I Read Games: Vaults of Vaarn

Vaults of Vaarn

Vaarn is a desert of blue sand at the end of time, studded with vaults dating back to the last two times the world ended. Vaults of Vaarn is a roleplaying game in a far future when everything has already happened so you might as well raid vaults and travel the wilderness having unlikely adventures and possibly trying to solve the mystery of why you’re a cylindrical robot with a radar dish for a head who used to be a flattery droid until you realise fate does not exist (answer: you rolled it up in character creation).

There are five character ancestries, true-kin, humans who sheltered in the arcologies and vaults while one or more apocalypses happened; cacogen, mutated humans who didn’t; synths, robots; newbeasts, animals made humanoid; and mycomorphs, corpses brought back to life by fungus growths. This may give you some of the flavour of what goes on here.

The rules system is apparently taken from the game Knave, and I haven’t played it but it looks stripped back and functional. A lot of the rulesbook zine is random tables, a modern touch that offers lots of options both practical and atmospheric. Despite this there’s quite an old-school vibe going on.

Thanks to my personal situation and the ongoing pandemic I haven't been able to playtest it.

Play This: You can get the pdf for free, or buy the zine, and get lots of additional material from Leo Hunt’s Vaults of Vaarn blog
Don’t Play This: Maybe it’s too weird? And I don’t really know how the rules are likely to work in practice, there’s a few twists there that seem tricky.