Podcast Introduction

Bryon - The Gamemaster (he/him):

Hello, and thank you for listening! My name is Bryon Kershaw, and together with a few friends I’ve been putting together a brand-new Actual Play podcast called Spirits and Monsters of Old Seattle. Before releasing our first episode, it dawned on me that not everybody in the audience might be familiar with the concept of an actual play podcast or the game system we’re using called Vaesen.

First, let’s take a couple of minutes and give a quick tour! Given that you’ve made it this far, I’ll assume you’ve got the basics on how podcasts work, so what’s an Actual Play podcast? Effectively, my friends and I are recording ourselves playing a tabletop roleplaying game. I’m the Gamemaster, putting together the adventures and stories and my friends each have a character who they will be playing. However, unlike a livestream show like Critical Role, we aren’t going to post the entire session recording. Instead, we’re editing the show down to just the best bits, as well as adding in sound effects and music. Think of it like an old-timey radio play, except there’s no script, and we roll dice to determine the outcome of actions.

And speaking of dice, we’ll be rolling lots of them! For our podcast we are playing the game Vaesen by Free League Publishing. Don’t worry if you don’t know the rules for Vaesen, we’ll be explaining them throughout the show whenever something comes up. Heck, we don’t always know the rules while we are playing. Instead, what we’re most excited about with this game is the story and the world of Vaesen. Characters in Vaesen are supernatural investigators blessed or cursed with the Second Sight. Most people can’t see them, but the characters in our game can see creatures out of folklore and myth. Imagine if trolls, giants and ghosts were all real, but invisible to almost everyone else. The players’ characters are part of an organization called the Library, and they try to help resolve conflicts between humans and the creatures called Vaesen. Our story takes place in the late 1800’s, as industrialization changes the world and forces the vaesen into conflict with growing human civilization. While games of Vaesen typically take place in 19th century Sweden, our game is set in our hometowns of Seattle and Ballard in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Each player character has an Archetype like Vagabond or Academic – for those familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, this is like their class. They also have a Dark Secret they are hiding – the players don’t know one another’s dark secrets at the start of the game, and they’ll be trying to keep them hidden from one another as we play.

Finally, please be aware that Vaesen is a supernatural horror game. We are generally going to keep things pretty light and fun and we make a lot of jokes, but there will sometimes be some pretty creepy stuff. Wherever possible I’ll include content warnings in the show notes, but just keep in mind that some episodes will have some unsettling subject matter. Those old folktales and fairy stories turned out to be PRETTY unsettling. 

So I’m hoping you’re excited to join us as we begin our journey into the Pacific Northwest of 1888. Without further ado, welcome… to Spirits and Monsters of Old Seattle.