Vaults of Vaarn: Second Edition

Vaults of Vaarn is a psychedelic science-fantasy TTRPG with minimalist rules that empower player creativity, a pervading tone of melancholy weirdness, and an emphasis on procedural content generation.

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 become obscured. Exploring a vast sky-blue desert that lies at the very end of time, the PCs will brave heatwaves and sandstorms, battle mutated animals and crazed robots, and delve into buried tech-tombs to scavenge fragments of the fabled Long Ago.

Vaults of Vaarn: Second Edition is a luxuriously-produced hardback book, which contains the core rules for playing the acclaimed science-fantasy adventure game.

An electric shock to the creative parts of the brain ... A sleek game as excellent as it is blue. It's very, very, blue. - Joel Hines, author of Desert Moon of Karth and Tide World of Mani. 

The game emphasises intuitive rules that are easy to remember, while being robust enough to do the hard work for you, leaving Referees and players free to enjoy the game without looking things up. The book includes:

• 10 playable Ancestries, detailing the sentient species of Vaarn. Players can embody haughty non-mutated True-Kin, mutated Cacogen, ascended animal species, sentient plants, fungal revenants, thinking machines, crystalline scholars, and the two-dimensional Planeyfolk, who are living casualties of hypergeometric experiments.
• Procedually-generated equipment, including weapons, armour, adventuring gear, and Exotica, the far-future relics that everyone is searching for.
• Characters can install cybernetic implants, open their minds to learn Mystic Gifts, study hypergeometric codexes, recruit followers and mercenaries, ride bizarre steeds, and tame the strange pets that inhabit the polychrome wasteland.
• A freeform and creative magic system, where players spend HP to use Mystic Gifts defined by randomly generated keywords.
• A bestiary of over 100 unique science-fantasy monsters. There are no orcs or elves here: instead players battle bizarre horrors like self-replicating Copycats, paradoxical Fractalisks, or colour-leeching Chromavores.
• Fully-featured procedural map generation. With just a handful of dice dropped on blank paper, Referees can create fully mapped Vaarnish settlements, underground dungeons, and vast tracts of blue wilderness, all ready for exploration.
• Additional content generation tools allow for unique and surprising gameplay that will delight Referee and players equally. Generate entire religions, assassins, books, drugs, meals, and poisons with just a handful of dice. Vaarn will always surprise you and is different every time you play.

A real masterclass in how to pack a bunch of flavour and setting into some very very small packages.  - Chris McDowall, author of Into the Odd, Electric Bastionland and Mythic Bastionland.

How to Play

Vaults of Vaarn is based on the acclaimed Knave system, with plenty of mutations to make it a different beast. The PCs are post-human misfits who delve into the eponymous vaults of Vaarn, far-future ruins buried beneath the blue desert. The game is designed so that you are playing in the world, not playing against the rules.

• The core resolution system is d20 roll-high, using ability scores that range from +1 to +10.  All rolls can be made by players, leaving Referees free to set the scene. 
• Character generation is classless, with PCs defined by their Ancestry and equipment. Rather than an elf wizard, you could be a fungal Mycomorph who fights with paralysing spores, a brittle Lithling scholar wielding a gravity hammer, or an agile Cacogen mutant with retractible claws and a pleasing aroma. 
• Slot-based encumbrance rules take the tedium out of equipment management, while keeping the focus on what really matters: whether it's better to carry a spare pistol or a gourd full of antigravity gel.
• Get weirder, not just more powerful. Characters can grow extra heads, lose their limbs, and become infected with nanomachines. 
• Combat is fast and dangerous, with low HP totals and no safety rails. Players will become adept at negotiation and fleeing as well as fighting. Incurring wounds during combat can disfigure your character, at least until you can find a Limb Salesman in the next village.
• Become immersed in a boundless and surreal world. Vaarn’s rules prioritise player creativity and ensure a reactive world that responds to your decisions. No adventure paths, no scripted fights: just a big blue desert, a hover bike, and a Referee who is confident that wherever you choose to go, they have the tools to make it exciting. 

Actual Play

If you prefer to get a feel for TTRPGs by watching them in play, you can watch a two-part Actual Play starring the hosts of the Weekly Scroll podcast. It covers PC generation, dungeon exploration, and combat:

Reviews of Previous Editions

Imagine The Dying Earth, add it to Gamma World with the goofiness turned down a few notches, and add the tiniest, tiniest sprinkling of something like Dark Sun and stir well. - Andrew Walter, illustrator for Troika! and Dolmenwood.

One of the best RPG products page-for-page on the market. Every page drips with imagination. - Quint Nigro

Once you step foot into the blue sands of Vaarn, it never really will leave you. - Omniczech, Vaarn Discord Member #7

Inspiring, weird, and amazingly easy to play. It's provided some of my most memorable gaming sessions and is now one of the first games I grab when introducing TTRPGs to new folk. - DungeonMaestro

The world is so cool and and tightly woven into the mechanics it constantly creates these little moments that just feel like something's snapped together in your head, in the collective head of the table. it's like a giant sky-hook dragging you into the reality and logic of the world and fun as hell. Play this game! - danieljosephoneil, via itch.io