A Wicked Solo

Battle plans for running A Wicked Secret

I’m walking through my thought process here as I modify the adventure of A Wicked Secret for a solo playthrough. I bought all these adventures from Free League and I want to use them even though they are really not solo friendly. I think they could be with a different design, but that’s not today’s topic.

Every time I’ve played Vaesen solo I’ve used a different method and each has had their appeal.

First, was the “Caught in the Rain” method. I’ve not actually read Caught in the Rain yet, but from the description I’m pretty sure it’s the same. No prewritten adventure, just creating “clues” using Mythic. The clues create the creature, it doesn’t exist beforehand. That was interesting because I found a ghost, a Night Mare, and a not yet defined creature, but ultimately it was a nasty human behind the actual incident I was investigating.

Second, I ran through the introduction mystery in the core book using keyed scenes. It’s a bit of a railroad because you know each station on the route, but what happens on the train between stops is still open for change, like finding the person who invited us dead on the road instead of being the contact at the inn like the story would have.

This one caused me much stress because the written adventure suggests this mystery will be a part of an overarching mystery to be created later: Death of Ballads. I can really get hung up on not violating canon. But it looks like maybe they forgot about it because I could find nothing for Death of Ballads. So eventually I got over it and had a very interesting adventure that left one of the characters with a “cat” and another with an insight.

This third one I want to do something in between. Everything in the beginning of the mystery I can use, but I want to leave it more open from there. The written mystery kinda alludes to it, but I really want this to have a Wicker Man / Midsommar / The Ritual feel.

All the characters will be present, but who does what is not yet set. While the Church Grim (there’s no hiding it, it’s on the cover) may seem to the investigators the most likely candidate, I want it to be possible that it could either be something else or include something else.

The countdown sets up events that happen on each night, but the dice will decide who the victims will be. The culmination of the mystery happens on the fifth night. I like this because my open adventures tend to spiral out of control.

And here I will leave you hanging. I’ll post the first part of my playthrough next week.

Happy Playing.

The Characters

1. Marta Karlstrom: Owner of Farnsta’s sawmill

2. Dorotea Skytt: Major landowner in Farnsta

3. Vilhelmina Skytt: Dorotea’s teenage daughter

4. Invar Nystrom: The village priest

5. Gottfrid Hammarstrom: Business representative and negotiator from the sawmill

6. Nils Lindeskold: Hammarstrom’s associate who fled Farnsta after seeing a creature.

7. August Von Meijer: Owner of the large sawmill in Harnosand.

Other possible new characters:

8. Workers from the sawmill

9. People from the General Store and Post Office.

10. The Farnsta Villagers

Locations

1. Village Hall

2. General Store

3. The Church

4. The Graveyard

5. Skytt’s Family Home

6. The Sawmill

7. Karlstrom’s House

8. The Forest

9. The Angerman River

10. TBD

What we know in the beginning:

• Von Meijer sent two representatives, Gottfrid Hammarstrom and Nils Lindeskold, to Farnsta to purchase large tracts of land and enlist the local workforce to secure timber from Farnsta.

• Farnsta is isolated and has almost no contact with the outside world.

• The men stayed with Marta Karlstrom.

• One evening Nils Lindeskold woke to a huge figure with red eyes outside his second story bedroom window and escaped in just his nightshirt.

• Hammarstrom is missing.

• Rumors from surrounding villages say the people of Farnsta have the blood of God on their hands and disturbing things happen there.

Parts of the mystery that I will apply.

• Invitation

• Preparations

• The Journey and meetings with August Von Meijer and Nils Lindeskold.

• The Arrival

• Location descriptions and first meetings - anything a GM would likely read to players.

• The six handout clues.