Gnomestones presents
Cairn Campaign

Map as of Session 5
In this new project, Gnomestones will play Cairn. We will play with a hybrid of Cairn 1e and 2e rules, using asynchronous and synchronous play, adhering to the original spirit of Cairn as closely as possible by using Cairn specific tables for random generation and by focusing on folk-narrative based game progression and path-based wilderness travel. The results of the campaign will be detailed below.
NPC #1 (Cairn 1e generation tools)
Beatrice Thatcher
Age - 30
Background - Mercenary
Physique - Athletic
Skin - Dark
Hair - Frizzy
Face - Sunken
Speech - Droning
Clothing - Foreign
Virtue - Tolerant
Vice - Lazy
Reputation - Ambitious
Misfortunes - Demoted
STR - 10
DEX - 16
WIL - 11
HP - 3
Inventory (- - denotes bulky)
- Three days’ rations
- A torch
- 9 gold pieces
- - Chainmail Armor
- - Battleaxe
- - Cart
- Tongs
- Instrument: Handpan
- Marbles
12/14 slots
NPC #2 (Cairn 1e generation tools)
Borrid Wolder
Age - 39
Background - Blacksmith
Physique - Brawny
Skin - Rosy
Hair - Wispy
Face - Broken
Speech - Precise
Clothing - Bloody
Virtue - Ambitious
Vice - Bitter
Reputation - Wise
Misfortunes - Exiled
STR - 10
DEX - 9
WIL - 14
HP - 1
Inventory (- - denotes bulky)
- Three days’ rations
- A torch
- 9 gold pieces
- - Brigandine Armor
- Sword
- Pick
- Net
- Dice Set
- Repellent
10/10 slots
Prologue
Borrid could not help but put his hammer down when he saw what was coming over the hill. When Borrid raised his hand to shield his eye from the midday sun, he was able to make out a cart, but he couldn’t see anyone at the reins. Whatever was pulling it was clearly not a pack animal. It was too small, and taking frequent stops.
Borrid’s anvil was growing cold by the time the cart and the individual hauling it had pulled even with his place on the dirt road. The diminutive figure laboriously transported the cart by alternating pushing with outstretched arms and then flipping over to throw her back against the pullbar. It looked exhausting.
The cart was not weighed down by a typical load like grain or wood and it jumped and rattled each time the brigand heaved it over a stone or rut of dry mud. As it bounced, the cart emitted a vaguely melodic noise, like wind chimes if a child violently banging them with a spoon.
Borrid was far past curious. He laughed raspily, his first in recent memory.
“Can I help you?” spat the soldier with a glower, for, now that they were closer, Borrid could see that she wore the chain shirt of the Rutnean patrol. He dropped his gaze, skin prickling. A vision of looming detainment and eventual emaciation flashed in his mind. “This is what you get for displaying mirth,” he thought to himself ruefully.
But when he gathered the nerve to glance up oncemore at the traveler gasping in the road, he realized that she didn’t look much like a Rutnean guard at all. The chain shirt fit poorly, the gloves and boots did not match, and she lacked the scaly gambeson favored by the rangers in the Northern Reach.
“My apologies,” intoned Borrid cautiously, then ventured, “Is there something going on with your wagon? I’ve never heard it make a sound like that before.”
The traveler sighed and the malice drained from her face. Borrid could tell that she was acting stern on purpose.
“It’s a handpan,” muttered the mismatched soldier. Sweat sprung from under her short frizzy hair and ran down her brow. It was hot for the middle of fall, even this far north. It looked she had been toiling all morning, and possibly through the night before.
“Did you travel here from Fort Lune?” continued Borrid.
“The road don’t go nowhere else”, replied the soldier with a tired shrug.
“This road goes westward to the Wood and beyond the Fort to Rutne proper,” said Borrid, pointing first in the direction the soldier was headed, then in the direction from which she had come. Borrid always spoke with a sort of dogged precision, as if his words were the strikes of a hammer on a miniature anvil in his throat.
“You can be obtuse if you’d like,” retorted the soldier, still completing the process of catching her breath. Her face went through a sequence of cryptic expressions before landing on an apologetic smile. “Of course I came that way.” She straightened up, glancing quickly over the covered workshop with its bare shelves and empty hooks.
“You’re a blacksmith?” she inquired, and pointed hastily to her chest. “Can you melt down this chain shirt?”
This time it was Borrid’s turn to glower. “Bad luck, I’m retired”, he replied thornily.
“Then what’s that?” She pointed indignantly at the metal object lying on the anvil.
“It’s a sword.”
“Who’s it for?”
“It’s mine.”
“So you’re a self-employed blacksmith then, is that right? Sounds like maybe you’re not very good”, laughed the brigand.
“I’m the best”, retorted Borrid with conviction. “But I can’t make a living at the anvil anymore. Look. Here is the rest of my metal,” he spoke bitterly, gesturing to the sword. “Even the bits and nuts, and the iron from my smithing tools as well. All in there. No going back now,” he said with finality.
Borrid was on edge. Reveal your anger, betray your weakness, his old master would have said.
Borrid sighed. “It’s not done yet,” he added sheepishly.
The traveling soldier was too exhausted to press further, instead turning to the row of white olive trees lining the back of the yard. “Alright Sir former blacksmith, can I at least rest my cart in the shade over there?”, she inquired, “Before you ask, I have my own food.”
The traveler faced the blacksmith and the blacksmith faced the traveler. The leaves rustled in the crisp breeze, the moment tense, and then finally Borrid nodded stiffly. He watched as the traveler dragged the handcart under the trees behind his yard to collapse in the shade with vigorous groan. One of the wheels was sticking in the axel. Borrid turned back to his sword, ready for more tempering. He became engrossed in his work once again, and did not look up again until the next visitors were already upon his stoop.
Player: DocWebster
Character #1 (Cairn 1e generation tools)
Mannog Abernathy
Age - 31
Background - Hunter
Physique - Towering
Skin - Tanned
Hair - Filthy
Face - Square
Speech - Formal
Clothing - Frumpy
Virtue - Serene
Vice - Deceitful
Reputation - Honest
Misfortunes - Cursed
STR - 6
DEX - 10
WIL - 8
HP - 5
Inventory (- - denotes bulky)
- Three days’ rations
- A torch
- 10 gold pieces
- - Brigandine Armor
- Shield
- Sling
- Dowsing Rod
- Hourglass
Small Bell (bundled)
9/10 slots
Chapter 1
Mannog Abernathy grew up as the most promising hunter in all of the Valdwood. He was taller and stronger than other children his age, and skilled at each thing he tried. Mannog towered over other men well before he fully reached adulthood. His stern, square jaw communicated dependability, and it was easy for him to gather support from others. The wild creatures of the forest did not frighten Mannog, nor could they outrun him, and he was so skilled at hitting game with his sling that he never had to learn how to shoot a bow.
In truth, Mannog did not learn all sorts of useful things, because he was very resourceful and could usually solve his problems by himself. At some point, Mannog had decided that listening to others was not worth his time. The only person he did listen to was an old hermit who lived by herself in a cabin deep in the forest.
Mannog would sit in the wicker chair on her front porch and she would talk for hours about strange plants and ferocious beasts and about heroes from far off lands. He would drink her tea and imagine himself as a Flaming Monk or a Knight of the Seven Hills and ended up missing most of the morals as well as the practical advice.
The time came when an especially dry winter and very stormy spring caused the forest to change unexpectedly. The elder trappers fidgeted with their pendants and charms and proclaimed it a ‘False Gnome Spring’. Most of them traveled away from the Valdwood in search of more promising hunting grounds.
Mannog lived alone in his forest camp, and so he did not hear of the False Gnome Spring, and did not see the trappers leave. He prepared the lures and snares for his summer hunt as he had taught himself to do. Mannog expected to find his traps flush with game within the week, but when he checked, the lures were uneaten and the snares were undisturbed. Mannog set his trickiest traps and then devised new traps. He returned to his favorite spots over and over, crouching in the brush, unmoving. He would wait all day and through the night until his eyes crossed and back ached, but still he could not catch a thing. Mannog was very proud of his reputation as a fine hunter and was reluctant to reveal his failure to anyone, lest their impression of him fade. Eventually, he began to starve.
In Mannog Abernathy’s time, the lands abutting the Valdwood were not as wartorn as they had been or would soon be again, and the commonfolk rarely locked their barns and workhouses, or even their homes. It was so easy for Mannog to begin stealing food, and the harvest pies and flaxapple roasts were much too delicious to resist. A summer heightened, Mannog found himself relying on stealing for some, and then most, of his meals.
A plowhand eventually spied Mannog fleeing the fields with an entire savory pie, swiped from the windowsill. It was not long before a cohort of digruntled farmers arrived at Mannog’s forest shelter and pointedly accused him of thivery. Looking down the sharp end of a turnip rake, Mannog Abernanthy thought quick. He told the farmers that he had in fact seen the pie, had smelt it from his shelter as it was carried off by a pack of feral skunkbeetles. You must remember that Mannog had a natural talent for appearing trustworthy. He offered to eliminate the guilty creatures, and the farmers were so grateful that they left Mannog with additional food in recognition of his efforts.
As the summer weeks dragged on, Mannog's traps remained empty. He was apprehended by different farmers several more times, and each time Mannog told an increasingly outlandish lie, with each new culprit more ferocious than the last. Mannog concocted tales of flying worms with poison suckers and of lumbering beasts with massive fangs and tiny eyes that killed without needing to touch their prey. He spun tales of fish with legs and birds with hands.
At summer’s end, the farmers all convened for the Fruit Day harvest festival, and they had the chance to swap stories about Mannog. That night, he was woken by the biggest and angriest mob yet. With a torch held in his face and his hands pinned behind his back, Mannog lied anew. This time, he said that the old hermit in the woods had forced him to tell the tall tales by threatening him with witchcraft. She was the one who had stolen food from the farmers, Mannog claimed, for she was raising a brood of evil beasts. The mob rushed to the hermit’s house, but when they arrived, they found nothing but shrubs and roots and an especially territorial woodpecker. As the cabin had apparently vanished, the farmers begrudgingly concluded that Mannog must be telling the truth. They trudged back to their farms to get to bed before dawn.
Mannog thought that his troubles might finally be over. He took a vow to steal no longer, and began preparations in hopes that the Fall would bring the return of the good hunting. He set his traps in the brush and waited.
As Mannog hoped, he had not been not waiting long when he heard a trap spring. Unfortunately, it was not a fawk or sneagle in his snare, it was a flying worm with poison suckers. Mannog ran to the nearest farm to show them the creature, to warn them and to prove the truth of his former lies. But by this time, he farmers’ patience for Mannog had grown thin, and they turned him away without a second glance.
Mannog hurried desperately from farm to farm. As each one refused to give him audience, his claims about the flying worm became increasingly dramatic and incendiary. He said that it could grow in size and turn invisible, and that it spat lightning. He said that the worm came back to life each night, was actually a demon in disguise. He even claimed that the worm had broken Mannog's leg and pretended to limp pathetically. He was desperate to peak the attention of the countryfolk, but it was no use. That evening, he returned alone to his shelter with his dead worm and his head hung low.
The next morning, Mannog awoke to find that the worm was gone. He also found that he could not walk. It was then that Young Mannog Abernathy began to realize the severity of his curse.
Chapter 3
Lirathil Konnig
Through Lirathil’s window came smoke and screams of the dying. She had been told to remain in her room, but now she poked the slightest sliver of her face into the darkness of the stone corridor outside her bedroom. It was empty, and a moment later she was scurrying away in her baggy nightclothes and bare feet. The screech of sword on shield echoed down the corridor, how near she could not tell. Lirathil held her breath as she rounded the corners, expecting each time to find mercenaries of the most gristly variety lying in wait. She tried to imagine her death with as much pain and gore as possible, to better prepare herself for the grim inevitability of it all. The rebels were coming to kill her family, and now they were here.
Lirathil descended a flight of stairs, heart pounding in her throat, turning down a second corridor, and then a third, but they were all deserted. Where had everyone gone? She imagined her friend Thime sitting in a locked closet, and Lirathil finding it, giving the secret knock so she would open the door and they could hide together. Lirathil passed a row of arched windows, bracing as each opening revealed a blast of bonfire air, roiling light, and a concert of yells and clangs. She averted her eyes towards the inside wall, but on it she could see shadows of the desperate melee in the courtyard below. She did not want to know if the Lakefort was falling, did not want to think about its residents dying in the cold mud. Instead Lirathil put her head down and sprinted around the corner and straight across the exposed landing foyer, anticipating a crossbow bolt in her side every step of the way. It never came though, and then Lirathil was passing through the open double doors of the Great Hall, which she did most every day. Lirathil stood in the uncanny emptiness of the darkened hall, momentarily forgetting why she had entered. At the high window, in his finest robes, was the Lord of the Lakefort.
Lirathil caught her breath instinctively and strode across the hall with a forcibly measured pace. Her footsteps slapped against the cold stones, and Lord Konnig turned. On his face, Lirathil saw fear, then annoyance draining away to his usual infuriating placidity.
“I thought Shalma had told you to stay in your room,” he said flatly.
“It was filling with smoke,” she protested, hiding her breathlessness, “And there’s fighting in the yard. What’s happening? Are the rebels here? Why is the Great Hall Door open?”
Her father took a tone of bemused reasonability, “Well, there tends to be smoke and fighting when a castle is attacked. Still, that’s no excuse for your misbehavior.”
Lirathil pushed down the panic welling in her chest. “So what, do you want me to go back up there?” She was not interested in navigating this tonight.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Look.” Lord Konnig pointed out the unpaned oriel window. Lirathil stood there for a few seconds, watching Lord Konnig gaze out into the courtyard, flame light dancing on his face. In his other hand was his jeweled goblet, which he used to gesture impatiently to Lirathil, eyes still fixed on the scene below. She sighed and moved to join her father at the window.
A gasp escaped Lirathil when the battle came fully into view. The combatants stretched across the courtyard and spilled out into the fields beyond, with no indication of where the conflict was headed or who fought on which side. In the center of the scrum was a massive creature, which could only be a cave ogre. Lirathil watched in horror as it scraped its massive claw down a flight of outer stairs, throwing limp combatants to the ground to promptly stomp on them.
“Will the guards be able to fight that thing?” asked Lirathil quaveringly.
“No,” replied Lord Konnig wryly, “At least I hope not. It cost me dearly to bring it here.”
Lirathil watched in disbelief as the cave ogre went about crushing humans with a club the size of a mature coniferous trunk.
“That’s terrible,” she said eventually, voice barely above a whisper. Now that her eyes were adjusting to the light of the burning stables, Lirathil could make out the sky blue of the Lakeguard on the tunics of some of the fighters lying in the mud. There was nothing she could do. The Lord of the Lakefort and his daughter watched the carnage in silence for a time, twin masks floating in the window, illuminated by the fire below and the moonlight above.
“I’ll tell you what’s terrible,” said Lord Konnig eventually, grimacing, “The resolve of rebels. It’s so easy to say that things should be different, but none of them ever agree on what that difference actually is! Such is the tragedy of originality, I suppose. Just look at what’s happened to this ill-fated uprising. Some of the rebels recently decided they didn’t like how the new leadership was shaping up, can you imagine that! So, to our great fortune, the rebels rebelled against their precious rebellion. Doesn’t make them loyalists though, two wrongs don’t make a right. They’ll all be put to the sword in the end. Just what they deserve.”
Lirathil turned and ran, ignoring her father’s calls. She did not know where she would go, perhaps she could find someone, it didn’t matter who. She ran down a passageway, turned the corner, and froze, for she stood face to face with a brigand. He wore scarred, mismatched armor and his face was darkened with a gritty film of soot and sweat. He held his sword out at Lirathil with both hands.
“Who goes there?” said the brigand sharply, quietly. “Who do you serve?”
“My name is Thime”, lied Lirathil, “I’m a washermaid.”
“Are you of the Lakefort?”
“Please sir, I have nothing,” she pleaded.
The warrior grunted and reached towards his belt and then at Lirathil. She scrunched up her face, expecting to feel a dagger slide between her ribs. But it didn’t, and after an excruciating moment, she opened her eyes again. The brigand was holding something in his soiled, bandaged-wrapped hand, which he dropped in her palm. It was small and hard and cold against her skin, but it was too dark here to tell what it was, and her hands were shaking too fiercely besides. She looked at the harsh man questioningly.
“It is a secret,” said the rebel, “Protection for those without it. Haven for those who have nothing. You just have to know where to look.” Then the fighting man pushed past Lirathil, leaving her shivering in the darkened corridor, alone.
NPC #3
Made Retroactively with 1e Generation Tools, * indicates overridden entry
Thime - Servant
Age - 20 *
Physique - Short
Skin - Pallid *
Hair - Filthy
Face - Broken
Speech - Gravelly
Clothing - Rancid
Virtue - Honorable
Vice - Bitter
Reputation - Dangerous
Misfortunes - Discredited
Inventory
-Three days’ rations (one slot)
-A torch (one slot)
-9 gold pieces
- - Brigandine Armor
-
Axe
-
Longbow
-
Tinderbox
- Net
- Horn
- Marbles
STR - 4
DEX - 8
WIL - 14
HP - 5
Hexmap of Rutne
