1994: The Whispering Vault

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary, and the new edition of that, Dungeons & Dragons, 2024, in the year of the game’s fiftieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

In your life, you came to realise the truth of the world. You saw beyond the five senses. Your world, our world, was the Realm of Flesh, woven together by the physical laws to provide form and substance. As one of the Enlightened you learned that there was another plane of existence in parallel that was free of those laws. This is the Realm of Essence. Between the Realm of Flesh and the Realm of Essence lies the Neitherspace, home to hordes of the creatures known as Shadows who desire to interact with both the Realm of Flesh and the Realm of Essence. The Shadows are ever watching the Realm of Flesh and there are those that would force their way into the Realm of Flesh. Some play a role in the lives of Man. They are called Awakened Shadows and they are dangerous for they do not think like us. Some to fulfil their alien passions. They are called the Unbidden and they are worse. They awaken Shadows and bind them to physical vessels as Minions. To the ordinary man and woman unlucky enough to encounter them, they are the monsters of myth and legend. As an Enlightened, you knew better. You dedicated your life to investigating their doings and to protecting the Realm of Flesh from their intrusions. And then you were Chosen. The Stalkers came for you, freeing you of your physical bonds, forging your Humanity into Five Keys, and giving you a gift from the Primal Powers. This is the Immortal Essence to serve as a Stalker. Combined with your mortal origins you have the ability to return to Realm of Flesh, your duty to protect its inhabitants from the Unbidden and mend the Enigma left behind by the Unbidden’s absence that if left unattended, will spread corruption that will infect the Realm of Flesh and more…

This is the set-up for The Whispering Vault, a horror roleplaying game published by Pariah Press in 1994. (A prerelease was published in limited numbers for Gen Con in 1993). In classic nineties style, the Player Characters are monsters, but monsters with mortal origins and attitudes whose understanding of mankind and their world, enables them to better protect the Realm of Flesh in their new form as they once did in their original flesh. As Stalkers, they exist beyond the Realm of Flesh, each residing in their own Domain the nature of which reflects what they were and did in life. When they return to the Realm of Flesh, their Avatar is woven into a Vessel, the Vessel hiding the oddly inhuman or horrific form that their Avatar takes. The search for the Unbidden—called a Hunt—can take a Stalker anywhere, so there is scope for a scenario in The Whispering Vault to be set anywhere and anywhen, the roleplaying game possessing a time travel element. The fact that The Whispering Vault has monsters entering different time periods via a body that can be rewoven each time creating a different body almost makes the roleplaying game sound like, ‘Quantum Leap with monsters hunting monsters’.

There is a duality to the Player Character or Stalker in The Whispering Vault, reflected in his Avatar and his Vessel. First though, a player must decide what his Stalker did during his mortal existence. This involves determining where and when he was born, who he was and how he lived, why he hunted the Unseen, and how he was recruited as one of the Chosen. Then he decides upon his Avatar, what he looks like as one of the Chosen, reflecting what he looked like in life, but still obviously supernatural, and his Domain, where his Avatar resides. The Avatar has four Attributes—Awareness, Insight, Presence, and Willpower—which range in value between three and seven, with ratings of four and five being seen as reliable. The Avatar has a number of Disciplines, special powers taught by the Primal Powers for the Stalkers to wield in the Realm of Flesh against the Unbidden and their servants. For example, ‘Conjure’ enables an Avatar to create small objects, ‘Dominate’ gives them mind control, and ‘Savage’ to inflict more damage in melee combat. It is possible to gain Mastery in a Discipline and gain access to wider powers and the ability to improvise with Inspirations. When on a Hunt, a Stalker can summon phantoms of Essence to serve him. For example, ‘Chronovores’ slow mortals, ‘Flits’ reduce the damage from ranged attacks, and ‘Rippers’ tear the Husks off Minions. A Vessel’s Attributes are physical—Dexterity, Fortitude, and Strength—and range in value between three and six, but can be more.

A Stalker has Five Keys, both symbols of his Office and his connection to the Realm of Flesh, granting him his powers, whilst anchoring him to what he was. The Five Keys are either Virtues, Flaws, or Memories, and a Stalker has at least one each. They are also a physical object that can be stolen and without them, a Stalker cannot use Karma or his powers. If someone else holds his Five Keys, a Stalker cannot directly act against them.

To create his Stalker, a player divides twenty-two points between the four attributes of the Avatar. Selects a number of Disciplines equal to the Avatar’s Awareness, and a number of Servitors equal to his Presence. Summoning a Servitor inflicts damage on a Stalker, unless he has Mastery in doing so. It is recommended that a player select a Servitor in which his Avatar has Mastery so that it can be brought into play without damaging him. He assigns points equal to the Avatar’s Willpower to the three physical attributes of his Vessel. Lastly, he defines the Five Keys for his Stalker. It is suggested that initially, the player defines only a few of these. The process is not difficult, but it involves making a fair number of choices, a process hampered, if only a little, by the terminology used in The Whispering Vault.

NAME: ‘Cagliostro’

When And Where Were You Born?

I was born in Lancashire in 1936

Who Were You And How Did You Live?

I was Harold ‘Harry’ Rawllins. I worked at the theatres as a mind reader. I read people. I was a fake.

Why Did You Hunt The Unseen?

I read someone who was not normal, evil even, and turned out to be something not human, but looked like it. I knew I had to stop him. There were more.

How Were You Recruited?

I encountered others like me, who could see beyond.

Domain: A replica of the Lancaster Grand Theatre

FIVE KEYS

Virtuous: Courage

Flaws: Pride

Memories: The applause of the audience

AVATAR

Awareness 6 Insight 5 Presence 6 Willpower 5

Disciplines: Delve (Mastery), Dominate, Foresight, Terrify, Ward

Servitors: Dreadwyrms, Ferretters, Glamours (Mastery), Gremlins, Trackers

VESSEL

Dexterity 5 Fortitude 4 Strength 4

Skills

Attack +2, Charm +6, Defend +2, Mask +4, Mend +2, Occultism +2, Prestidigitation (Focus) +4, Sensitivity +4

Vitality 10

Karma 5

Mechanically, The Whispering Vault is simple. To have his Stalker undertake an action, his player makes a Challenge Roll. The Difficulty of the Challenge ranges from Routine and eight to Very Hard and eighteen, and it can be altered by modifiers from ‘-4’ and Routine to ‘+5’ and Very Hard. The player rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the Attribute being used and counts either the highest result on a single die or the highest total of the matching dice. To this total is added the value of an appropriate skill. A point of Karma can be spent to reroll any dice.

For example, Cagliostro and his Circle of Stalkers is tracking an Unbidden which is preying on wealthy widows. He has used his Trackers to locate at a country house where a party is being held. He decides to enter the house via the tradesman’s entrance. There is a member of staff on duty at the door, preventing those without permission from entering. Cagliostro’s player describes how he has been booked as the entertainment for the evening. The Game Master sets the Difficulty at Average or twelve, but applies an Easy modifier because the comings and goings make the staff member a little harassed. So, the Difficulty is reduced to ten. Cagliostro’s player will roll six dice for his Presence Attribute and apply his Charm skill. He rolls two, two, three, six, six, and six. This is an incredible roll and with the addition of his Charm skill, gives a final result of twenty-four! The Game Master rules that the staff member accepts everything that Cagliostro says and further, accepts the other members of his Circle as part of his troupe and directs other members of staff to help them inside.

Combat uses the same mechanics, but The Whispering Vault eschews the use of hard and fast rules for things like range modifiers, recoil, and reload times. Instead, conflicts are intended to be run as a narrative told by both the players and the Game Master, and both are encouraged to roleplay such situations. Where actions require resolution, Challenge Rolls are made, but to resolve an attack the Stalker makes an Attack Challenge against his opponent’s Defend Attribute, and to defend himself, a Stalker makes a Defend Challenge against his opponent’s Attack Attribute. Effectively then, in this, The Whispering Vault is player-facing in its mechanics—and player-facing in its mechanics a good twenty years before it became fashionable with designs such as Numenera.

However, The Whispering Vault actually pays more attention to the damage inflicted rather than the inflicting it. The emphasis is placed on melee rather than ranged damage since Shadows and the Unbidden take less damage from ranged damage. The base damage for a Stalker is based on his Strength Attribute, modified by the Savage and Rend Disciplines, and a player is expected to be inventive in how his Stalker actually attacks his opponents based on the Stalker he has created. The example given is a Stalker shooting chains from its eyes (so very Hellraiser, one of likely inspirations for the roleplaying game), but Cagliostro could shoot out streams of magic scarfs or throw playing cards or use magic rings to entangle and rip. In general, a Stalker relies on its own intrinsic weapons and those abilities granted by Disciplines rather than wielding weapons of the Mortals, and unless he has an appropriate Focus Skill, suffers an attack penalty when using them. Damage suffered by a Stalker (and other supernatural beings) is divided by his Fortitude Attribute before it reduces his Vitality, but once his Vitality is reduced to zero, the damage reduces his other Attributes. Which Attributes are reduced is up to the player, but if a Stalker’s Fortitude is reduced to zero, he is killed. In general, Stalkers are sturdier than Mortals, and there is a cap on the amount of damage that they can inflict on Stalkers, whereas Mortals are easier to kill. A Shadow can be damaged enough to destroy its flesh and force it back into the Neitherspace, whilst Unbidden needs to have its much weaker Vessel destroyed, forcing it to reveal its true, and much stronger, form.

The core of The Whispering Vault is its Disciplines which grant Stalkers to alter the Realm of Flesh. Some are more powerful than others, weakening the Vessel they reside and costing them points of Vitality. If a Stalker has Mastery in a Discipline, then he can improvise further uses of it, called Inspirations, his player describing the desired effect and the Game Master adjudicating it. Using an Inspiration costs Karma, but the Game Master can simply disallow an inspiration, nor does she have to explain why it does not work, the book suggesting that she tell that, “…[t]he Dream can only be stretched so far.” (The Dream being how the Primal Powers envision the Realm of Flesh.) Honestly, it would have been better to have the player and Game Master negotiate on the effects rather than the latter simply saying no. If successful, the player is encouraged to describe how the Inspiration works and similarly visualise and describe how the supernatural abilities of the Disciplines appear, as if they were special effects in a film. The Inspiration guidelines are underwritten and the advice could have been better.

Servitors are given a similar description as Disciplines. A Servitor costs Vitality to summon, and requires the use of the Evoke skill, but cannot be seen by those unable to see Essence. Some are less useful than others, such as ‘Cloudlings’ that absorb moisture from the air only to release it as a rainstorm later, but others like ‘Gremlins’ disrupt machinery and devices, ‘Flits’ that intercept ranged attacks, and ‘Devourers’ that consume nonliving matter. Much like the Discipline descriptions, the Servitors are often underwritten in terms of what they can do and are open to no little degree of interpretation. In the right hands, this can grant a lot of flexibility, but in the wrong hands, is potentially open to abuse. Conversely, the skills are better described and clearer in their use.

The Whispering Vault is played as a series of Hunts. A Hunt consists of a number of steps, which begin with the Stalkers being contacted by a mortal Supplicant—effectively what the Player Characters were before they became Stalkers—who is endangered by an Enigma. The Stalkers are transported to the Realm of Flesh by the Navigators, which bridge Flesh and Essence, via the Winding Path along which is a Barrier through which they have to pass, dismissing the Barrier’s Guardian to do so. Once in the Realm of Flesh, they enter their Vessels and look for the Enigma and Mend it, then search for the Unbidden and its Minions. They must be defeated, the Unbidden bound, judgement passed upon it, and after calling the Navigators to return them and their quarry to the Realm of Essence, banish the Unbidden into the ‘Whispering Vault’ of the title. There are some variations to this, depending primarily on the age of the Navigator summoned, as the mature ‘Old One’ Navigators can manifest a guide to help and interact with the Stalkers as they follow the path, but can also be infested with parasites that will likely attack the Stalkers.

Of course, the Game Master need not run her players and their Stalkers through all of the steps of Hunt every time she runs The Whispering Vault. In a one-shot certainly, but for long term play, perhaps the first two Hunts and then after that when it is part of the story. At each step, The Whispering Vault expands upon its weirder, wider universe, for example, should an Enigma not be mended, corruption will grow and grow until the affected area becomes one of the Shadowlands and is shifted into the Neitherspace. The primary cause of an Enigma is an Unbidden, and once that has been dealt with—defeated and bound—Enigmas can be repaired, so that Shadowlands can be interesting places in which to locate a Hunt. This is because Shadowlands are also temporally isolated and free of the constraints of the Dream, which means that the Stalkers do not have to worry about revealing themselves unnecessarily, but also allows free reign for the Unbidden to indulge in its passions.

When on a Hunt, the Stalkers are protected by the Veil, meaning that anyone unable to see or is sensitive to them and other creatures of Essence, will ignore their horrifying appearance or supernatural actions. A Stalker can shift from the Veil slightly by Masking, or casting an illusion on himself, appearing as that much more impressive, or he can even drop the Veil and reveal his true form for full effect. This is rare because Stalkers are expected to adhere to the Forbiddance to protect the Dream. Under the terms of the Forbiddance, the Stalkers cannot alter time and affect the lives of mortals unnecessarily—meaning effectively, protect the innocent and target the Minions of the Unbidden. There are consequences for breaking the Forbidden, right up to the Primal Powers interceding and destroying a Stalker’s Vessel and returning him to his Domain. A player is given the opportunity to undo an action that would lead to such an Intercession, but repeated actions that lead to further Intercessions will see the Stalker cast into the Whispering Vault (and thus out of the campaign).

After a Hunt, a Stalker can be awarded Karma and Experience Points. The latter are obviously spent to improve the Stalker, but another option is to purchase Group Powers. Every member of a Circle must agree to it and in narrative terms, the Circle needs to have gained the approval of the Primal Powers. They are expensive too, costing five Karma each. For example, ‘Blood Bond’ lets the members of a Circle share their Vitality with each other, whilst ‘Helping hand’ grants them bonuses on combined actions, typically for Banishing, Binding, Evocation, and Mending. If a Circle does exceptionally well, it may even be awarded a Group Power.

The campaign advice is more about the Group Powers than the help on running the game or campaigns, although there is the suggestion of a ‘Watchers’ style in which the Stalkers sit on a hotspot where places and periods of history invite the intrusion and presence of the Unbidden. This requires more effort upon the part of both the Game Master and her players to set up, but gives the Stalkers a base of operations—or Sanctum—within the Realm of Flesh. The rules cover the creation of the Sanctum, which can have its own Enchantments, but as interesting as this possible set-up is, there is no real advice on how to run such a campaign.

Roughly, the last third of The Whispering Vault is dedicated to the threats that the Stalkers will face, primarily the Unbidden. An actually has a life stage once it has reached the Realm of Flesh, beginning as Beast which has an overwhelming desire to hunt and eat. Once sated, it is free to indulge in the Passions which drove it to enter the Realm of Flesh, and when it transcends these Passions, it becomes an Architect, concerned with long term plans for its continued existence in the Realm of Flesh. Thus, there are different types of Unbidden with different actions and drives, which will affect the challenges that the Stalkers will face on a Hunt. Unbidden also have their own special abilities, enabling the Game Master to design and customise her own. There is also what is a guide to creating Shadows, and effectively of bestiary of them, including some very nasty, creepy creations, such the three-limbed, cameras-for eyes Rethrett, or ‘Cameramen’, which lurk in television sets and record your actions, except in Great Britain where they are repulsed by the BBC! Lastly, there is a guide to mortal threats, including a sample cult or two and some sample Stalkers.

Physically, The Whispering Vault is an amazing looking book. It is superbly illustrated from start to finish, with black and white, sometimes scratchy artwork that imparts a sense of horrifying weirdness. The book is both well written and not well written. There main text is accompanied by decent game world fiction and plenty of examples, but it uses a lot of odd terminology and obfuscatory phrasing, constantly leaving the reader to wonder quite what a term means, so that despite mechanical simplicity, the game is not as easy as it should be to learn or teach. It does not help that there is no index or actually, worse, no glossary.

—oOo—

William Spencer-Hale reviewed The Whispering Vault in ‘Closer Look’ in Shadis Issue #14 (July/August 1994). He described the roleplaying game as, “…[A]n outstanding accomplishment for designer/author Mike Nystul…” and its set-up of having the players roleplay, “…[T]he otherworldly, immortal protectors of human’s reality.” as “…[A]n original and inspired creation that is a breath of fresh air in the roleplaying industry.” He concluded his positive review by saying, “All in all, The Whispering Vault is a game worthy of the attention of any fan of horror roleplaying. This game is a welcome addition to any library and, out of all the roleplaying materials that I own, this is one that I will actually enjoy playing.”

It is traditional in many of these cases for Dragon Magazine to review a roleplaying game not once, but twice. So it is with The Whispering Vault in the pages of Dragon Magazine, both times by Lester Smith. In ‘Role-playing Reviews’ in Dragon Magazine Issue #208 (August 1994), he reviewed the ‘Black Book’ pre-release edition released at the previous Gen Con and praised the roleplaying game’s “powerful new mythology” and said, “A strong atmosphere of brooding horror and heroic action is conveyed by the text, from vocabulary created, to creatures described, to setting depicted.” He noted that that there were things missing from this edition of the roleplaying game, such as the description of the Shape-changing skill (called the Morph Discipline in the first edition), details of the Five Keys, and so on. Before awarding The Whispering Vault a score of four out of six, he concluded, “From the taste given in this black book edition, I definitely recommend this game for anyone who likes heroic horror. It is one of the most inventive treatments of the subject I have yet encountered.”

Lester Smith followed up his initial review with one of the first edition in ‘Role-playing Reviews’ in Dragon Magazine Issue #217 (May 1995). He was as congratulatory in this review as he was in his previous review, launching it with, “I hope it won’t sound audacious for me to say that I think the CoC RPG finds its match in the WHISPERING VAULT* game.” He continued with, “The book’s presentation is excellent, nearly flawless… The attitude projected by both text and art is uniformly dark, brooding, and extremely strange. The end result is a virtually seamless presentation of Nystul’s vision of horror (except for Talon, a sample PC at the very back of the book, whose premise and art I didn’t think fit the rest in the original book, and who seems even more out of place in this version; but hey, that’s only one character sheet). And that unique vision is both shockingly strange and yet universal in scope.” Smith concluded his second review by awarding The Whispering Vault six out of six and saying, “This product is pure, distilled horror, with some of the most concise yet effective mechanics ever published; its relative slimness simply means that you’ll digest the game more quickly initially, and reference it more easily during play.”

Rick Swan would echo Lester Smith’s praise for The Whispering Vault in ‘Role-playing Reviews’ in Dragon Magazine Issue #218 (June 1995). In his review of Dangerous Prey, the first supplement for the roleplaying game, he said, “What’s WHISPERING VAULT, you ask? Only one of the smartest, spookiest horror RPGs that ever clawed its way from a crypt.”

William Spencer-Hale also reviewed The Whispering Vault a second time, but the second time would be as a ‘Pyramid Pick’ in Pyramid Vol. 1 #10 (November/December, 1994) and with exactly the same review. It can be found here.

Continuing the trend for double review reviews, The Whispering Vault was also reviewed twice in White Wolf Magazine. First was by Sam Chupp in ‘Capsule Reviews’ in White Wolf Magazine Issue 40 (February, 1994), who said of the ‘Black Book’ pre-release edition, “It would be easy to write this game off as “Call of Cthulhu with Super Powers,” but Mike Nystul’s game of supernatural hunters is a much deeper, much more artistic roleplaying game than that. You play angelic/demonic agents who hunt down the horrors that escape your level of reality.” before awarding it a score of four out of five and concluding, “The Whispering Vault will appeal to you if you like horror- or superhero-style games, but I think you’ll enjoy the elegance, uniqueness and atmosphere of the game even if you don’t play those games. 1 heartily recommend The Whispering Vault, prototype that it is.”

The second review appeared in White Wolf Magazine Issue 44 (June, 1994) and was a ‘Featured Review’ by none other than William Spencer-Hale. As with his review in Pyramid Vol. 1 #10, it was the exact same review as he had published in Shadis Issue #14.

—oOo—

The Whispering Vault looks and feels like a classic roleplaying game of the nineties, similar to that of Vampire: the Masquerade and Kult. It has the Player Characters as monsters battling other monsters, it has its own mythology that explains the universe and what the monsters really are, and it has fantastic artwork from some of the best artists of the period— Jeff Laubenstein, Earl Geier, Larry MacDougall, and others. And despite the often obfuscatory nature of the setting and its language, The Whispering Vault actually has a very simple set-up and it has surprisingly simple rules, that together make it more accessible than it should be. It is such a pity that The Whispering Vault has never received a proper second edition and more development, for it genuinely is a weird and creepy horror game, one that gives a lot of room for player and Game Master alike to affect the narrative and tell the tales of the true horrors from beyond.