Touched by the Fay: 20 Advancements for Cairn and other Fantasy Games

Liden Gunver og Havmanden, 1841, Edvard Lehmann

Like all good recipe bloggers, I have added a big preamble about why I wrote this, and my thoughts on Cairn 2e backgrounds. If you just want the advancements, scroll down!

I have been reading the Cairn 2e books (more on that in a later blogpost), and something about Cairn that has always been frustrating me a bit is the lack of special traits or similar to make characters unique, rather than blank slates defined only by their items and a handful of stats, and whatever the player puts into them. For a long time, people have told me, "Cairn 2e backgrounds fixes this", and I have stubbornly told them, "I will read that when I get my box set, then."

Lo and behold, my box arrived a few weeks ago, and indeed, some of the backgrounds contains what I want. But only a few of them, and often just as one or two entries on the roll table. Many backgrounds contains the kind of abilities or traits I want, but tie them to items with limited uses, which I understand from a resource resource management or power level perspective, but it is unsatisfactory to me for two reasons: Items can be given away, traded, stolen, or just lost, and so are not specifics tied to your character, and secondly, with limited uses, I can just run out of the thing that makes my character special.

I had some very interesting discussions about this over on the Prismatic Wasteland Discord (special shout-outs to Elmcat, Amanda P., and Derek B.), and I remain in some doubt whether the Cairn 2e backgrounds implicitly give me what I am looking for, but lack the scaffolding I want, or if Cairn is just not intended for what I want.

Some existing examples of what I would ideally want all backgrounds to provide are the "What have you learned from the creatures of the wild?" table of the Beast Handler, the "How have you “improved” yourself?" table of the Barber-Surgeon, or the result "Your radical experiments turned your skin green, and you now gain nourishment as a plant. You don’t need Rations, but a day without sufficient sunlight and water leaves you deprived." on the Greenwise's table. There are also other tables that almost provide what I want, like the Concoctions of the Half-Witch, which I would have loved as once-per-day, or use-and-become-deprived abilities.

Basically, I want a character to have one or a few special abilities that set them apart. However, there are two criteria I want them to fulfil:

• Situational: The ability should only be useful in a limited number of situations. It should not be something that can be thrown at any type of problem.
• Special: The ability should be out of the ordinary, not something you would expect to be able to attempt under normal circumstances, e.g. no pickpocketing or lockpicking, etc. 

I want to give characters more tools in their toolbox for interacting with their environment in a way that is explicitly tied to them as characters, rather than just the items they are carrying. More levers to pull when exercising your player skill in the problem-solving.

So, after rambling a whole lot here are twenty ways your Cairn characters can be Fay-touched, you which you can either roll on at character generation (like I want to), or use as advancements due to their in-world actions.

Twenty Fey-touched Traits:

1. Touched by the Moon-goddess
   You have been blessed by the moon and can see through illusions when illuminated by moonlight. You have perfect night-vision as long as the moon is out.
2. Touched by the River-man
   You can communicate with freshwater fish, and may inhabit the body of one for up to a minute per day. (You need to touch the fish to take over its body – when you leave the fish, you will appear, touching the fish in the same manner as when you entered)
3. Touched by the Volcano’s Daughter
   You are unharmed by touching hot, or even molten, rock. You may meditate while holding a rock to heat it up – 100 degrees Celsius per hour of meditation.
4. Touched by the Prince of Sparrows
   Once per day, you may sprout feathers from your arms, lasting for a minute. This allows you to glide, but not truly fly.
5. Touched by the Rat King
   You may disintegrate into a swarm of rats, reforming after a minute unless all the rats are killed. To recharge this ability after activation, you must eat a kilo of rotting food – this will not harm you, but it will be disgusting.
6. Touched by the Worm
   You are able to slowly burrow through loose soil, and have no trouble breathing there. Remaining burrowed lets you slowly recharge your strength at a rate of 1 point per day. You will not die from being buried alive.
7. Touched by the Flame
   Snapping your fingers can produce a small flame, as from a tiny candle, which you can keep burning as long as you concentrate on it. Doing so produces a strong smell of sulphur.
8. Touched by the Lord of Eagles
   Once per day, if you see an eagle, you may see through its eyes for up to a minute. You can telepathically communicate with it while doing this.
9. Touched by the Queen Bee
   As long as you have eaten at least a spoonful of honey every day for a week, you can communicate with bees. They will perform simple tasks for you in exchange for honey.
10. Touched by the Sea-spirits
    You can breathe in sea-water for up to an hour every day, and communicate with its fishes. You can no longer drink freshwater, it has to be salted like the sea.
11. Touched by the Sun-god
    Your body shines with an inner light, illuminating the darkness around you, unless covered up. It also exudes heat like a wood-burning stove. You have to eat twice as much as a normal person.
12. Touched by The Stars
    At night (once per night), you may turn invisible for up to a minute, except for your eyes, which will shine like two bright stars, seemingly floating in the air.
13. Touched by the Princess of the Underworld
    Once per day, you may ask a single question of an inert corpse. After answering your question, it will crumble to dust.
14. Touched by the Countess of Blades
    You can turn your limbs hard and sharp like swords at will, which can cut and deal damage as appropriate. Any damage to the blade form is carried over when turning back, a dent is a sprain, a bend is a broken bone, and a total break is loss of limb.
15. Touched by the Dog Steward
    Your senses of smell and hearing are as sharp as those of a dog, and you can recognise any smell you have encountered before. You also have a tail, which wags when you are in a good mood and makes it very hard to buy trousers.
16. Touched by the Earl of Apes
    Your feet are hand-like, allowing you to grab and hold objects with them, and making climbing much easier, and your body is unusually hairy. You can communicate with apes and monkeys.
17. Touched by the Jarl of Bears
    You are impervious to cold and can recover from any non-permanent injury by hibernating for a week. A week’s worth of rations must be consumed in advance, any interruptions require you to start over.
18. Touched by the Vizier of Vipers
    Your blood contains powerful toxins. A small vial is enough to kill a grown man an hour after ingestion. The only antidote is your saliva. You have vertical pupils, like a snake.
19. Touched by the Duke of Clouds
    You can meditate for an hour and consume a ration’s worth of food to determine tomorrow’s weather with complete certainty. Your breath always condenses into little puffs of mist, like when breathing in cold weather.
20. Touched by the Vulture Seneschal
    You can smell raw meat and carcasses, both fresh and decaying, at up to two kilometres distance, allowing you to easily track it down. You can only eat raw meat, but any state of decay is acceptable to you. Your head and neck are completely hairless, the skin wrinkly and saggy. 

 I hope these are useful ideas for your games, or you riff on them to make something even cooler!