Eyes Unclouded - Session 25
A session report from our ongoing Studio Ghibli-inspired Cairn game. You can find our last session here.
Two Wolves
The last members of the party summited the rocky outcropping, just as September came flapping out of the cave in bat form. They were:
- Ambrose, mountebank and would-be flirt
- Nanaki, "no-face" spirit and artificer
- Sir Percius, law-abiding knight
- Madrigal, halfling forager and werebear
- Flame, tiny fire elemental in an automaton body
And they were accompanied by:
- Ismene, botanist and wizard of the Verdurous Court
- Merlina the Crow, the Cat King's magical advisor
- Wesk, a blue jay scout from Eleutheria (who admittedly more or less disappeared this session)
Behind the squirrel druid lurched two wolves, sickly and dripping black ooze. The party flew into action. Merlina cast Mage Armor on the newly arrived party members. Nanaki cast Hallucinatory Terrain, stretching the cliff face in the hopes the wolves would stumble off the disguised edge. The rest of the party took shelter inside the illusion and tried to keep quiet.
One wolf seemed to fall for the illusion, meandering closer and closer to the edge. The other began to sniff the air, its sense of smell more acute than its rheumy eyes. It slouched towards Madrigal.
Ambrose grabbed a fistful of silver from his cart and lobbed it past the approaching wolf. The movement wasn't enough to trick the creature, but it bought a moment for Flame.
The little fire spirit began burning bright! Steam poured from Flame's automaton as they shoved the nearest wolf, then bull-rushed the second, sending both careening down into the swamp below.
Her Final Resting Place
The party advanced into the cave, led by Nanaki, who had snuck ahead during the commotion outside. As their lights lit the cavern, they found the main chamber full of bone, thatch, and scraps of leather—clearly a den of some sort. Sir Percius complimented Flame on their technique and requested some pointers.
They stepped over the broken, sparking shards of the invisible wall that had blocked off the nook to the north. A skeleton garbed in a tartan shawl was laid out on a rough stone plinth there. A backpack was set to one side. Madrigal could smell resin and dried herbs.
Flame inspected the body. It seemed to have been placed there respectfully, its arms crossed over its chest. The only notable injury was a series of massive fractures across the ribcage and shoulders. Ambrose noted that these matched the wounds Alfiann Yves had received in the vision they had seen in the memory pools of Eirnos' grove.
Nanaki produced the orb of layered bark they had retrieved there and extended it towards the body. As they did, the backpack hopped and scooted towards their outstretched hands. Everyone jumped back in surprise.
Madrigal popped open the pack's fastener, and a set of probing silver wires snaked out. They were connected to a crystalline ring the size of a crown to form a small construct that wriggled out of the bag. A journal and a few powdery spheres of packed earth rolled out behind.
Flame picked up the journal and began to read, though soon the party was passing the text around. This was the journal of Alfiann Yves, the herbalist who had wed the great spirit Eirnos. The journal detailed this and other events from throughout her life, particularly focusing on the creation of a "vessel" for Eirnos' heart after his passing. (I'll be sparse with detail here. The party did a lot of interpretation, and I don't want to confirm or deny with my summary.)
Ambrose noted new questions that this discovery presented. Why was Alfiann's body here? Who had conjured the magical wall? Did Eirnos die giving Alfiann his heart, or was he already dying of another cause? Was she acting out of grief or fulfilling some kind of pact?
Nanaki was more focused on the silver and crystal construct, which the journal identified as a prototype of the apparatus they had found in Eirnos' grove. What does it do? What would happen if someone wore it?
The party asked the two wizards—Merlina and Ismene—what they thought. Merlina counseled caution: better to experiment with an untested magical item in a safe environment. Ismene noted that the artifact was almost undoubtedly made from Mal-Aqat materials and that its origins would likely be so secret that they would need to test it or consult a diviner to find out more.
The party discussed next steps, but eventually decided to make their camp here in these clifftop caverns before setting out again.
GM Notes
After all that fuss, the combat wasn't such a big deal. The party did good work using their spells and abilities to turn a very dangerous situation into something more manageable.
The real highlight here was Alfiann's journal. I wrote up about 4 pages of excerpts in a slightly archaic voice, trying to find a middle ground between the kind of shorthand notes I would write in a journal and a few key, flowery images. This document has been hanging out in my binder for months now, dating back to early ideas about what was going on in the campaign setting, so it’s nice to finally pass it to the players.
In the last few sessions, we've had a nice balance between the traversal/exploration scenes that Cairn is designed for and the longer-term mystery play that's emerged in uncovering the Blue Woods' history. I do find myself wishing that Cairn had at least some kind of system that interacted with that type of mystery. I've grafted on something like Mausritter's faction system for managing the current setting's conflicts, but it’s interesting to think about what procedures might look like to structure and reveal historical ones.
Oh, and a note: Sir Percius expressed a desire to roll initiative with WILL instead of DEX. That was definitely a "no" in the moment, but another nice opportunity for Cairn's growth system to maybe do some work.