CAIN: The Temerity Heresy (Learn to play CAIN)

Creating your character

This table is new-player friendly from start to finish. Whether CAIN is your first narrative horror RPG or your twentieth, you will be supported through every step of building your Exorcist. Character creation happens at Session Zero. No prior reading required, though you are welcome to sit with the core book beforehand if you want a head start. I will walk the table through the Blasphemies, the Agendas, the Skills, and the Kit choices at the pace of the room. Every Exorcist begins at CAT 1. For tone, think Chainsaw Man, Persona 5, Jujutsu Kaisen. Add a little Cabin in the Woods, Nightbreed, Parasyte, and Junji Ito. Cosmic horror wrapped in fluorescent light and institutional paperwork. Your Exorcist is a weapon the organisation has sharpened, but they are also a person. Bring the person. The weapon comes for free. This campaign uses the CAIN core book alongside Glory Unto Them (v3.1) and The Harpocrates Dossier (v3.1), which adds the Exorcist Bonds system, weapon bonds, the Blackcoat Pillars, and dozens of new Blaspehemies. Bonds grant mechanical benefits as your team grows closer, and mechanical costs when those bonds fracture. You will not need to know the rules going in. I will teach them at the table. We also allow 99% of the material from Tom's own Zone,"Game for Freaks," Volumes 1-4 which are all out on his Itch.io

Preparing for the session

Players need a Foundry VTT account and a Discord account. I pay for all Foundry hosting and provide every other material you will need. CAIN is its own system, Blades-adjacent in feel but mechanically distinct. You will not be tracking hit points or grid combat. Action rolls are 2d6 where you take the higher result. A separate Risk die, rolled by me, determines the weight of consequences alongside it. The game runs on investigation and atmosphere, punctuated by Hunts. A Hunt is the climactic execution scene inside the Palace of the Sin you have been tracking. Between Hunts there is downtime, Exorcist Bonds, and the slow unraveling of whoever made the trauma that birthed the Sin in the first place. Your Blasphemy is your psychic power path. You pick one at character creation, start with two of its powers, and gain more as you advance. Your power path is your signature; Blasphemies are not cross-pollinated as a default. The core book defines twelve Blasphemies. At this table you have access to more. I run with a curated list of additional power paths drawn from three of the four offered in the Games For Freaks magazine issues and from the Harpocrates Dossier, a comprehensive community supplement. You are not building a standard CAIN Exorcist. You are working for Temerity, CAIN's research and development arm. You will be handed cases that are exceptions, not the rule. Otherwise, why would they be studying them? If you have been curious about CAIN, this is the table for you. I will teach you as we play.

What Yuthika 'Fey' brings to the table

Voice acting across every NPC. I am a professional voice actress with anime and video game credits. Every character in this campaign, from the welcoming handler to the Sin's final words, has a distinct voice. This is not a placeholder skill for me. It is the craft I work in. A teaching GM/"Admin" with thirty-four years behind the screen. I started at age twelve in Japan and have never stopped. I hold a PhD in Psychology and work professionally as an educator. That background is how I read a table, how I pace session tension, and how I hold a safety framework that actually holds. New players are welcome at every level of experience. Curiosity is the only prerequisite. Full Foundry VTT production. Custom maps, ambient audio scored to the scene, in-world handouts, and a dedicated campaign dashboard for the Temerity Files. Every Hunt lives in its own prepared environment. Session briefings arrive as internal correspondence. The paperwork is part of the setting. A campaign built for CAIN, not ported to it. The Temerity Files is original scenario work designed around what CAIN does best: trauma-driven horror, institutional dread, and the slow erosion of whoever your Exorcist thought they were when they walked in. I spent years in practical effects on NBC's Grimm and teaching prosthetic work on the convention circuit. When I describe a Sin's Palace, a Hound's metamorphosis, or what CAT overflow looks like on a body, those descriptions come from someone who has built the real-world version with foam latex and silicone in their hands.

Homebrew rules

This campaign runs on the CAIN core book (version 1.4.5), Glory Unto Them (v3.1 Final, the unofficial supplement introducing Blackcoat Pillars and Exorcist Bonds), and Games For Freaks volumes 1-4(a zine magazine of additional content). These are the defaults in play along with any fan supplements you may want to bring to me, see below. The CAIN subreddit carries a wealth of player-created content: new Sins, new Blasphemies, expanded Hunts. If you find something that fits your Exorcist concept, bring it to me and we can discuss folding it in.

How Yuthika 'Fey' creates a safe table

Your Safety Matters Note. TRAUMA is at the core of CAIN. It's the beating heart of the system. If you are uncomfortable dealing with trauma, from facing it to resolving it, please think twice before booking. CAIN deals with heavy, disturbing content and I take player wellbeing seriously. This game is based around Traumatic Events creating Sins from Psychically gifted individuals so Trauma and dark themes are baked in alongside body horror and personal horror. Before we begin, we'll use Lines & Veils, you'll have the opportunity to set hard limits on content that should never appear at the table, as well as topics you'd prefer kept off-screen rather than depicted directly. These are respected without question, no explanation needed. If for some reason your lines and veils preclude you from playing CAIN I will speak to you about what can be done or accept your departure with grace. My table operates on an Open Door Policy, this means that if at any point the content becomes too much, you are always free to step away, take a break, or leave the session entirely without judgement. Real people always come before the game. During our 3-4 hour sessions I'll do regular check-ins to gauge how everyone is feeling, especially after particularly intense scenes. If things get heavy, we take a break; no pushing through. At the end of every session we close with Roses & Thorns, this is a chance to share what felt great and what didn't land, keeping the game a collaborative, comfortable experience for everyone. After the session, I'll also follow up with a private message to check in individually. Sometimes things hit differently once you're off the game and decompressed, and I want everyone to feel they have space to raise anything they didn't want to mention at the table. This is a dark game, but it should never feel unsafe. When in doubt, just say the word.