As you may have noticed, my current OSR system darling is Cairn and the general Odd-like family of games. I really appreciate the general ethos of encouraging players to be creative problem-solvers instead of min-maxing character-sheet masters. I prefer exploration over combat. But I also love rules-light games that are easy to learn, fast to play, and genuinely fun.
So in that spirit, I have been going back through my catalog of adventures to see which might make good Cairn modules. And the first obvious candidate was my very first adventure, Saving Saxham.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
The original adventure presented players with a small village that has a big problem (everyone died 30 years ago, but none of the resurrected villagers know that). The forest is full of ghosts and zombies, pixies and plague rats, elves and goblins. And the big twist is that if the players do nothing, then everything will probably be ok(ish). But if the players start killing zombies and banishing ghosts, then they actually make life in the village worse.
END SPOILERS!!!
Anyway, I went back to Saxham and looked for ways to make it a solid Cairn adventure. So in addition to changing the creature stat blocks (into much sleeker forms), I also added new adventure locations and creatures, tied some of the factions together in clearer ways, and re-did all of the art.
Then I reformatted the whole thing into a two-column digest-sized layout, and made it a Print On Demand booklet. Which is fantastic. I wish I had been making all my adventures like this from the beginning (because I really like making things I can hold in my hands).
So if you head over to DriveThruRPG now, when you get the PDF of Saving Saxham, you are getting the new Cairn edition, AND the original 5e edition, AND the original OSR edition. And if you get the print version, then you are getting the physical Cairn edition, as well as ALL THREE digital versions. Hope you like it!
PS – There will be more!
