Review 11: Howl
Next up, we enter the world of one of my favorite systems: Cairn (in this instance, I was using the 2nd edition playtest rules), which I used to run the adventure "Howl" by Colin Le Sueur. This particular adventure was originally written for 5e D&D, and this version was redone specifically for use with Cairn.
The premise of this adventure is that the PCs are shipwrecked on a lonely coast, and are then confronted by a massive beast that curses them with a baleful howl. Traveling inland, they find a lonely village where they likely learn the facts of their new cursed status, and that one way to break the curse is to slay the beast. The second part of the adventure features exploration of the surrounding land and a small dungeon that is said to be the beast's lair; evidence here points to the true identity of the shapeshifting beast. Finally, there is a confrontation with the beast.
One additional thing to note is that, as written, this adventure is intended as the start of a longer campaign-- the next adventure already exists for 5e, and I believe the Cairn version is still in progress. As a result of that intention, there is quite a bit in the adventure that might seem a little bit too railroady for many N/OSR players' tastes-- however, it is pretty simple to omit some of those details to make it more of an open-ended adventure.
Getting it to the Table
Not having read the original version of this adventure, I cannot speak to how the layout of the Cairn version compares, so I can only say that the layout of the Cairn version is "pretty darn usable". The content is straightforward and efficiently presented, with not a lot of space wasted with lore and background that won't have any impact on the players' experience. It opens with a brief outline of how the adventure is intended to proceed, and then jumps right into part one. Opening with a planned shipwreck situation can be tricky and rob the players of a little agency, but this one was handled well; PCs can perform actions to help the ship weather the storm (with some examples provided) and if their saves are successful, then some crew members survive and can act as hirelings. This is a nice way to add a little interactivity to a tone-setting introduction to the adventure rather than just reading the players a long block of text.
Next up, we get a map of the area (Before the key! Hooray!), with the major points of interest detailed in the following pages. These are presented in a very neat and clean manner, with a brief read-aloud text followed by bullet points of the important features, which are then expanded on below. Again, this is the kind of organization that I like to distill from written adventures, so having it already done for me is a great time-saver. Another nice addition to this is a list of "exits" from each keyed area, which is very helpful for seeing how different areas are connected to each other without having to constantly flip back to a map. In the second part, which is dungeon-focused), each room includes a simple diagram listing the surrounding rooms, which accomplishes the same effect. A point against the adventure, however, is that the area keys do not include monster stat blocks; instead, they are all listed in an appendix at the back of the adventure. For my preparation, that meant I had to either open up a duplicate tab of the PDF to have the appendix handy, or else copy the stats into my tracker.
What Worked?
- Exits and Room Connections. Having these at hand made it very easy to get a sense of how locations were laid out while just looking at the area description.
- Great hazards and non-combat encounters. There were plenty of things that rewarded experimentation and interaction, and also some things that punished them. We had one death due to sticking their feet into a fishing hole inhabited by the Cave Mother, and the stone lion's endless circling walk was an interesting puzzle to get past.
- A puzzle that was simple yet fun! Too often you see puzzles that either take you right out of the fiction, or else they're difficult to describe. This one had a nice handout, and there were multiple places to find clues to the solution.
What Didn't Work?
- Leftover 5e storytelling? A pretty major part of the story simply didn't click with the way I like to run games. At the big confrontation, it is revealed that there is a powerful NPC who has been pulling the strings behind the scenes the whole time, and who orchestrated the shipwreck and needed The Heroes™ to complete her plan, and all of this felt very high-fantasy trad gamey rather than N/OSR style emergent play. Ultimately, it can be changed easily, and there's still plenty of meat to the story to make an interesting adventure.
- No stat blocks in area descriptions. I'll always prefer having that at hand, even if you have to repeat a stat block in different areas. Since this was written for Cairn, the stat blocks will only take up at most a couple of lines, so repetition isn't that big of a deal in comparison to the usefulness.
Final Thoughts
If you look past the clunky "big plot" portions, the core of this is an incredibly solid little adventure that is reminiscent of classic werewolf legends; there's a squalid town with creepy residents to interact with, and a rather fun little dungeon to explore with some great set pieces. My players had a good time finding the clues and bits of environmental storytelling that allowed them to piece together what had happened before, and breaking the curse in the finale was satisfying. It took a little bit of tweaking to make it into a one-shot rather than the introduction to a longer, more "high fantasy big heroes" game, but it was worth it.
You can get "Howl" from the By Odin's Beard itch page. Thanks for reading!