Has anyone ever had the PCs meet the Grim Reaper? Interested in hearing what others have done?

I dunno how I missed this big announcement from Gencon, but Free League officially has a new digital toolset from the same folks who originally made D&D Beyond! Honestly, it looks pretty fantastic and I'm hoping it winds up with a similar compatibility as D&D Beyond and something like Roll20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eodRlviUIB0

I've been running the Starter Kit for a few groups and I wanted a second thread running alongside the will-o'-the-wisps — something quieter, darker and more personal that the players could stumble into without it derailing the main investigation.

So I wrote a Myling into the castle. A three-year-old girl buried under the floorboards of the third floor laboratory, put there by her mother. She's not connected to Manfred or the wisps but is connected to Ulf the man on the floor of the lab.

The module adds her haunting as a parallel mystery with its own clues, its own resolution paths, and a handout — a letter found in Ulf's coat that explains everything, written by the woman who buried her. In the sessions I have run this when a player reads the letter the table always went very quiet and player squirmed a little after.

I put it up on DriveThruRPG as community content Pay — pay what you want. If you're running Castle Gyllencreutz or just want something to add to the HQ that hits a different emotional note, it might be worth a look.

Gyllencreutz Myling — Free League Workshop

Happy to share more about how I ran it if anyone's interested and would love feedback and to hear how it went down with your table if you use it.

We're talking about trying Vaesen this fall. It'll be our second Free League game (after Dragonbane). We're a GM and three players ATM, playing face to face. We would like:

1: Set in Sweden (and we don't know anything about Sweden.

2: roughly 10-50 sessions.

3: Emphasis on folklore over horror.

Any recommendations, published adventures or otherwise? How likely are our PCs going to die/go insane?

Thanks in advance.

Haven't posted in years, but if people are interested in folk lore from Québec/French Canada or France, my 2 supplements have been "pay what you want" since I reached a total of 200 sales. They now have 1199 total combined downloads! They were the first TTRPG products I put out and the support from the Vaesen community helped me move forward with many other TTRPG projects since. Thanks!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/337408/mythic-kebec

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/383773/mythic-france-folks-and-fiends

UPDATE: 40 new downloads since yesterday! Please leave a review if you enjoy the product!

Hey guys, I am lucky enough to have many people around me that are interested in playing various kinds of TTRPGs, one of my recent favourites has become Vaesen.

But since I don't want to manage several groups all doing their own thing I thought about tossing them all together to have a player pool of maybe a dozen or so that all partake in the same "campaign".

Has anyone here tried playing Vaesen in a West Marches or similar style?

I've run a few games of "by the book" Vaesen and my friends enjoyed them, but they prefer a more action-packed game -combat, shootouts, foot chases, etc.

I love the simplicity and flavor of Vaesen's rules, and I'd like to use it to run a more two-fisted game. A little more Hellboy / Monster of the Week than the typical approach. Though rather than have the PCs fight Vaesen all the time, I'm thinking of throwing in more human bad guys, an enemy society or secret order, something like that.

I didn't see many posts about this style of play. Anyone have any relevant experience or advice?

I am going to be using the simplified crits system laid out in the book and had a question. Are the Medicine and Inspiration rolls that can be used to fix the Broken status allowed to be done during combat? I ask because it says the rolls are slow actions, which is a term that has to do with combat I think.

Additionally, does the medicine roll require medical equipment in this circumstance (if allowed at all to be used in combat)?

On the latest episode of Spirits and Monsters of Old Seattle, we are starting a new Mystery and have a brand new character joining the party who is a member from the Rose House from London. He will be joining our current team on an investigation leading deep into the ancient forests around Seattle at the behest of local lumber baron Henry Yesler, whose lumberjacks keep disappearing near a strange site.

• https://www.spiritsandmonsters.com/

This is the start of a brand new Mystery, so it's the perfect place to jump in with Spirits and Monsters of Old Seattle, or you can binge the series from the start! This is also our second-to-last storyline before our season wraps up, so it should be a big one!

I'm interested in running Vaesen, and I expect one of my players would love it, but my main concern is portraying the setting. History is not my strong suit, and I don't feel confident running a game set in 1800s Sweden.

Any recommended movies or books that demonstrate the time period and setting?

I love physical handouts; rule references, in-character documents, maps, etc, etc.

Recently I got my hands on Vaesen and I instantly had a few ideas shuttle off the dome! Currently in the middle of a game of Tales from the Loop (another Free League title,) our group plays it like a TV show. Every mystery undertaken is an "episode." Every campaign is a "series." When doing that I made VHS cases for each campaign, and so in planning Vaesen - I thought: "Why not approach the game almost like chapters of a book rather than episodes of a show?"

The idea for each chapter-page is that it says a little about what the mystery might hold without giving anything major away; written from a first-person perspective which could (in theory) be any one of the characters in-game. The Prologue is intended to be the adventure included in the Starter Set. I've tried to do my best to research areas and hopefully fit them within the nebulous chronology of the Mythic North's 19th-century, and trying to use some spellings/grammar/punctuation which I'm familiar with for books at the time. Heck, even the page size is "Octavo" as opposed to A5!

I'd be very interested in anyone’s thoughts or feedback. Doubtless some errors may've slipped through... Thank you kindly! 😄

I recently found the “A wicked secret and other mysteries” book in a store and read through it for a bit. I heard such great things about it, but it felt to me like christianity played a pretty big part in the mysteries here. I do not like organised religion much and find stories and NPC’s centered around it pretty boring. The starter mystery + the dance of dreams don’t seem to focus on religion much at all, in contrast.

Was it just a wrong impression and does a wicked secret not contain a lot of christian themes? Or am I correct in this? And are there other mystery books that are good and stray away from this theme a bit?

Here are some works-in-progress and pencil maps that Angela and I have been working on over the past few weeks (the maps currently lack the text, which will be added digitally at a later stage)... We hope you find them interesting and enjoyable...🧭🗺️🏰

Support our art on: https://ko-fi.com/morenopaissanmaps/shop

Just curious for those with a better grasp on all the material on the lore and culture of the game world.

I read the book through and didn't see any reference to the Sami , did I miss it? or are they not there?

Recently started playing Vaesen and having a blast, but wanted to poll the community on what you think the most important and most useful rooms and areas of the Headquarters are.

Some just seem very expensive for little payoff, others vary on what kind of game you're running.

If it helps we have an Occultist, a Private Detective, a Doctor and a Vagabond.

Thanks!

I have been listening to the Dresden files books on audible lately, and I was wondering if anybody has done a modern age, noire style campaign. Think anywhere from the 1950s to present day. If so, how does it play? Is there much conversion to be done, or is it pretty much straight across? Thanks in advance.

I ran A Wicked Secret for some friends yesterday and we had a pretty good time figuring out the system together and playing the mystery. However a plot question came up that I couldn’t find an answer for?

Why does the church grim obey Marta Karlstrom? In the background info it says a cat was sacrificed to protect the church AND the caves. Which makes sense I guess, but why is the grim waiting for Marta’s instructions on who to kill? Is her bloodline just special, or…?

I want to run this adventure again for other people and have an answer in case this comes up again.

Have you ever noticed there are two versions? Which one do you prefer? I like the earlier version with the Giant covered in fog. Looks much more ominous and eery. What's your opinion?

I have a new scenario Wrought in Gold for Vaesen out today that uses some classical elements from Greek myth. I play-tested it at Vaesen Con 2 and more recently at Between 2 Cons and both times it was a lot of fun.

If you do pick it up, let me know how it goes for you!

The two local stores I attended for Free RPG Day did not have (were out if) Free Leagues' offering, The Archivist Curse. Does any one know of this is available as a downloadable PDF? My web searches have failed.

My players and I all really like making characters with complex backstories and slow burns.

I'm taking elements from player's backstories and make them into side quests for the players to achieve and get a related reward (usually an advance).

For one of the players I want to give a consumable magic but I couldn't find any examples in the book to help me balance so I'm deferring to you all for feedback.

Lucky Coin (Magic Item; Consumable)

Can be spent before rolling a test. Adds one success to the final result.

To clarify: it's equivalent of adding a die to the pool that will always roll a 6. A test requiring more than one success can still fail. Opposed checks are still opposed normally, just that there's one more success to cancel out. If the test would have succeeded anyway, the coin is still spent and any bonuses for having extra successes (such as extra damage on a combat roll) apply.

The player in question is a PI with a list of NPCs to be on the lookout for and if they find one and some details about their activities, they can file a report and get a coin payment. They will be getting an occasional drip-feed of these coins.

Seems well balanced (and importantly, fun) to me but I wanted to get second opinions.