Eyes Unclouded - Session 27
_A session report from ourongoing Studio Ghibli-inspired Cairn game._
## A Strange Connection
As night fell, the party huddled on the deck of their "rigible" _(a boat formed from the gondola of a dirigible)_ , which was actually a polymorphed member of their party. They were:
* **Ambrose** , mountebank and would-be flirt (currently the rigible)
* **Nanaki** , "no-face" spirit and artificer
* **Sir Percius** , law-abiding knight
* **Madrigal** , halfling forager and werebear
* **Flame** , tiny fire elemental in an automaton body
And they were accompanied by:
* **Ismene** , botanist and wizard of the Verdurous Court
* **Merlina the Crow** , the Cat King's magical advisor
The surrounding swamp was cold and gloomy. Huge chasms opened up that dropped away into nothingness below.
As they settled in, Nanaki began to tinker. They removed the orb they had retrieved from Eirnos' grove from their pack and untangled the three vines connected to it. They connected the vines to various parts of the rigible: the helm, the wheel housing, the deck. As the connections were made, the orb began to pulse and flicker.
For Ambrose, in their boat consciousness, the orb appeared like a green sun on the horizon or a green light in the corner of their eye. It seemed to pulse and sway, as if trying to communicate. They attempted a meditation technique, whereby they relaxed and let their consciousness sink into a dream. This had mixed results.
First, the rigible started surging west. The party back in the material world began debating whether this was Ambrose's doing and whether they should let the boat go. Second, Ambrose constructed a dream version of the grove in the Blue Woods, complete with the corpse of Eirnos the Deer. The orb happily inhabited that body, dragging bones and vines up to form the great spirit's shape. It said "hello."
Madrigal observed the orb, noticing the way it pulsed and flickered just like speech. She deduced that this could be one side of a conversation. Working with Nanaki and Flame, they constructed a simple speaker. Sir Percius volunteered his helmet, the others filled it with water, and Nanaki connected it to the orb using the grasping silver wires of Alfiann's prototype. The result was that they could hear and speak with the orb Eirnos, albeit with screeching cable noise.
## Eirnos?
So began a long conversation with the orb. It knew itself as Eirnos, but also that it wasn't alive - at least not in the way that great spirits are. It seemed to have precise memories of certain events and vague memories of later ones. It spoke in a hesitant monotone.
**Of Alfiann** , it remembered the first time she died. The orb said it gave too much of its power to restore her. It described their marriage as a pact, an attempt to fold the humans of Wealdstone into the life of the Blue Woods. The orb saw reviving her as "protecting her wellbeing." It assumed she died of natural causes some time later and seemed resolved to that fact.
**Of the ooze,** the orb knew little firsthand. Flame gave a detailed recounting of everything they had learned. With that description, the orb theorized that this ooze might be a result of its power. Eirnos' sphere was both growth and decay. This ooze could be an instance of extreme decay. Ambrose asked why the ooze was leaking from Fyrir's side, but it did not know. The orb guessed that the ooze would fade in time, but cleaning it up was beyond its abilities.
**Of Fyrir,** the orb knew more. It described her sphere as "hard choices." She saw herself as protector of the forest and warned against trying to fool her by hiding the humans in the party. They were only a few hundred yards from her and she would have already detected them.
Most pressingly, the orb said that Fyrir had disrupted the natural order. All things must die and fade away, even great spirits. The orb asked to be connected to the wolf spirit to try to communicate with her.
## Fyrir
Resigned or resolved, the party decided it was time to confront Fyrir. They unmoored the rigible and the orb propelled the vessel west towards her grove. At the bottom of a low defile, a ring of pines emerged from the sludge. Ooze seeped between them then down into a trio of drain-like pools in the middle. There, atop a jagged rock lay Fyrir.
The rigible arrived abruptly, ever so slightly too wide to fit between the pines. As it wedged itself fast, the world beyond the clearing faded away, replaced with dark, monochrome forest. Fyrir addressed them in a rasping, tired voice. She looked haggard, ribs exposed and ooze flowing from a long gouge in her side to mix with the flow on the ground.
"Why are you here?" Flame responded that they were here to see if she was okay and to help the forest. The great wolf laughed. She was not okay and she welcomed the party to try. She seemed content to talk for now.
**Regarding Alfiann,** Fyrir was unrepentant. She had slain the human for attempting to suborn Eirnos. She respected the deer in that he lived by his principles. Alfiann was changing those principles. Fyrir killed her, then, after Eirnos resurrected her, gave her some time to tinker. If the human could bring back the deer god, all the better. When she couldn't, Fyrir killed her again. The wolf spirit's wound was caused by Alfiann defending herself with the orb.
**Regarding the Woods,** Fyrir still saw herself as a protector. She was old, older than humanity, and was concerned that new great spirits would reflect the changed world outside. She pointed to the Cat King as an example. She mentioned that another great spirit had already filled the void left by Eirnos. When the party didn't know who she meant, Fyrir laughed and said that the Queen of Wasps was ascendant and that she was unlikely to be a friend.
**Regarding her plan** , Fyrir had quarantined herself to this grove, sending away her pack in the care of Hrove and Skarn, who she referred to as her "Eyes." Her plan ultimately was to remain, to stay in this grove so no one else could take up the mantle of great spirit in her stead. If she could hunt the humans and drive them from the forest in the process all the better. Talking about the Queen of Wasps seemed to spark a realization. She decided she could start hunting the other spirits, culling them until ones she could accept arose.
The party tried to persuade Fyrir that her plan wasn't working, that she should come to some kind of accord for the wellbeing of the woods, that she was doing more harm than good. She brushed these off. It was not in her nature to change. "That's what you think," she said. "What are you going to do about it?" She sat up on her stone.
## Doing Something About It
The mounting tension snapped. Nanaki and Madrigal sprang into action. Though sickly, the wolf was faster. Merlina conjured a wall of force and Ismene pulled raking vines to flay the great spirit, but she crashed through all of them and lunged onto the deck of the Ambrose-rigible. She snapped at Nanaki, who barely dodged her massive jaw but couldn't avoid being slammed off the deck into the noxious ooze below. _Mage Armor_ saved them from instant contagion, but they disappeared beneath the water and did not reemerge.
Ambrose had a frantic internal conversation with the orb. Could they use it to kill Fyrir? Probably, it replied, but it would drain the life from anyone who touched it. With great effort, Ambrose absorbed their helm, replacing it with a human arm.
Meanwhile, the battle raged. Flame leapt atop the wolf spirit and burned bright. The flames licked over Fyrir but only singed her coat. Sir Percius drew his sword and lunged forwards, smiting the creature with divine light. Madrigal took the opportunity to follow up, transforming into her werebear form and raking the wolf spirit's face with her claws. She took an eye for her efforts.
Fyrir howled in pain and Ambrose surged forward, the prow of the rigible knocking her aside. She tried to push back, to flip the vessel, but her feet gave way in the mud. She began to slip backwards into the murk. Flame still blazed like a house fire and the fires proved too much for Fyrir. She sprawled back, defeated and maimed. The ooze dragging her down into the dark below.
Madrigal tossed a rope and Flame surged along it, burning it to cinders to avoid being sucked below. Sir Percius hopped overboard, wincing at the icy burn of the ooze as he fished the unconscious Nanaki from the water. Fyrir was defeated, they were all safe, but they didn't celebrate.
The party discussed whether to use the orb to finish Fyrir off. Someone pointed out that if she fell into the nothingness below, her great spirit powers might go with her. They decided to be sure. Nanaki (roused by their companions) wired the orb to Ambrose's boat-hand and the mountebank willed it to fire. A black beam of unlife surged forth, carving a line down towards the sinking wolf. The beam cut through her, then she dissolved away.
## GM Notes
So concludes the first major arc of this game! By virtue of the source material we're working with, the players have already touched on a couple of the other major fronts of the setting - Mal-Aqat, the Ducal Guard in Wealdstone, Atakon and Whimwick. When we meet next, we'll see where they go.
It was fun to get to act as these two major characters in the setting, but very hard! How do you roleplay an orb that is maybe part of the consciousness of a deer spirit committed to the natural waxing and waning of the natural world? How do you play a sickly wolf spirit who is well past her prime, clinging to an idea that doesn't even really make sense because her nature (or she thinks her nature) is not to change?
I think I did a little better at the former than the latter. With Fyrir, I was shooting for something like the wolf mother from _Princess Mononoke_ (an obvious parallel in this context, perhaps), Gwyn from _Dark Souls_ , and the old king from _Parsifal_. I think the result was a little more cartoonishly villainous than I had imagined in my notes. A character whose tragic flaw is that they won't change from their plan even as it harms them is one thing, but it's very close to an unreasonable character who just wants to do bad because the plot needs them to do bad.
As ever, I struggle a little bit with "boss fights." There is clearly a narrative imperative to have a fight with the great spirit we've been talking about for 20+ sessions feel momentous, but that's in tension with _Cairn_ 's (and my) inclination toward combats that are abrupt and to the point. This scene mostly worked! The conversation built up good tension before. The players got lucky with a few key rolls so no one got severely hurt, but fighting fair they were at a real risk of trading one PC knock out per round. As ever, player action economy really impairs a single large enemy.
I could have run this more like a 16 HP dragon. One player even mentioned being surprised they could harm her at all. On the other hand, the party more or less exclusively was using big magical attacks or ramming Fyrir with a boat. Those feel like they actually _are_ attacks in the fictive register appropriate to fighting a great spirit, whereas a simple arrow might have skimmed harmlessly off her hide.
I am seriously considering a major rules rewrite in this natural break in the fiction. We've been doing a lot of "hard bargain, difficult choice, worse outcome" failures lately, and if I am just going to be bringing my storygaming GMing habits here, we could play a game that supports that better mechanically. Building on last session's notes, I think it would be good to put some kind of mechanical check on spell acquisition, firm up the resolution system, and get advancement conversations happening in session rather than afterwards at an unspecified time.
07.03.2026 17:11
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