fragments of a blue ruin
After a long gestation period, the fourth issue of the main Vaults of Vaarn zine series is finally available for purchase. Printed copies of the zine, along with special edition cassette tapes of the official soundtrack by Out On Our Own, can currently be purchased from my online store Antipode Zines. I will be adding more retailers here as… Continue reading VAULTS OF VAARN #4 RELEASE
After almost three years in production (!!) the fourth issue of Vaults of Vaarn is complete. If you want to start reading the PDF, it is currently available for Patrons only. The zine will go to press by the end of May, and pre-orders will be starting on Antipode Zines soon. There will also be… Continue reading VAULTS OF VAARN #4 COMING SOON
Ostriel’s secret police and intelligence service. Masters of espionage, sabotage, and assassination. Always alert for threats (real or imagined) against the Queen. The Krypteia have spies and informants embedded everywhere: Ostriel, Sargattea, the wider Wall, and throughout Vaarn. Many of these informants have no idea who they really serve. The organisation’s upper echelon is a… Continue reading FACTION: THE KRYPTEIA
I'm going to run through the region creation process that forms the heart of Issue 04. We are going to be generating a region of Vaarn's Great Wall that will hopefully be ripe for adventuring. Without further ado, let's get started, and hope I can follow my own instructions. 1 Take a sheet of A4… Continue reading GENERATING THE WALL
Travel within the Great Wall is profoundly different from travelling the empty wastes of the Interior. This is an attempt to codify the differences, and make them apparent to Referees and players alike. Directions The Wall is a vertical structure. Directions given will differ from the standard four compass points. When giving directions, a denizen… Continue reading WALL-CRAWLING PROCEDURES
Issue 04 is still a while off, but I have been producing content for it sporadically throughout 2022. As an early Christmas present, here's a few of the monsters the PCs might encounter while exploring the Great Wall. Cannon Beetle Biological / SyntheticLevel 3, Armour 16, Morale +7, Encountered d6Attack: Cannon (d12 blast) The Wall’s… Continue reading CREATURES OF THE WALL
They are the fulfillment of humanity’s oldest and fondest wish: that we might join the birds we envy in the unbounded blue of the depths above. Despite forsaking the ground they have renounced none of their ancestors’ pride and the creatures are famed for their mercurial tempers and capacity to hold a grudge. The harpies… Continue reading PLAYER ANCESTRY: HARPY
When compared with the bleak blue sands of the Interior, the Great Wall of Vaarn presents an entirely different challenge to those who seek to traverse it. Where the Interior is arid and dry, the recesses of the Wall abound with moisture: ceilings sweating with rivulets of ikor, moss growing on all surfaces, inverted forests… Continue reading TRAVELLING THE GREAT WALL
The Construct Itself 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, the Weeping Wall, the Backbone of the Gods, the Titanspine, and the Sacred Impediment. The Wall forms the western… Continue reading THE WALL
VAULTS OF VAARN 