Vaesen: The Silver of the Sea - RPG Review 

I ran this adventure for a group of 4 players earlier today. It went well overall. Most of them are new to TTRPGs and that makes it very easy to surprise them with all the weirdness this mystery holds. We are not done with it yet, it ended up being two sessions but I managed to end it on a nice cliffhanger. They had arrived on Wrecker Isle and just gotten acquainted with Justina in the inn and had to save Oscar from a couple of fishermen that were about to give him a beating for interrupting their meal with a bunch of questions about the Amundssons, and I had Abela tell her two sons to toss the trouble makers out after the players tried to intervene. One of them had a run in with Orvar who drunkenly bumped into the player character who stayed at the inn and gave them a vague warning, then when he left the establishment, he was lost in a crowd and already on his way to his cabin. They were invited to Zacharias villa and had dinner with him while noticing some strangeness about the baron and the group finally decided that they had to split up in order to find clues faster. (Every GM cry in happiness!!) Half the group went on their boat to visit Orvar at his cabin but were suddenly subjected to a storm that came out of nowhere. The other group (two PCs) went towards the warehouse where they managed to enter through the floor by removing some of the planks (I made the warehouse be located on a riverbank, held up by wooden logs, exposing the floor) They got inside and found the priests crucifix but that’s when I ended the episode as they could hear the steel door to the warehouse open with a creak as someone is coming inside. (They still do not know but I will most likely have it be "Pete" and "Pace" since they were tasked to find and keep an eye on the players) That will most likely be a good moment for them to try and kidnap them unless they can hide. :D Overall, it went really well and am looking forward to seeing how they deal with the ending.

This is such a great review! I am thinking of running this mystery as my first Vaesen session and your walkthrough cleared up a lot of questions I had, so thank you! It's really got me excited to get this underway. I will definitely use a few of the assets you prepared as well.

These are great to listen to before a read through. Puts everything into perspective as the text can feel lingering at times.

This is a really useful review. Thank you. Great analysis for potential weaknesses of the scenario and i like your suggestions to overcome them.

Great review & the VTT assets are awesome!

Why I'm a little worried is whether my players will lock/calm down Oscar at the beginning -- that seems to be a bit risky part of the scenario, and I tempted to only use Zacharias's supernatural events as a countdown instead of the Oscar's storyline. The latter's part of the story seems to be a nice touch to make it more vivid (also can be a good red herring) but I agree with you, if I stick to the countdown connected to Oscar, that might not uncover the tasty part of the whole adventure but make it end early. Great review btw, it feels like your group prefers the same kind of one shots like mine!

That sounds awesome. It's great that you actually played threw the adventure before reviewing it.

I find all the videos that I have watched so far very interesting. Thank you so much 👏

So many great ideas there to add to the adventure. thanks

Thank you for sharing some great resources!

Thanks for share some awesome resources

Fun thing; Vaesen, also spelled Väsen, translates to basically Spirits, or Beings of the spirit realm.

This is one of my favorite non DND or Cthulhu RPGS. It’s probably in competition with tales from the loop for my favorite

I love your vaesen adventure reviews. I'd love to see more! Any chance of doing the Witch Cat Inn.

I found this one difficult to run. It can be a challenge to orchestrate things so that the PC's follow the family out to the island.

The algorithm has thrown something good my way. Neat!

The two main problems I see with this adventure for my group are: How do I get the party to the final scene instead of having them on a confrontation to early on? And why is every ending bad? I dont need a happily ever after, but something other than bringing poverty over the region or having human sacrifices continue.

Does this adventure come with the book? Great tips by the way!

I have a two hour demo session coming up for Free RPG Day. Someone recommended this one? What do you think?

Great review. Sadly I'm afraid I found the adventure rather unsatisfying. As it's published, the Amundssens aren't actually guilty of Hedqvist's murder. Added to that, Hedqvist is not a particularly pleasant character - I looked it up, and both priests belong to a very conservative denomination. Also, unless I missed it, they aren't worried about or even aware of the disappearance of foreign sailors and the like, but just object to the folk of Wrecker Isle having a good old time. If it wasn't for the sacrifices, my sympathies would be entirely with the Amundssens. I changed the story a little so that Hedqvist shot and mortally wounded Paul when the barrel was opened. Hedqvist was then brained by Pete using a boat hook and left for the Mermaid who did whatever mermaids do with sacrifices and then discarded his body which was eventually discovered floating off Graveyard Isle by a neighbour of Orvar's. I also left a broken watch and spent bullet on the skerry for the players to find. To keep Orvar close, I had him ferry the characters around in his boat. Like you, I also invented an NPC, mine was a drunken and corrupt doctor in Fjallbacka who was summoned to Wrecker Isle the night of Hedqvist and Paul's death. It was also this doctor who declared Hedqvist's death natural - he tried to argue that the wound on the priest's head caused by the boat hook was caused by scraping against rocks. My group put all the clues together brilliantly and more or less worked out what was going on but with no clear way to resolve the adventure and no actual authority (or concrete evidence of a murder) they ended up going all D&D and killing Zach and Pace, although they spared Peter and Abela. With hindsight, I would have dropped in some stories about the disappearance of foreign sailors and hinted at an atmosphere of suppressed fear on the island. I think there's a great adventure in there, and my players assure me that they had fun, but for my part, I found it required a lot of effort to make it work. Anyway, like I said, great review, I'm glad you enjoyed the scenario.

You could do some smaller videos between these. Like tips on backstory, villians. Anyway nice videos