• Brook the Marchguard
• Quintess the Aurifex
• Sterling the Mountebank

Obviously there are spoilers for Barrow of the Elf King from this point onward.

Session Report

I started this game by reading the Design Philosophies and Player Principles of Cairn to my table. I stole this idea from someone on the Cairn Discord. I don't recall who. With 1e I probably wouldn't have bothered, but 2e is a bigger document and that can be intimidating until you realize that almost all of the page count consists of Backgrounds that you don't have to read. Anyway, I told my players to not bother to read anything, made 6 pre-generated characters (which doesn't take nearly as long in Cairn as it does in some systems), and let them pick their favorite one before we got started. No shopping. I hate shopping during a session. I think Cairn is more fun if the 1st session has that Roguelike experience of having to figure things out with the odd assortment of stuff you happen to have on hand.

I'm sure, Gentle Reader, you might be wondering why I didn't walk them through the character creation process. Especially since it is incredibly quick in Cairn. To answer your unasked question, I didn't want to waste even 5 minutes of time rolling and penciling things in. Character creation is more fun whenever you have a chance of keeping the characters anyway, and this was only a one-shot.

Anyway, I started with a pretty hard framing: They were in a roadside inn, heard another patron talking about a Compass they had that had led them to Barrow of the Stag Lord, an infamous but long-dead individual that it was said once stalked men throughout the lands and made them his prey (This other group was composed of the three unpicked character sheets, and I inserted these guys to act as potential back-up characters). The party eavesdropped on the conversation, learned the location of the Barrow, and left the inn early to get there first. I started them in the glade deep in the forest where the mound that formed the top of the Barrow could be seen. The start of a game, especially a one-shot, is the one time that you can just force players into a situation and ask them to play ball. If this were a long-running campaign they would have options, but it's a 3-4 hour one-time thing so we are starting that shit at the dungeon.

Change #1: Elf King to Stag Lord- I made this change simply because I was contemplating starting Dolmenwood (with Cairn, naturally) as a long-running campaign after this assuming things went well, and I didn't think the Elf King as depicted in the module fit with that. So I came up with an alternative entity in the form of the Stag Lord: a badass huntsman who made a deal with Faerie to become the world's greatest hunter of beast and man.

He had stag horns growing out of his head, probably because of reading too much about Herne the Hunter or something, and he transformed men that he found in the forest into bestial forms that he delighted in hunting for sport. If you survived for a night and a day he would spare your life in exchange for serving him. Swell fellow.

Making an Entrance

Anyway, I started them directly in front of the mound and they almost immediately found the alternative entrance in the oak tree. Sterling's player wanted to blow her Whistle that her character had as a result of rolling the Bond involving carving one out of the branch of an Oak Lord. What is an Oak Lord, you might ask? Well, she did as well, and so my first improvisation of the evening was to come up with an answer to that: an Oak Lord, you see, is like Old Man Willow from The Fellowship of the Rings. Nasty old tree spirits that like to lure travelers off-path and to their doom. Anyway, there's no stated effect for the Whistle, but I decided that she could try to use it to ask the trees for aid, but it would require a WIL save to do so without consequence.

Sadly, Quintess's player cautioned against giving away their position, and Brook's player suggesting actually examining the mound before resorting to using potentially cursed objects. They approached the mound and noted the fallen stones that appeared to have once been a cairn. Quintess's player cleverly inquired as to if he could see signs of the top stone actually impacting the ground, or if it seemed more like it had been placed there. I declared that they seemed to not have caused any deformation of the ground, suggesting they had been placed. They decided to stack them, causing the secret entrance to open.

Once inside, they come upon a narrow hallway that has four statues in four separate alcoves: Each has an intricately carved body in the likeness of a servant's livery that tapered off to uncut stone as they approach the feet of the statues. At the top of each statue sit actual skulls of bone, horribly twisted amalgams of man and beast: One a fox, one a boar, one a rabbit, and one that of a spider. Each has glittering green gemstones for eyes (8 in the case of the spider), and the boar has a gilded decorative tusk-sheath on one side. Each sits in a tilted recess forcing the head into a permanently subservient position, but doesn't appear to be otherwise attached.

Change #2: The Skull Trap- This particular part of the module is really the whole impetus for reskinning and tweaking it. A trap that doesn't quite lend itself to being telegraphed as well as traps in Cairn are supposed to be, and with deadly consequences if you fail to display adequate caution. In the original version, the skulls are just sitting there with no real way to indicate their danger (besides the fact that gems sitting out in the open are an obvious honey-pot).

The idea with this revision was to engender a bit more caution due to the skulls being placed upon statues, and a clue due to the positions of the head. The silver wire is attached to the jawbones: lift the head up by the chin (like a defiant servant raising their gaze) and you trigger the trap, but tilting the head further downward would reveal the wire and allow a clever player to disarm the trap. I thought about including a riddle on the wall as well, but most players hate that sort of thing.

The players were rightfully pretty freaked out by the statues, though some of that caution was overcome by the gems that were embedded in the skulls. Quintess's character was very concerned about the potential for the statues to animate, so the description of the unworked stone legs helped assuage his fears. Quintess's player briefly considered using his Homunculus (mini version of himself made out of clay) to try and retrieve some stones, but the fact that damage done would transfer to him ultimately deterred him. Brook's character pointed out that they could always come back for them, and in the end they resolved themselves to "snatch them on the way out."

So, yeah, not a complete success on improving the trap, but it was worth a shot.

Stag Party

They left the gems untouched and went South into the burial chamber, which in my version has a pedestal where the Stag Lord has been transformed via taxidermy into a life-like display that made them very cautious to approach. Near him sat a delicate-looking silver hunting horn that was snugly fit into a stand. Sterling's player, a bit put off because she hadn't gotten to blow her Whistle, decided she was absolutely going to blow the horn.

Change #3: The Grave Slab Dungeon Dressing- I wanted to embrace the hunting theme of the Stag Lord and make something really creepy for the players to find. Anyone can find a skeleton in a tomb, but what about a life-like, creepily preserved supernatural entity? I turned the hourglass into a horn to fit with this theme, and made it valuable (but hard to remove from its stand without damaging it) so that players might think twice before smashing it to get rid of the Stag Lord. Also, his greatsword became a hunting bow because that seemed more on-brand.

As she blew the horn, glowing white lines of arcane glyphs lit up the body of the instrument, and a figure glowing the same eerie white stepped out of the taxidermied body. The module had him sort of starting off angry, but I wanted to do a more properly OSR Reaction roll to see where his mood was at. I got Kind of all things, so the Stag Lord was initially pleased to see that people had woken him up, assuming there was a great hunt that he was meant to take part in.

However, his demeanor takes a turn for the worse when he realizes that none of the PCs are actually prepared for a hunt, appearing to lack even the bare minimum of equipment. Sterling's character tried to feed him a complete line of BS, but she didn't really have any compelling arguments so I called for a Willpower Save to see if there would be any consequences. I really hated to do this because one of the hallmarks of OSR play is being able to do Social Interaction without dice rolls, but in this instance I think it was necessary. I took the time to explain to her that normally things could be resolved without dice rolls with compelling enough arguments and leverage, but that in this instance the risks hadn't been mitigated.

She was cool with it, rolled, and actually succeeded on her WIL save! It was very appropriate given that her character background was Mountebank, and she got to be smug when the Stag Lord decided to go off and hunt by himself. This got him out of their hair, but also resulted in losing the opportunity to claim his sweet magic hunting bow. They got hit with the Exhaustion result on the Dungeon Events table, and while they took a breather to avoid Fatigue they noticed that the horn stopped glowing and realized the Stag Lord had returned to his slumber.

They were pretty relieved to not have to fight the guy with the glowing white magical bow, so out of an abundance of caution they didn't take a single thing off his preserved form (their loss). They did briefly consider leaving Quintess's Homunculus behind to try and get the horn off of its stand, but his player ultimately decided that he didn't want to leave his only weapon behind to give the little guy a tool to use.

Change of Menu

They had the choice from here to either continue heading South down a hallway or heading East to check out a sturdy wooden door. They opted for the latter without investigating the former, but found the door to be locked. Brook's player, however, recalled that she had a set of Lockpicks from her Background (she was a thief before she became a Marchguard). I gave her the choice of making a DEX Save to open the door quickly without consequence, or taking a Turn, and the players all agreed that they would rather take the Turn. My thinking on how to adjudicate saves largely agrees with this blogpost: Since Brook had Time (willing to take a Turn), Gear (Lockpicks), and Skill (formerly a thief) this was a no-brainer.

A few minutes later, the lock clicked and they pushed the door open to find themselves staring at six (I rolled a 5 on the 1d6+1. Unlucky) Barrow Worms swarming the broken remains of urns and the organs that were stored within. Most of them were uniformly gray, but two had bands of color: one yellow and the other orange.

Change #4: Telegraphing the Magical Organs- This one is simple. I wanted to give people a reason to eat the magical organs. It's a bit of a truism in OSR circles that players will eat or drink almost anything, but in my experience that is not always the case. Since everyone was new to the playstyle, I wanted to really hint at the potential benefits.

I also thought it was silly that two organs would grant magical benefits, but the two that happened to be eaten by the Barrow Worms did nothing. So I decided that one urn had lungs in them (the yellow banded worm ate most of this one) and would let the worm blow a powerful gust of wind, while the second one I had no fucking idea what organ it was but that it gave it tough, rocky skin and fire-breathing (I ran out of time before the session began and didn't have time to research the elements traditionally associated with various organs).

In hindsight, I should have gone with stomach and had it spit acid. C'est la vie.

I had three on one urn and three on the other, with one on each getting the lion's share, one getting scraps, and one largely frustrated. Given that the worms were occupied, I gave the players an out: they weren't immediately spotted. Rather than prudently retreating, they decided that they wanted a taste of action. Quintess's player asked if he could pour lantern oil on the ground around the threshold of the door and then burn the worms to death when they approached. This was a delightfully old school plan, and so I agreed and stipulated the following: since the worms would be most at risk they would have to make a DEX save to make it through the lantern oil before they managed to be set aflame.

The two that were getting no scraps to speak of turned around to investigate first, and upon approaching actually failed their DEX save! They were quickly incinerated as a line of fire erupted out of the lantern oil, which drew the attention and ire of the other four in the room. I'll spare you the blow-by-blow, but they were able to avoid taking damage largely due to some lucky rolls with damage and strategically targeting the dangerous barrow worms, though not before the yellow-banded one blew a gust of wind that knocked Quintess on his ass and nearly scattered the oil fire to the point where the worms could swarm through (I let the Die of Fate decide).

Once they decided that the banded ones were too dangerous to live they made short work of them, though if they had been slightly more unlucky they wouldn't have killed the orange-banded one before it had breathed a gout of flame at everyone. After the battle Sterling's player surprised me by declaring that she wanted to cook and eat the banded worms to gain their powers, but the fire had already gone out so that proved to be too much effort. I'm not actually sure how I would have ruled it. Perhaps a Scroll effect since it would have gone through one creature already.

Brook's player, on the other hand, was more interested in eating one of the organs in the urns that hadn't been broken. She selected the brain, and upon eating it gained Comprehend (fluent in all languages for a short while). Sterling's player decided to get in on the action as well and ate the Heart, though Quintess's player warned that based on the markings he really thought it was a healing item. I told her to roll 3d6 and take the new result if it was higher than her current Strength score. Her Strength improved by only one, though she seemed happy with the outcome.

Change #5: The Organs- By default in Cairn, the Brain grants a Spellbook that only the person who ate the brain can use. That wasn't metal enough for me, though, so I decided that the Spellbook you got (Comprehend was randomly rolled but incredibly appropriate) didn't take a slot, but the first time you use it a set of antlers sprouts from your head and take up a slot. Additional uses increases the rack size and thus the slots used. They molt when you camp for the evening. If you have a tolerance for gore, look up "antler molting" on Google Images. It looks like that, but coming off of a person.

Meanwhile, the Heart I expected to run by the book until Sterling's player ate it in perfect health. I could have just shrugged and run it as written, having the effect be wasted, but honestly it made sense that something associated with supernatural vigor would do something to someone even if they were in perfect health. So I asked her to roll 3d6 and take the new Strength result if it was higher. In hindsight, this was way too generous and I should have just told her to roll 1d4 and add that, but I typically err on the side of generosity when it comes to one-shots.

Rolling the Bones

They had two potential routes out of the room (that they knew of...), one to the South and another to the East. I like to telegraph what might potentially be in the room when players are considering random hallways, and wish more modules would provide information in their keys so I wouldn't have to improvise stuff (see Diogo and Anne for arguments as to why). I told them they could hear the occasional clattering sound coming from the South, while the Eastern path had a few stray cobwebs in the corners. They were freaked out rather than intrigued by the clattering sound, and so opted for the Eastern path.

I described how the cobwebs grew more frequent as they turned the corner to the South and seemed to grow thicker at the entrance to another hallway that led further East. There are nasty web traps in the Spider's Lair at the end of that passage, so I wanted to be fair and telegraph the danger. They asked if they could tell anything about the Southern passage down the hallway, and I told them they could hear the same clattering sound, albeit fainter. They decided to douse their light (I think they had a lantern and covered it) and sneak across the passageway, which they were successful at.

They ended up in the Guard Room where three skeletons were playing a game of dice at a table, two of them getting really frustrated that one seemed to be continuously winning ("For centuries!". They didn't manage to sneak past, but the guards didn't seem terribly concerned about their presence. Sterling's player, of her own accord, decided to get out her Playing Cards (tricked) and play a game with the skeletons that would end with them arguing over who was really the winner. The point being to distract them while the others snuck through the passageway to the East. However, she very quickly figured out that the skeletons were desperate for a new diversion and managed to trade her cards in exchange for the following information:

• There is a giant spider in the room they snuck past called Sargmotra, who was once the pet of the Stag Lord before his death.
• She's gotten full of herself since being sealed away in the tomb, and one of their fellow guardsman paid the price for trying to put her in her place by being strung up in webbing.
• There's a secret treasure in a pool of magical acid in a room to the Northeast, but it eats through anything nonliving without fail.
• The Stag Lord probably wouldn't notice that treasure going missing, but absolutely would notice the Tapestry in the next room going missing, so "don't mess with it."

They briefly considered rescuing the 4th skeleton, but ultimately decided against it given it didn't seem to benefit them. Quintess's player asked if he could get the skeletons to part with a sword (he didn't start with a great weapon), and they let him take a spare weapon that hadn't rusted too much over the centuries.

Weavings Both Wondrous and Wicked

They continued East, ignoring the closed door to the West (and missing my cool tweak to the goblin kid), and found themselves in a room with a great tapestry along the Southern wall. It images seemed to subtly move and act out the scenes depicted:

• A formidable yet bored-looking huntsman sitting in a lodge surrounded by mounted heads of various beasts both commonplace and exotic.
• Another one of the same man in an alien-looking forest kneeling before a beautiful figure with frost in their hair.
• The same man again, this time with great stag horns sprouting from his head. He rides down a fearful-looking man with tattered clothes and the head of a rabbit, his bow drawn and ready to loose.
• The horned man, dressed in the regalia of the Stag Lord, sitting in at the head of a grand table. Several servants with the heads of various beast stand in attendance, and a large spider with chains of silver and gold crouches at his left hand.

Change #6: The Tapestry- I just swapped out the details and elaborated on them a bit. I like things that can hint at the history of a place (and the wider world) without requiring a massive info-dump or NPC exposition. The frost-haired figure is alluding to the Cold Prince from Dolmenwood. That setting is a potential contender for a regular campaign if everything goes well, and I thought it would be amusing to plant this seed.

Though tempted by the tapestry, they decide to leave it for now due to the difficulty of transporting it. They continued up the long tunnel to the Northeast, which seemed to be more humid and have fresher air compared to the rest of the barrow. They end up coming to the room with the pool, as described by the skeleton guards, but are unable to investigate due to the presence of 4 (bad luck on these random rolls) spiders weaving a web at the entrance to an tunnel in the Eastern part of the room.

They could have fled, but opted to enter the room instead. Two of the spiders decided to immediately disengage from their task and approach the party, while the other two continued to work on what appeared to be the finishing touches of their web (they had a round before the last two would engage). Brook's player decided to lob a Fireflask at the two spiders at the web, even though it would leave her open to attack from the remaining spiders. She incinerated her targets (and the web they had been constructing), but almost fell to the fang's of the remaining two spiders.

A fast and furious bout of combat ensued, and the remaining spiders were slain without any permanent injury sustained by the party (though it was a near thing). Sterling decided to cook and eat a spider leg while they rested to recover their stamina (HP refresh), and Quintess's player asked if he could collect several spider legs for a mysterious purpose.

However, before they could decide their next move their attention was drawn to the smell of woodsmoke issuing from the Eastern tunnel where the smoldering remains of the spiders could still be seen (I rolled Environment on the Dungeon Events table, and I decided that the Fireflask's oil accidentally caught something on fire in that passage to the East). Upon investigating, they discovered that the tunnel held the roots of a great oak tree. A few roots seemed to be on the verge of igniting into a full conflagration, but they could see a faint light and feel a gentle breeze coming from a small opening further up the root system.

After a brief debate, they decided to put out the flames (this was absolutely the right thing to do. Though letting the tree burn would have theoretically allowed them to exit the dungeon easier, it would have taken many Turns and sealed off a potential means of escape in the meantime).

They could have left it at that, but Sterling's player had been dying to blow the Oak Lord Whistle her character started with and decided to try and use it to communicate with the oak tree. She rolled her WIL save to see if she could bend the Whistle to her will, and despite having a 17 WIL actually failed. The root system began writhing like snakes before suddenly becoming pointed like spears and whipping out at Sterling. They stopped less than an inch from her face, a few taking the time to gently probe at her, then froze back into place. The party could still see a potential way out, but they now had a thorn-like path they would have to traverse, which would make for slow-going and render impossible carrying out anything delicate like the tapestry (I took into account the fact that they had just put the fire on the oak's root system out when I made this ruling. If they hadn't, the consequences for Sterling would have been more severe).

They decided to leave the oak alone and head back to the pool, where Quintess's player revealed that their master plan was to take the very fresh spider legs and dip them in the pool to see if the skeletons had been telling the truth about the acid. When the legs failed to dissolve, he tossed a pebble in, which promptly did. Finally, he dipped his pinky in and nodded in satisfaction when nothing happened.

Quintess stripped, dove into the pool, and found a large clam at the bottom. After poking it several times to make sure that it wasn't going to attack, he picked the whole thing up and made his way back to the surface. Brook and Sterling bared their arms and helped grasp him and pull him up, which kept me from calling for a STR save to see if he could make it to the surface without consequence.

Change #7: The Acid-Proof Chest- I don't like stuff that breaks the rules established within the fiction of the world, so rather than having a chest that is conveniently immune to the acid I made the chest a giant clam.

Quintess dressed himself and promptly wedged several of the spider legs into the clam and levered it open, snapping the legs in the process but revealing a mound of slime-covered but very valuable gems. The players decided that they had the payday that they were looking for, and so carefully made their way up the thorn-like roots of the oak tree and to the safety of sunlight.

Reflection

This was about as good an introduction to the OSR playstyle as I could have hoped for. All of the players had a great time, clever schemes were hatched, bullshit was spun, critical thinking was employed, and consequences were suffered (though no one died, which I'm sure some would consider a failure).

Could you tell which player had played a lot of Tabletop RPGs, which had dabbled, and which had never played at all? Me neither. Everyone talks about how people that only play Pathfinder and 5e have difficulty with OSR games, but I found that walking through the Player Principles of Cairn got everyone on the same page really quick. Outside of a few brief rules explanations, what separated players was mostly their tendencies.

Sterling's player was the one who had dabbled in more traditional games and ultimately found them unsatisfying due to the rules getting in the way of what she wanted to do in the game (and what sounds like pretty adversarial GM behavior). She really leapt at the chance to interact with anything, was not afraid to do risky things, and seemed to have a genuine blast the whole time.

Quintess's player was the most experienced player, but also the most cautious. I would say his natural tendencies as a player and my own are quite similar, as he was quick to want to consider all possibilities and tried to come up with creative solutions to problems. His caution both saved his party on more than one occasion but also led to less treasure being obtained. Better less treasure than dead in a tunnel collapse, though.

Brook's player (my wife) was more in the middle, which is where I honestly aspire to be when I play lately. Quick to make decisions, but also always trying to think of possibilities and consider options before making a (generally speaking) decisive decision. I honestly never thought I'd get her to try one of my elfgames in a million years, so I consider the session an unqualified success for that alone.

At the risk of stirring the pot, this is why I prefer Cairn to other systems. The sheer joy of watching players make decisions, avoiding Saves with clever play or risking them and the potential consequences that they can bring. The fun of exploring dark places with the threat of random encounters and resource depletion without the cruft and sacred cows that some older systems systems have. The thrill of combat without the hours-long tedium it often devolves into in newer systems. It just cuts right to the heart of what I like about this playstyle.

I'm pretty happy with the changes I made to the dungeon, though I suspect it would have run largely fine had I left it as written. Nate Treme is a great designer and this module is a classic for a reason. I'm sad they didn't get the little bat girl that I replaced the goblin girl with (mostly because I wanted to avoid any association with traditional play). I should really run this reskinned version with more people to really see how well the changes work, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

The little bat person I was going to use. Art released into the public domain by Nate Treme.

I was probably a little too lenient with some of my rulings, but I think for a one-shot everything worked out great. In fact, it was so well-received that now I have another married couple that we are friends with that want to play as well. I think I'm going to do The Waking of Willowby Hall, but I'm going to have to rewrite how the encounter tables work before I can do that.

...I have a problem, don't I?