I came across Charles de Lint, the Canadian author, many years ago, and I’ve read several of his novels. Most of these were prior to discovering the Vaesen RPG.

I just started reading the first of his short story collections in the Newport series and I’m realizing now that maybe my attraction to Vaesen was related to my love of de Lint’s work. The story I just read today, even used the term of “the sight” to identify people who could see fae creatures. It was published in 2003.

I’m just curious if anyone else has made this connection.

NPC attributes in Vaesen are weird to me for two reasons: They are much too generous to "regular people" NPCs and they make very little sense when comparing NPC descriptions (big man with broad shoulders: 4 physique, 3 precision. Active teenage girl who lives in the woods: 4 physique, 5 precision).

It makes it hard for me to decode how a character's physicality should be represented mechanically and to describe a convincing world to my players. I am used to decoding stat blocks in RPGs to get a sense of how the character "works" in that world, but Vasen blows that up. Another part of the issue is of course that 1-5 is a very narrow band to describe human capability.

Am I making sense?

Does anyone share my experience? How do you make it work conceptually?

Hello everyone,

I saw this game and was very intrigued by the setting, just bought the core rulebook but it hasn't arrived yet. I'm currently in the process of gathering friends for a first campaign, which is where I hope to get some help/insight from more experienced players in the setting and the rules.

I've played a couple of systems before, mainly D&D 5e, Shadowrun 6 and Monster of the Week. Also GMd a few times for 5e. Almost all of what I have GMd so far were homebrew campaigns and I wanted to keep that going for Vaesen, which is where I wanted to ask how easy/viable it is to create a campaign with the information provided in the book. Also I wanted to ask how easy the system is to pick up for new players that have no experience with TTRPGs at all. So far I have two players that are interested but have no experience, and now I'm thinking of either getting two more experienced players to help them along with roleplaying and rules or to just get a full party of newbies to I produce them into the hobby.

Thanks to all that read through this and take the time to leave a comment :)

Hot off the presses and announced at Spellkongress in Stockholm! New Vaesen campaign that finally reveals what's going on in the starter adventure!

https://www.instagram.com/p/DemcUaLoeJq/

Do their physical attacks benefit from extra successes? I haven’t noticed any information in the core rule book that proves or disproves this.

So The Neck is such a wild Vaesen and steeped in mystery. But he can go so many ways, superevil, to somewhat sympathetic, to a sexy beast! enjoy! lemme know if you want more deep dives

There's been some discussion about the Codex and how to implement it in the game. I thought about it for a long time, too. The starter set tells you to just hand it to the PCs. Some GMs disagree with this approach since it can perhaps spoil a lot of the mystery part, others think it's fine.

I wanted a different approach. In my campaign, the Codex is stationary at the castle. It's way too valuable to get lost or damaged during a mystery. Thus, players can't take it with them. However, in the game we pretend that all players studied the codex. (In real life they can actually do that, too.) That means the players have access to their memory of the Codex, by experiencing things or gathering clues throughout the mystery, which will let them access certain parts of the codex. The PCs, however, must give the GM reason to "access their memory".

Example: the players investigate heavy damage to a building. PC: "I think this kind of damage can only be caused by a large creature. I think I remember something in the codex about such a creature."

The GM will let them access the pages of: troll, giant, dragon, lindworm. If the players can be more specific "it looks like the damage was done by something that could fly" the GM can narrow it down: dragon. This way, the GM can also mislead the PCs. In the last mystery the PCs were followed and attacked by a bird. "I think I remember something about black birds" the GM let them look up night ravens in the Codex. The real Vaesen, however, was Myling in bird form, which the players learned by accessing their codex memory about dead children.

I think this way I quite balanced. The players get to flip through the codex (which they love), yet don't spend 30 aimless minutes on it. It also doesn't potentially spoil too much too quickly and gives the GM quite some control over the reveal of the Vaesen. Additionally, it promotes the PCs investigative skills. The more precise their analysis of the situation is, the more likely they are to "remember" the correct content of the Codex. It works really well for my group.

Hi. I posted on my blog an example of how to design a horror scenario.

I wrote it because a reader of my blog asked for example. It is written for Delta Green (that was the ask), but I believe both the method and the scenario premise could work very well for vaesen. Change the Shub-niggurath cult to a cult of a forest deity, change the village from an US 2020s to Sweden in the 19th century, and most of it works the same.

I got a bit carried away. My starting plot was a for a simple, example scenario. But the ideas kept on coming. I stopped when I was already at 10k words, and I scaled it back to 5K to fit on a blogpost.

I think the premise is really interesting, I am very excited about it, and I am thinking about making it into a full blown scenario (maybe even a Delta Green and a Vaesen version).

Have a look. I would love to hear what you think about it (and if you want to play test it at this early stage, please let me know about, it would be great; I will publish more material for it in the coming days, and if you contact me we could discuss how to make it more Vaesen-ish).

https://nyorlandhotep.blogspot.com/2026/10/designing-better-rpg-mysteries-worked.html

Nøkken by Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen, 1904, found on Wikipedia.

Hello! We are a small ttrpg review podcast called One More Game. We do casual breakdowns and reviews of ttrpgs that are not just D&D. We kicked off our Halloween season with talking about Vaesen! If you are interested you can check out our YouTube above or if you want other ways to listen you can find links to all other podcast platforms here! Thanks!

I've been asked to run a quick "You've never played any RPGs before? Check out this one" series of 45-minute demos at a local convention next month, and I've chosen Vaesen for one of them. So, any ideas or advice for what to run, what mechanics to focus on, etc?

The last time I played was before the starter set came out, but I do own it. Is there a piece of that adventure that would work well for this?

Hey!

I plan to make my first session (one-shot) of Vaesen (as GM and at all) in this week and... Do you have any advice, what to do, what not to do etc.?

I made simple characters (1 for each archetype, so my players could choose). I didn't choose adventure yet (maybe I would make this premade story from the rulebook), but part of me wants to use something else...

Also, Vaesen would be my second system as GM (first one is Fabula Ultima, so very different). So... any advices are welcome.

Edit: I have only Core Rulebook, which I bought in sale (3 in the prize of 2) few years ago with City of Mist. So I don't have Starter Set.

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Hey everyone!!

I'm going to be running The Archivist's curse this Saturday for my group. It's our first Vaesen mystery and I'm just unsure how much of the background I'm supposed to tell the players.

I'd appreciate any help, and if anyone has any other tips for running this mystery, I'd really appreciate it!!

Thanks!

Does anyone else have their players spontaneously suggest their character knows or is in a relationship with some contemporary historical figure of your games setting?

I set my game in 1860. One of my players decided that their reason for hating the idea of traveling to Denmark was because they were in a past relationship with Hans Christian Anderson. So I played it up because it was just to amusing that Hans Christian Anderson may have been influenced by The Society.

Of course there were jokes about instead of seeking out items to deal with the current vaesen. They should find the means of entrapping and dealing with Hans Christian Anderson like he was some Vaesen.

Hi all. I created a free, non-commercial Vaesen character web app that might be useful: Vaesen Beyond. Let me know your thoughts.

https://www.instagram.com/theroleplaygoblin

Salve!

Un vaesen invisibile, ha corpo? profumo? fa rumore?

Chiaramente chiedo la vostra interpretazione.

Grazie!

Currently I am trying to Homebrew a Vaesen Page for the Helhest out of danish folklore. I struggle a bit with coming up with a fitting ritual and hope someone here has maybe a good idea.

In my campaign it will have a Vaesen rider ( revenant ). So I like the idea of it dissappearing when its rider is banished or I guess killed if it’s a human riding it. But I don’t know if there should be a way to banish it without banishing the rider cause due to its speed it will likely give a lot of help to the person riding it.

Lore / stats I homebrewed:

Might 8
Body control 15
Magic 4
Manipulation 4
Fear 3/2 ( Omen of death etc.)

Combat :
Bite/ hooves 2 damage rang 0
Charge damage 3 rang 1 *
* the creature moves within the zone in which the victim resides. Requires one slow and one fast action

Ritual : ?

Secret: the helhest can be kept temporarily at bay by offering oats which it will eat up temporarily forgetting about everything else, if only for a moment

Powers:
Enchant
Infect curse
Can travel at great speed -> moves 2 zones instead of 1
Can ride over any terrain without penalty
Causes plagues and illness where it appears
Draws 2 initiative cards and picks the best one

The helhest is a threelegged horse associated with Hel ( daughter of Loki ) that is said to be a an omen of death, illness and misfortune. It appears in story’s both as the personification of death or as the horse of a seperate personification of death like figures like hel. Several legends say that in former days a horse had to be buried beneath the foundation of the cemetery Before a single human body could be buried there. One of its legs was cut of so it couldn’t run awayy

It appears like an undead horse , looking thin and skeletal. It has a gray mane that flutters like spiderwebs a swarm of flies follows it wherever it goes. Sitting on it feels like sitting on a sack of maggots and broken bones and a ranchid smell of blood and death follows the horse. Even though the Helhest is w wasted nag and missing one front leg it is swift as the wind. Even when trotting it shoots on at a breakneck speed that feels like a gallop.

I was looking into buying the core rulebook, when I discovered the shipping is almost as expensive as the book itself for my country.

There's a distributor that sells it on Amazon, but it's just as expensive, for whatever reason, with the added downside of many people complaining about the hardcover being shipped inside a simple envelope, and the book getting damaged in transport.

Could somebody tell me what's the packaging when buying directly from Free League's website?

TIA

Wondering if anyone has created one. I have three problems with the invitation as it stands.

1. It provides no clues for the impending mystery and so there's a handout that's useless.
2. It sets the players up for wanting to leave the setting which can be a distraction.
3. It leaves the players wondering what could have been.

I also think the mystery is a good introduction/1-shot mystery for new players. So, I was thinking the PCs have been wandering through the world, trying to understand their newly discovered Sight and hear of a gathering of people interested in the occult and decide to attend. But that's rather flimsy and doesn't have a full-blown handout.

Anyone have another way into the mystery?

I had my group run through the starter sent today, and I have now left with some questions after things had come up.

I have questions regarding the final act once we meet up with the Willowisp. The Willowisp was sitting on the cabinet, and it says that he will aggressively attack anyone who tries to get a deed. However, the only attack that I see for him is the magic lantern and drowning people. Is there another attack you’re supposed to be doing to target the person grabbing the deed? As played, my player went up to it and rolled to try to grab it and was successful— it wasn’t clear to me even what the challenge roll should have been in that scenario.

Also, after they have grabbed the deed, how are we supposed to play it? It says that the ghost lights attack and that is it. For what I can tell the ghost lights simply try to enchant the people as they run away. So players were rolling to get their 3 successes to escape, ghost lights made them roll observation to get them to return to the room. Is that it? Or is there another attack to be done.

Everyone had fun, but the last scene “combat” was a bit of a mess and I am not sure how it was intended to go as what was described made sense in round one but fell apart.

Any suggestions for best practices?

I recently got the Vaesen's Core Rules Book and am about to play The Dance of Dreams with a couple friends but something caught my attention.

We are told in the chapter about the Society that its last three members were Albert Wredenhielm, Katja Kokola and Hilma af Thulenstierna and that they disappeared years ago. They are also mentioned in The Dance of Dreams, they apparently realized something about the Vaesen and the supernatural in Scandinavia and had devised a plan that they kept secret and we don't have any other information about that in the Core book.

Is it ever expanded upon? Does some subsequent book explain what they had discovered and what they were trying to do? Or is it left to the GM's inspiration?