Tall Tales - A Vaesen Review

Free League

Vaesen: Nordic Horror Roleplaying

Published by Free League Publishing

Lead Writer: Nils Hintze

Game Dircector: Nils Karlén

Illustrations and Original Concept: Johan Egerkrans

Swedish roleplaying game publisher Free League Publishing has left a lasting mark in an industry that's never been more crowded. Their output has been characterized by concise rulesets, outstanding production values, and atmosphere so strong it verges on being oppressive. That's perhaps best encapsulated by their indie darling MÖRK BORG, the ultra-dark fantasy apocalypse experience presented like an art zine.

Vaesen: Nordic Horror Roleplaying fits right in with Free League's repertoire. The players are Thursday's Children, those possessing the Sight that reveals the magical creatures surrounding them. Agitated by a rapidly industrializing and conflict riven 19th century Northern Europe, you oppose these "Vaesen" as members of the Society.

But the stories are true, with giants, fairies, and ash tree wives are as rugged as they are elusive. The methods of banishing them are arcane and obscure, and oftentimes the humans who lured them out might be just as responsible for the horror. 

Vaesen offers a familiar but respectably novel take on the monster centric side of horror RPGs, where Call of Cthulhu looms almost as large as its Elder Gods. The players are outgunned and riven by personal demons: when they join the Society, the headquarters is abandoned and its sole surviving member is in an asylum. Standard for the genre but there's no world ending or even particularly large scale threat. The Vaesen's growing danger comes from growing irrelevancy, as people move beyond superstition and the values they represented,. They're far from than some unstoppable, civilization toppling horde. 

That's not to say Vaesen is particularly hopeful. It's a bleak game, even for Free League, reinforced by the nominally historical setting and dark themes. Introductory adventures set the tone and scope of a game, and Vaesen's mostly well written one heavily involves domestic abuse and suicide. I've run plenty of horror games with fear mechanics, but none where "dead children" is one of the example situations. The book grapples with similarly graphic topics throughout, though mostly through abstract references. 

Vaesen's presentation doesn't feel juvenile or overly tasteless but it's still a lot to handle, with little warning.

It's a game that doesn't shy away from the grimmer aspects of fairy tales or the real world circumstances that produced those stories. Difficult as those topics can be to navigate, Vaesen makes for an engaging horror game with more meaningful moral quandaries than I'm used to seeing in mainstream RPGs.

The Known

Vaesen uses the Year Zero game engine, a good fit for a character driven, investigative game. It's a familiar enough foundation: resolution is based on rolling a number of dice equal to the relevant attribute and skill. Every six rolled is a success, with the option to Push the Roll. This allows a player character to immediately reroll the test, barring the sixes, at the cost of suffering a Condition. 

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There are Physical Conditions and Mental Conditions, representing bodily injury and emotional states. Each lowers your rolls by one die and once four are checked off in a category the Player is Broken, out of action with a Critical Injury and dealt a lasting physical or mental bluntly called Defects. The most dangerous, potentially lethal results instead gift positive Insights on the characters. 

Combat doesn't get all that much more granular than the regular skill checks, appropriate since the players can't practically fight their quarry in most cases. There's a decently stocked arsenal presented and a gear section that's very flavorful for what amounts to an occasional bonus. 

Attributes are the usual array you'd expect, with Physique, Precision, Logic, and Empathy, with a short array of skills. That reflects the rest of the core mechanics well: lightweight, robust, and at times punishing. A great fit for a horror game, particularly one with threats as bizarre and intangible as Vaesen.

Other nuances like Advantages, the player's Resource value, and the video game-esque way the Society's HQ can be upgraded, reinforces how Vaesen uses the rules to drive a nuanced, engaging story rather than getting stuck on how much damage monsters deal.

The game presents ten archetypes for players to choose from, largely drawn from the classic horror tropes: Academic, Priest, Occultist, and so on. Writer and Vagabond both stick out as slightly more novel additions. 

The Archetypes have their Main Attributes and Main Skills, along with a choice of three talents. Most talents are situational bonuses, though a few offer more unique effects, like Elementary letting players ask the game master how the clues they've found fit together. 

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Each Archetype includes example Motivations, Traumas, and Dark Secrets for players to use. The last one is a particularly important aspect of the game: Vaesen are drawn - often quite literally - from humanity's deepest fears and so conflicts can quickly become deeply personal. Every player character must also define a Relationship with another PC at character creation, which can be positive or antagonistic. 

That mechanic pops up in a few Year Zero games and I find it's a good way to encourage roleplay and establish the group dynamic. However, it can become difficult if the PCs interactions take an unexpected turn, though how to reconcile that with their Relationship can drive some creative roleplaying.

Like many Year Zero games, the players are given a restrained amount of options but what is available bursts with character. There's also a more detailed Life Path system available for players, determining specific skills and talents as well as personal history through a series of charts.

The Unknown

Vaesen sports a well developed bestiary, with 21 different magical creatures each given a full color illustration and a two page spread. Some more mundane adversaries are provided in the NPC section, but with far less detail. After all, there's little to explore with them compared to the aura of magic surrounding the Vaesen.

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Vaesen don't share stats with the players, possessing their own set of Attributes and Powers. While there's still defined rules for their Trollcrafts, Enchantments, and the like, that divide adds the sense of mystery the Vaesen thrive on. As unique as each one might be, one big caveat is that raw force can't defeat any of them - it might not even delay them. There's a specific, impractical sequence of actions required to vanquish them. They range from the whimsical to the disturbing, most falling somewhere in between.

Many of the Vaesen provided are culturally specific like the Lindworm and Brook Horse, though even the more recognizable creatures, such as Fairies, Trolls, Giants, and Werewolves, are presented in new, strange ways. The average Vaesen session is about uncovering the secret weakness of the magical menace, not rushing in swinging silver and crosses.

The game's cosmology adds another level of nuance to the already enticing creatures. It's established that Vaesen aren't necessarily evil: they aren't necessarily anything, since they're defined by the humans recent events have forced them into conflict with. That's the case both figuratively, with how the adventure seeds stress some human injustice draws them out, but also in a more literal sense, something not even the Vaesen realize. 

Vaesen sets the high bar for bestiaries, without a single boring entry and each one lovingly rendered.

All the Rest

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RPGs illustrated almost entirely by a single person were never all that common and even less so as full color publications became the industry preference and consumer expectations shifted. 

That makes Johan Egerkrans providing almost all the art for Vaesen notable enough as is. More importantly, his art is spectacular, a perfect mix of the horrific, goofy, and strangely majestic aspects of Vaesen's supernatural subjects. His work's blocky silhouettes and the attention to detail reminds me of comic legend Mike Mignola's work, though Egerkrans has a style all his own.

A sensible, restrained layout makes information easy to parse and locate, even with the considerable amounts of short prose, while also giving the spectacular art more room to breathe. I can't remember the last time I've picked up an RPG book that was as visually appealing but still functional as Vaesen.

The book also provides detailed advice on running campaigns, incorporating the narrative elements a horror game absolutely needs like atmosphere and pacing, down to the themes and tropes crucial to the game's identity. It's helpful and intelligently presented, giving a rigid framework while also offering enough advice and charts to mix things up that it's not guiding novice GMs to fall back on a repetitive formula.

Vaesen's historical setting is evocative, with an interesting caveat that whatever details the gamemaster needs to be true for their story is reflected in the world. That gets around the issue of many international players not being familiar with the real world history of the setting. 19th century Northern Europe is crucial to the themes and atmosphere of the game and though the book offers a healthy amount of context, a full history is more than any RPG can offer. 

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Even with that support and explicit permission to leave real world events mutable, getting to grips with such a specific setting remains daunting. But that's true of many games and Vaesen does more to ease you into the world than other RPGs do with entirely fictional realms.

Overall, Vaesen is another example of the winning approach found in other Free League publications, providing a well crafted, slim ruleset to bring players into tough stories and difficult worlds. But Vaesen stands out with its unique subject matter and theming, one I look forward to seeing expand into other regions of the world, starting with their upcoming Ireland and UK sourcebook.

Vaesen can be purchased through DriveThruRPG.com