Plans for Cairn2e update

Χαίρετε ! (Chairete) !

If you have not heard already, Cairn 2e is currently in playtest. Please get the latest edition from https://cairnrpg.com/ and consider checking out the cairn discord server for questions about the game, its development, and to share your play reports during the playtest; everyone loves hearing them, so you really should!

Now a big change in 2e has been to backgrounds. When I published this set of original Ancient (Actually closer to *Classical if we're being academic, but I'll get to that) Greek Backgrounds for Cairn, there were d20 backgrounds in Cairn to choose from, and none of them had any additional information besides a title. The rest - as they say - is left to the player and Warden's imagination (and hackers/supplement writers like myself!)

In its current state, I wouldn't recommend trying to use this document as I originally intended with 1e - with the 2e playtest. Please check out the playtest, it's super awesome and Yochai is working hard on it and deserves all the mad props I can give the dude. Srsly. The backgrounds that meld with the new emerging setting of Vald are worth checking out, my players are a bunch of freaks and jerks and goofballs and I love them all for it. So while I develop this more, check that out first and show that dev team some love <3

SO what I would love to do is update this supplement to a comparable state with the backgrounds in the playtest, with minimum one page per background for each to have art in the style of Greek pottery, more starting items, and (like in the 2e playtest) two tables (d6) that are unique to each background and allow for additional detail.

This will take me a bit more time doing research than I have put into this project already, but given the number of people that have supported me and downloaded this and the feedback I've gotten from other creators I respect, I think it's worth my time and that someone is gonna like it when I'm all done.

If you are someone with a strong understanding and passion for Greek Culture, Ancient History, Classical Antiquity Studies, and the civilization/culture/period that brought us the words "democracy" and "heroes" and The Allegory of the Cave and Oedipus Rex and The Iliad, reach out to me! I want to hear from you, I want your opinions and insight, and I need help with getting my shit straight! Proofreading, suggestions for resources, areas/fields to dive into specifically, notes on the existing document, play reports if you use this for a game, I love feedback!

Mostly though, I want players and Wardens to think deeply about the settings they portray and inhabit, and deepening my understanding of real history is going to help a lot. If people think they're getting "historical period backgrounds" I think they deserve the most feasibly accurate ones I can reasonably fit to the system. When I ran this in a game of Cairn, I realized the gaps between the knowledge I had of the setting and the information about the setting as it related to the characters specifically that my players were working from were not many, but they were still significant enough that I want to encourage both players and Wardens to investigate history truthfully if they choose to portray ANY historical culture or period. To that end, the final version will for sure have more context so that more players will understand the implications of the backgrounds they roll, since this is intended for random character generation "by fate" after all. Only fair to know your own fate, right? ;)

Even though much of what I know of Western Culture draws inspiration or lineage of a continuous history/heritage/exchange from the culture and history of Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean, today Greece is also a living nation with a heritage and real people that live there and draw lineage and connection to the lands I love to portray in my games and read about in fiction. Fiction can not only honor and affirm this truth, but encourage the audience to investigate truth further for themselves, and I want all of my work no matter what it is to carry that idea forth.

I hope that whether you agree with me or not on the precise importance of doing things more historical justice when "it's just a game", you'll check it out when I'm finished and decide for yourself if you're up to immersing yourself in an amazing system and a fascinating setting that was heavily inspired from history that happened ONLY two and half millenia ago~ !

PS hit me up with other ancient greece flavored cairn or system neutral RPG stuff! i'll make a collection!