Vaarn by way of Cairn
Vaarn By Way of Cairn - 0.3
Based on Cairn, Vaults of Vaarn, and Knave 2e.
Title by Arc from the Vaarn discord. Many thanks to the Vaarn and Cairn communities.
Introduction
Vaarn By Way of Cairn is a hack of Knave 2e and Cairn mashed together. This format allows you to play vaults of Vaarn with the principles and core procedures from Cairn without much, if any conversion or stats.
As of this version, it has not been playtested but I am assuming that it is deadlier than Vaults of Vaarn Knave-based system, and even a little more deadly than Cairn.
Character Creation
Player Characters (PCs) have six abilities:
- Strength
- Dexterity
- Constitution
- Focus
- Psyche
- Ego
Determine starting scores by rolling 2d6 for each stat.
| 2d6 | 2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-9 | 10-11 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ability bonus | -2 | -1 | 0 | +1 | +2 | +3 |
- Choose your Ancestry. This determines what type of life-form you are. Each Ancestry has a number of spark tables to give you inspiration for the PC's name, appearance, and personality.
- Roll 1d8 to determine your PC's starting and maximum hit protection (HP).
- PCs have a number of item slots equal to 10+STR.
- PCs start the game with 3 rations of water. Roll once on the weapon and armour tables and twice on the gear tables to determine your character’s starting equipment. Armour comes with an armour rating.
- Generate your character's starting Exotica and Gift. Exotica are unusual, rare items. Gifts are supernatural powers. Cybernetics may replace Gifts.
Basic Rules
Abilities
Each of the six abilities is used in different circumstances.
- Strength: Used for saves requiring physical power, like lifting gates, bending bars, etc. A PC's number of slots relies on STR.
- Dexterity: Used for saves requiring poise, speed, and reflexes, like dodging, climbing, sneaking, balancing, etc.
- Constitution: Used for saves to resist poison, sickness, cold, etc. Using Cybernetics relie on your Constitution.
- Focus: Used for saves requiring concentration and precision, such as recalling information, crafting objects, tinkering with machinery, identifying Exotica, etc.
- Psyche: Used for saves requiring perception and intuition, such as tracking, navigating, searching for secret doors, communing with psychic powers, etc. Using Gifts relies on your Psych.
- Ego: Used for saves requiring willpower and charm, such as persuading, deceiving, intimidating, resisting mental domination, etc.
Saves
A save is a roll to avoid bad outcomes from risky choices and circumstances. PCs roll a d20 + an appropriate ability bonus. If they roll higher than 15 (16+), they pass. Otherwise, they fail.
Hit Protection
HP indicates a PC’s ability to avoid getting hurt. It is lost during combat & recovered after a few moment’s rest.
Damage and Wounds
When a PC receives Damage, subtract it from their HP. Once their HP reaches 0, add the remaining damage as wounds to the PC's inventory slots, from the bottom to the top. Anything they are carrying must be dropped if a Wound fills that slot.
Scars
If damage to a PC would reduce their HP to exactly 0, look up the result on the table below based on the amount of HP lost in the attack. For example, if a PC went from 3 HP to 0 HP, they would look at entry #3 (Walloped).
| HP Lost | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Lasting Scar: Roll 1d6. 1: Neck, 2: Hands, 3: Eye, 4: Chest, 5: Legs, 6: Ear. Roll 1d6. If the total is higher than your max HP, take the new result. |
| 2 | Rattling Blow: You’re disoriented and shaken. Describe how you refocus. Roll 1d6. If the total is higher than your max HP, take the new result. |
| 3 | Walloped: You’re sent flying and land flat on your face, winded. You are deprived until you rest for a few hours. Then, roll 1d6. Add that amount to your max HP. |
| 4 | Broken Limb: Roll 1d6. 1-2: Leg, 3-4: Arm, 5: Rib, 6: Skull. Once mended, roll 2d6. If the total is higher than your max HP, take the new result. |
| 5 | Diseased: You’re afflicted with a gross, uncomfortable infection. When you get over it, roll 2d6. If the total is higher than your max HP, take the new result. |
| 6 | Reorienting Head Wound: Roll 1d6. 1-2: STR, 3-4: DEX, 5-6: WIL. Roll 3d6. If the total is higher than your current attribute, take the new result. |
| 7 | Hamstrung: You can barely move until you get serious help and rest. After recovery, roll 3d6. If the total is higher than your max DEX, take the new result. |
| 8 | Deafened: You cannot hear anything until you find extraordinary aid. Regardless, make a WIL save. If you pass, increase your max WIL by 1d4. |
| 9 | Re-brained: Some hidden part of your psyche is knocked loose. Roll 3d6. If the total is higher than your max WIL, take the new result. |
| 10 | Sundered: An appendage is torn off, crippled or useless. The Warden will tell you which. Then, make a WIL save. If you pass, increase your max WIL by 1d6. |
| 11 | Mortal Wound: You are deprived and out of action. You die in one hour unless healed. Upon recovery, roll 2d6. Take the new result as your max HP. |
| 12 | Doomed: Death seemed ever so close, but somehow you survived. If your next save against critical damage is a fail, you die horribly. If you pass, roll 3d6. If the total is higher than your max HP, take the new result. |
Death
When a PC fills all of their inventory slots with wounds, they die.
Item Slots
PCs have a number of item slots equal to 10+CON. Most items, including light weapons, tools and so on take up 1 slot, but particularly heavy or bulky items like armour or medium to heavy weapons will take up more slots. Groups of small, identical items may be bundled into the same slot, at the referee's discretion. Carrying more items than your slot limit will make your character Deprived, which sets your HP to 0.
Water
Vaarn has a fluid economy; potable water is one of the most valuable resources in the blue wastelands. Up to three rations of water can be carried in one item slot. Biological PCs must drink one ration of water every day. Synthetic PCs must imbibe a ration of water weekly, in order to cool their general syntax boards and ego-engines.
Thirst
Failure to consume water every three days (or seven days for Synthetic PCs) will result in Deprivation. They add 1 Thirst to their item slots for every day they fail to consume Water. If they add Thirst for three days in a row, they will perish.
Deprivation
Deprived PCs cannot recover HP. They must rest in safety to recover from Deprivation while not being afflicted by Thirst.
Encumbrance
A character carrying more items than their maximum inventory slots has their HP set to 0
Healing
A moment’s rest and consuming water will restore lost HP and remove one Thirst from inventory, but may leave the party vulnerable. Resting in a safe environment for a day allows a PC to clear a slot from a Wound.
Barter
Merchants will usually trade an item slots’ worth of goods for similar, putting a premium on rations of water and items of Exotica. There is no set list of prices for goods in Vaarn. The deals characters can strike will depend upon context, the merchant’s disposition, and how persuasive they are.
Mystic Gifts
Each Mystic Gift fills one item slot. To use a Mystic Gift, describe what you want to accomplish, to which the Referee determines the cost, staring at 1d6 damage, increasing by one die size at a time according to the magnitude of the effect. If the effect inflicts damage, heals, or similar dice rolls, the die roll sice is one step bigger than the cost die (i.e. cost die 1d6, effect die 1d8).
Exotica
When you find a new Exotica, make an INT save. On a miss, you don’t know what it does until you spend a week of downtime studying it, take it to someone knowledgeable to appraise it, or until you find out the hard way.
Advancement
PCs advance by trading in Exotica at settlements or oases. Trading in an item of Exotica will automatically raise a PC to their next Level. A single Exotica can only be used to raise the Level of one PC, not the entire party.
Defence & Survival
Rounds
- A Round is roughly ten seconds of in-game time, and proceeds in turns. Each round starts with any PC that is able to act, followed by their opponents. The result of each side’s actions occur simultaneously.
- During the first round of combat, each PC must make a DEX save in order to act. Special circumstances, abilities, items, or skills may negate this requirement. PCs that fail their save lose their turn for this round.
- Their opponents then take their turn, and the first round ends. The next round begins with the PCs taking their turn, followed by their opponents, and so on until combat has ended with one side defeated or fled.
Actions
On their turn, a character may move up to 40ft and take up to one action. This may be casting a spell, attacking, making a second move, or some other reasonable action. Each round, the PCs declare what they are doing before dice are rolled. If a character attempts something risky, the Warden calls for a save for appropriate players or NPCs.
Attacking & Damage
- The attacker rolls their weapon die+STR or DEX, and subtracts the target’s armor, then deals the remaining total to their opponent’s HP. Attacks in combat automatically hit.
- If multiple attackers target the same foe, roll all damage dice and keep the single highest result. All actions are declared before being resolved.
- If an attack would take a PC’s HP exactly to 0, refer to the Scars table to see how they are uniquely impacted.
Attack Modifiers
- If fighting from a position of weakness (such as through cover or with bound hands), the attack is Impaired and the attacker must roll 1d4+STR or DEX damage regardless of the attacks damage die. Unarmed attacks always do d4+STR damage.
- If fighting from a position of advantage (such as against a helpless foe or through a daring maneuver), the attack is Enhanced, allowing the attacker to roll 1d12+STR or DEX damage instead of their normal die.
- Attacks with the Blast quality affect all targets in the noted area, rolling separately for each affected character. This can be anything from explosions, to a dragon’s breath, to the impact of a meteorite. If unsure how many targets can be affected, roll the related damage die for a result.
- If attacking with two weapons at the same time, roll both damage dice and keep the single highest result (denoted with a plus symbol, e.g. d8+d8).
Wounds
- Once the PC’s HP reaches 0, each point of damage fills an item slot with an appropriate wound.
Direct Damage
Direct damage bypasses HP and adds wounds directly. This occurs in situations where a creature’s combat skills would not protect them (e.g. when falling or attacked unawares).
Character Death
- PCs die when they fill all of their remaining slots with Thirst or Wounds.
- When a character dies, the player should create a new character or take control of a hireling. They immediately join the party in order to reduce downtime.
Detachments
- Large groups of similar combatants fighting together are treated as a single Detachment. When a detachment takes Critical Damage, it is routed or significantly weakened. When it reaches 0 HP, it is destroyed.
- Attacks against detachments by individuals are impaired (excluding blast damage). Attacks against individuals by detachments are enhanced and deal blast damage.
Retreat
- Running away from a dire situation always requires a successful DEX save, as well as a safe destination to run to.
Ranged Attacks
- Ranged weapons can target any enemy near enough to see the whites of their eyes. Attacks against especially distant targets are Impaired.
- Ammunition is not tracked unless otherwise specified.
Credits
Vaults Of Vaarn is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 license.
Cairn is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 license.
Knave 2e is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
The content of this hack is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 license.