The second annual Vaarn Summer Jam ended on the 30th of August 2023, boasting 23 submissions from TTRPG creators on itch.io. The imagination and enthusiasm emanating from these entries has been really inspiring for me, and it has been exciting to read through them all.

As with the last jam, I wanted to use some blog space to run through all of the entries, and give a quick overview of what they are and what niche they might fill in a Referee’s library. These paragraphs aren’t intended as reviews. They’re more a summary of the contents of each entry, so that anyone interested in third-party Vaarn content can find something that suits their needs. I’m going to go through the jam entries in order of submission, starting with the earliest. Everything is Pay What You Want unless otherwise noted.

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Qarnabu

An ancestry by Avery’s Atelier. One page.

‘A single black horn adorns their foreheads; their yellowish fur shimmers golden under Vaarn’s dying sun. The Qarnabu are a proud and reclusive people of rabbit-headed humanoids, considered a myth by some; they are said to be fearless, wise and capable in combat.’

A new ancestry, presenting a species of rabbit-folk with a mystical horn on their heads. The Qarnabu are inspired by the Al-Mi’raj, a creature from Arabic myth which I was not previously familiar with. This supplement would be suitable for any Referee who wanted a greater choice in ancestries for their players, and especially someone who wanted to emphasise a mythic tone as well as science-fiction.

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Gemini Rig

An ancestry by Doom3r. Three pages.

‘Sometimes, new kin are born where flesh ends and machine begins. Personalities sliced and shuffled; thrown together by cruel fate – or perhaps, a blessing; molded again into forms of synth and living tissue. A sacred bond is cast, and another strange being descends the Wall…

These rare hybrids are known as Gemini Rigs. Sentient and pursuing their new goals, they are viewed as precious specimen by vault seekers and science mystics alike, for their balance between synthetic and organic life is Exotica itself.’

This entry presents a new ancestry, which consists of an organic host and the synthetic symbiont that has attached to them. The Gemini Rig PC is two conjoined characters, who share a health pool but could have separate personalities and agendas. This supplement would be suitable for any Referee who wanted a greater choice in ancestries for their players, especially for a group that is interested in cyborgs and mechanical hybrids.

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Vaults of Vaarn – A4 GM Screen

A GM screen by Lord Lint. One page.

This entry is an A4-sized single page GM screen, comprising of the Vaults of Vaarn player rules, referee rules, travel procedures, and the weather generation system on a single side of A4. It is basically the whole game in one sheet, and would suit any Referee who wants a quick one-page reference summary.

Lord Lint also submitted a rework of the character sheet, which gives some more space for notes.

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Vaults of Vaarn Character Sheet

A character sheet by RoboPunch Press. One page.

This entry is a new character sheet design, boasting hexagonal stat blocks and a more detailed breakdown of a PC’s inventory. This would be useful for anyone who wants an alternative to the default character sheet.

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Strange Sands

An Into the Odd hack by Quint Nigro. 13 pages.

‘Strange Sands is a quick and dirty rules conversion for Vaults of Vaarn to Into the Odd rules. It is mostly for myself, but I did more than a session prep’s worth of work to get all the rules together, so I thought I’d save people with similar designs the trouble.’

This entry merges Vaarn with Chris McDowall’s Into the Odd, and includes conversion guides to quickly port PCs from the original Vaarn rules to this version. Strange Sands would be of interest to anyone who likes the theme and setting of Vaarn, but prefers the mechanics of ItO and its descendants to the traditional six-stat, roll-high gameplay found in Knave.

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The Denizens of Vice-Villion

A setting supplement by Junkyard Tornado. 9 pages.

‘The city of Vice-Villion can be an attractive place to those accustomed to the wasteland. It offers a life with relative comfort, access to work and food, entertainment and amenities. However, that luxury comes with a price. The city is run and operated by the Collectors. Who and what are they? They are a collective of peoples who have inhabited Vice-Villion for generations and during that team, each of the folk have developed their own cultural and psychological needs that rely on preying on outsiders. The city of Vice-Villion is essentially one giant trap to lure the unsuspecting, or those willing to run the risks, and subject them to the whims of the denizens of Vice-Villion.’

This entry details the city of Vice-Villion, and the groups of sinister Collectors who secretly prey on everyone who visits the polity. It is primarily a bestiary, giving information and statistics for the different Collector groups, each of which needs to harvest a different resource from the PCs: teeth, time, thoughts, blood, and trinkets are just some of the valuables that the Collectors want to gather. There are also stats for the Iron Stout, a mechanical man who pulls a cart around Vice-Villion. All of the creature illustrations are public domain art sourced from the works of Francois Rabelais.

The entry would be of use to any Referee looking for inspiration for secret societies that threaten the PCs, or who needs quick stats for an NPC.

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Sludgelands

A mini-setting by Chaoclypse. 2 pages.

‘A weird setting for group/solo/GMless play in postcard format! Enter a strange gonzo sludge-infested world, including three regions, encounter tables, sludge powers, spark tables, a quest generator.’

This entry is a postcard-sized mini setting, which revolves around transformative sludge. The front side details a small hexcrawl with points of interest, and the back gives encounters, sludge powers, desires, random quests, and a spark table. The setting is system-neutral, so the Referee will have to devise their own stats for the creatures mentioned. This entry would be suitable for someone who wants a small hexcrawl kernel, with room to expand on it and add their own ideas.

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Vaarn Weather

An online generator by sclpls.

This entry is an online tool which runs in your browser. It generates weather conditions for the deserts of Vaarn, using the weather entries found in Issue 3. It would be useful for any Referee who needs to quickly generate weather conditions on the fly, without using the hexflower tool in the zine.

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In Search of a Bio-Battery

An adventure site by Rowan. 10 pages.

‘At the behest of a dying cyborg, the party is tasked with finding a rare battery to sustain his life. After a long trek through the wastelands, you find it…

The Breathing Cave. And inside… a horror which stalks the halls, and rare Exotica in the stomach of the vault.

An adventure into the surreal and chilling, created using experimental collage artwork. A surreal vision of a surreal world.’

This entry is a short adventure, in which the PCs are tasked with locating a replacement bio-battery for a dying cyborg. They must travel to the Breathing Cave, and brave the horrible Grappler creature that lurks inside. The adventure contains several unique monsters, and three Exotica that can be obtained within the deepest part of the cave. The adventure is fully illustrated on each page, using a cut-up collage technique.

There is no recommended level range for this adventure, but two of the monsters detailed are potentially highly lethal. I would recommend this adventure site to a Referee who needs material for a more experienced party (perhaps Level 4-5), or Level 1 PCs who don’t mind running away rather than fighting.

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Dead Sun Spider

An adventure site by Jacob Marks. 2 pages, price $2 (community copies available).

‘In the interior desert of Vaarn an ancient biovessel lies with its belly turned towards the dying sun. The biovessel is shaped like an ancient sun spider, decaying and gray with 10 legs pointing upwards like a ribcage.

This pamphlet dungeon for Vaults of Vaarn includes a psychic cult, a mystic gleaming sun spider, and ancient bio-engineering mites. If your players are interested in gaining new mystic gifts, place this location somewhere in the desert and start planting rumors about the gleaming sun spider.’

This entry is a pamphlet dungeon, with 12 keyed locations and three unique creatures. The party can explore the ruins of a crashed sun spider-shaped bio-ship, and tangle with the cult that dwells within. The creature the cult worships can grant PCs new Mystic Gifts, but at the cost of gaining aspects of the Sun Spider, slowly becoming arachnid abominations. This entry would be of use to Referees who are looking for short, compact adventure sites that can be slotted into a larger Vaarn pointcrawl. It would be especially of interest to groups who want to acquire more psychic powers, and don’t mind paying a steep price for their gifts.

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Embalmed Basin

An adventure site by Jacob Marks. 2 pages, price $2 (community copies available).

‘Deep in the blue desert of Vaarn is a wide basin filled with stone orbs. Each looks like a meteor, but they are perfectly spherical, as though they landed gently and sunk into the sand. The local mystics say that a reclusive god hides inside one of the meteors, waiting to grant mutations to worshippers.

This pamphlet includes a small hexcrawl intended for use with the far future tabletop roleplaying game Vaults Of Vaarn. The area is intended to be extremely challenging, but rewards the characters with new mutations if they survive. Are your players wanting to get new mutations? Start seeding rumors about the basin and place it somewhere in the desert for them to find.’

This entry is a pamphlet adventure site, which details a small hexcrawl through a meteor-strewn wasteland. PCs can encounter a number of new creatures, including ambushing antlion grubs, and a sinister synthetic embalmer who makes mummified guard-synths from corpses. In the heart of this landscape is the Bone Orb, which can grant a variety of skeletal mutations to any PC that touches it (a d20 table of these mutations is included). This entry would be of use to a Referee who wants a small, flavourful region that could serve as the backdrop for an entire adventure, or could serve as one node in a larger desert pointcrawl.