Vows & Vaesen

Vaesen: City of my Nightmares is a campaign for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the Roleplaying Game of investigative folklore horror set in nineteenth century Scandinavia published by Free League Publishing. It differs from campaigns and scenarios for the roleplaying game in that they are primarily set along that boundary between the rural and the raw countryside where modernity and progress clashes with tradition and folklore as the knowledge of the customs that enabled Vaesen and man to live alongside each other is being lost. Instead, Vaesen: City of my Nightmares takes in or near the ‘Venice of the North’, the city of Stockholm. Here, in the Swedish capital, the Player Characters will still be confronted with the clash between the old and the new. Between science and savagery, monarchism and unionism, new institutions replacing the old, and quite literally the past and the future, but all driven by all too human fear, ambition, and revenge. This is a city-based campaign that will involve the Player Characters in the doings of the nouveau rich, the avantgarde, and the poor and the oppressed, and more importantly in terms of the roleplaying game and its background, will involve them in both the history of the Society they belong to and the history of its founder. As a consequence of all of this, Vaesen: City of my Nightmares is better suited to be run with experienced Player Characters, ones who have conducted several investigations, thus enabling their players to appreciate the campaign’s contrast in terms of setting and the revelations that will be uncovered as part of their investigations. The campaign is ideally run after the events of Vaesen: Seasons of Mystery and whilst it will be helpful have copies of Johan Egerkrans’ The Undead and Vaesen to hand, they are not absolutely necessary. In the case of the latter, the ‘Codex Occultum’ from the Vaesen – Starter Set is an easy substitute. Lastly, although Vaesen: City of my Nightmares is set in and around the city of Stockholm, it can be shifted to other European cities if the Game Master prefers. Of course, the Game Master will need to change the setting details to fit the new location.

Vaesen: City of my Nightmares was funded as part of the joint Kickststarter for Vaesen: Mythic Carpathia. It takes place in late nineteenth century Sweden and involves numerous historical figures that have been adjusted slightly to fit the setting, its events playing out over the course of a year and consisting of four parts with several months in between. This enables the Game Master to run a scenario or two between the events of Vaesen: City of my Nightmares, which is also the best way in which to run it. There is a plot that runs through the whole campaign, but it is not a strong one. Certainly not strong enough to drive the Player Characters to continue their investigation from one part to the next directly and this is reflected by the months long gaps between scenarios and the instigating factor for each scenario. This is the cork magnet, August T. Lysander, a self-made wealthy capitalist, who has taken an interest in the activities of the Society and made several donations to keep its current incarnation operating. In turn, he will ask the Player Characters for their help and reward them for giving it. Of course, these adventures can be run their own, but that would negate the plot to the campaign. All four scenarios are organised in the same fashion. They start with the background and breakdown the Countdown of events that will occur as time goes on, ultimately leading to a Catastrophe if the mystery remains unsolved and the situation unresolved. This is followed by a list of the clues that become available after each step of the Countdown, pleasingly with the core, key clues clearly marked, and then the scenario’s pertinent locations. Each scenario ends with a breakdown of the climax and its aftermath. The organisation is consistent and accessible throughout, and in addition the scenarios are supported with a good overview of Stockholm in the late nineteenth century accompanied by excellent period maps. Notably, the period map of the city is included on a poster map in the book, but further, the back of this poster map is presented as the front cover for a copy of the City Gazette, Stockholm’s conservative newspaper. It is full of clues and hints for the four scenarios in Vaesen: City of my Nightmares, but especially the first scenario. Each of the scenarios should take roughly two to three sessions’ worth of play to complete.

The first part of the campaign is ‘Scent of a Killer’, which takes . Businessman August T. Lysander makes a request of the Society. Of late, the Town Between Two Bridges district of Stockholm has beset by a series of killings, common criminals found ripped apart. Now a noted tenor at the Royal Swedish Opera has been found dead too, and so the newly founded Police Department is being pushed to investigate this death at the very least. However, the nature of the killings means that the police cannot make head nor tail of them, let alone any progress. The case is a matter of medical malpractice—of a sort, as is another situation in the city. Experienced players will likely work out what the problem is very quickly, but knowing what the problem is and both identifying the culprit and dealing with is another matter. This is a good start to the campaign, setting the tone for the urban mysteries that are to come.

The Player Characters get some respite the following year in ‘Song to the Moon’, when August T. Lysander invites them to stay with him and his family at his summer retreat on Goose Island in the Stockholm archipelago. This is not only to say thanks for their efforts helping the city Police Department the previous autumn, but also to consult with them about the nature of Vaesen. The beguiling idyll is broken by series of strange drownings that trap everyone on the island. The deaths are not the only strangeness pervading Goose Island, though the Player Characters may not uncover all of it. This scenario combines horror with a classic country house murder and hints that not all is well in the Lysander family.

August T. Lysander’s interest in Vaesen comes to the fore a matter of six months later in the autumn in ‘The Haunted Library’. He makes another request of the Society and the Player Characters, this time to help him to find the lost notes of Carl Linnaeus, the founder of the Society himself. He believes that they are hidden in a secret library beneath the National Archives on Knights Island in Stockholm. So far, he has been unable to penetrate far into the labyrinthine catacombs under the National Archives and thinks that those with the Sight—in other words, the Player Characters—will have better luck. The Player Characters will be faced with a maze, and despite being haunted by a number of ghosts, but will eventually be able to find their way to a ‘Chamber of Riddles’. Doing so reveals the strangest of encounters in the campaign—windows into the very past of Carl Linnaeus! These are essentially mini-mysteries that reveal the biologist and physician’s past and some of his secrets, many of which are pertinent to the mystery at the heart of the campaign.

‘The Haunted Library’ climaxes with the intervention of the Rosenbergers, the rival organisation which split from the Society. Their appearance in the campaign is an oddity since they have rarely appeared in previous scenarios for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying and whilst they appear in the next and final scenario in campaign, the eponymous, ‘City of My Nightmares’, it is a pity that there is not greater scope to explore this aspect of the setting. It is perhaps a missed opportunity, perhaps one that the Game Master could follow up herself.

In ‘City of My Nightmares’, the Player Characters are once again recalled to Stockholm, but this time not by August T. Lysander. Instead, the letter is from a renowned spiritualist and artist who received a portentous message from a spirit during a séance. They find a city tense with worker unrest and filled with an uncertainty that quickly tips over into dance and destruction. Against this backdrop of increasing civil agitation, the Player Characters must work out who is being warned about in the message and find a way to stop the threat. This is a much more challenging scenario than the previous three, but it ultimately reveals the real threats that the Player Characters and the Society face, one of them a returning from previous scenarios. The ‘City of My Nightmares’ brings the campaign to a satisfying climax. After which, the Player Characters are likely going to be relieved to return to the countryside for a more traditional investigation!

If there is an issue with Vaesen: City of my Nightmares, it is one that many scenarios and campaigns—the introduction of an NPC that the players and their characters have to trust. This is as much a problem with stories and players themselves and their not always trusting nature when it comes to such NPCs. It may well be a good idea to introduce the major NPC in this campaign and portray him as helpful and useful long before the campaign starts.

Physically, Vaesen: City of my Nightmares is very well presented. It is well written and easy to understand, whilst the cartography—old and new—has a pleasingly period feel. The artwork, including the handouts, is, of course, excellent.

Vaesen: City of my Nightmares is an engaging campaign, best played intermittently as written, that veteran players will enjoy, whilst wholly new players may find a bit more challenging. Vaesen: City of my Nightmares presents a contrasting backdrop, a chance to explore the history of the Society, and brings urban fantasy and horror to Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, if only for a little while.