Eyes Unclouded - Session 1
Kawase Hasui. Cherry Blossoms and Evergreen Forest. ~1930s.
These are the records of a lightly modified game of Cairn 2e that I am playing with a new in-person group. I've expanded Eyes Unclouded, a now out of print collection of Studio Ghibli themed 5e adventures into a more open-ended sandbox. I'll try to keep these spoiler free, so enjoy!
Arrival
Wealdstone is in trouble! The small coastal town has always sat on the fringe of the Blue Woods, a deep forest known to be home to spirits and talking animals. In recent months, however, the forest has begun to expand at an unnatural pace, swallowing outlying farms seemingly overnight.
The members of the party had received a letter from Aviquin, elder of the Verdurous Court, a conclave of wizards who secluded themselves somewhere in those same woods. Who exactly had received that letter and who had joined along the road was a little unclear, but the party consisted of:
- Flame, a little fire spirit piloting a steam automaton body
- Nanaki, a ghostly artificer (think No-Face from Spirited Away)
- Madrigal, a halfling werebear and fungal forager
- Sir Percius, a human paladin and upholder of the Queen's law.
Aviquin instructed them to meet with a contact in Wealdstone, who would guide them to the Verdurous Court proper.
An Unexpected Forest
The party had been on the road for the better part of a day. They had passed through the Mount Divergence Tunnel, an astonishing feat of modern engineering and magic that allowed transit through a previously impassible mountain range. Flame noted that this would likely have a big impact on the region's economy.
Halfway between the tunnel and Wealdstone was supposed to be a caravansary aptly named the Halfway Inn. We picked up with the party roughly where it ought to be on their map. Instead, they found a dense thicket of forest, newly spread across the nearby Alfiann River. As they approached, a horse ran out to them from amidst the trees.
Nanaki caught the horse and happily fed it an apple from their pack. Madrigal checked its harness and found a fancy saddlecloth monogrammed with the letters "DB" and a yoke for pulling a wagon. Flame had an eye for enchantments and detected that the cloth had a little bit of magic to it.
The party debated whether to circumnavigate the woods and get a sense for how rapidly they were growing or to press on and try to find the horse's owner. Sir Percius strongly opposed splitting the party to do both. Madrigal inspected the trees and identified that they were all basically identical pines with almost no scrub or brush underneath - weirdly new despite seeming to be pretty old growth.
Eventually, the horse decided. Nanaki climbed on its back as it started to walk calmly back into the woods. The party decided to follow along.
The Halfway Inn
Only a few minutes into the woods, they came upon the caravansary, or at least what was left of it. Inside a stone curtain wall were the ruins of a small inn and a wooden watchtower nearly bent to the ground with overgrowth. In the middle of the courtyard were two carts, pierced through by pines and carried some 20ft into the air.
Madrigal immediately set out to climb one as Nanaki called out a greeting. A small voice responded from the canopy - an old man who quickly identified himself as Donahue Barrowmere. He said he was a curio merchant on his way to Wealdstone and had been hiding out in the wagon for about two days, since it had suddenly been carried aloft by a tree. The horse, Steadfast, belonged to him. He would have come down but there was a troll in the area that he was hiding from.
Madrigal, in the meantime, climbed up to the other cart, a purple carriage with a locked cab and barred windows. Inside, she could see two containers - a small chest and a crate addressed to Doctor Yves and labeled "Do NOT open near soil!" She climbed on top of the purple wagon and threw a rope to Donahue, who tied it off and prepared to descend.
Next, Donahue demanded the party help him recover his merchandise - a mix of potions, fine cloth, and fragile trinkets. The party hemmed and hawed, not really wanting to take orders from this pushy old man.
In the meantime, Madrigal began using her trowel to try to pry a hole in the top of the purple coach. As soon as she did, the coach let out a sudden lurch and began to drop to ground level. She threw herself clear and Sir Percius caught her.
Astonishingly, both of containers in the wagon survived the fall. Nanaki quickly fashioned a travois from the wreckage and hooked it up to the horse's yoke before loading the chest and the crate.
The Troll Patrol
The party began to hear the sound of snapping branches and tuneless humming from the west - no doubt the troll coming to investigate the sound of the carriage slamming to earth. Donahue pulled up Madrigal's rope and refused to come down. The party debated hiding, forcing him to come down, or going to confront the troll head on. They decided on the latter course of action, taking Steadfast and the travois with them.
As they walked, the party compared what they knew about trolls. Madrigal knew them to be long-lived creatures, often extremely single-minded, but not inherently evil or hostile (a real point of concern for Sir Percius).
When they saw the troll coming down the road, it was swinging a whole lamp post idly at the tree tops. "Who are you, walking through my woods?" it greeted them in a rumbling voice.
Usually calm, Steadfast the horse immediately panicked. Madrigal and Flame managed to grab the horse and calm it down before it ran off.
The party took a courteous tone, saying they were just passing through on their way to Wealdstone when they had encountered Donahue and the horse. More curious than concerned, the troll thanked them for helping to pick up the litter in his new forest.
The party suggested that if the troll could help pull Donahue's carriage out of the tree, they would carry even more litter out. After some consideration, he agreed and they walked with him back to the inn. Along the way he introduced himself as Orrim. He had just moved in, since no one else had claimed this patch of forest that had sprung up a few days before.
Setting aside his lamp post, the troll grabbed Donahue's coach and, admittedly with a little effort, ripped it clean in half. The little old man screeched as the troll brushed him off onto the ground like you would shoo a spider out of your house. Trade goods flew everywhere, some shattering on the ground.
Packing Out
The party tried to persuade Donahue to come with them, but the curio merchant flatly refused, preferring to hide in the inn. Nanaki said they were taking his horse. Donahue in turn threatened to report them to the guard when he made it to Wealdstone, but the party laughed him off. Sir Percius consoled himself that it was probably against the law for this man to abuse this horse and leave it to its fate with the troll.
Donahue didn't protest as the party grabbed a few choice items from the wreckage - two patterned bolts of calico, a wooden shield with a horrifying humanoid deer face on the front, Madrigal's rope, and a second rope (Donahue already had one!) that Flame realized had some kind of enchantment on it.
They set off and passed Orrim, who was busily hauling chunks of ruined cart out to the edge of his new domain. Soon, they came out into the open grassland and could see Wealdstone off in the distance perched on a seaside cliff.
GM Notes
Off to a strong start! We had a slightly short session this week, mostly because we had to quickly convert some character sheet from 5e into our hack of Cairn 2e.
In some ways I am over prepped for this game compared to my usual fare. By virtue of adapting from an existing text, I have a lot of characters, factions, and locations to draw from. My goal is to stay true to that material while still letting procedures and our table improv lead the story and setting.
Towards that end, I really let reaction rolls and fate dice take the wheel this session. The troll encounter in particular was at a slight malus, but the 2d6 came up high so Orrim was more curious than hostile to intruders in his new home.
I'll note that we barely used the class abilities provided by the backgrounds I wrote, but we extensively used the knowledge those classes provided. Nanaki did some quick fabrication, but really it was asking questions about laws, the woods, magic, etc. that carried the session. Not a bad thing, but I'll keep an eye out for opportunities to showcase those special talents in future sessions.