Vaesen: The Lost Mountain Saga - Review

Pages: 92 total (75 pages of scenario text, 4 pages of handouts).

Runtime: 9 sessions taking 3 hours each session. Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5 took two sessions each; chapter 4 took one session.

Campaign is 5 chapters, each chapter is a scenario.

This is the first campaign for Vaesen. It was originally a podcast of actual play and converted into a campaign. I listened to 3 episodes of the podcast and I felt it was ok (this was a 3 part prologue and became the first chapter of a 5 chapter campaign), there was too much anachronistic side chatter that I didn't like, so I stopped listening to it. I did note that the podcast was slightly different from the published campaign in minor details.

Since the campaign was based on the core book, there were no new Vaesen in the campaign. A number of published scenarios included new Vaesen. This campaign does highlight and bring in various bits of Swedish culture that is missing from the core book such as Fika and Valborg. Mining is a big industry too.

Overall, the various chapters has a tenuous throughline. Chapters 1, 3, and 4 can easily be played as standalone scenarios, chapters 2 and 5 less so.

I think the overall impression of the campaign is that it's ok, but not the big blockbuster campaign people were expecting. There's also some implications about a key element of the campaign that may have major repercussions to Vaesen lore, so inserting this campaign into your world may change some things irrevocably and also some of the chapters may have a chance of TPK. I'll discuss these things in the spoiler section.

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The Green Stones

One of my main concerns is that this campaign introduces a green stone that is the solidified blood of giants. One of the properties of this stone is that it absorbs Vaesen magic and attracts Vaesen to it. Once it absorbs the magic, the magic can be accessed. This is a major magical item and it's not guaranteed that these stones will be destroyed by the end of the campaign.

I decided to call this green stone Magnussonite as there's no official name for it.

In chapter 2, we learn that miners working for Svea Mining Corp were deemed insane and were taken to Upsala Asylum for treatment, but in reality, they were seeing Vaesen. It's not clear what gave the miners the Sight, if it's exposure to Magnussonite dust or that Magnussonite attracts Vaesen like moths to a flame and that increases the chance of a miner to suddenly notice Vaesen. One of the PCs visited the Asylum and saw the insane miners acting out, swatting at Vaesen, running away from them, attacking them. The PC instantly understood that the miners looked insane, but were just reacting to the Vaesen normal people didn't see. In my game, the PCs convinced Sigrid that the miners weren't insane. Sigrid has the Sight. And it was easy to show her that the miners weren't insane, but had the Sight.

In chapter 3, the PCs killed the Lady of Cold, a frost giantess. Her body shatters like stone and her heart becomes a giant green stone. I made it the size of a large steamer trunk and weigh several hundred pounds. The PCs sold it to Svea as they needed to pay off back taxes for Castle Gyllencreutz. In my game, Linnea Elfeklint has been in the Asylum for at least a decade and no one has paid the property taxes on the rundown castle. Once the PCs started to cleanup the property and upgrade it, the authorities noticed this and sent tax collectors. A number of Players used Resources as a dump score (yeah, a number of Players like to min/max), so nobody could afford the back taxes. Property tax is called fastighetsbevillning. Castle Gyllencreutz is a fairly large estate. Selling the heart also got them an invite to the Abisko Mine in chapter 5.

In chapter 5, I had to do more heavy lifting to make sense of the elements presented. The lab with the shelves of dead Vaesen had shock value, but didn't make sense. How do you kill so many Vaesen? How do you collect so many? So, I decided inside the mine was a Vaesen trap. Spiked iron cages (very medieval) held Magnussonite. Vaesen get attracted to it and when they touch it, it drains their power and powers up the stones. The weakened Vaesen are then killed. What prevents the Vaesen from running away with the stones? The stones are held in place with iron prongs much like what holds diamonds onto a ring. Who kills the Vaesen? The miners with the Sight who were at the Upsala Asylum were given a new job at the mine. To keep to the scenario where Sigrid enters the mine to get the Vaesen bomb, I decided there's a Magnussonite repository / vault in a played-out part of the mine. The Vaesen trap is there too. Inside the vault is the giant heart that was purchased from the PCs, it is still unpowered. It sits on a wheeled cart. When they tried to wheel out the heart, I had Lisa's Revenant attack, in an effort to keep the stones where they belong. The PCs used the heart to defeat the Revenant, knocking her onto the stone several times, and finally defeating it, but at the same time charging up the giant heart, making it pulse with Vaesen power. Sigrid had a detonator filled with Magussonite and told the other PCs to flee before she sets the heart off. Two PCs didn't trust her and watched as she got possessed by the Revenant and started to open up the gate for the ginormous giant (see campaign book cover). After a fight, the PCs forced the detonator onto the heart and set off the Vaesen-nuke.

I didn't like that Sigrid had murdered Karl, so I left that out of the scenario. I decided that Karl would hire investigators to look into the PCs and their involvement with Sigrid's disappearance.

There's also supposed to be some early warning system as Svea didn't want another repeat of the Abisko Mine Disaster. I decided it's some sort of non-modern air horn, Gjallarhorn. The miners have been drilled to leave the area orderly and quickly when it's sounded. Sigrid set it off as soon as they got near ground level with the heart. This emptied out the mining area and reduced the number of casualties due to the Vaesen-nuke.

I also explained Sigrid's aging as the magic that kept her youthful was being continuously drained by the Magnussonite.

In my game, only one piece of Magnussonite survived. It was one of the two that Franzibald Hansen had. The PCs are currently using it to negate the Gloson curse placed on one of the PCs. That PC was turned into a Gloson piglet. The Magnussonite causes the curse to cycle, draining the curse until it's powered up, then as the stone leaks power and becomes ready to drain the curse again, the curse reasserts and changes the PC into a Gloson piglet again.

Potential TPKs

Chapters 3, 4, and 5 have a chance of killing PCs and a possible TPK. In chapter 3, the frost giantess broke 2 of the 4 PCs. One PC was able to distract the giant and dodge multiple attacks as the 4th PC actually took down the giant. It was pretty close to a TPK. If the 3rd PC failed a single dodge, it would have been a TPK. In chapter 4, the Lindworm can enslave the whole party and cause a TPK. One PC was broken by the Lindworm and the other PCs basically surrendered and they traded Mikaela for Eira as per the scenario's setup. In chapter 5, the Vaesen-nuke has the potential of a TPK. Two PCs were annihilated by the nuke at the end of the scenario and one PC was broken by the blast. That said, my Players loved chapters 3 and 4.

Mining

Mining is featured in chapter 1 and 5. 

Here's a cool video about mining and mining elevators (Man Engine) for that time period: https://youtu.be/uH0W5AK4bwI?si=NN2EKhN6y5yTYsXE

The mines worked three 8 hour shifts, so its operations ran 24 hours.

When I ran the scenario, PCs wanted to tour the mine. I said, it's too dangerous, but bribed miners were willing to let them have a very limited tour of the first level. I did find it interesting that in chapter 1, the Myling was buried deep in the mine which doesn't make any sense. In the podcast, the baby's body was buried under the church floorboards, but when they wrote up the campaign, they placed the body deep in the mine. 

Revenant

Here's an interesting video about animal behaviors: https://youtu.be/K_mWPde6jl8?si=rBmgkLDqeMJILp6n

Of particular note is the very end of the video where pigeons are confused by different colored concentric circles. They can't enter doorways and windows with that displayed. I found that was an interesting fact (if true) and could help explain why Revenants can't pass a Christian symbol painted in tar (p.151 core book under Ritual). This could be a cool rationale for Vampires and their aversion to holy symbols too.

In my game, the PCs put Lisa in one of the rooms in the Abisko Research Center and painted Christian symbols over the doorways and windows. While the PCs were at the banquet, she (under the influence of the Revenant) used a pillow case to smudge the symbols and this allowed her to escape and get to the mine.

Fika

In chapter 1, Fika is introduced. It's a wonderful thing to introduce as part of Swedish culture.

Falu Red

Falu Red is mentioned in chapter 1.

Falun Mine

The Swedish Royal Coat of Arms

The PCs see it prominently displayed at Upsala University for the royal visit in chapter 2.

Period Ice Breaker (chapter 3)

Bergen, Norway

Sørland

Værøy

Viking Long House

Royal Mounds of Gamla (chapter 4)

The 3 big mounds from left to right are Freya, Thor, Oden.

Valborg

Lapponian Gate (chapter 5)

Winter

Spring?

Rocks with Veins

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