Moldeboa
Topic Author
Posts: 35
Joined: Tue 12 Jun 2018, 08:02

Vaesen's metaplot

Fri 20 Nov 2020, 23:20

So, the corebook briefly teases the metaplot, promising more information in future supplements. With no such thing on the horizon, and my own Vaesen campaign starting prematurely due to Covid-19, I feel the need to formulate something on my own.

Have anyone else thought about this?

What we know (from Dance of Dreams):
  • Wredenhielm, Kokola and Thulenstierna has obviously discovered something alarming about the Vaesen in Scandinavia
  • They need Oscar Hjort's help, but their suggestion is obviously so controversial that Oscar promptly refuses (and is killed for it when he threatens to expose them)
  • Apparently, he can still serve them in death, so they bury him in Pyri Harjula's root cellar, desecrating his grave with magic
  • When Oscar returns from the grave (after 50 years), the magic that was prepared during his burial is activated
  • This somehow increases the power of the vaesen and magic, and causes man-made constructions nearby to fall apart
My questions:
What did the trio discover?
What was their suggestion to Oscar? Why could his death somehow do the same trick as the service he refused to do? Why did he have to do it? Why couldn't they do it themselves?
Presupposing that the characters have completed Dance of Dreams and laid Oscar to rest, will man-made constructions all over Scandinavia continue to fall apart? (Probably not)
What will the characters have to do in order to stop this?
Why did the three conspirators go in separate directions after this? (Norway, East, departing from a ship from southern Sweden)

My initial thoughts
Albert, Katja and Hilma (the conspirators) learned the truth about vaesen, that they exist as long as humankind believe in them.
With technological progress, urbanization and secularization, fewer people believe in vaesen. Vaesen disappear.
The vaesen feel threatened by this and go to great lengths showing themselves to humans, keeping their beliefs intact.
A group of mighty vaesen (including the giant chieftain Bestla from the Oulu Massacre and the Queen of Spring from Summer in December) manages to open a magic well to their own magical world. This well slowly siphons magic into the real world, causing man-made constructions to decay.
Their goal is to force the technological progress of mankind to halt, forcing them back into small, rural villages. This will keep the old myths and folktales alive.

The conspirators learn of this plan, and somehow discovers a way to counteract it. An innocent's blood must be spilled near the well (one of the well is in Pyri's root cellar). They tell Oscar that he must find an innocent and kill him/her. They know Oscar will never do this. Their plan is all along to kill him. When he refuses, he truly becomes an innocent.
The conspirators go to the other wells.
  • Albert goes to northern Norway
  • Countess Hilma goes to Russia, to the Kola peninsula
  • Baroness Kokola is somewhere in Denmark
After sacrificing an innocent in each of these places, they lived out their lives as guardians. Maybe some of them are still alive? If not, they have recruited others with the Sight.
Their magic outside of Uppsala lasted only 50 years. The other wellsprings are also releasing their magic now. The vaesens' magic is slowly being released into the world.

That's my thoughts so far. It isn't much to go on from the source material. I have yet to consider how to stop this, or the Rosenberger's role in this. Somehow I feel that this plan is more of a Rosenberger plan though ..
 
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aramis
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Re: Vaesen's metaplot

Sat 21 Nov 2020, 01:14

His grave, not being in holy ground, is already desecrating his remains, since it's neither holy ground nor marked and blessed after burial. (At least based upon the 18th C Lutheran baseline praxis, which was still close to the Roman Catholic praxis.)

I'm not as up on 19th C lutheran praxis, especially not within scandinavia, but the late 18th texts are very close to being vernacular versions of the Catholic (Roman Rite) ones.

That reburial in the cemetery ends his threat implies that Oscar was, if not practicing, at least casually Christian.
Which implies that whatever it was that was potentially religiously offensive.
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Moldeboa
Topic Author
Posts: 35
Joined: Tue 12 Jun 2018, 08:02

Re: Vaesen's metaplot

Sun 22 Nov 2020, 17:46

To be fair, most people in that time-period was at least casaully Christian.

I mean, the little we know of the meta-plot is too little to go on, but the most vital questions for me is possibly - what did they ask of him that they couldn't do themselves?
And why did burying him in non-consecrated ground fulfill the purpose?
 
MartinW
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat 30 Jan 2021, 17:14

Re: Vaesen's metaplot

Sun 16 May 2021, 15:39

So, the corebook briefly teases the metaplot, promising more information in future supplements. With no such thing on the horizon, and my own Vaesen campaign starting prematurely due to Covid-19, I feel the need to formulate something on my own.
Same here. Personally, I'm kinda anxious to start mucking about too much with the background plot as anything I conjure up will most most likely mess up the "real deal" when it eventually (fingers crossed) arrives. So far I'm drip feeding my players pieces of history from the rule book and trying to drag it out as much as I can. We have played a couple of home brewn mysteries so far, but I find it cumbersome to tie them in with the meta plot since we don't really know much about it. Thing is, even though players enjoy one-shots, they absolutely love mysteries that tie in to the society and the history (and the only one I know if is the Dance of Dreams). I'm pretty certain my players expect there to be a grand scheme somewhere and I'd love for them to experience it.

And to be honest, this is the biggest complain I have about Vaesen. Otherwise it's an excellent, magical and fun game to play!
 
Bonzzo15
Posts: 104
Joined: Wed 17 Jun 2020, 13:39

Re: Vaesen's metaplot

Tue 01 Jun 2021, 17:38

So, the corebook briefly teases the metaplot, promising more information in future supplements. With no such thing on the horizon, and my own Vaesen campaign starting prematurely due to Covid-19, I feel the need to formulate something on my own.

Have anyone else thought about this?

What we know (from Dance of Dreams):
  • Wredenhielm, Kokola and Thulenstierna has obviously discovered something alarming about the Vaesen in Scandinavia
  • They need Oscar Hjort's help, but their suggestion is obviously so controversial that Oscar promptly refuses (and is killed for it when he threatens to expose them)
  • Apparently, he can still serve them in death, so they bury him in Pyri Harjula's root cellar, desecrating his grave with magic
  • When Oscar returns from the grave (after 50 years), the magic that was prepared during his burial is activated
  • This somehow increases the power of the vaesen and magic, and causes man-made constructions nearby to fall apart
My questions:
What did the trio discover?
What was their suggestion to Oscar? Why could his death somehow do the same trick as the service he refused to do? Why did he have to do it? Why couldn't they do it themselves?
Presupposing that the characters have completed Dance of Dreams and laid Oscar to rest, will man-made constructions all over Scandinavia continue to fall apart? (Probably not)
What will the characters have to do in order to stop this?
Why did the three conspirators go in separate directions after this? (Norway, East, departing from a ship from southern Sweden)

My initial thoughts
Albert, Katja and Hilma (the conspirators) learned the truth about vaesen, that they exist as long as humankind believe in them.
With technological progress, urbanization and secularization, fewer people believe in vaesen. Vaesen disappear.
The vaesen feel threatened by this and go to great lengths showing themselves to humans, keeping their beliefs intact.
A group of mighty vaesen (including the giant chieftain Bestla from the Oulu Massacre and the Queen of Spring from Summer in December) manages to open a magic well to their own magical world. This well slowly siphons magic into the real world, causing man-made constructions to decay.
Their goal is to force the technological progress of mankind to halt, forcing them back into small, rural villages. This will keep the old myths and folktales alive.

The conspirators learn of this plan, and somehow discovers a way to counteract it. An innocent's blood must be spilled near the well (one of the well is in Pyri's root cellar). They tell Oscar that he must find an innocent and kill him/her. They know Oscar will never do this. Their plan is all along to kill him. When he refuses, he truly becomes an innocent.
The conspirators go to the other wells.
  • Albert goes to northern Norway
  • Countess Hilma goes to Russia, to the Kola peninsula
  • Baroness Kokola is somewhere in Denmark
After sacrificing an innocent in each of these places, they lived out their lives as guardians. Maybe some of them are still alive? If not, they have recruited others with the Sight.
Their magic outside of Uppsala lasted only 50 years. The other wellsprings are also releasing their magic now. The vaesens' magic is slowly being released into the world.

That's my thoughts so far. It isn't much to go on from the source material. I have yet to consider how to stop this, or the Rosenberger's role in this. Somehow I feel that this plan is more of a Rosenberger plan though ..
So much if this I don’t recognize? Have I just forgotten or did the English translation use different names for stuff? I don’t remember any wells, I don’t remember any Queen of spring?
 
Moldeboa
Topic Author
Posts: 35
Joined: Tue 12 Jun 2018, 08:02

Re: Vaesen's metaplot

Fri 06 Aug 2021, 13:15

Wellspring of magic was my own "invention" and Queen of the Spring was an entity introduced in the FLW Mystery "Summer in December".

My post was trying to take the few tidbits of information we had about the metaplot and add my own spin on it .:)
 
Bengt Petter
Posts: 772
Joined: Sat 09 Apr 2011, 11:27

Re: Vaesen's metaplot

Sat 07 Aug 2021, 13:33

Moldeboa, I do notice that your thoughts are quite specific. I would like to look at the metaplot from a more big picture and historical point of view. One interesting aspect is the Swedish church. What do they really want? Since it is an old and powerful institution, I would assume that they have their own agenda. In the real world, they own a lot of forest. So they might have some territorial interests, such as stopping the modern world with its railways and growing cities. Some bishops may even have made deals with the vaesen. And there might also be a power struggle within the church, perhaps regarding who will become the next bishop in a certain region. Or just how to deal with science and modernity.

In another post, I brought the Apostles of Linnaeus to the table: viewtopic.php?f=124&t=7903 It simply would make sense if they (or more likely their descendants) had something to do with the big picture in this setting. I would make at least some of them powerful members of The Society.

As a Swede, I would also work with the various regional flavours that existed in the historical real world. In many rural areas, far from Uppsala and Stockholm, there were very little industry and no bigger cities. The order of the old, preindustrial world was still dominant. It’s easy to imagine the power of vaesen in the deep forests of regions like Småland or Värmland. In Swedish, there is something called Dark Småland (Mörka Småland). It has to do with very strict Protestant beliefs and conservative ideas. You could quite easy make the concept of Dark Småland to a local conflict, involving the church, some Vaesen and a railway conflict. Add an old tyrannical bishop in Växjö as a main villain, and you have something that could be made into an interesting campaign.

My more general point is to discuss WHO could be involved in the metaplot, and WHY and in WHAT WAY. Vaesen isn’t set in the historical Scandinavia, but the historical context can be used in many ways.

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