STONEHELL Cairn 2e Play Report 01
shoutout cairn shoutout yochai shoutout chris bastionland mcdowell shoutout stonehell this shit bussin!!!
Some info and other stylistic mumbo jumbo:
This game is being run using the Cairn 2e playtest, which you can find in the official Cairn discord or here on cairnrpg.com
This game is being run primarily focusing on the Stonehell megadungeon by Michael Curtis. I’m a big fan of this megadungeon and find that it meshes well with my “fuck I hate prepping anything I’m just going to open this book and go” style. I gave the players a standard nearby village named Westwind but essentially everything other than Stonehell is irrelevant until the players want to engage with something else.
For those unaware, Stonehell is a multi-century-old former prison constructed by the prisoners and slaves of a fallen regional power. The outside and first couple levels have been picked near-clean over the years, thus forcing any intrepid adventurers to plunge deeper into the depths to get the riches that remain, as many either died or retired (but mostly died) before getting the opportunity to spelunk those halls. GM notations, as described below, will potentially include spoilers for later aspects of Stonehell or other plans I have.
I’ll be putting my GM thoughts/notations/whatever in various parts throughout the play reports in [brackets] as they are relevant. Play reports are cool but I wish I saw more that directly included GM thoughts about their processes and decision-making (and maybe these exist — I am a very casual play report browser reader guy)
The beautifully drawn maps you see at the start of every session are drawn by the players using Owlbear Rodeo.
I will also be linking what album I am listening to at the time of writing because I’m quirky and sauced up like that
Session 1
(Album 1: toe - For Long Tomorrow )
(Album 2: Snow Strippers - April Mixtape 3)
“Dicking around in the canyon”
The Party (who are all relatively new/fresh to OSR gaming):
Hawk, the rational-minded Fletchwind wielding a Stone Pine Bow, which produces explosive sap once per day.
Silas, the giddy-for-wealth Cutpurse pocketing the Glimpse Glass, a monocle that lets you see through walls or other obstructions up to three times before shattering.
Thorn, the stoic (but also surprisingly friendly) Marchguard holding closely his Impressive Pin, a badge of honor from the Guard which has the unique property of being able to open doors.
Yarrow, the fresh-faced yet eager Greenwise and her briarvine, magical shrubbery from The Woods that can entangle a creature up to the size of a horse.
All players received a rumor about Stonehell from its provided rumor table:
Hawk - Spinning the great cube summons a djinn who grants wishes.
Silas - An ever-burning skeleton has been glimpsed in the dungeon depths.
Thorn - The kobolds of Stonehell offer goods and services for sale in an underground bazaar.
Yarrow - All the cisterns and pools in the dungeon are protected by powerful guardians who attack anyone not knowing the proper password.
Now, into the Stonehell Canyon….
The Gatehouse
The group (epic heroic party name to be determined) begins their journey staring down the crumbled, weather-worn gatehouse blocking the box canyon housing Stonehell that many a party just like theirs have come before. This point is driven home when they find a laundry list of names eulogized in blood and other substances. Slightly harrowed but overall unperturbed, the group presses onward through the rusted and broken portcullis into the gatehouse.
In the foyer of the gatehouse [Room 1], the party finds nothing except for old skeletons, bones, and blood scattered about, along with broken arrows down the center of the room. Hawk inspects the arrows and learns from the way that many of them are broken; these arrows were shot from above and broke upon hitting the ground. Sure enough, he looks up and sees arrow slits in the ceiling, causing the party to traverse along the perimeter of the room to pass deeper into the gatehouse.
[At nighttime, this is potentially an arrow trap that some of the Goblins residing in Stonehell are manning. I clearly foreshadow traps or outright present them as puzzles to solve, and would have kept the broken arrows on the ground if the party went through at night as a means of doing so.]
To the east and west, dirty, weathered hallways ending in rubble to the outside. The party heads west and further into the gatehouse. The party first enters the room to the east [Room 3], finding broken pieces of wood, dirt, leaf litter, and cloth scattered across the ground, along with a small and crude short bow. Here, they realize they are not alone. In their discussions, however, they are not careful about this fact, and their shouting draws the attention of the Goblins in the nearby room [Room 4]. Thorn hears the door open, and the rest of the group all funnel in and close the door, fearful of what may come for them. Thorn peaks his head out of the door after making a successful DEX Save.
[In Cairn, there are no skill or ability checks. Saves related to the specific stats, STRength/DEXterity/WILlpower are rolled whenever someone in the narrative is positioned to be at risk.]
Thorn sees four gray-skinned, bat-faced creatures emerging from the room; three wielding spears and one wielding a shortbow. He shuts the door, relays this information to the group, and they all then take their positions: Thorn, ready to executioner-style swing with his longsword; Silas, ready to pounce with his dual daggers; and Yarrow and Hawk, taking positions further back in the corners of the room, ready to ambush whoever was about to come through the door.
[My interpretation of the implied setting of Cairn is that traditional fantasy creatures such as Goblins, Orcs, and so on are more fairytale or rumored in nature, and only adventurers actually ever come into contact with these creatures. Thus, I am making it a point to never refer to creatures by their species name until players learn the species name, and I am also describing them outside of their standard appearances just to add to that.]
Expecting combat, the group is surprised when they hear a handful of thuds on the back of the door after a couple of minutes of waiting. Thorn bravely opens the door, gives a single stiff left-to-right wave, and, after a brief period of grunting, nodding, and attempts at sign language, finds the Goblins are not hostile and ends up accepting an invitation into their small gathering room. The Goblin leader shows Thorn a pictogram story of, by the group’s interpretation, these Goblins being run off from Stonehell by a group of figures that are at least double their (the Goblins’) size. Thanking them for this knowledge, the group decides not to overstay their welcome and quickly moves on to the other hallway and through its door into Room 5.
[I foregone a reaction roll and wanted these Goblins not to be hostile to serve as a meta “learning the game” moment and also to serve as some future foreshadowing and storytelling. First, I wanted the group to learn that shouting next to unexplored rooms is probably not the safest thing to do. Second, I wanted them to learn that just because there are other creatures and species in Stonehell, they will not be immediately hostile. From a foreshadowing perspective, the Goblins are at war with the Orcs in Stonehell, and the group will likely assume the pictograph represents the Orcs when they learn about this, but it actually refers to the Hobgoblins that want to get rid of the Orcs and the Goblins.]
Ignoring the stairs to the immediate east and the room to the northeast, the party opens the door to the western room [Room 6] and immediately sees a ghostly adventuring party sitting around a blue fire. With a world-record door slamming, the group is teased by one of the ghosts, who simply phases his head through the door and greets the party. They are all invited in, but Hawk makes it a point to stay outside, noting the absolute ridiculousness of the situation.
The group learns that the ghostly group is a former adventuring party who died many decades ago and is now bound to this room, exchanging tales with those who come through. Deciding to spend time exchanging tales, the group (except for Hawk) asks questions of the party. They hear corroboration of Silas’ rumor about an ever-burning skeleton and also learn that the entrance to Stonehell is at the far end of the canyon. Thanking the ghosts for their time, the group leaves and climbs over the nearby rubble out into the canyon, leaving the gatehouse behind them.
Canyon - North Half
Initially drawn to some rubbled buildings, one of which has a half-standing statue still in place, Hawk instead spots in his periphery a faint pulsing glow, like a fire, through the darkness, and the group decides to detour to a set of manmade rooms carved into the canyonside.
A torch is lit to illuminate these rooms and Hawk notices the glow he saw before fades away. Correctly deducing how this trick works, the torchbearer leaves the room, and the fiery glow reveals itself as a message that Hawk can now read up close.
R. –
As agreed, the jewels await you two levels down in the
chamber past the acolytes’ cells. How you deal with the wasps
is your own concern!
- M.With the knowledge of future treasure in mind, the group (especially Yarrow) is now eager to dash into Stonehell where the real treasures lie. This desire is interrupted as Silas spots a pulsating red glow on the back wall of the nearby hallway to the south. Sneaking down it, he finds a wolf-sized beetle gnawing into the corpse of a goat carcass. The group then huddles and begins to scheme for about 10-15 minutes on how to tackle this beast.
[Normally, I would move planning along if it isn’t really going anywhere after about 5 minutes, but the group (except for 1) has never had any experience with Cairn or other ItO-based games with autohits in combat. Instead, I decided to let them relish in their (soon-to-be realized) overplanning because I want them to realize how important planning is but also how deadly the combat is with autohits as they would likely take out this beetle with one good damage roll.]
Yarrow and Thorn press against a nearby wall, ready to entangle with a briarvine and follow up with a longsword, respectively, while Hawk prepares to fire an arrow at the beetle after Silas lures it out. The plan goes off without a hitch and Hawk slays the beetle with a max damage roll. Silas, giddy for loot but only finding glowing goo seeping out of the beetle’s punctured organs, is elated when Yarrow identifies this goo as useful for alchemists as part of her Greenwise background, and the group drains the beetle goo into a nearby barrel, hopefully to bring it back to town later.
[In these types of games, I tend to just give players information if it makes sense for their character background to know it. Players enjoy this; characters become grounded more in the world, and it also gets them thinking outside the box about how they are narratively positioned in the world.]
The group leaves, sees rooms carved into the canyon side opposite them, and immediately heads that way. Immediately upon transitioning into the room, they notice that it feels about four or five degrees cooler, and their torchlight isn’t shining as bright as it should be. Silas tosses some sand up into the air, which is blown back by a gentle wind emanating from the room. They all decide to fuck off.
[Somewhere around this point, Yarrow developed a personality quirk for their character that whenever they’re nervous or faced with some sort of danger, they start speaking fast/stuttering/tripping over their words. Part of the reason I enjoy these “we’re rolling your characters now, don’t show up with a backstory” games is that little quirks like these emerge naturally throughout play]
In the rubbled building, Thorn recognizes the individual depicted in the half-broken statue as St. Ras, a patron saint of honor and duty from his Marchguard background, telling the group that St. Ras is a saint that the Marchguard would pay respects to before heading out to fulfill their oaths, although whether this is out of superstition or out of respect of an actual supernatural power is undetermined.
Canyon - South Half
At their final stop before Stonehell proper, the group is distracted by a waterfall flowing out of a cave about 70” up the canyon, which flows into a small pond that is overflowing with vegetation. Thorn climbs up the cliff face with his expeditionary gear to inspect the source of the water while Silas ties his and Yarrow’s ropes together and around himself for safety and dives into the pool to investigate an extremely unusual silver hemisphere resting at the bottom center of the pool. Silas finds in the center of the pool a silver hemisphere that appears to be sucking the water down into it despite no obvious signs of ingress. Feeling vindicated to the group after suggesting that it was actually a drain plug numerous times, he tries to lift it up with no avail and returns to the surface.
Thorn, on the other hand, is met with a steamy-hot cave filled with boiling water egressing from a brass hemisphere in a much smaller pool of water at the back of the cave. Standing in stark contrast to the effervescent, perfect-temperatured water of the pool down below, Thorn sticks his finger in. Unfortunately for him, the heat of the water is so intense it causes him to take STR damage. This forces him to take a Critical Damage save as damage is taken to his STR, which he fails and falls unconscious!
After waiting around for about thirty minutes or so, the group starts to get worried. Thankfully, Thorn’s climbing tools from his expeditionary gear still leave a climbable trail on the outside, and Yarrow climbs up to check on him, where she finds him unconscious and with a particularly blistered pinky finger. Deciding to keep this to themselves, Yarrow slaps him awake, and they crawl back down the cliffside.
Unfortunately for Thorn, his pinky finger was immediately spotted, and he was subjected to some immediate lighthearted hazing.
With this last adventure in the canyon behind them, the group decides to beeline immediately toward the stairs leading down to Stonehell at the end of the canyon. They are greeted with a jet-black carved stone room set into the canyon with a grand spiral staircase in the center and a time-worn but still legible plaque that reads:
Beware All Who Enter
These Benighted Halls of Stone.
Within Lies No Solace
Nor Any Comforts of Home.
Toiling For Our Crimes
We Must Dig Where We Dwell,
With No Freedom or Mercy
In Our Vast Stony Hell.
The session ends here!
[Some people may find the beginning section of Stonehell boring and want to jump straight into the action of Floor 1, especially with the gatehouse and the canyon not really having any notable treasure except for a couple of magic items that my group missed. I like including it because from my experience with my previous Stonehell group and now this one, it feels like a great “tutorial” experience — especially when groups are new to OSR games.]
Shorter write-ups in the future maybe? Did not intend to be the Mayor of Yappington here.