Starfield: Shattered Space is all about House Va’Ruun – but who are they, really?

We’ve already encountered the Great Serpent’s religious fanatics in Starfield. But what do we actually know about House Va’Ruun?

The first major expansion of Starfield promises a lot: Shattered Space not only wants to expand the universe with a whole new story and many new locations, characters, weapons and more. It also wants to do some things quite differently than the main game. Instead of just randomly distributing outposts on the new planet, Bethesda has built a large area entirely by hand.

The add-on not only looks completely different from all the locations so far, but also lets you get to know a faction that was barely seen in the main game: House Va’ruun. Although there was a brief encounter with a member as part of a quest series, the religious group otherwise played little role.

To help you prepare for your journey back to their homeland, we will now explain everything you need to know about House Va’ruun.

What is House Va’ruun?

Va’ruun is a religious group named after its founder, Jinan Va’ruun. Its origins are shrouded in mystery, and the religion was founded nearly 140 years before the events of Starfield

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The Va’ruun believe in the Great Serpent, an ancient deity said to have created the Milky Way. The serpent has slept for millennia, but is said to awaken soon and devour the entire galaxy, except for its faithful followers. This resulted in a mission for the members of Va’ruun, as they wanted to convince other people of their faith and thus save them.

However, some interpreted the teachings of the snake more radically. According to them, the snake will only deign to devour the galaxy when all unbelievers have been destroyed. For this reason, Jinan Va’ruun began the great crusade of the snake, a war against the rest of humanity. This conflict only ended 23 years later with the death of the leader.

After the crusade, the members of Va’ruun largely lived in isolation. Jarek Va’ruun, the new leader, made peace with the other factions and even maintained an embassy in New Atlantis.

At the beginning of the events of Starfield, however, no one had heard from House Va’Ruun for a long time. The position of their home world Va’ruun’kai is unknown and the embassy has not been entered by anyone for years. Only a few violent fanatics terrorize the remote corners of the populated systems. We will probably learn what happened in Va’ruun’kai in the last few years in the add-on.

The history of House Va’ruun

On the official Starfield website, the developers have now published an overview of the history of House Va’ruun. We list the most important events for you:

Foundation

• 2190 – A missing ship
• 2191 – The first Va’Ruun
• 2193 – The founding of Dazra
• 2197 – Transformation of society
• 2200 – The Great Serpent
• 2207 – First Grav Experiments
• 2230 – First Contact
• 2240 – Start of the War
• 2263 – Death of Jinan Va’ruun

Isolation

• 2270 – Impending schism
• 2274 – Va’ruun zealots
• 2298 – Death of Jarek Va’ruun
• 2302 – Grav research continues
• 2330 – Shattered Space begins

We hope this has answered your most important questions about House Va’ruun. However, if you’re wondering whether the Great Serpent is real, we can’t give you a definitive answer – though there are some fan theories.

Among other things, there is speculation that the founder of House Va’ruun had contact with one of the artifacts that you find at the beginning of Starfield. Since these create a type of hallucination, he may have seen the Great Snake here.