The Vast in the Dark
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Seek the empty¸ the broken and dilapidated; it is closer than you think.
Search for the uncanny¸ the hidden and wrong; they are unsettling to you.
Observe this spot with your eyes¸ your hands and breath; let it inside you
Whisper so that only you may hear:
"I wish to see the vast in the dark”
And fall backwards without fear.
You are already there-
The sky is black as night¸ a tectonic rumbling can be heard overhead; the ruins sprawl out with a fractal madness¸ their shapes incoherent and puzzling; and a vast sea of colorless sand stretches out into the darkness¸ broken only by the titanic pillars that disappear impossibly into the lightless sky.
This is The Vast¸ a liminal realm hidden far away from our own. Always waning and on the verge of collapse¸ it is host to countless lost souls and alien treasures hidden within its crumbling ruins.
The Vast in the Dark is an exploration setting for the world's most popular role-playing game and takes place in a crumbling alien wasteland filled with brutalist mega-structure ruins. It includes tools for generating massive areas to explore as well as unique player options and gameplay changes to keep the focus on player choice and ingenuity over dice-rolling and chance.
The Vast in the Dark Contains:
Brutalist Alien flavor: the setting is a lightless wasteland populated by brutalist megastructures. Small societies of and factions have cropped up and settled within the various ruins attempting to survive and remain sane. No-Prep World Generation: The main goal of this zine is to provide GMs a toolbox to build a massive hexcrawl map¸ a local area within each hex¸ and dungeon complexes within those smaller local areas quickly and easily enough that you can do it on the fly (no prep work needed). Player Options of The Vast: some feat/perks with flavor¸ from "Ruinplucker" to "Vacant Amygdala" designed to give "weird tools" for the player to use and exploit. Navigation¸ Inventory¸ and exhaustion system: quick down-and-dirty rules for surviving the wastes and how to run these areas without worrying about micromanagement. Optional Horror Elements: The Harrowing is a form of ego-decay¸ a slow erosion of the psyche that befalls all who find themselves trapped within The Vast. Linger too long and you will lose memories¸ joys¸ and even the drive to leave. It is only a matter of time before you become one of the Crawl... Soundtrack: A haunting¸ ambient soundtrack by Donn Stroud ¸ for exploring the blasted wastes and the alien depths... https://donnstroud.bandcamp.com/album/the-vast-in-the-dark-soundtrack