Inspired by a post from diogoNoGood on the /OSR subreddit, I’ve decided to share a few of my backgrounds for Cairn 2e – The Experimentator, The Mountaineer and The Stalker. All three are available (for free of course) down below. But first a couple of explanations. As I'm really not good with blogger, the links to the full backgrounds are at the very end of this post. Also a shoutout to kalkulus on the Cairn discord who provided me with this template they made for the backgrounds.
I developed these backgrounds for an open table hexcrawl I am running in my home city of Bratislava. Actually I used the Cairn 2e Wardens Guide to design the majority of the hexcrawl. The system I use is an amalgamation of various rules lite systems and my own things on top. This can be seen with the Mountaineer – Answer 3 to the first question, references + 1 contacts, which are a mechanism I use for downtime (I might perhaps describe it in another post). Feel free to replace it with anything that would be useful during downtime in your game. The mentioned rumors can be replaced with omens from the Cairn 2e Players Guide.
The backgrounds were made to fit into the world, where I developed these backgrounds for an open table hexcrawl I am running in my home city of Bratislava. Actually I used the Cairn 2e Wardens Guide to design the majority of the hexcrawl. The system I use is an amalgamation of various rules lite systems and my own things on top. This can be seen with the Mountaineer – Answer 3 to the first question, references + 1 contacts, which are a mechanism I use for downtime (I might perhaps describe it in another post). Feel free to replace it with anything that would be useful during downtime in your game. The mentioned rumors can be replaced with omens from the Cairn 2e Players Guide.
The backgrounds were made to fit into the world, where I run most of my games – low magic, post-industrial collapse (at the very beginning of the industrial revolution), with a solarpunk motif. Sooo various thingamajigs that are a hybrid of (nature or solar) magic, and technology. For example the Experimentators’ solar lantern, functions with a small light collector, which, when charged can produce light. If you are interested in solarpunk in OSR, Our Vale of Discontent is the place to start.
Lastly a word about the art. As I’m too slow (and self-conscious) to make my own illustrations I scoured the internet. The art is not my but from various sources, I made sure to credit and add links to the respective authors. Maybe one day I’ll make my own.
But yeah without further ado, below you can find the Experimentator, Mountaineer and Stalker backgrounds (not just) for Cairn 2e.
You can find the full version for free on itch
Or below on google drive:
