The Other OSR: Vast Grimm

The universe will not end with a bang, but a gnawing. A gnawing in your brain. A gnawing in the asteroid in which you make grimy, ramshackle home. A gnawing in the remnants of planets. A gnawing in the universe. A gnawing that will grow and grow until the parasites erupt. Erupt and unleash as Würms. Würms that will infect others and spread the gnawing. Würms that grow and grow and erupt from planets shattering them into pieces, to grow and grow and become the Grimm. There have been Würms and Grimm everywhere in the universe for centuries, where once they were only in one place. The Primordial Mausoleum of THEY. It was the Six, the Disciples of Fatuma, who following the prophecies put down in the Book of Fatuma, who made a pilgrimage to the Primordial Mausoleum of THEY and deployed the Power of Tributes to decrypt the Mystical Lock sealing the Mausoleum. It was then that the First Prophecy of Fatuma came to pass. They drew in the stale air of the Mausoleum, becoming one with the THEY and breathing out the parasites. The Six scattered, bringing the word and the infection of THEY to every corner of the ’verse. Almost seven centuries have passed and the survivors cling to life, looking out for any signs of THEY or hiding it inside them in the hope that it never erupt and spread… The Earth is gone. Shattered into large pieces. There are places and planets where the remnants of Mankind survive, squabbling over resources and power, fearing the parasitical infectious word of THEY, but not without hope. There are whispers over the Netwürk of a means to escape the end of this universe by entering another, one entirely free of THEY. The Scientifics call it the Gate of Infinite Stars. Yet time is running out. The First Prophecy of Fatuma came to pass and so has every other Prophecy of Fatuma since. Except the last Seven Torments. Will the last Seven Torments come to pass and allow the Würms and the Grimm to consume the ’verse and with it, the last of Mankind? Or will the lucky few find their way to the Gate of Infinite Stars and at last be free of the Würms and the Grimm in a better, brighter future? That is, of course, if everyone fleeing through the Gate of Infinite Stars is free of the gnawing…

Welcome to the dark, grim future of Vast Grimm. Published by Infinite Black, it is a pre-apocalypse Science Fiction roleplaying game compatible with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. Not only compatible in terms of mechanics, but also in tone and structure, with little more than a handful of prophecies standing in the way of the Player Characters’ continued survival in the face of uncaring, dying world, in this case, universe. Where it differs though, is offering that hope, that chance of finding the Gate of Infinite Stars and escaping one dread future for another better one. The last Seven Torments are not set in stone though. The Game Master rolls a die, the size collectively chosen by the whole, at the start of each day. If the result is a one, then a Torment comes to pass, randomly determined from the thirty-six given. They are all eschatologically grim, such as “And a pocket will form in the darkness of space. Anything that goes near will be swallowed by its emptiness, and in 11 days the empty will have wallowed no less than 7 planets.” or “Tears of blood will flow from all who have sired children. One hour wept for each seed that has sprouted and taken root.”

A Player Character in Vast Grimm is defined by four abilities—Agility, Presence, Strength, and Toughness. Of the four, Presence is the odd one out. It is not just used for Charisma checks, but also for perception checks, ranged attacks, and wielding Neuromancy. The four abilities range in value from -3 to +3, these being equal to ability modifiers found in Dungeons & Dragons and other retroclones. He will also have a Class of which Vast Grimm offers eight. Each provides equipment, arms and armour, ability modifiers, possible past life events and skills particular to that Class. The eight include the MAnchiNe, a twisted fusion of flesh and machine who fought in the trenches with the Legions; the Soul Survivor, a wretch driven to survive no matter what the cost; the Lost Techno Maniac, who would prefer to be studying the Tributes in order to fully understand Neuromancy; the Twisted Biochemist who has become infected with the Würms in the course of his attempt to find a cure for the infection, and who yet may find that or succumb to the Grimm and self-pity; the Treacherous Merc, a bastard who thinks only of himself and will use violence to prove it; the Emobot’s mechanical mind and body means it is immune to infection, but its soul means it is not immune to the loss of people it cares about to the Grimm; the Devout is a blindly faithful Disciple of Fatuma who works to do all he can to bring about the prophecies of THEY; and the Harvester literally harvests Würms from the bodies of the dead in return for handsome bounties. To create a character, a player rolls for his Abilities, selects a Class, rolls for the details of that Class, and then for his character’s Misspent Youth, Battle Scars, Irritating Idiosyncrasies, and Starting Equipment.

Kratar

Twisted Biochemist

Addicted to Science: Always top of the class, your peers and teachers hated you.

Misspent Youth: Distracted

Irritating Idiosyncrasies: StarDust junkie. If there’s dust around, it’s going into your oxygen tank.

Battle Scars: Missing middle fingers, flipped off the wrong person.

Agility +0 Presence +2 Strength -1 Toughness +1

Hit Points: 6

Armour: Thin grade Carbon Fiber (-d2 damage)

Weapon: Inoculation Dart Gun (range 20’, holds 8 doses)

Equipment: Portable nanotech/chemical laboratory, today’s creations (two doses of Nanite Dance Party and two doses of Ass Blastin), 50 credits

Favours: Two

Mechanically, Vast Grimm is simple. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls a twenty-sided die, modifies the result by one of his character’s Abilities, and attempts to beat a Difficulty Rating, typically twelve, but it can be higher or lower depending on the situation. Vast Grimm is also player-facing, meaning that the player always rolls whereas the Game Master does not. So, a player will roll for his character to hit in melee using his Strength and his Agility to avoid being hit. Armour is represented by a die value, from -d2 for light armour to -d6 for heavy armour, representing the amount of damage it stops. Medium and heavy armour each add a modifier to any Agility action by the character, including defending himself. This is pleasingly simple and offers a character some tactical choice—just when is it better to avoid taking the blows or avoid taking the damage?

Combat is potentially deadly. If a Player Character has his Hit Points reduced to zero, he is broken. As a result, he may be unconscious for a few rounds, lose a limb or eye and in the process also Ability points, haemorrhage and bleed to death, or possibly die! If his Hit Points are reduced to less than zero, he is definitely dead!

In addition, characters have access to Favours, of which a Player Character typically has one or two a day. They can be used to deal maximum damage on an attack, reroll any die—not just that player’s, lower the damage die rolled against a character, to neutralise a critical success or fumble, or to lower the Difficulty Rating on a test.

Instead of magic or the scrolls of Mörk Borg, what Vast Grimm gives are Tributes. These take advantage of the Neuromantic energy released at the same time as the Grimm when THEY opened the Primordial Mausoleum of THEY. This Neuromantic energy can be captured and stored on data chips called Tributes. They can be found on data chips or randomly downloaded from the Netwürk. A Tribute can be used by any Player Character. All it requires is a successful Presence Test and the expenditure of Neuromancy Points, which are derived from a Player Character’s Presence Ability. The effects are random, although some have been hacked so that work in a way that was not intended, such as “You’ve Been Spaced: One random creature within 30’ of the Tribute has the air around it sucked away for d6 rounds losing d4 damage each round.”, or still encrypted, clean and clear as intended as in, “Hive Mind Speak: To one of The Grimm, ask questions. For 3 rounds it will answer truthfully before the würm inside of them explodes.” Some twenty example Tributes are given. However, failure to activate a Tribute has its consequences. A simple failure results in the loss of Hit Points and dizziness for an hour. Worse are the results for a critical and a fumble result. Then the player has to roll on the Cataclysmic Condemnations table! (This is actually suggested as being optional, but where would be the fun in that?)

Exploring remains of the known universe, perhaps looking for the Gate of Infinite Stars, is fraught with danger. Vast Grimm both details six of these locations, whilst leaving plenty of space for the Game Master to create her own, like the ‘Waste Barges of Khallar’, the dumping ground for the universe’s trash where it builds and builds into mountains of filth and waste, protected by Shit King Saule’s rat-like army of trash people, and the Marauder’s Cryosfear, home to space raiders who have anchored their ships to the ice planet with multiple ships connected to form havens, and the threats that the Player Characters might face. The worst of these are the six parasitic Würms, which have a chance to infect anyone who comes in close contact with The Grimm. Each of the six—the Flesh Würm, the Blood Würm, the Brain Würm, the Heart Würm, the Gut Würm, and the Spinal Würm—is connected to one of the THEY and the Grimm god they each worship. Each parasite induces both pain and pleasure in the infected as it grows and grows, and has its own set of tables for the various effects, until at some point it gains total control over the character who their player must then give to the Game Master. A new character is then needed…

Other threats include random spaceships, rotten Earth Animal Mutations, Astro Zombies, Big Würms, and more, for a nasty selection of things that are almost, but not quite as bad as the Grimm. Oddly, the advice given in the back of Vast Grimm is more for the player than the Game Master, which probably would have been better placed towards the beginning of the book rather than after the entries for the monsters. The roleplaying game comes to a close with a beginning adventure, ‘DEATH aboard the CONUNDRUM: An Introductory Adventure for Vast Grimm’. The Netwürk is abuzz with rumours of an artefact, needed to operate the Gate of Infinite Stars, located aboard a spaceship, and it happens that the Player Characters are nearby. Unfortunately, so is a band of space raiders and then everyone is on their way to ransack the ship and take possession of the artefact. It is a solid ‘dungeon in space’ style adventure with lots of creeping about in the dark and dealing the people and other things already aboard… lastly, there are tables of adventure sparks, encounters, and so on, to spur the Game Master’s imagination.

Unfortunately, beyond randomly determining where the Gate of Infinite Stars might be located, Vast Grimm is short on advice for the Game Master and playing it beyond the single scenario included. Thus, there is no discussion of campaign or long-term play. In so far as the Player Characters will hopefully find the Gate of Infinite Stars and use it before the end of this universe. Then of course, what happens next... Even though it would have been useful, the experienced Game Master will probably have no issue with this, but the Game Master with less experience may struggle to develop a campaign around the nihilistically grim horror of Vast Grimm.

Physically, Vast Grimm shares a lot of its production values with Mörk Borg. Both embrace the Artpunk aesthetic with its use of vibrant, often neon colours and heavy typefaces. It looks amazing, a swirling riot of colour that wants to reach out and infect everything, but it has to be said, it is not always the easiest of books to read.

Vast Grimm could be seen as Mörk Borg in space and that would not be an unfair assessment. However, Vast Grimm scales up the eschatological horror of Mörk Borg’s pre-apocalypse to cosmic levels and scales it down to make it horribly, infectiously personal with the plague of the Würms contaminating and breeding within every aspect of the universe, including, possibly, probably, the Player Characters. Then it offers hope, an objective, in the form of the Gate of Infinite Stars, for the players and their characters to aim for, though sadly it does not develop this aspect of the setting. This objective, though, is just enough to balance out the dread—even ever so slightly—as a glimmer of comfort and hope, and that actually makes Vast Grimm not quite as, well, grim. Overall, Vast Grimm is a eschatologically nasty Science Fiction horror game made all the more enjoyable because there is hope.