Vaesen is Free League’s game of folk horror investigation, where 19th century Scandinavian investigators explore the conflicts between humanity and the Vaesen – supernatural creatures like werewolves, ghosts, and fairies. It uses the Year Zero Engine, and for me this fits the game really well – and it has a structure to its investigations that make it great for one-shots or episodic campaigns. There’s even a follow-up Kickstarter running at the moment (well, depending on when you read this) to bring the game to Britain and Ireland.

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Each mission, you’re called out to somewhere, and travel there to try and resolve the conflict of the area. This gives a great Town-A-Week structure to Vaesen, and I really enjoy running it – even though investigative games aren’t always my bag. Here are my four top tips for making it sing:

Prep the Structure

Firstly, Vaesen has a whole chapter dedicated to Mystery design. This is absolute gold, and I’d recommend reading – or even following along – with this to create your first mystery. That’s what I followed when I designed the Haunted Mill introductory scenario, and it works well. Like Tales From The Loop, Vaesen assumes a Three Places style of prep – where players are free to explore nodes as a countdown continues, leading up to a final confrontation.

One word of warning – the published adventures (in the core book and A Wicked Secret – don’t always follow this structure. By all means run them as a way in, but they play around a bit with the prep advice – so don’t rely on them as models.

Nail Your Places

If you’re starting from scratch with your prep, you might be wise to think about your confrontation first – how can the conflict with the Vaesen be resolved? – and then think about where that could happen. From that, you can think of your core places in the town. I’d suggest that usually, you want something like this

• A place where the regular townspeople meet and ill-informed gossip can be had (a PUB, if you like)
• A place where the ‘traditional’/modern view of the Vaesen is represented (this is often a CHURCH, but it could be a factory or a work camp)
• A place where the old ways are kept, and the Vaesen are respected (a SPOOKY PLACE, maybe on the outskirts of the town)

As long as you have those three, you’ll probably have enough to feed the players clues to lead to the confrontation. One thing I’ve noticed in play (at least among my group) is that a pub is expected – make sure to consider what excitement and clues visiting the tavern can bring, even if it’s not a major location. On a practical note, the investigators need somewhere to stay, and it’s usually best if this is a place of relative safety – several of the rules kick in to recover conditions here, and it lets you pull no punches in other confrontations. 

Add Friends, Enemies, and Frenemies

Your Vaesen will almost certainly need allies – either humans wrapped up in its worship like a cult, or actual products of the Vaesen – a confrontation against a lone monster is rarely exciting without some other parties to contend with. For most Vaesen it’s relatively easy to give them some agents in the town – and remember that any one with Enchant can Command Animal, so don’t rule out packs of wild dogs or the odd bear to contend with.

When I prep Mysteries, I think it’s good to have some actual conflict during the investigation – ideally fairly early – and often this will be with the Vaesen’s agents, rather than the Vaesen itself. Plan for this and put it into your Countdown, and throw it at them early.

In a town, you’ll likely have quite a few NPCs to detail – and portray at the table. Painting them with broad brush strokes, or just giving each of them one distinctive feature to portray, will help them to stand out to your players and make the investigation more role-play based. 

Countdown Fast And Early

Each mystery has at least one countdown which is the Vaesen’s (or another faction’s) reaction to the investigators showing up in the town. This is the device that adds urgency to the game and prevents turtling, so go hard and fast with this. I like to trigger the first countdown within half an hour (game time) of the PCs arrival, and often almost as soon as they pitch up. Starting with a bang forces investigation and exploration, and reinforces the danger the community is under.

So, my top tips for running Vaesen – either as a one-shot or an ongoing campaign. Have any of you tried it, as a player or GM? Anything you’d add?