[Free RPG Day 2026] The Archivist’s Curse

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
The Archivist’s Curse is the quick-start for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the roleplaying game based on Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Scandinavian Folklore as collected and illustrated by Johan Egerkrans, and published by Free League Publishing. It is an investigative horror game set in Scandinavia during the nineteenth century that explores the clash between modernity and folklore.

The Archivist’s Curse is a forty-four page, full colour booklet.

How long will it take to play?
The Archivist’s Curse can be played in roughly a single session or two.

What else do you need to play?
The Archivist’s Curse needs at least six six-sided dice per player and a set of cards numbered from one to ten. These can be taken from an ordinary deck of playing cards.

Who do you play?
The Archivist’s Curse includes five pre-generated Player Characters. The consist of an Occultist, Private Detective, Servant, Academic, and Vampire Hunter, who all five have the ‘Sight’ and can see vaesen.

How is a Player Character defined?

A Player Character in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying is defined by his Attributes and Skills; a Motivation, a Trauma, and a Dark Secret; a Talent and a relationship with another Player Character, a memento, and some equipment. The Attributes are Physique, Precision, Logic, and Empathy, and rated between two and five, whilst Skills are rated between one and five. Motivation explains why the Player Character is prepared to hunt down and confront vaesen, whilst Trauma explains why or how the Player Character gained the Sight; and the Dark Secret is something that the Player Character wants to keep. Each Talent is a special ability, such as ‘Medium’, which enables the Player Character to predict other people’s futures and to contact the dead or ‘Elementary’ which lets a player ask the Game Master to explain how certain clues are connected once per session. A Memento is a possession which the Player Character holds dear that by interacting with it, will help him overcome a Condition.

How do the mechanics work?

The Archivist’s Curse and Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying uses the Year Zero Engine. When a player wants his character to undertake an action, he rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to a combination of his character’s Attribute and Skill, plus whatever bonus or penalty dice the Game Master awards, such as from the situation or a Talent. To succeed, the player typically needs to roll a single Success or six—though sometimes it may be more—on any of the dice. Extra Successes can be expended to gain various effects. In combat, this will be more damage, but in other situations it will usually mean learning more information.

If a player fails a roll, he can instead choose to Push the roll. This enables the player to reroll the dice which did not result in Successes in the hope of getting some or more Successes. Doing so will inflict a Condition on the Player Character, either Exhausted, Battered, or Wounded for Physical Conditions, or Angry, Frightened, or Hopeless for Mental Conditions. Suffer too many of either Physical or Mental Conditions and the Player Character will be Broken, meaning that he cannot act.

How does combat work?

Initiative in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying uses Initiative Cards, numbered from one to ten, which determines when a Player Character, NPC, or Vaesen acts each round, though it is possible to swap Initiative cards between Player Characters and/or friendly NPCs each Round. In each Round, a Player Character has a Slow action and a Fast action. A Fast action is typically movement or a reaction—such as dodging or parrying—whilst a Slow action will usually be an attack, whether ranged or melee. Each weapon has a base damage, which can be increased with extra successes on an attack roll, whilst some weapons also grant a bonus to attack rolls. Damage from combat is also inflicted in terms of Conditions.

In general, vaesen cannot be killed or destroyed in combat. Investigators in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying usually confront and fight a vaesen long enough to perform a ritual that will drive it away or destroy it.

How does fear work?

A Fear test is required if a Player Character encounters a vaesen or magic, the number of Successes required determined by the Fear value of the creature, magic, or situation. Although it can be bolstered by the presence of allies, if a Fear test is failed, the Player Character can suffer from one or more metal conditions, but will be Terrified. In which case, the Player Character will either flee, freeze, faint, or frenzy. A Terrified Player Character can attempt a Fear Test on subsequent Rounds to act normally.

What do you play?

The Archivist’s Curse includes the scenario of the same name. It is not a traditional scenario for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying in terms of its set-up. Usually, after the Player Characters have each had an encounter with one of the vaesen, they are individually invited to join The Society, an organisation dedicated to investigating and cataloguing the vaesen and their clashes with mankind. Unfortunately, The Society was dissolved and nobody has been investigating the vaesen for decades. The Player Characters are handed the keys to its decrepit headquarters, Castle Gyllencreutz, in the Swedish city of Uppsala, and directed to begin its activities once again. In ‘The Archivist’s Curse’ all five Player characters have reasons to visit the National Archives on Knights’ Isle in central Stockholm in Sweden. The set-up also requires that two Player Characters appear first in the scenario, one after the other.

The scenario is entirely location bound in the four-storey building of The National Archives. It combines a haunting and a family tragedy which are revealed over the course of the Player Characters’ investigation and exploration of The National Archives—the Esoteric and Egyptology Sections in particular. There are plenty of handouts, a superb map of The National Archives, and a countdown of weird and spooky events which will drive the story to its climax. Overall, it is a very well done investigation.

However, ‘The Archivist’s Curse’ is set up to tell the story of one particular Player Character, whilst another Player Character has been hired to investigate the other. This calls for careful roleplaying upon the part of the two players assigned those characters. The scenario also does not involve traditional vaesen and players expecting a Nordic threat may be disappointed. The scenario also works best with all five Player Characters.

‘The Archivist’s Curse’ can be played as a one-off scenario, but it could also be used as a prequel, especially if the players decide to keep the same characters from the scenario. This can be as a prequel to both the Vaesen – Starter Set and Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying itself, the former providing a short, but effective introduction to Castle Gyllencreutz and the activities of The Society. Another option is as a prequel to Vaesen: City of my Nightmares, an urban-based campaign set in and around Stockholm which involves a scenario in The National Archives.

Is there anything missing?
No. The Archivist’s Curse has everything that a Game Master needs to run the included scenario.

Is it easy to prepare?
Yes. The Archivist’s Curse uses a familiar set of rules in the Year Zero Engine and their explanation is very clear and includes several examples of play.

Is it worth it?
Yes. The Archivist’s Curse is well-appointed with great artwork, good handouts, and a superb set of floorplans of The National Archives. The scenario is excellent and a very good introduction to Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying.

The Archivist’s Curse is published by Free League Publishing, and is available to download here (coming soon).

Vaesen d’Italia

Italian Chronicles is a supplement for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the Roleplaying Game of investigative folklore horror set in nineteenth century Scandinavia published by Free League Publishing. There has been a push to explore the set-up at the heart of Vasen, that of the clash between folklore and modernity in an age of industrialisation, shifting populations, changing attitudes, and forgetting the customs of past as a secret organisation attempts to catalogue those forgotten customs and prevent the clashes between folklore and modernity in countries beyond Scandinavia. However, most of them have remained north of the Alps, leaving the rich folklore and culture clashes of Southern Europe under much sunnier climes unexplored. Italian Chronicles introduces us to the world of the Vaesen and the Society in nineteenth century Mythic Italy. This includes a discussion of the conflicts which lie at the heart of Italian society in the late nineteenth century—the rich versus the poor, the nobility versus the bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie versus the proletariat; and the north-south divide between the industrialised and modernising north and the agricultural, poorer south. It provides basic introductions to the cities, many of whom are undergoing major transformations as they industrialise and peasants emigrate looking for work and a better life. There are descriptions of the leading Italian great and the good of the period, societies and groups active up and down the country; details of mysterious places; and a short history of the Society and its investigation of Vaesen in Italy. All of which is supported with three new archetypes and six new supernatural creatures.

Italian Chronicles is published as part of the Free League Workshop and starts with a description of Mythic Italy. This highlights the notable divides in the country during the period and its important cities. These include the northern industrial triangle of Turin, Milan, and Genoa, the medieval and Renaissance grandeur of Bologna and Florence, before moving south through the splendour of Rome as it rushes to be the city’s new capital, and down to Naples and Palermo, undergoing their own transformation with their loss of independence. Turin is the ‘magical city’, Italy esoteric and occultic capital which has its own zones of light and dark influencing magic in the city, whilst also standing in an alchemical triangle of ‘white magic’ along with Prague and Lyon, and an alchemical triangle of ‘black magic’ with London and San Francisco. How these zones affect magic in the city is not explored, but short descriptions of numerous arcane and occultic sites across the city, as well as legends up and down Italy, are included.

Numerous notables, including Cavour, Garibaldi, Verdi, and Puccini are given thumbnail portraits, alongside less well known figures such as Carmine Crocco, the so-called ‘Napoleon or the General of the Brigands’, the spiritualist Eusapia Palladino, and Cesere Lombroso, the father of modern criminology. The most notable of the societies and groups alongside the actual Society is the Inquisition, which is still operating in the nineteenth century and which the Society suspects of harbouring all manner of secrets, of already knowing about Vaesen, and of some of its members actually possessing the Sight that the Society’s members possess. The Inquisition has long suppressed occult practices and broken op occult organisations, most recently in the seventeenth century, the Accademia della Mandragora. One survivor of this suppression found refuge with the Society in Scandinavia and another, a herbalist, found refuge in southern Italy. The herbalist would later found the Order of Herbalists, based in Turin.

The three new archetypes are Teacher, Notable, and Migrant. Of these, the Teacher and the Migrant are obvious in what they are, whereas the Notable is not. It might be an administrator or a lawyer or a tax collector and some context would have been useful to make clear what it is. The Migrant does a new Talent, ‘Folk Wisdom’, which gives him a knowledge of folk traditions and customs as well as fairy tales, legends, and myths concerning supernatural creatures. Unfortunately, this has not been translated from the original Italian.

Numerous mysterious places and legends detailed as well as six new supernatural creatures. They include the Borda is a witch-like that haunts the swamps and marshes of the north looking to strangle the unwary with rope or ligature; Sprites are pranksters that differ in how they look across Italy, but the Monacello live in old houses in cities, has the appearance of a hooded monk, and can bring good luck, and the Salvanel, is wilder and dresses in leaves, and often makes travellers in the woods get lost; and the Marrabbecca is a shapeshifter that likes to live in the dark or shadows, preferably in old wells and water cisterns, from where it bewitches those who lean too close to the well such that they throw themselves in and are drowned. Besides their stats, all of the creature write-ups include secrets of the creatures that can be used against them and example conflicts that the Game Master can develop into fuller encounters.

Physically, Italian Chronicles is a basic affair. Unfortunately both artwork and writing are amateurish, but are at least in English. Not all of the supplement is.

One of the problems with Italian Chronicles and its version of Italy in the nineteenth century is that it attempts to present, “[A]n idealized, slightly timeless version, suitable as a backdrop for the activities of the Player Characters and the peninsula’s supernatural inhabitants.” Where that works in Vaesen is because its setting of Sweden is singular whole for whole of the nineteenth century, whereas Italy is not. In fact, Italy does not actually exist as a political entity until the Risorgimento—the unification of Italy—in 1861. Before that, the Italian peninsula consisted of a mix of kingdoms and duchies, some which were dominated by neighbouring France and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, plus the Papal State. Arguably, Italy was not fully Italy as we recognise today until the capture of Rome in 1871. And before that, before the Napoleon Wars, the Italian peninsula was even more balkanised. Now it is this balkanisation that underpins many of the geographical, cultural, and linguistic divides in Italy and thus the conflicts in Italian Chronicles, whilst the others come from the drive to modernity and industrialisation that followed unification. The result is that even though it does not say so, Italian Chronicles really only focuses on the last forty years—and arguably—the last thirty years of the nineteenth century.

The authors do make the point that, “History should be a servant that gives the game a distinctive flavour rather than a master that stifles possibilities.” Which is a valid point, and if you are not aware of this history, then this perhaps less of an issue. If you are, then it feels as if that servant and those sixty years of history are being ignored and the whole of the century is being flattened into its last third.

However, perhaps the biggest problem with Italian Chronicles is that the description of its equivalent of the ‘Society’ is underwritten with a very short history and description and an address. We are never told how different it is to those in other countries and consequently the starting point or base of operations for any investigations into the Vaesen in Italy lacks character.

There is a surprising amount of content in Italian Chronicles, but most of it varies between short and brief, meaning that if the Game Master wants to set her campaign in Italy or send his Player Characters to Italy, she is going to have to do a lot of research herself to develop its content. There is no official supplement for Italy for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying and until there is, Italian Chronicles will have to do, but what it does is provide is only the most basic of introductions.

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 is found in 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.

Your Vaesen Starter

A good starter set has to do a number of different things. It has to introduce and explain the roleplaying game it is a starter set for, whether that is the roleplaying game’s setting, mechanics, or both. It has to both tell and show what the players and their characters are expected to do in the setting and how they do it, first with the rules and then with a scenario. It has to provide everything that a group needs to play—rules, scenario, pre-generated Player Characters, and dice—and ideally more. Maps, handouts, tokens, and the like are all items that will help bring the world of the roleplaying game’s setting to life and give the players something to look at and interact with. Above all, a good starter should showcase the roleplaying game and entice both Game Master and her players to want to roleplay more with the rules and in that setting by picking up the core rulebook, and if the contents of the start set support continued play, whether that is providing an extra set of dice or maps for the setting, then all the better.

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The Vaesen – Starter Set is the introduction to Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the roleplaying game based on Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Scandinavian Folklore as collected and illustrated by Johan Egerkrans, and published by Free League Publishing. It is an investigative horror game set in Scandinavia during the nineteenth century, using the Year Zero engine first seen in Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, and subsequently a wide array of roleplaying games. It is set in the Mythic North of Scandinavia in the nineteenth century, a time when old traditions and secrets of the past clash against modernity and industrialisation. In dark forests and deep valleys, along brown rivers and at the edge of forgotten groves, in the eaves and in the shadows, there lurk creatures and monsters called ‘Vaesen’ that have begun to hate man. In ages past, everyone knew how to interact with Vaesen so that both could live alongside each other. Now many of those that knew have died or left to find work in the cities, whilst others have come to the mountains and the rivers and the forests to plunder and exploit what they want in the name of progress, so destroying the homes of the Vaesen and making them feel unwanted and unloved. In the past, a secret organisation known as The Society investigated both the Vaesen and their clashes with mankind, but it has long dissolved, its members retired or confined to an asylum, and its headquarters, Castle Gyllencreutz, in the Swedish city of Uppsala, shut up. Yet there are still those who have the Sight, those Thursday’s Children, who can see Vaesen, and perhaps they need a purpose worthy of their gift?

This is the set-up for both the Vaesen – Starter Set and Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, but the Vaesen – Starter Set is designed to be an introduction to not just the rules and the setting for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, but also to its set-up. This will involve both players and their characters learning about the Vaesen, The Society, and Castle Gyllencreutz, and preparing for further investigations and more mysteries. It designed for play by five players and the Game Master and will provide them both one or two sessions’ worth of play.

Open up the Vaesen – Starter Set and what the Game Master will find first is a set of ten Vaesen dice and Initiative cards. Below that is the ‘Getting Started’ sheet which provides a quick introduction to Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, what to do first with the contents of the Vaesen – Starter Set, and what to do after a group has played through its contents. Below that are three books. The first is the sixteen-page ‘Rules’ booklet, the second is the twelve-page ‘The Haunting of Castle Gyllencreutz’ scenario book, and the third is the forty-four-page ‘Codex Occultum’. Underneath that is a set of five Reference Sheets—one per player, three handouts for the ‘The Haunting of Castle Gyllencreutz’ scenario, five pre-generated Player Characters, and two maps. One of the maps is a particularly good cutaway map of Castle Gyllencreutz, which is new to Vaesen, whilst the other, larger map is double-sided, one side showing the Mythic North, the other the city of Uppsala, home to Castle Gyllencreutz.

Anyone who has played a Year Zero roleplaying game will instantly grasp the rules for Vaesen, but they are quickly and easily explained in the ‘Rules’ booklet. To have his character undertake an action, a player will roll a number of six-sided dice equal to a combination of his character’s Attribute and Skill, plus whatever bonus or penalty dice the Game Master awards, such as from the situation or a Talent. To succeed, all he needs to roll is typically one Success or six—though sometimes it may be more—on any of the dice. Extra Successes can be expended to gain various effects. In combat, this will be more damage, but in other situations it will usually mean learning more information. These are tailored to the scenario in the Vaesen – Starter Set, but are further expanded upon in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying.

If a player fails a roll, he can instead choose to Push the roll. This enables the player to reroll the dice which did not result in Successes in the hope of getting some or more Successes. Doing so will inflict a Condition on the Player Character, either Exhausted, Battered, or Wounded for Physical Conditions, or Angry, Frightened, or Hopeless for Mental Conditions. Suffer too many of either Physical or Mental Conditions and the Player Character will be Broken, meaning that he cannot act. Damage from combat is also inflicted in terms of Conditions. The Initiative Cards, numbered from one to ten, determine when a Player Character, NPC, or Vaesen acts each round, though it is possible to swap Initiative cards between Player Characters and/or friendly NPCs each round, and in each Round, a Player Character has a Slow action and a Fast action. A Fear test is required if a Player Character encounters a Vaesen or magic, the number of Successes required determined by the Fear value of the creature, magic, or situation. Overall, the explanation of the rules in ‘Rules’ booklet is brisk, but covers most situations and is backed up by examples of play. It also provides explanations of what roleplaying is and what Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying is.

The ‘The Haunting of Castle Gyllencreutz’ scenario book opens with the Player Characters being invited to a tavern in the poor part of Uppsala where they will meet the elderly Linnea Elfeklint. She will tell them that like herself, they are one of Thursday’s Children and have Sight, which means that they can see creatures known as Vaesen that most people cannot. She will also tell them about The Society and Castle Gyllencreutz and that she wants to restart The Society. However, she will explain that she does not have access to Castle Gyllencreutz as her ex-fiancé possesses its deeds and that recently other Thursday’s Children have gone to the castle and not returned. This half of the scenario sets up its mystery, whilst second half involves investigation in the castle itself. The castle is in a dilapidated state inside and out, and is haunted by strange lights. The final confrontation is ethereal in nature and players who are prone to fight may be at a disadvantage. The scenario is short, but it set the Player Characters with ready access to Castle Gyllencreutz and further play of Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying.

The five pre-generated Player Characters consist of a Hunter, a military officer, a priest, a writer, and a vagabond. All five have an illustration and some background as well as full stats and game details, including notes on what each think of the other four Player Characters. Each player will have a Reference Card, which neatly summarises the rules for ease of play.

The third booklet in the Vaesen – Starter Set, the ‘Codex Occultum’, is actually the thickest and is effectively the players’ own copy of Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Scandinavian Folklore as collected and illustrated by Johan Egerkrans and their characters’ guide to the Vaesen. From the Ash Tree Wife to the Wood Wife, it illustrates and describes some twenty-two Vaesen and how they might be banished, appeased, or otherwise dealt with. This is lovely little reference work—both in game and out—and it is highly likely the one item in the Vaesen – Starter Set that the players will return to over and over. Lastly, the maps of both Uppsala and Mythic North are excellent, whilst the one of Castle Gyllencreutz shows it in its prime, potentially a status that the Player Characters cab return it to in the long run. It certainly gives the Player Characters some idea of what the castle was like and what might be behind the locked or otherwise inaccessible parts of the castle.

Physically, the Vaesen – Starter Set is very well presented. Both the ‘Rules’ booklet and ‘The Haunting of Castle Gyllencreutz’ are easy to read and grasp, whilst the physical components are of a high standard, particularly the maps and the ‘Codex Occultum’.

The Vaesen – Starter Set is a good starting package for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, except for one thing and that is the depth of play it offers in the box. A single scenario is less than what is expected of a good starter set today, yet the straightforward physicality of the Vaesen – Starter Set actually makes it a worthwhile purchase. Not just the Vaesen dice and the Initiative cards, but also the maps, especially the one of Castle Gyllencreutz, and of course, the ‘Codex Occultum’ handout will all support continued play of Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying long after the players have roleplayed the scenario in Vaesen – Starter Set. Arguably, the Vaesen – Starter Set is a better accessories kit than an actual starter set, but its scenario is by no means bad, and will get a Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying campaign off to a good start.

Zombies on the Thames

It is the year 1829 and polite society’s horror and disgust at the poor and the great unwashed is once again being stoked by reports of them shambling about at night, faces ashen, and looming out of the miasma along the River Thames to scare anyone and everyone, whether going about legitimate business or not. In sordid South London, in the notorious slum that is Jacob’s Island, right on the banks of the Thames, people are going missing—and worse, they are coming back very much in a discombobulated fashion! It is a very strange matter indeed, and despite it having been brought to the attention of Sir Robert Peel and his recently founded Metropolitan Police Force, there is not the manpower, or indeed, the political willpower to do a great deal about it. Which is why the Apollonian Society, whose members investigate the unseemly and the unnatural, is approached to look into the matter.

This is the set-up to Mists of Old London, a scenario for use with Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland, the campaign supplement for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, which details the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the nineteenth century and the clashes the arose between the old ways and the new with rapid industrialisation. The scenario is set primarily in the rotten rookery and sodden slum of Jacob’s Island, home to some of the city’s poorest inhabitants, on the south bank of the river, notable as being the home of Bill Sykes in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Investigation will reveal the area is rife with tension. There has been a recent influx of immigrants from Jamaica into the slum as well as the people vanishing into the mists and then reappearing at their homes, as cold as the grave. There are also strange figures stalking the streets. One is hooded in rags and mutters curses and incantations as she clambers across the rickety walkways and bridges that connect many parts of Jacob’s Island, whilst the other strides purposefully, a gentleman in frock coat and top hat as well as a mask. She is Madame Otay, he is Monsieur Thursday.

It should be pretty clear that to the players that what their characters are facing is an infestation of zombies, appropriate for the threat that the Player Characters face, though since the word would have been little known at the time when the scenario is set, it is very unlikely that the characters will initially know they are facing and extremely unlikely that they will have come across the term before. There are opportunities for both Madame Otay and Monsieur Thursday to educate the Player Characters though. Being a scenario for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, there is a countdown in which things get worse, the mists will rise and worsen, and the zombies will walk the streets of Jacob’s Island openly. There are a limited number of lines of investigation, but the Player Characters should get enough clues to work out what is going and where they need to go—whether either of the major NPCs want them to, or not. All of which will lead to classic showdown at a summoning by the villain of the piece and the Player Characters in position to stop it.

This is a most serviceable scenario with a pleasingly tense and strong, if sodden atmosphere of uncertainty, tinged just a little with a fear of the unknown. Smart or experienced players will probably crack on through and complete it in a single session, though it should take no more than two sessions’ worth of play at the most otherwise. It could work as a convention in the case of the former, but it is not really set up for that. Thematically the plot could work with the Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game or period wise with Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England, both from Chaosium, Inc. In fact, retooling it for the latter for the Miskatonic Repository would work rather well.

Mists of Old London is not without its issues and the likelihood is that the complaints about are going to come from both ends of the spectrum. One is that the scenario makes use of African diaspora religion of Obeah as a feature of its plot. The other is that one of the NPCs is called ‘Nigel Barrige’, who as MP for Southwark, “…[N]ow seeks to consolidate his power by stoking parliaments [SIC] fears of the working class and social revolution.” The author goes further than this though, in what is a parody of a contemporary British political figure. To be fair, the first of these is more of an issue than the second, but the author does make clear that it is not intended faithful representation of the religion, but sticks to being a Western, dramatised version for the sake of the scenario’s plot. The author also suggests that if the Game Master is unhappy with this, then it is possible to some research and adjust as necessary. A link is provided should the Game Master want to get started. As to the second, it is parody, and parody is fair game.

Mists of Old London is published via the Free League Workshop, the community content programme for Free League Publishing, so not professionally produced. As a consequence, physically, Mists of Old London is rough. The layout and the few pieces of illustration are fine, but it really, really needs a good edit. There are also no maps.

Mists of Old London is far from a bad scenario. It just needs to be more clearly and tidily presented and supported with a map or two. Otherwise, Mists of Old London is eminently serviceable, enjoyable scenario.

Unknown Ukraine

Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine is a special book. Obviously, it is a supplement for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying , the Roleplaying Game of investigative folklore horror set in nineteenth century Scandinavia published by Free League Publishing. It is special because it something more than a straightforward supplement for the roleplaying game, though to be fair, it is actually a very straightforward supplement. Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine is special because it is the first book to be published as a result of the Free League Workshop, the community content programme for Free League Publishing’s various RPGs such as Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, Sybaroum, and Twilight 2000. More importantly, it is special because of the circumstances of its development and publication, and that the proceeds of its sales go towards charitable causes in support of the Ukraine. These include United24, Come Back Alive, and Uanimals.

Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine is an anthology of creatures of myth and legend drawn from the folklore of Ukraine. Published by Society of Mythic Ukraine, based on an earlier project, Maloviy, which combined descriptions and details of these famous creatures with excellent artwork. This is continued in this Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine. The volume may only be a very slim one at just seventy-four pages and just twenty-seven entries, but it is superbly illustrated. Each is given a detailed write-up that runs to two or three pages which includes an excerpt from the Society’s library, a description, the creature’s characteristics, a full list of its magical powers—and all of them have this list, combat stats, the ritual associated with the creature, and examples of conflicts, plus a secret associated with the creature. The rituals are typically commonly held means of warding against the creature, whilst the conflict examples are actually story hooks that the Game Master can develop into mysteries of her own. There are three such conflicts per entry, giving her a total of eighty-one to play with! However, the creature entries in Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine do differ from those in the core rulebook. This difference is the inclusion of specific examples of Enchantments, Curses, and Trollcraft that a creature might employ. These are not normally listed in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, but are included here to make the use of each creature by the Game Master that much easier.

The collection opens with Bezdonnyk, which lives at the bottom of abysses and chasms where there is a bottomless lake or stream. It cannot stray from these locations because it represents the body of a suicide victim never found there and so never buried. When confronted, it might cause blindness or Christian symbols to shatter, or it might bestow the Gaze of the Abyss and magical power as well as knowledge of an enchantment or curse. The conflicts include looking for a missing, often bullied boy, removing the Sight from a boy who believed he has been cursed by a Bezdonnyk, and a village which secretly makes sacrifices to a Bezdonnyk to ensure its nearby springs grant healing. The grim nature of the entries in Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine continues with the Bohynka, an evil spirit born from the deaths of women who died giving birth, committed suicide, or aborted their babies, as well as from the deaths of betrothed girls who died before their weddings. She stalks pregnant women and women with newborns, stealing the babies before they are baptised and leaving behind monsters in their cradles. The stolen child is then twisted into an evil spirit. If that is not enough, Bezdonnyk also strangle people in their sleep, frighten and attack cattle, drive horses away, and devastate pastures. She appears as either an ugly old crone or a pale girl with long black hair. The conflicts include a village where the inhabitants cannot sleep feeling as if they are being strangled and a priest summoned to help was found strangled dead, a village where a new mother is being driven mad because she feels that her child is not hers, and a Bohynka who has returned to enact its revenge on those who drove her to suicide.

Other entries include the Chort, an evil spirit that is the cause of most misfortunes in the world. Cunning, wicked, insidious, and dangerous, it can inflict illness and bad luck to both people and livestock, incite people to commit evil deeds, tempt them to sell their souls to it in return for magical powers, and wilt fields and crops. A Chort is humanoid with animal features—hairy with horns, donkey ears and tails, a pig snout, and hooves—and always dresses in shades of red, typically fancy boots, a hat and a coat. The Nichnytsia is an evil night spirit that appears as a pale woman with long, dishevelled hair, bulging eyes, and a mouth twisted in terror, as well as gnarled, bony hands with long nails, dressed in a white nightdress so long that she looks like she is floating. Either the restless soul of a girl who suffered an unnatural death, a witch, or of someone who died in terrible agony or grief, she lives by day in nearby chasms, but at night sneaks into houses to pick first on children, sending nightmares, pinching and tickling, and feeding them a foul yellow milk which causes a child to be sick. She can also inflict insomnia or a lethargic sleep in which the sleeper has terrible nightmares. The Pesyholov is more typically monstrous, a wolf-headed humanoid with a single eye, believed to be descended from man-eating giants, a practice it keeps today, keeping its victims in pits, fattening them up until they are ready to eat!

Not all of the creatures or spirits in Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine are malevolent. For example, the Brodnytsia, which looks like a pretty girl with thick black braids, builds and protects fords across rivers and swamps so that people can cross them in safety as well protecting children who come too close to the water. This kindly spirit lives with beavers in their dams and will also protect places and people nearby, breaking damns to unleash the held back waters on fires or invaders! She can detect evil doers or those up to no good and lead them into whirlpools where they will drown. Since the Brodnytsia is a kindly spirit, conflicts associated with her involve things that have been done or anger her. The three include looking for the missing wife and brother of a famous hunter and tanner, who unfortunately has annoyed a Brodnytsia by hunting her beaver living companions; searching for a missing troupe of performing artists; and discovering why the dams and fords near a village keep breaking and the area flooding despite the villagers making good repairs.

Khukha are cute and fluffy nature spirits found in fields, forests, steppes, and caves, their forest types often waking with an incredible noise under the canopy that resembles knocking, squeaking, purring, and grunting. They do help those trouble and warn about the dangers in a forest, though some do see them as evil and vengeful. The Krynytsia is the spirit of the well or water spring, who ensures that the weather is good for the harvest and the fertility of the land. When she appears, it is as a young woman of great beauty with long, flowing blond braids. The better maintained her well or spring is, the better the weather and the better the harvests, and the more beautiful she is, but if neglected, the waters will stagnate, and the village and its surrounds will be beset with drought and evil spirits, the latter inflicting misfortune, illness, and disasters.

One of the stranger creatures in the bestiary is the Skarbnyk. Only appearing as a set of floating red eyes, the Skarbnyk guards hidden treasure, but only evil treasure that has been gained through theft, betrayal, or pacts with wicked spirits. The Skarbnyk will do this in return for the owner’s soul when he dies and if anyone does try to steal it, the treasure will turn into potsherds or snakes! However, the Skarbnyk will allow a swap to take place if the thief is willing to give up his soul. The Spryiia is the spirit of a person’s skill or talent which normally dies with the person, but it can be passed on to a child at birth, this being indicated by a birthmark. The Spryiia appreciates hard work and so will leave a person if he becomes too lazy. Mechanically, the increase in the skill is represented by a magical gift that increases a skill by two. The Zharook is either a household spirit or a god of fire that resides in the stove. This many-headed, many-eyed serpent can also be vengeful if it or the stove is shown disrespect and will set fires in the house. It can also make people gossip because it enjoys talking about rumours and news between its various heads!

Physically, Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine is a lovely looking book. The artwork is rich, wonderfully bringing its entries to life. The writing is slightly rough in places and it does need another edit. However, it would be churlish to grumble too much about this, given that the book is for a good cause and how good the book looks otherwise.

There are some common themes running through Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine, such as girls and women having suffered terrible deaths, spirits protecting streams, wells, or swamps, and so on, but this countered by the strangeness of other entries such as the Zharook or Skarbnyk. Yet all of the entries in the bestiary are going to be strange to most of the audience for it, the folklore and stories of creatures and monsters native to Ukraine having rarely travelled beyond its borders. With Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine they have, and in return, Game Masters and players of Vaesen can travel east to cross those borders and investigate mysteries new and different. Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine is an excellent introduction to Mythic Ukraine for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying.

Mountain of Madness

Ten years ago, the Abisko Mine was forcibly shut down following an explosion which killed many of the mine workers. Located in the far north of Sweden above the village of Abisko, all that remained of the mine was a crater. There were few if any survivors and no investigation, the cause of the disaster becoming first the subject of conjecture, and then rumour, as the incident was forgotten about. Recently, the mine and its surrounding area was bought by the Svea Mining Corp, owned by Karl Magnusson and his wife Sigrid. They have attracted the interest of scientists, the attention of the military, and the money of investors with rumours of the discovery of a new type of gemstone that could change the fate of Sweden and the course of the world, speeding up the pace of industrialisation which is already sweeping the country. Yet there are those who have not forgotten the explosion that closed down the original Abisko Mine, and worse, they believe that the gemstone is not something that should be exploited, but instead studied and kept careful control of, lest it fall into the wrong hands. One of these is Franzibald Hansen, Danish author and expert on Norse mythology. Although wealthy and knowledgeable, he lacks the means to investigate himself, let alone deal with the problem as he sees it beyond being a lone voice. Thus, he turns to one of his old contacts and through her, the Society, the body of scholars and adventurers based in Castle Gyllencreutz in Upsala, whose gift of second sight enabled them to see the Vaesen, the supernatural creatures who have for centuries lived alongside the folk of Scandinavia. With their help, Franzibald Hansen is sure that he can prevent the Magnussons from bringing their plan to fruition and the gemstones from falling into the wrong hands.

This is the set-up for The Lost Mountain Saga, the first campaign for use with Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the Roleplaying Game of investigative folklore horror set in nineteenth century Scandinavia published by Free League Publishing. As well as being the first campaign for Vaesen, what is also notable about The Lost Mountain Saga is that it is based on a podcast of the same name that the author has adapted for use with Vaesen. This continues the phenomenon of roleplaying podcast adaptations previously seen with Critical Role and Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn from Darrington Press and Old Gods of Appalachia from Monte Cook Games. In the case of The Lost Mountain Saga, the result  is a relatively short campaign, consisting of five parts that take place over the course of a year, from September to August. The only requirement for it is the core rules and the fact that the Player Characters are members of the society and have conducted a handful of investigations, and thus be able to improve the facilities at Castle Gyllencreutz. Optional are other scenarios for Vaesen. There are gaps of several months between the third and fourth parts and between the fourth and fifth parts where the Game Master could run another scenario or two. That said, if the Game Master decides not to run other scenarios between the five parts of The Lost Mountain Saga, then the campaign can be played through quite quickly at a rate of two or three sessions per scenario—at the very most.

All five chapters of the campaign follow the same structure as other scenarios for Vaesen. The ‘Background’ and ‘Conflicts’ explains the situation for each scenario, whilst the ‘Invitation’ tells the Game Master how to get the Player Characters involved. In The Lost Mountain Saga, this includes letters, invitations, and the personal request of Franzibald Hansen, which will lead to the town or village where the mystery is taking place, the getting there detailed in the ‘Journey’, typically a mix of railway and coach journeys. It should be noted that every mystery has a moment or two when the Player Characters can prepare and goes into some detail about the journey. There is an opportunity for roleplaying here, perhaps resulting in longer travel scenes than the core rulebook necessarily recommends. The ‘Countdown and Catastrophe’ presents the Game Master with one or two sets of events which take place as the Player Characters’ investigation proceeds, sometimes triggered by the Player Characters, sometimes triggered by the NPCs, whilst ‘Locations’ cover NPCs, Challenges, and Clues, all leading to a ‘Confrontation’ and its eventual ‘Aftermath’. The mysteries are well organised, a mix of the sandbox and events which the Game Master will need to carefully orchestrate around the actions of her Player Characters. Only the most pertinent of the locations in each town or village is described and the Game Master is advised to create others as needed, though she will very likely need a ready list of Swedish names to hand for whenever the Player Characters run into an NPC or two. That said, the campaign is fairly linear and self-contained, meaning that relatively little preparation is required outside of the campaign itself and it can serve as an introductory or starter campaign the first time Game Master could run after she has run a few scenarios.

The campaign opens with ‘Duty and Despair’,  with news of the reopening of the Great Copper Mountain mine of Falun. This brings the portly bon viveur, Franzibald Hansen, to Castle Gyllencreutz. He has received a letter from the local priest about an outbreak of witchcraft and requests their help in investigating it. Almost everyone in the town seems charmed by the exceptionally stern Reverend Bruselius, who quickly settles on the culprit and prepares to hold a trial. Is she guilty, or is there someone else responsible and can the Player Characters identify them in time? However, in discovering this, the Player Characters will encounter another vaesan, one which will already have taken its first victim—Franzibald Hansen! It seems that he had an interest in Falun more than the outbreak of witchcraft, but quite will be revealed in the next few chapters.

‘The Beginning of the Fall’ shifts the mystery back to Upsala where the university is hosting an exclusive ball which will be attended by members of the nobility, the military, and the science community. This is because Karl and Sigrid Magnusson are going to announce the nature of the gemstones their operation has unearthed at the Abisko Mine. At the same time, there are reports of overcrowding at the city’s asylum, including a journalist who wrote an article critical of the Svea Mining Corp. Is this a coincidence? The ball is a chance for the Player Characters to mix with members of high society—military, noble, and scientific—so the Game Master may want to have some NPCs ready here, as well as a chance to get a good look at the strange gemstones. In addition, some of Franzibald Hansen’s secrets will be revealed!

The middle part of The Lost Mountain Saga is ‘Where the Sun Dies’, and it sends the Player Characters off in an entirely different direction—Norway! Norwegian Police Commissioner Olof Dahl comes to the Castle Gyllencreutz asking for their help. Contact has been lost with the island of Værøya above the arctic circle as it appears have suffered a radical fall in temperature weeks before it is normally due and to date, none of the rescue missions have returned. Having travelled to Bergen, the Player Characters set sail aboard an icebreaker commanded by one Captain Harrock—“Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!!”—and so investigate the island. From having to ski across the ace to reach Værøya to confronting the frosty foe responsible, this is an entertaining scenario that is quite creepy and unsettling in places.

‘The Prince and the Witch’ returns the action to Upsala and to the great Valborg bonfire next to the Royal Mounds of Upsala for the ancient spring festival. There a young woman asks for the Society’s help. She is a member of the Vanadisir, an organisation whose members claim to be the descendants of the Norse goddess Freja, and she wants help in rescuing her leader from an evil man in this forest. It turns out that ‘he’ is not a prince, but a snake, and not the only one in this linear encounter which draws the Player Characters back into the past. The confrontation is particularly nicely handled here.

The campaign comes to a close with ‘The Lost Mountain Saga’. A plea from an unexpected quarter sends the Player Characters back to where the campaign begins to reveal the secrets of the Abisko Mine and the true dangers that it represents to all of Sweden. The scenario literally ticks down to the climax in a race to prevent the Svea Mining Corp’s plans coming to fruition and a final confrontation.
Physically, The Lost Mountain Saga is everything that you would expect a book for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying to be. It is well written and presented, but the artwork and the cartography are both excellent, evoking a mixture of nineteenth century charm and folkloric horror. The book itself is actually a lovely artefact in its own right.

The Lost Mountain Saga is a short campaign as well as being an uncomplicated campaign. This and its year-long, but handful of chapters, structure give it space and a flexibility into which the Game Master can add or develop her own content. This may well be necessary to offset its quite linear nature and the fact that the campaign veers away from its storyline in its middle chapters. If the campaign is instead played through at pace, this may not be an issue though. Overall, The Lost Mountain Saga is a good starter campaign for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, suitable for the Game Master looking for a first campaign and the veteran Game Master looking for something lighter.

Kingdom of Consternation

Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland is sourcebook for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the Sweden-set roleplaying of folkloric horror set during the nineteenth century published by Free League Publishing. In fact, it is the first sourcebook for the roleplaying game, one that takes the roleplaying game to new territory—though not new territory for roleplaying—and there confront new creatures amidst familiar tensions. Between superstition and modernity. Between industrialisation and rural traditions. These are joined by new, heightened tensions. Between the rich and the poor. Between employers and employees. Between North and South. Between the cities and countryside. The setting is Great Britain and the United Kingdom during the latter half of the reign of Queen Victoria. The British Empire is reaching its heights, trade flows in and out of the county’s ports bringing wealth as well as foreigners not to be trusted, the demand for goods means bosses drive their workers harder and install new and more powerful machines to increase production. Yet across the isles, as in Sweden, the supernatural lurks at the edge of society. In Sweden, it is the Vaesen, the supernatural creatures who helped out on the farms, gave a hand when it came to calving, ensured that lost children would find their way home, and kept everyone alive during the harsh winters of Northern Europe, and in return would receive milk and grain from the farms. In the British Isles, it is the fey or fairies, who make their homes in parallel realms of their own, but slip into ours, their mercurial interactions with mankind often leading to mysterious encounters at best, bloodshed at worst. Fortunately, just as Sweden has the Society—or Order of Artemis—dedicated to investigating supernatural threats and preventing interactions between them and society leading to further bloodshed or exposure, Great Britain and Ireland has the Apollonian Society.

Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland can either be used as an expansion to Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying or a whole new campaign setting. In other worlds, the Player Characters could travel from Sweden to investigate the mysteries of sceptred isle, or indeed to fey it presents shifted to Scandinavia, but it could also be used as the basis for a Britain-set campaign, with the Player Characters being English, Irish, Scottish, or Welsh rather than Swedish. This is its default, but it has notes and suggestions as to how to involve Swedish Player Characters. That default has its advantages. In particular, the period and setting will be familiar to the English-speaking gaming hobby, as after all, this is the land of Charles Dickens, Sherlock Holmes, the Hound of the Baskervilles, and Jack the Ripper. Similarly, there will a certain familiarity in the fairies it details, such as the Banshee, Pooka, Redcap, or Selkie. However, as much as this familiarity makes it easier to engage with, it loses some of the mystery, which the Swedish default setting of Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying always maintained because it was unfamiliar. However, the supplement maintains enough mysteries of its own, whether that is the strange locations it describes, the fairie threats it details, and the scenarios it presents.

Funded following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland is written by Graeme Davis, co-author of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and The Enemy Within campaign, as well as most notably, GURPS Faerie. Which given the wealth of research and detail that the GURPS line is famous for, means that the author has a certain expertise when writing about the supernatural threat that the Player Characters will face in the United Kingdom. The book includes an overview of Britain and Ireland, a gazetteer of strange places, details of the fae and their realms, the Apollonian Society, new Archetypes, a host of supernatural creatures, and three lengthy mysteries.

Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland opens with an overview of Mythic Britain and Ireland. This is not intended to be a historical treatment of the setting or period, in part because there is insufficient space and in part because the setting is familiar. Instead, it opts for a combination of history and fantasy. This shows in its inclusion of notables of the period, so that alongside figures such as Charles Dickens, Florence Nightingale, and Oscar Wilde, there are also fictional characters like Sir Harry Flashman, A.J. Raffles, and Sherlock Holmes. All are given thumbnail descriptions, as are the important cities of the Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. London is understandably given more attention, covering the city’s important locations, railways, and other institutions. Particular attention is paid to the tensions rife across all four countries, with suggestions as to how include Fenian fairies (and others) agitating for home rule, Social Class, and more in a Vaesen game set in the British Isles. Many locations—in and out of London—are accompanied by a short description of a haunted place, whether that is the Blackley Boggart of Boggart Hole Clough near Manchester or suggestions that spirits haunting Hackney Marshes might be of Roman or older origins. Several Mysterious Places, like the Cerne Abbas Giant and Loch Ness are described too, before the supplement dives in deeper detail about the parallel worlds of the Fairie. This provides solid background for the Game Master to involve her players and their characters in visits to Annwvyn, Tír Na nÓg, fairy glades and rings, and so on.

The equivalent of the Society in Britain, the Apollonian Society, whilst linked to the one in Sweden, has a history all of its own. The Apollonian Society was originally founded by Doctor John Dee, scientist and astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, together with Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s spymaster, and Edmund Spenser, whose epic poem, The Fairie Queen, would threaten to reveal too much about the Fairie and their realms. Much of its archives are based upon the records and correspondence of William Stukely, noted antiquarian and often regarded as the ‘father of archaeology’. The Apollonian Society even has its own headquarters in the form of Rose House, complete with its own seemingly ageless butler, Hawkins. Options are suggested to who or what Hawkins might be. Overall, there is a nice sense of the historical and the fantastical to the Apollonian Society and of course, Rose House has the same scope for development as Castle Gyllencreutz in Upsala.

Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland includes three new archetypes for Player Characters—the Athlete, the Entertainer, and the Socialite. These are perhaps the easiest of the content in the supplement to transfer back to roleplaying game’s default setting of Sweden, and indeed, any setting of the period. There is a pleasing flexibility to the Athlete, so that the archetype’s main skill and Talent vary according to their sport, for example, for cricket, the main skill is Agility and Talent is Gentleman, whilst for Tennis, the main skill is Force and Talent is Fleet-footed. The illustration for Archetype, a prize fighter, is delightfully suitable. Conversely, it is a pity that the same is not done with the Entertainer archetype, which simply has to rely on the Manipulation skill and Performer Talent. ‘Expanded profession and ‘Life Event’ tables support the inclusion of the three new archetypes in the supplement as well as those in the core rulebook.

One option for Player Character and NPC interaction is the aforementioned rules for Social Class, deference meaning that those of a higher gain a bonus to Empathy tests when dealing with those of a lower social class, whilst conversely, those of a lower social class suffer a penalty with dealing with their social betters. This reflects the nature of social class throughout the Victorian era and beyond, but the rules do paint a broad brush and lack nuance. Ideally, the Game Master should adjudicate their use as necessary on a case-by-case basis.

The highlight, of course, to Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland are its English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh equivalent of vaesen. Drawing upon a mixture of Celtic myth and local folklore—sometimes very local folklore—the supplements discusses the nature and common features of many of the isles’ fairie creatures, including their invisibility, invulnerability (except of course, for a loophole particular to each type), the nature of fairie challenges, favours, and forfeits, even impossible tasks. Some thirteen fairie are detailed, each given a two-page spread as in the core rules, complete with Apollonian Society notes by William Stukely, the possible ritual necessary to defeat the creature, three example conflicts between the creature and mankind, and variants. The conflicts for the Banshee, the first fairie entry in the supplement, include a Banshee who will not howl, a Banshee who reaches out in dreams, and banshee who wails despite the last of the nearby family line not wanting to die. The variants include the Caoineag, a water-bound version who is almost impossible to interact with and the Bean-nighe, a crone-like creature who washes the clothes of those who are about to die in a stream. The other fairie include the Black Dog, Boggart, Glastig, Hag, Knocker, Nuckelavee, and several others. there are even notes on adapting the vaesen from the core rulebook to Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland setting.

Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland includes three mysteries. All three clearly present their conflicts, countdowns, and catastrophes, the latter occurring if the Player Characters fail to act in time. Clues are given location by location, and each scenario ends in a confrontation, climax, and possible aftermath. All open with a latter to the Apollonian Society which will draw the Player Characters hither and thither, first to rural Gloucestershire where a young man has been arrested for the murder of his sweetheart and the ground about his village has been beset by unusually late and cold frosts, to the north of Wales where a rash of accidents in a slate mine suggest something unchristian, and then back to London to locate a missing brother last seen at an artists’ colony upsetting the middle class propriety of Hampstead Heath. They can of course, be played in any order. Taking up almost half of the supplement, all three scenarios are excellent, highlighting conflicts between tradition and reason, tradition and modernity, the mysterious and the mundane, as well as depicting the social differences and attitudes in all three locations. Although there are notes to adapt the scenarios to the Swedish default setting of Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland is , doing so would lose some of the flavaour and nuance to be found in each scenario.

If there is an issue with Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland, it is that it does skimp on the history and background to its setting. It does have the benefit of familiarity though, so a Game Master and her players can rely on knowledge they may already have, but if not, it does mean that both will need to conduct more research. Thankfully, neither is all that difficult to research, and in addition, there are plenty of books readily available on the folklore of all four countries.

Physically, as you would expect, Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland is a lovely looking book. The cover is ominous, but inside the various fairie and NPCs in the scenarios are brought to vivid life by the artwork of Johan Egerkrans. The book is well written, the handouts are well done—if a plain in places, and the cartography is excellent.

Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland takes the structure and style of Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland and places it in what be the familiar for much the English speaking hobby. That familiarity may lead to clichés, but this is actually not all that much of an issue given the supplement’s mix of the fantastical and the historical, meaning the Player Characters can don deerstalkers and tramp the moors in search of malicious or mischievous wee beasties or hunt for horrors on the fog-bound streets of London and neither would be out of place. Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland is an excellent supplement, opening up the world of Vaesen to a whole new realm and making the fairie something to fear.

—oOo—

Free League Publishing will be at UK Games Expo

from Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

Folkloric Fearsome Foursome II

Seasons of Mysteries is an anthology of scenarios for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the Sweden-set roleplaying of folkloric horror set during the nineteenth century published by Free League Publishing. It presents four mysteries which will take the members of the Society, the organisation which investigates the situations which arise from the clash between modern society and the traditions that have grown up from living alongside the supernatural creatures called Vaesen, to the boundaries of Sweden—and beyond. In turn they take the Player Characters to the central valleys of Sweden where strange things are happening—possibly an abduction, but definitely drowned cows; to an ironworks where the owner has been bewitched by a local preacher; across the Danish straits and onto Jutland to confront the guardian of the moors; and across the Gulf of Finland to northeast Russia as guests of honour at an event held by the ruling noble. What sets this quartet of adventures apart is their seasonal nature. They are all standalone, and there is one for each season—spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

All four adventures follow the same structure. The ‘Background’ and ‘Conflict’ explains the situation for each scenario, whilst the ‘Invitation’ tells the Game Master how to get the Player Characters involved. In Seasons of Mysteries, the primary form of ‘Invitation’ is the letter, which will typically summon the Player Characters to the town or village where the mystery is taking place, the getting there detailed in the ‘Journey’, typically a mix of railway and coach journeys. It should be noted that every mystery has moment or two when the Player Characters can prepare and goes into some detail about the journey. There is an opportunity for roleplaying here, perhaps resulting in longer travel scenes than the core rulebook necessarily recommends. The ‘Countdown and Catastrophe’ presents the Game Master with one or two sets of events which take place as the Player Characters’ investigation proceeds, sometimes triggered by the Player Characters, sometimes triggered by the NPCs, whilst ‘Locations’ cover NPCs, Challenges, and Clues, all leading to a ‘Confrontation’ and its eventual ‘Aftermath’. For the most part, the mysteries are well organised, a mix of the sandbox and events which the Game Master will need to carefully orchestrate around the actions of her Player Characters. Only the most pertinent of the locations in each town or village is described and the Game Master is advised to create others as needed, though she will very likely need a ready list of Swedish names to hand for whenever the Player Characters run into an NPC or two.

Also included with every scenario is a set of trigger warnings, kept to a minimum, and unobtrusively placed in the top, lefthand corner on the opening page of each scenario. Plus, there are notes too, for running each of the four scenarios with Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland, although of course, the Game Master will need to make some adjustments in terms of names and geography.

Seasons of Mysteries opens with ‘A Dance with Death’ set in the ‘dales’ of central Sweden in the springtime. Here in a traditional farming community, mostly concerned with its cattle and its music. Here a farm labourer woke by the banks of the nearby lake unaware of how she got there and two cows have been found drowned. A local farm owner asks the Player Characters to investigate. What they discover is a miasma of paranoia and uncertainty, fuelled by an undercurrent of unrequited love and a Faustian pact. There is a degree of misdirection in the scenario, including a big floating clue, and a sense that the villains are not always what they seem. There are nice roleplaying touches too, such as making friends—or at least good impression—with the locals at a party, including finding out just how well the Player Characters can dance. This scenario has a lovely bucolic feel, a twisted tale of love and desire and possession at the appropriate time of the year.

Taking place at the heart of summer, ‘Fireheart’ literally boils with heat and everything is seen through a heat haze. The mystery focuses on the Häryd ironworks on Lake Hären in Smolandia, owned by two brothers. As drought dries up the land around them, one brother grows greedier and greedier as the other comes to believe that an evangelist preacher has bewitched the first, leading to a rift between the two. There is certainly something going at the ironworks, for the brother who remains is obsessed with his wealth and his foreman, known as ‘Swine’, drives the ironwork’s labourers mercilessly. If the Player Characters can get past Swine, whether through subterfuge or stealth, they can perhaps discover something about the first brother’s obsession, but get toom close they too might end up suffering from it as well! As the temperature rises, confrontation is all but inevitable, though it will perhaps force the truth to be revealed. This is fantastical on a grand scale, a back story out of myth and fairy tale, which will lead to an encounter with the greatest of mythical beasts. Unlike the other scenarios in the anthology, ‘Fireheart’ uses a mythic not found in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, but introduces it here.

One of the themes of Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying is the conflict between modernity and change, and the old ways, and this best explored in the anthology in ‘The Devil on the Moor’. This is set on the moors of Jutland where the Danish Society for Moorland Reclamation is conducting an engineering project to restore the land to its former fertility. Taking place during the Autumn, the lead engineer believes that a demon is sabotaging the project. The Player Characters will have the past notes from a reputed Danish folklorist to examine for clues, but must also find a way to get the recalcitrant locals to talk as everyone seems on edge and strange mists swirl about the place and seem to make people disappear. There are some gruesome moments too, though less of a sense of misdirection as in the other scenarios in the anthology. In the notes on adapting the scenario to Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland, the author suggests referring Sir Arthur Conan Doyles’ The Hound of the Baskervilles for its sense of isolation and its mists swirling across boggy terrain, and that atmosphere fits this scenario too, which is a well-done retelling of a revenge from beyond the grave mystery. The scenario does not forget Linnea, the woman who originally invited the Player Characters to reform the Society, either, as she plays a central role in getting them involved in the events in Denmark.

Seasons of Mysteries comes to a close with the very, very wintery ‘A Winter’s Tale’. The Player Characters are invited by a Russian nobleman to a symposium on the strange and the supernatural at his home in the province of Ingria, once a Swedish possession, but now part of the Russian empire. Their journey is interrupted by a terrible snowstorm and they are forced to take refuge in a nearby inn, along with several other guests, some of whom were bound for the same symposium as the Player Characters—including two very well-known monster hunters! Unfortunately, not all is well at the inn. The owner’s sister died recently and as the weather closes in, the intensity of the snowstorm increases and the temperature drops, and try as they might, nobody can keep a fire going for very long. Potentially, this scenario could descend into one of survival horror, but investigation and interrogation lies at the heart of Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying. There is a lot of exposition to get through at points, but it is not like the Player Characters are going very far. Plus, all of the suspects and the clues are to be found in one place, the inn, in what is a bitterly claustrophobic scenario.

Physically, Seasons of Mysteries is a lovely looking book. The cover is stark and wintery, and has a lovely tactile feel. The scenarios are all well written, the handouts are well done—if a plain in places, and the cartography is excellent.

One issue with the previous anthology, A Wicked Secret, was its lack of geography and history. Sweden at the time when Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, A Wicked Secret and Other Mysteries, and A Season of Mysteries is set, is unlikely to be a familiar place to many Game Masters or their players. There was not always the explanation of the whys and wherefores to a scenario, but that is not wholly an issue with Seasons of Mysteries. It could have done with a little more geographical explanation or a map, as to where its scenarios are set, at least for those set in Sweden, in relation the country as a whole. This is less of an issue with the two scenarios set outside of Sweden, where enough information is provided.

The investigations in Seasons of Mysteries are not necessarily wholly original, primarily because their threats are drawn from folklore and the stories around them, so there is often a sense of the familiarity to the scenarios. This does not mean that the scenarios are bad, because they are all well written and plotted, and they very effectively explore the clash between tradition and modernity, which often leads to a breakdown between man and Vaesen which is explored in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying. If perhaps there is a downside to the adventures it is that they are seasonally based, which as much as that plays into and influences the nature and atmosphere of each scenario, it means that they are not quite as versatile. Nevertheless, Seasons of Mysteries is an excellent and engaging second quartet of mysteries, each markedly different in terms of tone and feel and each presenting different challenges for the Player Characters in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying.