- 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.
Vaesen is a Gothic horror role-playing game published by Free League Publishing, who's also responsible for Tales from the Loop. In it, the players are members of an ancient order that investigates the supernatural. In a version of 19th century Scandinavia where modernization is on the rise, supernatural creatures are still known to make their presence felt. These beings are called "Vaesen", and the players are the ones called in when it's believed one of these creatures is imperiling human lives.
All in all, it might be thought of as Hilda for grown-ups. A lot of similar themes are used, if more darkly (like the downsides of modernization, using the supernatural as an allegory), as well as picking from the same basic bestiary. A major expansion dealing with the British Isles of the same time period, Mythic Britain & Ireland, expands the setting and substantially adds to that bestiary with British Vaesen.
Vaesen provides examples of:
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Vaesen aren't really evil, just not human, and as such don't have a human outlook. Which tends to bring them into conflict with humans.
- Captain Ersatz: A premade adventure from the "Seasons of Mystery" book has the players meeting a pair of fellow monster hunters, Samuel and Daniel Campbell. Who bear a striking resemblance to Sam and Dean from Supernatural.
- Dragon Hoard: The book "Seasons of Mystery" has one adventure where the mystery is about a person stealing treasure from a dragon's lair, and the dragon razing the area if it isn't returned. The Lindwurm beast type is known to do something similar.
- Half-Human Hybrid: There are several kinds of Vaesen known for breeding with humans, resulting in children not quite the same as either. One dark secret a player's character can have is they've sired children with a Vaesen.
- Folk Horror: The Vaesen are all beings from legends and folklore, and said folklore often gives important clues as to their natures, motivations, strengths and weaknesses.
- Holy Burns Evil: There are some kinds of Vaesen who can be repelled by crosses or reciting from the Bible. It's not necessarily the power of God driving back demonic forces, the book makes a point of saying, since as a rule Vaesen are more Gray than flat-out evil.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The premade material doesn't shy away from having humans that can be just as cruel as "monsters". Sometimes the Vaesen are undead that want release or are just defending their ancestral territory, for instance, and there can be human NPCs that are driven to wipe Vaesen out for seeming "monstrous" and dangerous to human progress.
- Invincible Boogeyman: Vaesen usually can't be killed by earthly means. Instead, the players have to find a way to placate them or play to their weaknesses to get rid of them.
- The Masquerade: Due to circumstances of their birth, the PCs can perceive evidence of the supernatural that most people can't.
- Preacher Man: An NPC archetype who appears in almost every adventure. Sometimes they're helpful. Sometimes they think they know more than they actually do about solving the supernatural problem running through the storyline and make things worse. Sometimes it's their fault in the first place.
- Race Against the Clock: Every adventure for this system is set up this way. There are a few steps in the time track where people die as the mystery deepens. If the players haven't tracked down and found some way to defeat the Vaesen before all the steps are gone, it results in Catastrophe. Usually that means the Vaesen completely destroys the community that called for the players' help.
- Renovating the Player Headquarters: There's a rather in-depth system about the players being given an ancestral castle as their group's headquarters, and being able to improve it to make equipping the characters and doing research before an adventure more advantageous.
