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Vaults of Vaarn #1-3
Vaults of Vaarn
A psychedelic science-fantasy tabletop RPG set in a blue desert littered with the ruins of the future.
144 pages, Hardcover
Published July 19, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 23, 2024
4.5 - 5 stars
Apologies, but I am going to start this review with a digression into the recent history of TTRPGs (tabletop role playing games) at least as I know it, but I promise you that an actual book review is forthcoming.
In the past few years, I have been re-discovering my love for TTRPGs and of course started with the granddaddy of them all, Dungeons & Dragons (in its 5e form). While I found it refreshing, I soon found myself looking into other, more archaic, forms of gaming that were more reminiscent of my cloudy, and no doubt inaccurate, memories of the halcyon days of my youth. This ultimately resulted in a deep dive into OSR & NSR games (such as OSE, Cairn, Into the Odd, and Electric Bastionland). The OSR (either ‘Old School Revival’, or ‘Old School Renaissance’ depending on who you ask), has been around for a while and can generally be broken into two ‘factions’ (doesn’t every human interest have to fragment into such things?) who have a different application for the 'R' in OSR: the ‘revival’ people who want to recreate old-school games from the 70’s and 80’s and which has resulted in the creation of many “retro-clones”, or re-writing of old rules (such as Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, or Swords & Wizardry) and which, I think, had its apotheosis in the creation of Old School Essentials (the aforementioned OSE) which is basically a cleaned up version of B/X D&D from the 80s. The other ‘faction’ leans into the ‘renaissance’ idea and is more concerned with emulating play styles and ideology from older RPGs, not simply with re-creating their exact rule sets. This renaissance ideology has itself spawned yet another acronym: NSR, or ‘New School Revolution’ which still takes some inspiration from older gaming styles, but desires to separate itself from certain ideologies, personalities, and politics that its adherents find problematic in the OSR and from a gaming perspective can perhaps be most closely associated with the mantra “rulings not rules” (meaning that it’s more important to have a way to adjudicate things at the table as opposed to requiring a specific rule for every possible thing that could occur, thus leaning to more rules-lite, as opposed to ‘crunchy’ more simulationist, systems). Sorry…I know this is too much RPG esoterica for a book review, but I couldn’t help myself. Suffice it to say that it’s been an interesting journey that has been both fruitful and enjoyable and has exposed me to many games, and ideas, I would otherwise have never found. As is perhaps implied in my short precis of some of the varied schools of thought in TTRPGs it is a varied community divided by politics, philosophies, and preferences, but also chock full of talented creators writing modules, setting books, game systems, world generators, and pretty much anything else that might be useful in a TTRPG and I have to admit that I think, so far at least, The Vaults of Vaarn is one of the most impressive products I’ve come across.
Given that The Vaults of Vaarn was originally published as three game zines that were later collected into the deluxe volume that I read it’s not surprising that it is something of an amalgam of several things: part game system, part setting splat book, and part world generator. Regardless of this somewhat chimerical nature it’s pretty much all goodness. The author, Leo Hunt, lists Dune, The Book of the New Sun, and the works of Moebius as some of his primary inspirations so it’s right up my alley. The quality of the volume is excellent and it’s a real pleasure to read. We start with a short intro that notes the game’s inspirations and genre conventions with a very succinct one page intro to the world. This is followed by a mere three pages for the rules (which are largely derived from Knave, another OSR game) which highlights its ‘rules-lite’ roots, and a single page for the steps of character creation. The rest of the book is an expansion on the weird and wonderful world of Vaarn in which these characters will adventure. We are given five character ancestries to draw from (true-kin humans, synth or robotic beings, the new beast group of uplifted animals, the weird mycomorphs which are fungi/revenant hybrids, and cacogens or mutated humans), mystical gifts and cybernetic enhancements, as well as ‘exotica’ or lost artifacts of the ancients, which can bestow power and advancement.
The book is full of wonderful tables to allow the game master to randomly generate NPCs, places, dungeons, encounters, factions, and locations. Every section is interspersed with intriguing tidbits of knowledge that sharpen our vision of the world of Vaarn while still allowing the greatest amount of freedom possible for each game master to build their own version of this strange far-future, post-apocalyptic world (there is no 'true canon' in Vaarn). There are so many things to love here. I love how the primary currency isn’t gold, but water, which makes sense given the fact that Vaarn is a vast blue desert in far-future Urth (hello, Gene Wolfe reference). I love that we get the building blocks for a great main urban centre, Gnomon, filled with factions, locations, secrets and conflict, to give us a flavour of what makes this place tick, but there are still plenty of tables to allowing for the generation of one's own factions, districts, characters, and buildings. We get a small dungeon (or as they are labelled here, Vault), a bestiary of wonderfully weird creatures, and several locations of interest that not only allow you to populate your version of Vaarn’s desert, but to have a template for how such things are done. It’s really quite great and I am smitten.
So, why 4.5 instead of 5 stars? There was really only one thing that I wasn’t a huge fan of: the fact that the gameplay chassis of Vaarn is Knave. It’s not a bad system, but even though it's rules-lite I still think it’s more crunchy than is necessary. That’s okay though, I’ll just work on converting it to Cairn or something more up my alley…all that reading into the myriad of games systems in the OSR has paid off, and one of the key ideologies I've taken away is that hacking is not only permitted, but preferred. I’m really going to try and make Vaarn my own.
Apologies, but I am going to start this review with a digression into the recent history of TTRPGs (tabletop role playing games) at least as I know it, but I promise you that an actual book review is forthcoming.
In the past few years, I have been re-discovering my love for TTRPGs and of course started with the granddaddy of them all, Dungeons & Dragons (in its 5e form). While I found it refreshing, I soon found myself looking into other, more archaic, forms of gaming that were more reminiscent of my cloudy, and no doubt inaccurate, memories of the halcyon days of my youth. This ultimately resulted in a deep dive into OSR & NSR games (such as OSE, Cairn, Into the Odd, and Electric Bastionland). The OSR (either ‘Old School Revival’, or ‘Old School Renaissance’ depending on who you ask), has been around for a while and can generally be broken into two ‘factions’ (doesn’t every human interest have to fragment into such things?) who have a different application for the 'R' in OSR: the ‘revival’ people who want to recreate old-school games from the 70’s and 80’s and which has resulted in the creation of many “retro-clones”, or re-writing of old rules (such as Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, or Swords & Wizardry) and which, I think, had its apotheosis in the creation of Old School Essentials (the aforementioned OSE) which is basically a cleaned up version of B/X D&D from the 80s. The other ‘faction’ leans into the ‘renaissance’ idea and is more concerned with emulating play styles and ideology from older RPGs, not simply with re-creating their exact rule sets. This renaissance ideology has itself spawned yet another acronym: NSR, or ‘New School Revolution’ which still takes some inspiration from older gaming styles, but desires to separate itself from certain ideologies, personalities, and politics that its adherents find problematic in the OSR and from a gaming perspective can perhaps be most closely associated with the mantra “rulings not rules” (meaning that it’s more important to have a way to adjudicate things at the table as opposed to requiring a specific rule for every possible thing that could occur, thus leaning to more rules-lite, as opposed to ‘crunchy’ more simulationist, systems). Sorry…I know this is too much RPG esoterica for a book review, but I couldn’t help myself. Suffice it to say that it’s been an interesting journey that has been both fruitful and enjoyable and has exposed me to many games, and ideas, I would otherwise have never found. As is perhaps implied in my short precis of some of the varied schools of thought in TTRPGs it is a varied community divided by politics, philosophies, and preferences, but also chock full of talented creators writing modules, setting books, game systems, world generators, and pretty much anything else that might be useful in a TTRPG and I have to admit that I think, so far at least, The Vaults of Vaarn is one of the most impressive products I’ve come across.
Given that The Vaults of Vaarn was originally published as three game zines that were later collected into the deluxe volume that I read it’s not surprising that it is something of an amalgam of several things: part game system, part setting splat book, and part world generator. Regardless of this somewhat chimerical nature it’s pretty much all goodness. The author, Leo Hunt, lists Dune, The Book of the New Sun, and the works of Moebius as some of his primary inspirations so it’s right up my alley. The quality of the volume is excellent and it’s a real pleasure to read. We start with a short intro that notes the game’s inspirations and genre conventions with a very succinct one page intro to the world. This is followed by a mere three pages for the rules (which are largely derived from Knave, another OSR game) which highlights its ‘rules-lite’ roots, and a single page for the steps of character creation. The rest of the book is an expansion on the weird and wonderful world of Vaarn in which these characters will adventure. We are given five character ancestries to draw from (true-kin humans, synth or robotic beings, the new beast group of uplifted animals, the weird mycomorphs which are fungi/revenant hybrids, and cacogens or mutated humans), mystical gifts and cybernetic enhancements, as well as ‘exotica’ or lost artifacts of the ancients, which can bestow power and advancement.
The book is full of wonderful tables to allow the game master to randomly generate NPCs, places, dungeons, encounters, factions, and locations. Every section is interspersed with intriguing tidbits of knowledge that sharpen our vision of the world of Vaarn while still allowing the greatest amount of freedom possible for each game master to build their own version of this strange far-future, post-apocalyptic world (there is no 'true canon' in Vaarn). There are so many things to love here. I love how the primary currency isn’t gold, but water, which makes sense given the fact that Vaarn is a vast blue desert in far-future Urth (hello, Gene Wolfe reference). I love that we get the building blocks for a great main urban centre, Gnomon, filled with factions, locations, secrets and conflict, to give us a flavour of what makes this place tick, but there are still plenty of tables to allowing for the generation of one's own factions, districts, characters, and buildings. We get a small dungeon (or as they are labelled here, Vault), a bestiary of wonderfully weird creatures, and several locations of interest that not only allow you to populate your version of Vaarn’s desert, but to have a template for how such things are done. It’s really quite great and I am smitten.
So, why 4.5 instead of 5 stars? There was really only one thing that I wasn’t a huge fan of: the fact that the gameplay chassis of Vaarn is Knave. It’s not a bad system, but even though it's rules-lite I still think it’s more crunchy than is necessary. That’s okay though, I’ll just work on converting it to Cairn or something more up my alley…all that reading into the myriad of games systems in the OSR has paid off, and one of the key ideologies I've taken away is that hacking is not only permitted, but preferred. I’m really going to try and make Vaarn my own.
August 21, 2023
From the opening:
"WELCOME TO VAARN
The sun is dying and the wreckage of countless eons litters the parched wastes of Vaarn, the desolate country that common folk call the blue ruin."
Summary:
This rules light TTRPG got me creating vivid worlds with fascinating connections between locations and the people that inhabit them. Players will be hunting for relics scattered across the sands while choosing to help or hinder factions they meet along the way.
The DM side of things:
The rule book provides you with basic information about all the inhabitants (monsters, character classes, NPCs), social structures, factions, landscapes and even the weather patterns of Vaarn and then it hands it over to you saying, "now let's build your version of this."
I immediately said okay. I grabbed my dice, a notebook, a pencil and began rolling on the countless tables in this book. Generally, I hate books that are just full of tables. I feel like I could do that myself with a quick Google search on adjectives. However, Vaults of Vaarn does something special within its tables. You're breathing life into the world as your roll. It's the perfect balance of inspiration and guidance. The finished product gives you NPCs that have conflicts with other NPCs or locations with deep rooted histories that go back generations. But above all it helps you create a world that YOU are connected to while still keeping true to the foundation of Vaarn. I'm not going to lie, and perhaps you already noticed, I was pretty blown away by its ability to do this - to allow the DM to be part of the world building process while still holding true to the fascinating world of blue sands, Vaarn.
Perhaps there are other books out there that do this and if there are and you know them, please tell me. I need more world building books like this in my life.
"WELCOME TO VAARN
The sun is dying and the wreckage of countless eons litters the parched wastes of Vaarn, the desolate country that common folk call the blue ruin."
Summary:
This rules light TTRPG got me creating vivid worlds with fascinating connections between locations and the people that inhabit them. Players will be hunting for relics scattered across the sands while choosing to help or hinder factions they meet along the way.
The DM side of things:
The rule book provides you with basic information about all the inhabitants (monsters, character classes, NPCs), social structures, factions, landscapes and even the weather patterns of Vaarn and then it hands it over to you saying, "now let's build your version of this."
I immediately said okay. I grabbed my dice, a notebook, a pencil and began rolling on the countless tables in this book. Generally, I hate books that are just full of tables. I feel like I could do that myself with a quick Google search on adjectives. However, Vaults of Vaarn does something special within its tables. You're breathing life into the world as your roll. It's the perfect balance of inspiration and guidance. The finished product gives you NPCs that have conflicts with other NPCs or locations with deep rooted histories that go back generations. But above all it helps you create a world that YOU are connected to while still keeping true to the foundation of Vaarn. I'm not going to lie, and perhaps you already noticed, I was pretty blown away by its ability to do this - to allow the DM to be part of the world building process while still holding true to the fascinating world of blue sands, Vaarn.
Perhaps there are other books out there that do this and if there are and you know them, please tell me. I need more world building books like this in my life.
July 30, 2025
My bias towards this book cannot be overstated. This rules-lite Knave hack was what introduced me to what has become my favorite book series, The Book of The New Sun. Seeing it was one of the largest influences on the setting and mentioned with the same reverence as Dune and Hyperion, other major influences on the rulebook, I decided to take the plunge. Little did I know the plunge would include a trilogy plus a coda that I devoured like a starved man as well as countless episodes of a podcast* that proved to be an essential tool to somewhat truly grasp the magic of said books without a history/poetry degree and multiple readings of each book under my belt.
"But Sam," you say, "you aren't even talking about Vaults of Vaarn or the rules yet. You've been ranting about the Book of the New Sun for seven hours straight, please let me leave this esoteric coffee shop that closed over two hours ago my family is probably worried sick."
"I have three hyper fixations it's not MY fault you said something remotely about technology so I naturally started talking about how in BoTNS all the "buildings" are actually-"
One of the greatest strengths of the "OSR" movement in TTRPGs that is so evident in this work in my opinion has been, for the most part, a perfect union of lightening the rules down while pushing player engagement up. Gone are the days of scouring a rulebook for the exact role a player needs to make for the most obscure action, a much more intuitive game loop is procured with more dialogue based decision making as opposed to every single choice being locked behind a specific dice. "Oh you want to scale that sheer cliff? Well you're a mutant humanoid mountain Goat, so naturally you'd have no problem doing so. You do it, what now?"
That is not to say dice don't tell a story in these systems. On the contrary I suspect they tell better and more varied stories with your players actually engaging instead of just going for what they mathematically know will have the best outcome per the dice. TTRPGs are meant to be stories authored by the GM and the players jointly, not getting locked out of a quest because your charisma is low before going into a two hour long combat encounter (you know what you did D&D 5E). The fantasy shouldn't be reliant on the combat power of the group but on the roleplaying power.
All of that to say, this rulebook is the real deal. The setting is incredibly imaginative while allowing for near endless home brewing or hacking with any other OSR style book. As the tage Rules-Lite suggest the rules are easy to learn and so malleable that changing things on the fly feels natural to the point it's encouraged. I had planned on next ranting about the glory of Classeless TTRPGs but this is already reaching manifesto lengths and my break is up so instead I'll link an excellent video lightly going over the book below as well as the Backerkit for the forthcoming 2nd edition of this magical game.
Questing Beast gushing about VoV
https://youtu.be/gmAgZvwCmIg?si=_j4Z7...
Backerkit for VoV 2E
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/...
*The podcast is called Alzabo Soup and is imo a must listen when first reading BoTNS. My recommendation is to read the first five-ish chapters of the first book then going back and listening to their chapter by chapter breakdowns. It makes for an incredibly rewarding experience.
"But Sam," you say, "you aren't even talking about Vaults of Vaarn or the rules yet. You've been ranting about the Book of the New Sun for seven hours straight, please let me leave this esoteric coffee shop that closed over two hours ago my family is probably worried sick."
"I have three hyper fixations it's not MY fault you said something remotely about technology so I naturally started talking about how in BoTNS all the "buildings" are actually-"
One of the greatest strengths of the "OSR" movement in TTRPGs that is so evident in this work in my opinion has been, for the most part, a perfect union of lightening the rules down while pushing player engagement up. Gone are the days of scouring a rulebook for the exact role a player needs to make for the most obscure action, a much more intuitive game loop is procured with more dialogue based decision making as opposed to every single choice being locked behind a specific dice. "Oh you want to scale that sheer cliff? Well you're a mutant humanoid mountain Goat, so naturally you'd have no problem doing so. You do it, what now?"
That is not to say dice don't tell a story in these systems. On the contrary I suspect they tell better and more varied stories with your players actually engaging instead of just going for what they mathematically know will have the best outcome per the dice. TTRPGs are meant to be stories authored by the GM and the players jointly, not getting locked out of a quest because your charisma is low before going into a two hour long combat encounter (you know what you did D&D 5E). The fantasy shouldn't be reliant on the combat power of the group but on the roleplaying power.
All of that to say, this rulebook is the real deal. The setting is incredibly imaginative while allowing for near endless home brewing or hacking with any other OSR style book. As the tage Rules-Lite suggest the rules are easy to learn and so malleable that changing things on the fly feels natural to the point it's encouraged. I had planned on next ranting about the glory of Classeless TTRPGs but this is already reaching manifesto lengths and my break is up so instead I'll link an excellent video lightly going over the book below as well as the Backerkit for the forthcoming 2nd edition of this magical game.
Questing Beast gushing about VoV
https://youtu.be/gmAgZvwCmIg?si=_j4Z7...
Backerkit for VoV 2E
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/...
*The podcast is called Alzabo Soup and is imo a must listen when first reading BoTNS. My recommendation is to read the first five-ish chapters of the first book then going back and listening to their chapter by chapter breakdowns. It makes for an incredibly rewarding experience.
July 24, 2024
I’ve been reading a lot of OSR RPG books this year and I think this is my favorite.
The system itself is solid: Maybe not my favorite, but I think my only subjective turnoff is that DC’s are set at 15. It’s simple and makes sense, and I think it would be fairly quick to teach.
What’s really great about this book is the world building – and all of the tools in the toolbox he gives you to build your own adventure. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book that tries to do that laid out quite so well as this one. It’s easy to find everything, there are a ton of tables that are useful and direct.
The prebuilt city and locations at the back are really helpful to both provide a starter location for new players, as well as show off faction interaction and world building. Loved it!
The system itself is solid: Maybe not my favorite, but I think my only subjective turnoff is that DC’s are set at 15. It’s simple and makes sense, and I think it would be fairly quick to teach.
What’s really great about this book is the world building – and all of the tools in the toolbox he gives you to build your own adventure. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book that tries to do that laid out quite so well as this one. It’s easy to find everything, there are a ton of tables that are useful and direct.
The prebuilt city and locations at the back are really helpful to both provide a starter location for new players, as well as show off faction interaction and world building. Loved it!
March 12, 2023
Powered by Knave, this OSR/NSR world setting has everything you need to start up a campaign. With plenty of tables and easy-to-digest lore, Vaults of Vaarn was fun to read and is one of the most creative and inspirational settings I've encountered in the TTPRG community in a long time. Loved the Book of the New Sun influence as well! I Can't wait to run this and see where the author and community take it next.
March 7, 2023
OK now I get Knave as a system I think. Vaults of Vaarn is mostly Knave re-engineered for a wasteland-ey setting and it's just so great. So full of life and creativity and by god I just wanna play it so bad
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews