"Would you burn down the world, just to get home?"

This land used to have cities – now there is only the Forest. Its borders glut and swell each season: shadowed, watchful, ravenous. The wood resists the axe; the Forest swallows towns and villages. None are heard from again. Yours, at last, is next.

Kith & Kindling is an arboreal depthcrawl for 2-4 players, designed for Cairn 1e. Enter the hungry Forest; seek out the fire that burns at its heart; save your home and all you love from the influence of both wood and flame.

Included within:

• Systems for procedurally generating a route through the Forest;
• Tables (over)stuffed with vibrant and deadly Locations, Details and Events;
  
• Three new monsters to haunt the Forest's shadows;
• Bespoke rules to punish the unwary use of fire and chart the PCs' descent into Forest-induced amnesia;
• The sweet, star-white comfort of oblivion.

The content is inspired by Leigh Brackett, Jeff VanderMeer, and the Vorrh novels by Brian Catling, and the form owes a huge debt to the incredible Gardens of Ynn and The Stygian Library by Emmy Allen. Kith & Kindling was written and released as part of the Appendix N Jam 2026.

Writing, layout and cover artwork by Barse. No AI tools of any kind were used in the production of this module. Images used licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal: Forest, by Chris Bambrick, and Flame by Paul Bulai on Unsplash. I wanted to include more illustrations, but, er, I ran out of space.