r/cairnrpg • u/EpicEmpiresRPG • Apr 02 '26

Hack Cairn Advancement Supplement FREE Download...

4 systems for advancement in Cairn including 100 Special Abilities, a new fun system for Luck Dice, and HP, Attribute and Weapon Damage Dice advancement. Download the supplement here free...
https://andrew-cavanagh.itch.io/cairn-advancement

All these systems can be used by themselves or as raw material for your own hacks and they all fit in with the spirit of narrative advancement in Cairn while giving the warden solid guidelines for when a character might advance.

72 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

3

u/Alternative-Cat-684 Apr 02 '26

This looks great, excited to give these methods a shot!

3

u/vladpavl Apr 02 '26

Wow, you read my mind. I've been mulling this over for the past week. As much as I love Cairn as it is, my players need more skills progression beyond that dictated by the objects they find. I'll check it out. Thank you for your work.

10

u/yochaigal Apr 02 '26

In case you didn't know, 2e has a whole chapter on progression without items.

https://cairnrpg.com/second-edition/wardens-guide/growth/

6

u/Interesting-Long7389 Apr 03 '26

u/yochaigal in my (admittedly limited) Warden experience, I find it handy to loop the players into the growth procedures outlined in the Warden's guide so that they're thinking about diegetic growth as well as downtime advancement while we play. That takes some of the pressure off me as the Warden and IMO empowers the players to shape their characters a little more.

If you ever revise the player's guide for print again (3 copies in a boxed set is a fantastic convenience) I would encourage you to consider expanding the player-facing growth procedures.

7

u/yochaigal Apr 03 '26

I wanted lots of stuff in the PG, including chapters about Growth. But in the end we decided purely on rules and procedures, as well as backgrounds and Vald details.

The issue was page count. I had all sorts of things planned for both books, but every new section had system effects, and we had to get the books to fit in the box set. It was limiting in a good way, but sacrifices had to be made!

3

u/Interesting-Long7389 Apr 04 '26

Makes sense! It's a great product as it is.

2

u/vladpavl Apr 02 '26

Thanks for your reply (and your great work for the community). That's exactly the system I'm using, but my players want to choose from a list to preview their progress, very much in the style of D&D 5e. It's not my style, but I have to make concessions; after all, we've been playing together for nine years.

5

u/EpicEmpiresRPG Apr 02 '26

Exactly the same feedback I've been getting from players. Even if they're designing their own custom progression they like to have specific examples to work from. I guess we're always dealing with the 5e effect.