Vaesen: Mythic Britain & Ireland

Free League Publishing has announced an upcoming Vaesen: Mythic Britain & Ireland expansion to their Vaesen: Nordic Horror Roleplaying game. Vaesen uses their Year Zero Engine (e.g., Mutant: Year Zero, Aliens, Forbidden Lands, Coriolis, Tales from the Loop).

It will apparently be coming to Kickstarter soon, but I'm looking forward to this quite a bit. The art for Vaesen is top notch. This seems like an easier sort of mythic backdrop for English speakers to sink their teeth into than Nordic horror. I also hope that means, espsecially if this sells well, that we can get Vaesen expansions set in other areas of Europe or the world (e.g., Central Europe, etc.).

 

[Haiku Elvis]

...You're literally just rolling for sixes. That's it. That's all there is.

Seriously.

I think I've almost got it. What dice do you need again?

Seriously though I just went to do a bit of reading up on Vaesen and it sounds cool. It sounds like the game is very specifically based around the society and it's castle headquaters so I wonder if it will transpose the whole thing over to Britain and Ireland or the idea is that the players are still based in Sweden but can now just travel further afield.

 

[Aldarc]

Seriously though I just went to do a bit of reading up on Vaesen and it sounds cool. It sounds like the game is very specifically based around the society and it's castle headquaters so I wonder if it will transpose the whole thing over to Britain and Ireland or the idea is that the players are still based in Sweden but can now just travel further afield.

The Vaesen game in "Mythic Scandinavia" claims Carl Linneaus as a prior member. Maybe the "Mythic British Isles" one will claim Charles Darwin as a prior member.

 

[mcmillan]

In case people didn't notice, the kickstarter launched today. Already broke $225K (2 million SEK), and went through the first two sets of stretch goals posted

Vaesen RPG – Mythic Britain & Ireland

Face the mythic creatures of Britain and Ireland in this expansion to the multiple award-winning Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying.

www.kickstarter.com

 

[Tonguez]

played the Vaesen scenario involving a Herring saltery and liked it.
Having the same approach applied to the ghosts and ghoulies and fae of Gothic Britain should be epic

 

[Haiku Elvis]

I must admit I have succumbed and backed the kickstarter roll on June next year!

 

[Bill Zebub]

I'm super interested in Vaesen, and would love to play it. I'd like to GM it even, but I'm not versed enough in the genre, the setting, or even the playstyle to be comfortable creating the adventures, and there are some (but not a lot) of published "mysteries".

If FL came out with an epic campaign and sourcebook...something like Darkening of Mirkwood or The Great Pendragon Campaign...I'd be much more likely to plunk down the dollars.

Although, even as it is, I'm tempted to buy it just for the reading (and artwork) pleasure.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm super interested in Vaesen, and would love to play it. I'd like to GM it even, but I'm not versed enough in the genre, the setting, or even the playstyle to be comfortable creating the adventures, and there are some (but not a lot) of published "mysteries".

It's basically a vaguely 19th century "mythic Scandinavia"* setting focused on a supernatural/paranormal investigative society whose members have the special sight to see the otherwise invisible vaesen (i.e., mythic creatures). There are plenty of television shows with similar premises set in the modern day, such as Grimm or Supernatural. So it will generally have a certain monster-of-the-week feel to it, with investigations generally focused on "solving" how to deal with a particular vaesen. Downtime. Then move on to the next vaesen mystery.

There is a lot of guidance for running adventures, mysteries, or whatever. Similar to Stonetop, there is a certain focus on upgrading your base of operations as part of the game.

I'll admit that I am not familiar enough with 19th century Scandinavian history to feel comfortable leaning or subverting the setting, even if it doesn't matter for its ahistorical setting. I suspect that this is one reason why this Mythic Britain expansion will be more popular in the English-speaking roleplaying spheres, as "vaguely Victorian settings" are fairly common in the TTRPG space.

It's also one reason why I would personally enjoy a more Austrian-Hungarian Empire themed setting. I would love to set adventures here in (19th century) Vienna; however, as an American, I don't have the same sort of familiarity with Central European monsters and folklore as someone who grew up on these stories. So having a set of culturally-appropriate vaesen or even archetypes would be quite handy for my purposes.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I'm super interested in Vaesen, and would love to play it. I'd like to GM it even, but I'm not versed enough in the genre, the setting, or even the playstyle to be comfortable creating the adventures, and there are some (but not a lot) of published "mysteries".

If FL came out with an epic campaign and sourcebook...something like Darkening of Mirkwood or The Great Pendragon Campaign...I'd be much more likely to plunk down the dollars.

Although, even as it is, I'm tempted to buy it just for the reading (and artwork) pleasure.

@Aldarc gave a great rundown of Vaesen, so the only thing I'll add is one of my favorite examples of the facility upgrades you can get (improving your castle HQ, basically):


CARP POND
A carp pond with little streams and waterfalls under white wooden bridges.

PrerequIsIte: Botanical Garden
Cost: 2
FunctIon: One of the player characters can gain an extra Advantage before a mystery: Unwavering Calm


I love how much flavor there is in that upgrade, and the idea of a PC taking in the pond to clear their mind for the chaos ahead really helps nail down the tone and setting.

 

[Bill Zebub]

however, as an American, I don't have the same sort of familiarity with Central European monsters and folklore as someone who grew up on these stories.

omg....Vaesen set in colonial America? Combine creatures that stowed away on colonists' ships with native American equivalents? Don't the animal spirits of native American myths have a kind of parallel to vaesen?

 

[Bill Zebub]

Yeah I love the "HQ upgrade" theme. The one thing I liked about running

Spoiler: spoiler!

Dragon Heist was the PCs turning the tavern into their HQ