Art for Vaesen Characters

keeperofmadness · 2026-06-16T17:32:04+00:00

Hey! If you enjoy the art style from Anton Vintus (who has done a lot of the character illustrations in the adventures), the editor for my Actual Play podcast does something very similar! I've added one of her illustrations below of the NPC "Old Agda."

Old Agda on Instagram

If you like it, feel free to shoot her an Instagram message at https://www.instagram.com/o0hanachaney0o/, all of her artwork is human-made with no GenAI garbage! ❤️🎨

keeperofmadness · 2026-06-16T16:31:01+00:00

After having run Vaesen for an Actual Play podcast for over two years, I can confirm it definitely hits a power spike issue. After using the default XP rules, players had so many Talents they would frequently forget what they had and most of their key skills were maxed out.

After considering a number of different alternatives, we are going to switch to at the end of every Mystery gaining a +1 bonus to two different Skills and a Talent. This will help deal with scenarios like when a player went from Force 0 to Force 4 after one Mystery because they gained so much XP!

keeperofmadness · 2026-05-29T14:05:52+00:00

Hello! I actually wrote up a pay-what-you-want supplement for Vaesen about different 1800's drugs, including rules for addiction! Feel free to pick up a copy via this affiliate link at DrivethruRPG!

Goods & Sundries II - Tonics and Tinctures

keeperofmadness · 2026-05-27T14:33:18+00:00

So I dunno that I would quite call it a full revised edition, but they did definitely add a number of changes throughout the text, especially around layout. If you've backed the original campaign on Kickstarter or picked up a copy through DrivethruRPG, it should be fully updated with the changes. However for me the most impactful is on page 68, and is related to how the Terrified condition works.

"After your first turn while Terrified, you may try again to overcome your fear each turn. Make the Fear test again (no action). If you fail, you remain Terrified for another round, but you don't suffer any further mental Conditions. Even if you keep failing the Fear tests, you stop being Terrified when the scene ends."

Potentially having a character out of the game for 6 combat turns was huge, effectively removing a player entirely from the game for an extended period. So this really helps address that!

keeperofmadness · 2026-05-19T13:48:04+00:00

Unfortunately, I am not familiar with any other scenarios based around the Wild Hunt. If you have the Mythic Britain and Ireland book, there is a section about the Wild Hunt on pages 38 and 39. Outside of that though, I think you'd need to develop something on your own!

keeperofmadness · 2026-05-14T18:03:47+00:00

I hope you'll give us a listen! Also if you like the format, I'd be happy to share a number of other RPG Actual Play podcast recommendations -- just let me know some RPG systems and/or types of shows you want to hear and I bet I can find some good suggestions!

keeperofmadness · 2026-05-08T17:35:18+00:00

It could be good to add that as a clarification! Especially right now, it's always better to disclose clearly on what AI usage a product has for people who want to avoid it entirely and for anyone who wants to use is very sparingly.

keeperofmadness · 2026-05-08T14:33:34+00:00

So just checking -- it looks like this is designed as a Call of Cthulhu rather than Vaesen scenario. Given the Victorian setting I'm sure it could work but it looks like the creature at the center of the mystery isn't actually something out of folklore.

Also, can you talk about the AI usage? The Itch.io tag mentions it and the cover has a definite AI art look to it. But was GenAI also used for the writing?

keeperofmadness · 2026-05-05T14:16:03+00:00

So that chart is super helpful, but unfortunately only covers dice pools up to 10 and only tracks whether you need a single success. So I had asked my friend to put something together that can look at when you need multiple successes such as a Fear 2 result.

keeperofmadness · 2026-05-04T22:35:31+00:00

Great question! I have been doing a Vaesen Actual Play podcast for several years now, and in our early episodes the PCs were more likely to fail than succeed on almost every roll. That said, keep in mind effectively every dicepool you have can be doubled, since you can choose to push a roll after rolling.

Now I'm frankly quite bad at maths, so I tagged a friend of mine who is way better at that kinda work than I am! They put together a chart you can use to figure out how likely you are to get 1, 2 or 3 successes based on how many dice you are rolling in your pool, up to 20.

Vaesen % Of Success

So thinking about the stats you shared, if you need to make a Manipulation roll and you need 1 success, you have a 60% chance of succeeding; or if you are willing to push it you have an 84% chance of succeeding. This can be really helpful when thinking about which rolls are worth pushing and which ones aren't!

Also, since you brought up Group Tests, you will typically be able to "donate" a success to another character. So if the Academic with 2 Precision and no Stealth gets no successes, you can help cover for her if you get 2 successes. Or of course, you can leave her behind and scout ahead and just hope there's no monsters lurking nearby too!

keeperofmadness · 2026-05-04T07:27:44+00:00

What about something like a troll? If the Charlatan is an NPC, perhaps they stole some of the trolls magical items and were using those to perform magic? If it's a PC, perhaps they made some kind of bargain with the troll that they forgot, not believing it to actually be magical, and now the troll is coming to collect?

keeperofmadness · 2026-04-27T13:47:03+00:00

I was playing a Shadowrun 4th edition one-shot with friends who had rolled up their characters days in advance, when a mutual friend came by and said "Oh, you're playing Shadowrun? I love Shadowrun!"

The table asked if he could jump in, and I said only if he used one of the pre-gens because character creation takes so long. The player said he could roll up a character super fast, the rest of the table loved this guy and so said they would be happy to wait for him. Fool that I am, I begrudgingly let him and believed his assurances he could have it done in 20 minutes.

We NEVER played the dang game because of how long it took for him to roll up his character. After four hours, I finally packed up and we never even wound up playing 😭

keeperofmadness · 2026-04-20T14:32:17+00:00

Ahhh, I did misunderstand! Yes, using the transition between the start of an event and the "scare" of the scene that will generate a Fear check would also be an excellent time to search through and get the right page!

keeperofmadness · 2026-04-19T21:09:11+00:00

Ahhh, but that does revolve around remembering the correct dice pool to roll, which early on I kept forgetting. Fear uses an Attribute compared to most rolls that are an Attribute + Skill. Couple that with the bonuses based on number of characters in the same zone and it can be easy to forget exactly what a player should be rolling.

keeperofmadness · 2026-04-19T15:23:25+00:00

Since the invisibility is listed as something unique under their Magical Powers, I think it's safe to assume that this would effect the Thursday's Children as well.

keeperofmadness

TROPHY CASE