Cairne
23rd Day of Frigus, 215 PR
Scope
The motivation behind building Cairne
Cairne started as a bit of a passion project while I was touring Ireland with a band I played with for a few years called Amoric. My bandmates were Bulgarian and me, an American living in Ireland with a house full of Bulgarians, well...conversation tended to be a lot of things I couldn't understand. I passed a lot of time spinning ideas in my head that incorporated elements of things that I loved in literature and gaming. Steampunk, Eldritch Horror, Fantasy, Westerns, Sci Fi...I wanted a diverse place to play and create in where anything could happen and the heroes were up against some of the worst odds imaginable. I have always believed that the worst of times breed the best of people, and my world is no different. I love to see my players become the heroes, and to become passionate about the narrative that they struggle through. This labor of love has grown over the course of years, and we have begun playtesting it over the last three years, with our first full campaign coming to a close soon here in 2023! My players have become a creative team and a brilliant one at that, lending their ideas and voices to the development of cultures and rules within as we move along through the story. I could not have done this without them, and I hope in the future that others will be able to play in this world and become the epic heroes and anti-heroes that I know we all secretly dream of being!
The goal of the project
In the future, we are hoping soon to publish, not only the game setting, but the new ruleset and full TTRPG as well. Its been a long time in the works, and we are just a small group of friends, but I think we have something very special here, thanks largely to their involvement, and I think a lot of people will enjoy sharing this world with us!
Cairne's Unique Selling point
Cairne and its soon to be announced rule set will allow a player to build and create just about any type of character they can imagine. It is a world with psychics and spiritualists, warriors and gunmen, elves and dwarves, airships and steam powered vehicles, and so much unique content as well. The goal is to create a system wherein a group can work out a mutual narrative that is fun, exciting, cinematic, and easy to play, with a vast variety of characters and things to do with them. We want to bring a sense of grim reality, epic fantasy, and thrilling adventure back into the TTRPG world without the stipulations of creating within a box.
Theme
Genre
I jokingly refer to Cairne as a low magic/high tech/steampunk/eldritch horror/post-apocalyptic/fantasy world...but as funny as it is to say that in one breath, its also true ;)
Reader Experience
The world is a very dark place, the adventures taking place two hundred years after a cataclysmic event that changed the entire face of everything. It is challenging and difficult, but also filled with incredible wonder, terrifying horror, and soul twisting tragedy.
Reader Tone
I've been told the world is a bit grim dark, though it still has so many elements of other things as well.
Recurring Themes
The Blight and the Void that dictates the things that happen within it. The cultures that are unique to the world, and the lack of spiritual escape from the place as well leave a bleak and desolate theme on the edge of one's experience, but this also in turn lifts up the players as survivors, and the importance of life itself in the face of a near world ending tragedy dictates a great deal.
Character Agency
The players in my world are the world in their own way, and the history and timelines of the world directly reflect their involvement in it, whether it be by fulfilling prophecy, turning the tide of a political event, or directly changing the face of the world itself, they are the main characters of the story.
Focus
Drama
The Artist is currently one of my favorite points. There is something about the powers behind them and the pacts they offer...and the motivations of those powers themselves being a wide and varied element of the game.
The slowly growing return of the Seanachaisians on multiple fronts. Whether they be the artists and musicians trying to recapture the days of old, or the rebellions freedom fighters rallying behind the Burnt Crows, this is not only the first unique culture that was written for the world, but a favorite as well.
The Espionage of the two power player political machines of the world, the Culvarkt dwarves and the Bechtlarite Empire. Allies on either side of the world, these two great powers of technology and economics are constantly spying on one another as the compete for technological superiority. While they remain steadfast allies on the surface, a silent cold war carries on in the background out of sight.
The struggles of the Fouvienians as they try to hold back the Void underground where the light cannot hinder it. This fight has been raging day in and day out for two hundred years, and their entire culture is built around combating it and trying to retake their home.
The entry of two new species, the Bonedancers and the Sahahimu Peoples, one a species of elf left stranded on Cairne during the Blight, and the other a species that remained hidden in isloation, unseen and unknown to the world, only coming out of their island home as the world shifted, troubled and determined to find out why.
The Somnambulistic Prophecy has still several Utterances to go, each one supposedly bringing Cairne closer to the return of divinity and the opening of the world back into the multiverse beyond.