Vagrantsong is a board game developed by Wyrd Games with art by Nguyen Mai Diem. The game has a peculiar setting and aesthetic: rubber-hose ghosts inside an afterlife train in the USA around the 1930s. Yes, the setting is that peculiar. While the main characters are runaways and people at the margin of society, who boarded the train to avoid a storm, the enemies are disturbing ghosts looking for peace. But of course, peace will come only after a long fight. Because the player’s challenge is to break the ghosts by increasing their “humanity.”
In this context, Vagrantsong is a boss battle game with a unique scenario, where every battle is a piece of a bigger story. Each fight is long, challenging, and with many variables, including exploration points or secondary challenges, which can unlock milestones crucial for the different endings. The ghosts have many peculiar attacks, and each battle feels very different. Moreover, ghosts have at least two different behaviors, with completely different attacks, powers, and patterns when switching from one to the other.
The art-style is inspired by old rubber-hose cartoons, a strange and peculiar contrast with the creepy setting and theme of the game. The ghosts have a complex design, all sharing similar theme and connected by the green color, an otherworldly energy keeping together all the ghosts. Inside the game box, there are around 20 ghosts, coming as acrylic standees, a detail that enhances the “cursed cartoon” feeling of the game.
In this article, I will analyze some of the most interesting ghosts of Vagrantsong, both for design and battle. Moreover, some ghosts are inspired or connected with old American urban legends or apparitions, creating even more interesting and rooted creatures. When I could connect the information, I will also briefly provide the legend or the ghost inspiring the creature.
Maco Joe
Maco Joe is one of the first enemies in the game, but nonetheless a challenging and interesting foe. Maco Joe is missing his head, and he is constantly looking for it while bringing around a lantern. Dressed as a train conductor, Maco Joe is a dangerous enemy able to control fire by using a lantern. He will be constantly looking for his head, walking toward the sack containing it. This is a battle of quick reflexes since the player can also try to reach the head before Maco Joe. During the normal fight, Maco Joe mainly uses the lantern to blind characters with intense light. However, after recovering his head, Maco Joe will become much more aggressive, throwing fire and burning everything. Luckily, soon he will lose again the head, and the weird chase will resume. Interestingly, Maco Joe is inspired by an American urban legend about a train machinist, Joe Baldwin, who lost his head while trying to signal with the lantern about an imminent danger. The poor machinist became a ghost, haunting that train line and forever looking for his head.
The Flayed Man
The Flayed Man has something really weird going on. He misses every bone, and moves around like a scattered pile of clothes. And, of course, he is wielding a knife. Trust me, the Flayed man is a really terrifying being. One of the first battles inside the train, the Flayed Man is a dangerous ghost able to attack with his knife, or by elongating the elastic body. The ghost is a truly nightmarish being that can freely modify his body, stretching it to reach far targets, and even bloating like a balloon to become more aggressive. However, his most dangerous attack is the ability to “envelope” the characters with his body, damaging and immobilizing them, till they don’t find a needle to blow him off. The Flayed Man can also detach body parts, especially the hands, but there is no limit to this power. In fact, in a couple of occasions, while investigating the train, the player could find his shattering teeth or a breathing lung around the train. The Flayed Man provides a very interesting battle against a terrifying being, with many possibilities during the fight. For example, the player can even steal his hat for a bonus item. But the ghost will not take this offence very lightly. The Flayed Man is basically just skin flying around, the horrible result of somebody skinned alive. Several ghosts in urban legend from USA fit this description, but the most famous is probably Skinned Tom, a ghost missing the skin haunting lonely lovers in southern USA .
The Visitor
The darkness has a face and body, and in Vagrantsong this is the Visitor. Living in the depth of a devouring hole inside the train, which tries to swallow everything, the Visitor exists in pure darkness. A skeletal and disturbing figure, the Visitor is completely immaterial and fused with the darkness. Only the light of candles will reveal the creature, otherwise impossible to damage. But it doesn’t work the other way around, and it can still attack the player when shrouded in darkness. The Visitor will first manifest itself accompanied by disturbing sounds, including teeth-chattering and clacking. The creature is a prisoner in this hole, craving to go outside and see the light again. However, judging by how dangerous it is, and since the Visitor is the only prisoner in a train of malicious ghosts, this doesn’t sound like a smart idea. Judging by the name and appearance, the Visitor is probably not an ordinary ghost, but something more, probably an eldritch being confined here for some unknown purpose. Other than merging with darkness, the Visitor has several mental attacks to use. The creature can paralyze the player with pure terror, inducing paranoia, and creepily whispering inside the characters’ ears. Moreover, the Visitor can control the darkness, spreading it and trying to suffocate the players. The Visitor is a challenging battle where candles are the only ally to attack this creepy being, creating one of the most dreadful and intense battles in Vagrantsong.
Lady Limestone
This female ghost communicate melancholy and tragedy since the very beginning. When entering the train car, the player is welcomed by rows of similar statues of a girl lost in her tears. Interestingly, the statues look like a religious Saint Mary, veiled and in a sorrowful pose. Then, like a green lightening, a statue starts to irradiate energy from the inside, beginningtarting the battle. And this light originates from a dead body is buried inside the statue. Somebody punished a poor woman by encasing her, probably alive, inside a statue. Hints in the book suggest that the woman was a witch, and that this was her punishment declared by townspeople or witch-hunters. The battle is extremely challenging and divided in two phases. In the beginning, the ghost will teleport around, entering each time in a different immobile statue. It is almost impossible to damage her, and the player can only try to cleanse the statues while avoiding her deadly singing and cursing. During the second phase, Lady Limestone will control only one statue, breaking it free from the stone roots. The ghost will walk around inside the statue, becoming a deadly and powerful machine, stomping, smashing, and opening holes inside the train. Lady Limestone is a tragic figure with a powerful aesthetic and background, but she is also a challenging battle against an almost immortal enemy well-divided in two neat phases.
The Man of Many Limbs
This ghost is definitively the most disturbing enemy inside Vagrantsong, and one of the most dangerous adversaries. The Man or Many Limbs is a creepy figure dressed in a black robe, with glowing eyes and a multitude of long tentacle-like arms going out from the robe. The arms have very classic rubber-hose aesthetic, making of this character a truly nightmarish representation of old cartoons. The Man was created when the train destroyed a graveyard, fusing together the dead bodies in this insane abominations. In fact, the Man of Many Limbs is merely an artificial ghosts created by fusing together the butchered limbs of dead bodies. And the most disturbing thing is that the other ghosts are still fighting inside this abomination to take control and remember. The creature is a tough enemy that, in the beginning, attacks with multiple slaps. The Man can also disassemble and recompose somewhere else using the grotesque power of its sewed body. When angry, the Man will change slaps for deadly punches, and will attacks twice in a single turn. And if this was not enough, the Man or Many Limbs can also heal from damages. This ghost probably has one of the most disturbing appearances and backgrounds, creating an anxious battle where trying to make the ghosts inside its body to quickly remember is more important than attacking the enemy.
The Boiler Men
The Boiler Men is a disturbing amalgam of three ghosts melted together by ice, snow, and fire. But the three ghosts are not the only element composing the entity, since also a burning boiler got merged in the disturbing design. Human bodies and pieces of machinery mixed together in a twisted amalgam create a truly unique and disturbing ghost. One of the main enemies in the cold environment, the Boiler Men has a peculiar way of attacking. Each turn, one of the three ghosts will take control, bringing their behavior and special attacks into the fight. They are all very connected with fire, but with quite different sets of attacks, including AoE explosions, burning the target, or ejecting deadly steam from the holes around the train. The Boiler Men has a killing aesthetic, perfectly mixing and fitting the train theme with old cartoons and ghosts, creating a deadly abomination with the highest number of different behaviors.
Disclaimer: The images in the article are from the official Wyrd Games page, Nguyen artstation (https://thesnipster.artstation.com/albums/4544874) and pictures of my own manual.
Surreal and Creepy 