VAULTS OF VAARN #4
A downloadable RPG zine
Of all the artefacts the ancients left littered across the cerulean sands of Vaarn, few are more imposing than the canted bulwark of pale ferrosteel that is known variously as the Great Wall of Vaarn, the Weeping Wall, the Backbone of the Gods, the Titanspine, or the Impediment. The Wall forms the western boundary of the trackless Vaarnish Interior, an artificial mountain range visible from a month’s ride away. At a distance it appears to be a colourless, irregular blockade that roils uneasily in the heat haze, more akin to the fortress-walls of ice that girdle the Urth’s polar regions than any work of human hands. Up close the Wall is more impressive still, a colossal ruin that exceeds four leagues in height, dwarfing even the Lazul Mountains that embrace its northern limit.
Return to the End
The acclaimed Vaults of Vaarn series returns for a fourth issue of psychedelic science-fantasy roleplaying. Vaarn is a 'dying earth' tabletop RPG setting, drawing from novels like Dune, Hyperion, The Book of the New Sun, and the artwork of Moebius. Vaarn is a surreal and colourful world: a post-apocalyptic, post-human landscape, where the dividing line between flesh and machinery has blurred and the borders between magic, science, and faith have likewise been obscured.
This fourth installment takes readers beyond Vaarn's sky-blue deserts to the Great Wall, a towering megastructure so large that it contains entire civilisations within its ancient, decaying bounds. The Wall is inspired by the superstructure depicted in Tsutomu Nihei's manga Blame! and the overgrown industrial environments of the videogame Rain World.
The Wall can be used as a palette cleanser in a long-running Vaarn campaign, or it can be a campaign setting in itself, with the PCs hailing from the societies that have established themselves within the colossus.
Inside this Issue
- An introduction to the Wall and the cultures dwelling within.
- Campaign seeds, if you need excuses to involve the PCs in the affairs of the Wallborn.
- Three new PC Ancestries: the climbing Wallborn, fearsome feathered Harpies, and gas-filled Stratosfolk.
- Five factions that influence the Wall's politics: the aristocratic Forty Families of Sargattea, the resolute Sargattean Guard, the cruel Royal Roost of Ostriel, the secretive Krypteia, and the mysterious, Wall-hating Levellers.
- Maps of the rival city-states of Sargattea and Ostriel.
- Wall travelling rules and procedures.
- 20 location generator tables to create a fully detailed Wall-crawl, including Beetle Ranches, Cloudspires, Hanging Jungles, Sky Pirate Dens, and more.
- A bestiary of 22 new Wall-dwelling monsters.
- Appendices, containing new rules for Vaarnish poisons and Alchemy .
Fully illustrated throughout with evocative line-art. Printed in black and white with colour covers.
Printed Zines
Printed copies of this zine, along with limited-edition cassette tapes of the official soundtrack by Out On Our Own, can be purchased from my online store Antipode Zines.
Reviews Of Previous Installments
'If you’re looking for post-apocalyptic adventure that’s light on mathematics, walks the line between gonzo and melancholy, and with a fairly good toolkit for generating content between sessions, this is probably the best thing on the market.' - Playful Void
'The setting is wild, it feels like the author took Numenera, Gamma World and Dune and got them drunk, put them in a big vapourwave-themed hotel room and let them go at it.' - Pod Of Blunders
Patreon
If you really enjoy Vaarn and want to read more of it every month, you can subscribe to my Patreon.
Status | Released |
Category | Physical game |
Rating | Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars (16 total ratings) |
Author | graculusdroog |
Tags | knave, science-fantasy, Tabletop role-playing game, vaults-of-vaarn, zine |
Purchase
In order to download this RPG zine you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $5.99 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Comments
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this is an AWESOME addition to vaarn which i have already loved
Glad you like it! I'm planning future issues and there hopefully won't be a three year gap between them anymore :)
i eagerly await your next issues and i wish you nothing but success
Will there be a new deluxe version that includes #4?
I'd imagine there will eventually be some kind of collection which includes this material, but I'm focused on self-publishing in this format at the moment as it's proving challenging to keep the collected edition available.
It's perfect
Thank you! Been a long time so I'm glad to be back on the zine grind.
Just in case anyone is wavering
Ah I've never seen this review before, thank you!
there must be loads out there!