Severed Roots: A Vaesen Mystery by D A Caldwell is a role playing game supplement published by Free League Publishing through the Free League Workshop Community Content Programme for use with Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying.
The supplement is available as a seven page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover.
The Situation explains that near the village of Valby various wildlife have been hunted and trapped to the point of near extinction and a local vaesen has inadvertently placed a wasting curse on the river water thanks to its rage and anguish over this, which has effectively poisoned the crops. This is the main conflict, though there are some subconflicts.
The Details goes into how the situation arose and how the trapper originally responsible has been killed. This hasn’t ended the problem, and the local farmers are on the verge of violence.
Beginning: An Invitation has the characters invited to come and deal with the problem.
The Journey is the travel to the village.
The Mystery Path has the series of locations that will be visited, and details on each and what can happen at them. This includes some subconflicts and details that can narrow down the vaesen responsible, as well as ways of resolving the situation; the easiest does not require attacking the vaesen.
Notable NPCs has the details on the NPCs, oddly all in capitals which is a detriment to reading.
Additional Clues are the different clues outside the main path that the characters could discover.
The Nokken has details on the vaesen, a new one.
Severed Roots: A Vaesen Mystery in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, though short enough that these are not needed, it has enough sections that they would have been appreciated. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are no illustrations. Presentation is adequate.
This is a straightforward enough investigation for the main adventure, but the subconflicts that could cause problems add an extra element to it, as well as the fact that the vaesen does not have to be confronted and defeated means that violence is not necessarily the outcome. The best outcome, if figured out, is much easier to accomplish than violence. Severed Roots: A Vaesen Mystery is a decent little mystery and it can be found by clicking here.
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