Have you ever dreamt about your homemade tabletop RPG world making it big? Of your setting - be it D&D or something else - becoming 'official' with artwork and an honest-to-goodness hardback that sits on the shelf? For many of us, that's just a daydream. For Ellinor DiLorenzo, it's reality.
"It’s pretty darn surreal and I still can’t believe it’s happening," DiLorenzo tells me when we catch up about her new book Vaesen: The Lost Mountain Saga, which is based on her actual play series of the same name. "The Lost Mountain Saga podcast was a very special project for me, emotionally, as it sort of aligned with my first pregnancy and now I wrote the book version during my second pregnancy. So there’s so much love tied into this saga, and similar to seeing your kid explore the world, it’s been so cool to see my creative baby also flourish and continue to grow."
Home-field advantage
In many ways, DiLorenzo's podcast was born out of coronavirus. Created in the height of COVID, back when it had its claws around our throat like a particularly belligerent troll, it proved to be an escape. In her words, she "hadn’t worked on anything for a while because of the pandemic" and wanted to give her "friends and extremely talented co-hosts of the pod, Sydney Amanuel and Anne Richmond, a fun little experience to distract from the awfulness that was 2020."
It wouldn't use Dungeons and Dragons books or other well-trodden systems like Call of Cthulhu, though. Instead, DiLorenzo opted for something new - Vaesen, designed by Free League. Based on the Nordic horror work of Johan Egerkrans, it explores a twisted version of the Victorian era where Scandinavian monsters from folklore lurk in the shadows. Player characters control some of the few people able to see these creatures (or vaesen, as they're known), and the idea set DiLorenzo's imagination on fire.
I wanted to tell an authentic story about my own culture, about things that international audiences might not know about
Ellinor DiLorenzo
"Vaesen had just come out, being set not only in my home country Sweden but also my hometown of Uppsala and during my favorite timeline, the 19th century. I wanted to tell an authentic story about my own culture, about things that international audiences might not know about," DiLorenzo says. "I also think the game mechanics are interesting enough to be challenging but not extremely complex so both beginners and veterans can enjoy it. I also love pretty things, and Vaesen is probably the prettiest darn roleplaying book I’ve ever laid my eyes on."
The podcast ran for two seasons, and even though it wasn't what DiLorenzo had envisioned ("I initially had very ambitious ideas for the format, wanting it to be an expensive high-end TV production with a set and cameras, but I had no money so podcasting became the viable alternative"), it became a hit with almost 30 episodes overall.
That's the sort of thing which gets you noticed.
Back to the beginning
After being contacted by Free League co-founder and CEO Tomas Härenstam, the wheels started turning to make an official, published version of the Lost Mountain adventure. However, it obviously wasn't a copy-paste job.
"I had my notes from the podcast-version, but they kinda sucked... They were all over the place," DiLorenzo says. "So I began from the beginning, cutting out the storylines that didn’t fit and fleshed out the NPCs as well as the vaesen. I decided to divide the arcs into five chapters/adventures. It was very helpful to already know the beginning, the middle and the end, but it took a lot of work to get it into a cohesive campaign that followed the actual campaign rules of Vaesen. During the podcast, since the story was only in my head, I could always give vague answers to my players, but since this is written for other [Game Masters], I had to get the specifics down. Which was a bit tricky. You can’t just say '...and we fade to black' to a GM who needs an actual stat block!"
"I also got a lot of help to make sense of it all from Tomas and Kiku, my editors. They provided a lot of great ideas, course-corrected me when I got too deep into non-Vaesen territory, while still maintaining the essence of the story I wanted to tell."
In terms of Lost Mountain Saga's approach, DiLorenzo (who can be found on Twitter @ellidilorenzo) notes that she hasn't "added any new mechanics and it follows the rules from the Vaesen Core Rulebook, but it’s definitely a bit different than many other adventures. The players are more encouraged than ever to play the 'social game.' There’s a lot of deadly encounters and a lot of horrifying, sometimes sad, imagery but if the players only use brute force they will most likely not have a successful run."
Writing for a podcast with your friends is obviously very different to writing a book, too. DiLorenzo says that the hardest parts to adapt were heavy on roleplay but still included vital clues for the plot. Because her friends' backstories couldn't be used, separating the two was tricky. In much the same way, the show's emphasis on social intrigue without combat needed tweaking - as DiLorenzo points out, it would otherwise lead to "a pretty short adventure in a campaign."
Still, the biggest challenge was escaping the limitations she'd imposed on herself.
"Without spoiling too much, the podcast was and was always supposed to be a one season thing, meaning I left very little options to 'continue' the story afterwards. Not necessarily through death but in other ways (listen if you wanna know!). That is not the case in the book. It’s deadly. The stakes are high. But the players can continue to play their characters after the campaign is over if they want to… We also made changes to some of the NPCs to make it fit the universe of Vaesen better. I had taken a lot of liberties during the podcast but Tomas and Kiku made sure the story is compatible with any Vaesen group."
Meeting your heroes
For DiLorenzo, being able to work with the Free League team was a clear highlight of the project.
"I’m so used to working on my own which is sometimes lonesome and leaves you in a very vulnerable state - especially if you do something that people dislike," she reveals. "But having a whole team looking after you like they have felt special. A lot of creatives have a hard time giving up control, especially when it’s something as personal as The Lost Mountain Saga was for me, but they are all so talented, professional, and I trusted them throughout the entire process."
Does DiLorenzo have favorite pieces of artwork from the book? Absolutely. "From Johan [Egerkrans], I obviously love the cover art but I also love his version of Vaettir and Nissar. They are these little creatures that coexist with humans and for me is exactly what I think of when I think of Vaesen. From Anton [Vitus], his version of my favorite character of all time and a prominent NPC in the game: Franzibald Hansen. Thanks to his art I want to write a whole separate series about Franzibald."
Naturally, having her characters and story turned into art by Johan Egerkrans - whose work inspired Vaesen in the first place - and Anton Vitus was pretty cool too.
"The first time I saw Johan’s cover art of the book, I started to cry. Full on ugly-crying. I’ve been a huge fan of his for a long time. And Anton is probably one of my favorite creatives I’ve ever worked with. He helped out with the art for the podcast too. My favorite thing is when you work with people who can take your idea and then make it better, and both Anton and Johan have that ability."
So, what's next for DiLorenzo? Will we continue to see her byline on the best tabletop RPGs? Like the monsters of her book, she's keeping the answer shrouded in mystery - but chances are good. And honestly, it's fair enough to keep her cards close to her chest; she's living a dream so many gamers have had, so why not bask in it for a while?
It's a good time for fan creators - the recently-announced Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs is being developed by a player after making their own table-free version of the RPG board game a couple of years back, and we dug into that journey with our feature on how Gloomhaven was transformed from one of the biggest board games into one of the smallest.
