Vaesen
In dark forests, beyond the mountains, by black lakes in hidden groves. At your doorstep. In the shadows, something stirs. Strange beings. Twisted creatures, lurking at the edge of vision. Watching. Waiting. Unseen by most, but not by you. You see them for what they really are. Vaesen. Welcome to the Mythic North – northern Europe of the nineteenth century, but not as we know it today. A land where the myths are real. A cold reach covered by vast forests, its few cities lonely beacons of industry and enlightenment – a new civilization dawning. But in the countryside, the old ways still hold sway. There, people know what lurks in the dark. They know to fear it.
Originally created by Nils Hintze
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How to play Vaesen
In Vaesen, players will roll a pool of dice, determined by their skills or attributes, in in attempt to roll a certain number of "successes." The game mechanics utilize an adapted version of the award-winning Year Zero Engine.
Frequently asked questions about Vaesen
Explore Vaesen Archetypes
Academic
"We all agreed that it was theoretically possible to give those who are not verum videntes, or so-called Thursday’s Children, the ability to see vaesen. The others quickly forgot our discussion. For me, the issue became an obsession. And not only a theoretical one. If people around us could see the truth, we would become the leaders of the new world. A text written by a Sufi philosopher from Kottayam mentioned a dark fluid which, after translation, was called Black Mud. Drinking it causes creatures to emerge. I had to sell much of my mother’s jewelry to have a merchant bring a jar of said mud back to Upsala. And now, here it is, on the desk before me."
Doctor
"There are electrical signals moving through our bodies. When a foreign organism penetrates the skin, microscopic soldiers are created in defense. The brain can remember more things than anyone could possibly write down in a lifetime. These wonders take place every second. Yet my colleagues continue to question the existence of supernatural beings. I was forced to retract my statements under humiliating circumstances in order to retain my right to practice. I know that the creature I dissected during my business trip to Rovaniemi in northern Finland was not one of God’s creations. My oath as a doctor, to help and protect my fellow man, includes the threats of Hell."
Hunter
"The Baroness’s interest in duck hunting was nothing more than an excuse to get some time alone with me in the open air. We used to bring wine and baguettes, and she would read to me tales of monsters and vaesen before we made love on beautiful blankets. I had mustered the courage to call her darling, even though her face told me I was moving too close to, or even beyond, the boundaries of our relationship. One night she came to my home, stark naked and exposed. Only when she straddled me did I notice that the Baron and several others had followed us into the cabin and hidden in the darkness by the door. I tried to get up, but the Baroness’s increasingly violent movements pushed me down. As her moaning turned into strange words in a tongue that made my body cramp with fear, the others approached us, chanting along with her."
Occultist
"I had to know the truth. How did I acquire the power of foresight, and how could I make men collapse in pain just by imagining their beating hearts? When I was young and moved to the city, my mother stayed behind in Långaby. She lived alone with two goats and a pig which she oddly enough had named after my late father. Mother didn’t like to talk about these things. She kept coming back to the same two sentences: Your cradle. I woke up and looked in your cradle. Eventually I lost my patience. I threatened her with the fireplace poker, claiming that I could turn her into a wart on my cheek. Then she told me. I was swapped for another."
Officer
"As a child, I was enchanted by the glistening medals of the stately gentlemen moving across the dance floor at my parents’ gatherings. An uncle taught me to shoot. He instructed me in the moral principles to which the king’s soldiers ought to adhere. As I myself rode toward the battlefront, I fantasized about my spectacular return. No one had told me what would happen in between. Among screaming bodies and gut-spewing soldiers, I saw looting and abuse. I was hit by a bullet from one of my own. When I woke up, I was lying on a cart packed with corpses. The creatures caring for me were quite strange-looking. I think they were trolls. Yet friendly and shy. I haven’t told mother about them or the battlefield. But I lose my speech when I think of the courier that will one day summon me to the next battle."
Priest
"I was a skeptic like any other. Despite the color of my collar I met with modern thinkers talking about the symbolic messages of the bible. Leviathan, the great devil-snake, was mankind’s struggle against its own potential for evil. Possessions and demons were historical descriptions of the mental disorders of the time. But I saw revenants crawling out of the fjord near the village of Vestnes on the Norwegian coast. We hid inside the church and let the bells ring until the morning light drove them off. Now I know better than to be ignorant of the word of our Lord. The scriptures are true!"
Private Detective
"It never occurred to me to ask why they hired a detective to go all the way to Kristinehamn instead of contacting the local authorities. I assumed they had heard of the man who solved the dockside murders. But what they needed was someone to clean up a slaughterhouse. The castle looked as if it had been blasted by cannons. The villagers were afraid to enter. It reeked of blood and excrement. I don’t even want to think about what happened next. I banished whatever it was that had attacked the von Fleesingen family and turned their bodies inside out. But not before it had slain every man, woman and child in the nearby villages. I now visit the castle every night."
Servant
"I was saved by my small bladder. While I was out pissing against a tree, an uninvited fiddler showed up at the Christmas party which the Duke lets us servants hold once a year, on Boxing Day evening. The tunes of his fiddle made my legs twitch as I stepped back toward the house. Through the window I saw them dancing, their faces frozen in desperate grins; they couldn’t stop. I had heard of the devil’s instrument which forces one’s limbs to move until they fall apart. There were rumors of skulls still rhythmically clacking their jaws as they were being buried. How would I be able to resist the musician of Lucifer? When I returned the following morning, the music had stopped. No one spoke of the party. More than half quit their jobs. I wonder what would have happened had I joined the others inside."
Vagabond
"I was five years old when I learned to carve and interpret hobo signs. At fifteen I came across a symbol I’d never seen before. It had been scratched into the fence of an isolated farm – a star with a distorted guard dog, along with the symbol for warning, repeated several times. Instead of getting out of there I hid in in the hay loft of a barn, and waited, eager to learn what I would see through its window. When night came, a bright light rose from the ground, and I could hear a whistling sound seemingly coming from the starry sky above. I grabbed my pack, ready to run far away from there. But there was a handsome man with shining eyes standing in the doorway. It took me ten years to break the spell that made me his slave. Next time we meet, he will pay for the humiliation he subjected me to."
Writer
"Was the creature trying to hurt me or do me a favor? I had been sitting in my chamber for several nights in a row, with no money for candles or lamp oil, my only companions a stack of blank sheets of paper and my own growling stomach – or so I thought. Suddenly there was something beside me, breathing white clouds in the cool air. It grabbed my pen in a firm grip. And then it wrote. At first I rejoiced in the beautiful words. But it wouldn’t stop. For five days and five nights the creature wrote with my hand. The result was the book everyone is talking about, and the fingers I can no longer use. I never saw its face. But I will find it again."