Vaesen Starter Kit play review

 

This review is for the Vaesen Starter kit from Free League Publishing. Vaesen is a Nordic horror roleplaying game based off of the artwork of Swedish illustrator and author Johan Egerkrans. It uses the Year Zero Engine that powers many of the Free League products. 

You can pick up the physical starter kit at your friendly local game shop (like the one I work at) and if they participate in the Bits n Mortar program you get the pdf for free.

If not you can pick up the physical copy over on Amazon while the pdf is available for purchase over on DrivethruRPG in the regular version or optimized for Roll 20 VTT . 

This review is based on actual play where I ran the starter set for a game group at my local shop. I was not gifted the kit for review but was actually purchased by myself.

Straight out of the production quality is top of the line. The box is very durable and strong, all the material inside is printed on quality stock. You get a set of ten dice, initiative cards, maps (of the mythic norse, the city and castle) and everything else you really need. Including rules summary hand outs that come in very handy at the table for the players. You get a condensed version of the rules in one booklet that is easy to navigate and the adventure itself in another. To go through this episode you have five pregenerated characters. 

The adventure itself is pretty straightforward. You little group of 'Thursdays Children' (those who can see the Vaesen) are approached to investigate a castle formerly occupied by a group called the society. It has since fallen into massive disrepair and other Thursdays Children have been lured there and gone missing. Given the tools you need in the form of a booklet with information on many of the Vaesen types and a map they set off. 

I will say the pregenerated characters all seem to fit really well. None of them fall into the fifth wheel problem I've seen with other starter kits. Each one has a purpose and comes in very handy at various times. Now a couple of them reference a few things that aren't discussed in this kit but nothing major that would ruin any sense of the game. Just had us flipping pages for a bit. 

With the group I played with they figured out what the encounter was beforehand by using the booklet of Vaesen and grasping a few clues. But they also snagged onto a red herring that could have also been in there. So it's not one of those discover everything at the end kind of stories. The ended is open ended and can lead you straight into regular games using the full corebook.

The mechanics are easy as most Year Zero Engine games are. Roll a number of six sided dice, sixes count as successes. Most checks require only one or two successes. Various rules for pushing the rolls are there to help get you success at a cost. There are no hit points but a more narrative condition system which helps set the tone of the game even more.

Not to mention that the artwork is also immaculate. Every Vaesen product I have looked at has been beautiful and this one is no different. 

In the end I give this starter set two thumbs up and highly recommend it to others.

UPDATE: Here is a Reddit Thread where a person running the starter kit asks a few questions and gets some really answers. 

Are Horror campaigns DOOMED to fail? ( D&D / TTRPG )

Grave Robbers Inc

 

Grave Robbers Inc

Sometimes there are jobs that are necessary but are considered to unsavory for most people to do. One such job is exhuming the dead. Now there may be all sorts of reasons why you need a body dug up, ritual components, resurrection, feeding, whatever... but it's a dirty backbreaking job that just seems to have a bad taint about it. But there is a demand, so of course there are those willing to do the work. That's just what this little posse of losers has done. After being outcasts in a niche of society that is pretty much composed of outcasts these folks got together and carved out their own little pocket by doing what nobody else will do. No questions asked. For the right price.

Of course their prices aren't cheap but what's the alternative, doing it yourself? Nobody wants to do that. So as a base rate to pull a fresh body out of the ground and have it picked up at a location of their choosing you will pay an easy five grand. Add another grand for every week it's been buried. Add a grand if the customer chooses the pick up location. Tag on another two if they have to move the body from the transport and into a location. Just need specific parts of a body? Well that's a grand each.

These guys don't take plastic so be ready to pay cash in hand or bitcoin. On a very rare occasion they have been willing to do the deed for a trade. But whatever you are offering it had better be pretty valuable AND be something they really want.

One thing though, getting in touch with them isn't that tough. If you ask around the various occult circles enough you will hear about them and somebody will hand you a phone number. On the other end of that number will be the sweetest voice you’ve ever heard.

Significant NPC's

Tim Price, aka The Boss

Tim is from a long family line of morticians. He has all the education and apprenticeship necessary to follow that path as well. But he decided to spend some more time in college while chasing after lost bits of occult knowledge. While he possesses no magical or supernatural abilities himself he does know a great deal more than most others and has a nearly photographic memory to boot.

He's the one who started Grave Robbers Inc up. Having the know how and access to the equipment needed for the job put him in the position of being in charge.

Chrissy, aka The Voice

When you need to meet GRI to discuss business this is who you will talk to. All of five feet tall, dressed in black from head to toe with combat boots, she is the stereotype appearance of modern goth. Until she speaks. Her tone and inflection are perfect and anyone listening to her feels immediately at ease, calm and don't have an angry bone in their body. Some say she from a bloodline of muses, but nobody knows for sure. She may not even know herself.

Other members of the crew tend to vary. From a few outcasts just looking to earn some money on the side to jocks from the local college hoping to impress Chrissy. Just disposable guys to work the shovels and do the dirty work.

Artifacts of Note

Privacy Lantern. This appears to be an old turn of the century railway oil lantern. Very worn, dinged up and dented but still functional. When filled with oil, lit and a bit of magic is used it creates an optical illusion. Anything activity within the circle of light is rendered invisible from outside viewing. Used while digging up a grave so that casual passer by or a police patrol can't see the activity happening. This illusion is broken if the lantern is moved more than a few inches.

Piece of your Mind Pipe. This appears to be a long smoking pipe made to resemble a Native American 'peace pipe' or at least what they looked like on television. This is activated when a person loads the pipe up and lights then takes a puff while spending a bit of magic. Then when they hand it off to another and they take a hit that’s when the person who lit the thing says out a number of a days and the person will pass out. When they wake back up they will have forgotten most of the specified number of days. Only some very foggy and faint images will remain.

Story hooks.

If you have a group with player characters who are down on their luck and needing money well here is an option. Tim is always looking for a few good folks to do the heavy lifting. The more they know about the occult and supernatural goings on the more he’ll like them. So time to see if your players can handle a bit of graveyard desecration.

The Graverobbers have dug up the remains of somebody very important. Now there is a price on their head until the body is returned preferably intact. Maybe your group will be the ones hunting them down. Or maybe GRI is paying the characters to get the body back from the people who had them dig it up in the first place. Maybe they didn’t even dig it up in the first place and they are being framed.

Horror Gaming - Creepy Kids

 

How about a horror six pack just for Christmas? Yes I think that would be absolutely perfect. 

Here are six things that children are doing that is creepy as hell. Perfect for some unnerving events in your games. 

1 – Small child who can barely speaks who points to random people and says “I know when you are going to die.” and then states a specific date.

2 – Draws very different and unique monsters in a rapid scribble fashion. Then tells people these are the things he sees looking around the corners at him.

3 – Singing and dancing in a circle to ‘Ring Around The Rosey’ louder and more angrier every time until the child in the center falls to their knees screaming and bawling their eyes out.

4 – Points to a display of missing children posters and calmly says “I’ll be there one day when people notice I’m gone”.

5 – Runs up and licks random people then smiles and tells them their blood type. Is correct every single time.

6 – Looks at the somebody and frowns deeply. Then says in a deeper then normal voice “You won’t be so pretty when your eyes and mouth are sewn shut”.

Please check out Clandestine Societies Issue One and some of my other products over on my storefront on DrivethruRPG.

Clandestine Societies Issue Two on KoFi and itch

 

Clandestine Societies my little ezine of supernatural, horror and occult gaming material finally has a second issue out. Issue two is now up and available on two storefronts. 

First it's up on my Ko-Fi page available to supporting members for free. As well as several other pdfs should they choose to support me on that platform.

Second it's up over on itch io for only a buck. Most of my other products are available there as well.

Next Saturday I will be putting it up on DrivethruRPG. 

Hoping to have a third issue out in the first quarter of 2026. If everything goes smoothly. 

Roll A D10 - Terrifying Photographs

 

Sometimes what you find on a persons phone can be shocking. Especially in a horror game. Here are ten things that you wouldn't want to find on a cellphone gallery. 

Photographs found on a cellphone gallery.

1 – A person tied to a chair that is gagged and blindfolded.

2 – A dead body that has been split down the middle and laid open.

3 – A clawed hand reaching for the camera, the background is all dark and blurry.

4 – The inside of a mini-fridge filled with full blood donation bags.

5 – A body wrapped in rope frozen inside of a chunk of river ice.

6 – Several hooded figures around a table performing animal sacrifices.

7 – An image of the person who is looking at the phone taken from a distance.

8 – A spiked pit trap on what appears to be a nature trail.

9 – A wanted dangerous fugitive holding up their own ‘Wanted’ poster and smiling.

10 – Images from the inside of a church as it is burning.

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Divinity - First reveal trailer and first official controversy

Okay, now this is pretty damn amazing looking. Being a horror fan my interest has been caught.

However there is now a lot of talk about how the company is going with using more and more AI for it's development. Most links I find lead to a Bloomberg article behind a paywall. But hopefully this one here should work. Personally I don't see why a team of that caliber, who just blew the gates wide open with Baldur's Gate 3, would need to use AI. But evidently the Larian CEO is demanding it. 

Guess we'll just wait and see how this pans out. Currently a lot of folks aren't happy about this and are now balking at wanting to pick this up whenever it comes out. If we see Larian doing layoffs and getting rid of developers that amount may get even larger. So far we haven't seen that, they've actually hired a few more. But we don't know how deep into the AI rabbit hole the person in charge wants to dive.

They built up so much goodwill with fans through BG3, it's a pity to watch a CEO throw it all away for the techbro money pit that is AI. 

Roll a D10 - Things in a dead persons hand

 

Time for another horror gaming entry for Roll a D10. This time it's what you may find when you search a dead body. 

What did you find in a dead persons hand?

1 – A religious symbol for a nearby cult.

2 – A long flat head screwdriver covered in blood.

3 – The drivers license of a local police officer.

4 – Small scrap of crumbled paper with three phone numbers on it.

5 – A flashlight with dead batteries.

6 – A key ring with three keys on it.

7 – A leash for a small animal.

8 – A blood stained photograph of a young girl.

9 – Several strands of long hair wrapped around their fingers.

10 – A small crucifix on a silver chain.

Check out my products from Truly Rural Productions over on DrivethruRPG. 

Working on Clandestine Societies Issue 2

 

A few years back I had started work on what I intended to be a series of releases for Supernatural - Horror - Occult gaming. Just a small release with some different articles inside all falling into that vibe. I called this Clandestine Societies, referencing the secret societies and groups that would be created by the existence of such things in our world. 

I managed to get issue one completed and ready to go and was working on issue two. The idea was to get three done before I released the first. A planned release schedule. But then I caught Covid, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Ended up in Barnes Hospital in St. Louis on a ventilator, it got bad, up to the point where they told my wife she may want to start thinking about making 'arrangements' because my outlook was bleak. But right after that call my body started turning around and I survived. 

Went through in facility physical therapy to recover from both muscle atrophy and lung damage. When I finally got home that brain fog people talk about was all to real and really rough. But I recovered enough that sat down and went ahead and released Issue One on 6/12/21. But it would be a while before I could focus enough on writing and creating anything.

Now it's been a few years. While I still fight with some mental and memory issues I am back to where I feel I can start making material again. I attribute a lot of my recovery to doing face to face gaming again and getting a job where I exercise my brain a bit. 

So two years ago I released a new Squad Names, but it was something I had partially written and didn't require to much work. Then recently I released Cyberpunk Random Charts. Now I'm working on Clandestine Societies Issue Two. 

It's all written and done. I've got the cover image figured out and I'm looking for other pieces of stock art for the articles inside. While I'm doing all that I'm rereading everything for the fifth or sixth time. Layout is going to be done on LibreOffice cause I just don't feel like relearning how to use Scribus again after all this. I'm going to be using the words "Not professional, not slick, but cheap" quite often from now on. 

I'm thinking of making the release date January to start the new year off with something. I'll probably keep the regular price I charge of a dollar since it looks to end up around eleven or twelve pages. Got a few other things I'm slowly working on and hopefully I'll get them rolled out as well as 2026 progresses. 

This went on for a bit longer than I anticipated. Thanks for those who read through it all. 

Blood! The Roleplaying Game of Modern Horror (Underground Games 1990) | ...

Never heard of this game before I saw this video. Now I really have a big soft spot for late eighties/early nineties games. This has it all, charts, skill lists, blood loss, all sorts of fun stuff. I guess it's never came out in pdf though as I can't find a copy. But damn I wouldn't mind having a print copy in my hands. 

Levi puts Kult on the butchers block.

 

Over on BlueSky Levi Kornelsen puts one of my favorite classic games and puts it on the butchers block to take it apart a little and to say what he thinks of the mechanics. I have to say I agree with him a lot on the breakdown. You can go see the post by Clicking Here or by clicking on the image above. 

Roll A D10 - Horrible things to find

 

How about another Roll A D10 for horror stuff? Sounds great to me. This time it's about something horrible that you could come across. It's really not going to be a good time is it?

Horrible things to find in a bowling alley locker.

1 – Bowling ball bag with a decayed human head inside.

2 – A collection of zip lock baggies containing human fingers.

3 – Dried up mask made from a human face.

4 – Trap that sprays Sulfuric Acid in a mist onto who ever opened the locker.

5 – List of missing persons and a map with various X marks drawn in remote locations.

6 – A collection of cassette tapes containing the screams of children in pain.

7 – Handbag full of human scalps that are only a few years old at most.

8 – A completely full, and very fragile, colostomy bag.

9 – Backpack filled with dried and almost mummified small animal heads.

10 – Notepad containing the name, address, and personal information of the person who found it.

If you like this and other posts I've made please consider supporting me over on Ko-Fi.

Six Pack - Blood Magic Spells

 

Here are six spell ideas for those who use blood magic. All of them presented without system mechanics. Some of them not so very nice. But then who is ever very nice when it comes to horror?

Six spells for blood magic

Wings of Gore – Small thin cuts along the casters ribs and towards the upper back and spine. Allowing a thin sheen of blood to ooze through which then peel back to become wings enabling the caster to fly.

Internal Torture – Dropping your own blood onto the open wound of the victim. You can then cause your blood to create immense pain inside of their body as it flows through it. Emulates anything from intense burning or cold to the sensation of razors running along their insides.

Scab Armor – The blood mage smears their body down with blood. After a minute it hardens and dries into a thick scab like covering. Acts as armor and doesn’t slow the wearer down in any fashion. After ah hour or two it begins to flake off and peel away.

Poisons in the Blood – Makes casters own blood toxic and poisonous to others. Great for spreading on sharp melee weapons or for simply dropping a bit into someones drink.

Bath of Elizabeth – The caster soaks themselves in the blood of another for an hour as it dries and sticks to them. When peeled away it has reduced their age by a full year. But the older they get the more blood that is required.

Cold Hearted – The caster obtains a sample of the victims blood and then freezes it after a ritual. That target then has their core body temperature slowly drop over the course of a few hours and turn into full blown hypothermia and then finally dies.

If you like these ideas and want to see more please consider supporting me over on Ko-Fi.

Horror Gaming - Serial Killer calling card/hallmarks.

 

Sometimes you need a serial killer in your games to make things more interesting. Here is are ten different calling cards and hallmarks to add a bit something more gruesome. Remember the creativity of the kill will make their memory last longer. 

Roll a D10 - What was the serial killers calling card/hallmark?

1 – A blood stained playing card, all taken from the same deck.

2 – Single photograph of the victim taken secretly just days prior to the murder.

3 – The date of death is carved on the victims forehead, to the bone.

4 – All fingers and toes are removed prior to the victims death.

5 – The blood has been drained from the victims and is poured in a spiral around the body.

6 – An object is inserted through the nasal cavity and then used to liquefy the victims brain.

7 – The victim was dragged behind a vehicle on a gravel road prior to death.

8 – Eyelids and lips were removed from the victims body.

9 – The victims suffered several lacerations all over their body that were then sewn up.

10 – The victim suffered a great many stab wounds, each from a different blade.

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Silent Hill f - Official Japanese Trailer

Active the captions to get the English translation. This looks freaking wonderful.

RPG Review - Demon Generator

 

Just a quick fast little review today. The Demon Generator from Piecewise Games over on DrivethruRPG. 

I'll be quite honest here, it's mostly just what it says on the tin. You pick the type of demon you want and then you roll on the charts for some various creative cues and pull them all together. It doesn't all magically lock into place and you have to do some creative thinking to pull it together. But what it comes up with really helps lock you into that flow. 

So like they said, no art, no filler, no bullshit. It's straight forward a list of table used for generating some details.

For only a single solitary dollar (US currency) I'd say it was worth the investment. I'll be using it to pull some odd entities for some of my modern and near modern day horror games I run on occasion. Should be fun. 

If you go through the link above and purchase this (or anything else from Drivethru on that visit) I'll get a little kick back. Which helps support me and this blog allowing me to pick up more stuff to review in the future. You can also show your support through my KoFi page as well. 

Horror Six Pack - 6 nasty things to find in a storage shed

 

Sometimes people can do the most terrible things inside of a storage shed and you wouldn't ever know about it until somebody cracked that door open. Well it's time for that to happen, what will you have your players find?

Six horrible things to find in a storage shed.

1 – Filled full of sealed 55 gallon metal drums, about a dozen or so. Each one has a ziplock baggy taped to the top of it containing a persons ID and small personal affects they may carry around with them. If the barrels are opened they will find them full of a thick black liquid and the body of the person submerged inside of them. A sign on the wall says “Shed 4 of 6”.

2 – A large wooden table in the middle with various chains and restraints attached. A small rolling tray with several knives, corkscrews, needles, and other torture devices on it. Everything is coated in a layer of old dried blood. All the restraints are sized for somebody child sized.

3 – Several shelves crammed in close together, going from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. All of them complete filled with glass jars of various sized. Each filled with some sort of preservation fluid with a human organ inside. Each one is labeled with the organ name, age and sex of the person it came from.

4 – The shed is filled with rotting, stinking, mashed fur and meat. In the middle of the room, covered in gore is a large anvil attached to an even larger wooden block. Nearby is a sledge hammer. Probably the one that, whoever owns this place, used to beat many small animals into a paste with.

5 – Filled top to bottom with freshly dug up, and busted open, caskets. From the smell many of them most likely contained the bodies of those recently deceased. However none of the bodies are to be found inside the shed.

6 – A rough built lab that was apparently used to mix various amounts of poisons, acids and many other toxic components together and mix it into chocolate. From what you can find this was apparently made into bars and packaged into children's fund raising wrappers. But there are awful lot of empty boxes the wrappers were in but it appears that many were made and already shipped out someplace.

Roll A D10 - What they want in payment

 

Sometimes the supernatural entities want strange forms of payment for their services. It's not all human sacrifice after all. So what are ten things they could want in return?

What do they take in payment?

1 – Human teeth that have been removed from a living person.

2 – A lock of hair from a virgin.

3 – Human fingers, fresh human fingers.

4 – A small vial of YOUR blood.

5 – Currency from a country that no longer exists.

6 – Dust from the collapse of the twin towers on 9/11.

7 – The spent shell casing from a bullet that took someone’s life.

8 – Personal belonging of someone who was executed by the government.

9 – A vial of blood from somebody who has a net worth over 25 million dollars.

10 – A jar of liquefied human brain.

Roll a D10 - What does the monster feed on

 

Sometimes it's good to change up things. Like what a monster feeds on. Well here's a list of ten ideas for you to roll on. 

What does it feed on?

1 – Human Spinal Fluid, the younger the better.

2 – Dissolving flesh and absorbing that through its touch.

3 – Psychic feeding off of human emotions, pain being what nourishes it the most.

4 – Devouring the flesh of humans.

5 – Good old fashioned, and very cliché, blood.

6 – Brains of mammals, the smarter the more nourishing.

7 – Bone marrow.

8 – Rotting and decayed meat.

9 – Heat, the hotter it gets the faster and tougher it gets.

10 – Electricity, and lots of it.

Horror Six Pack - Gore Soaked Spells

Time to pop open a Horror Gaming six pack!

Every now and then you just want to make your players cringe. Especially when it's something bad happening their characters or to the people their characters care about. Here are some really nasty spells to give the bad guys to help this happen.

Gore soaked spells

1 – Pop. Creates a small sphere of super heated liquid to generate inside of a targets skull. Immediately liquefying the brain and causing their skull to blow apart from the pressure. Those nearby are usually struck by chunks of the scalding brain and bone matter.

2 – Back Pain. Seizes the vertebrae in a targets back and spins each one in place the opposite direction of the one next to it. Immediate agony and pain as the spinal cord is shredded and their back is turned into what looks like a meat grinder running at high speed spraying blood several feet out.

3 – Skin Tight. Causes the targets skin to tighten up and shrink up. Causing severe pressure to build up and excruciating pain. Within a minute the skin begins to tear itself apart splattering anyone nearby with blood as it does so.

4 – Blood Transfusion. Transfers the blood inside one target into the body of another. Extremely painful for both but the one receiving the extra plasma begins to swell and starts to spray blood out of any wounds and body cavities as their body over fills.

5 – Words Can Kill. Whenever the target speaks their words are carved into their skin across their body. The bleed excessively and will not clot normally unless the wounds are bandaged tightly. The more they speak, or even scream, the more words that are carved into them.

6 – Joint Aches. Every joint on the target instantly bend completely in the wrong direction. Usually causing many to split open, snap and tear cartilage and tendons completely.