Rise of the Blood Olms
My wonderful wife was out of town for a trip with the ladies, leaving me home alone with the dog all weekend. Time to let loose and run some RPG one shots! I'm a nerd so I coined Folk Fantasy Friday and ran a one shot of Cairn to start the weekend. I already ran my planned adventure, Praise Be, God of Filth, so on to the next adventure, Rise of the Blood Olms!
I choose Blood Olms for two big reasons. First, I'm really interested in running an adventure by the designer of Cairn, Yochai Gal, and he recommends this as a one shot. Second, the title gets me by including the European troglobite caudate. I'm a salamander fan and used to keep several species. I know of the olm and it's subterranean lifestyle and a quick check of Wikipedia reveals that I do know the genus name of the salamanders and these animals are known as the "human fish" by locals. Excuse me while this nerd takes off his naturalist hat.
The adventure sets the characters to recover a relic, the Mud Sieve, after the expeditionary party that was holding it never reported in. You must go to their last known location, recover the Mud Sieve, and maybe get a bonus for each expeditionary member rescued. A good double hook to get things cracking.
Blood Olms started with a choice and some hints of things to come. Follow the foot prints to the cavern entrance or take the short cut ladder made later? Just as in Praise Be, God of Filth, this adventure nearly ended within three adventure rooms when a character shoved their torch into a methane vent despite hissing, flickering and streamers of blue in the flame.
Many things in this adventure resonated with me and the table. Choices are available in every room. A weird old man will fill you in on the past. Olms and humans come in two varieties. Many clues of the various ecological proceedings are spread throughout and got some "of courses!" and "isn't that...?" moments. Very satisfying.
Something I messed up with both my Cairn sessions is the encounter procedure. I used the OSE/Shadowdark model of encounters with a 1 and nothing on 2-6. I still had encounters but I missed the nuance of the Cairn table that has something happen on every number. Next time.
My biggest stumbling block was the Ambush Room, C4. The description makes perfect sense but the map didn't match what the words said to me. I'm not sure if the left half of the room is supposed to be over the right side? The ledges are quite far away from the rocks moved to make a squeeze.
My crew of adventurers were quite successful, rescuing one member of the expedition and the Mud Sieve. With the biggest misfortune a broken leg.
I really enjoyed Rise of the Blood Olms. It's flavorful, has a lot of interesting interactions and a bit of mystery that the players can unravel that runs parallel to their goal. I think I have developed a better understanding of Cairn. I had a great time and would recommend Blood Olms. Plus, it's free and print on demand version is quite nice and under $6.