[Fanzine Focus XLII] Tales from the Locker #1

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons,RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. A more recent Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game that fanzines are being based upon and inspired by is Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. However, there are far fewer fanzines for its swashbuckling cousin, Pirate Borg, published by Limithron and set in the zombie-infested, isolated Dark Caribbean.

Tales from the Locker #1 is published by SkeletonKey Games. Published in May, 2026, this describes itself as a “PIRATE BORG compatible anthology … a place where cursed maps, dangerous ideas, and half-buried legends are pulled from the depths and dropped straight into your campaign.” What it actually provides is three adventure locations, three new Classes, some new equipment, and an awful lot of prompts, all of which are undeniably useful and interesting, and which could be added to a Game Master’s Pirate Borg campaign. What strikes you first about this inaugural issue is the price. It does seem high for what is just a forty-page fanzine. The second thing that strikes you is that it is in full vibrant colour that veers from the cartoonish to the carnage and back again. This is a good looking affair that actually looks like a supplement for Pirate Borg and is actually better professionally produced than most fanzines. The quality is enough to warrant the price even if that does mean that Tales from the Locker #1 looks too good to be an actual fanzine.

At the heart of the issue is a quartet of adventure locations. This leads off with ‘Temple of the Spider God’ by Lars White. This describes a ziggurat deep in the jungle standing at the base of a dormant volcano, infested with deadly Jaguar spiders, the spawn of the Spider God, and Shepherds of the Spider God, cultists who maintain the webs that festoon the temple inside and out. It is bright and colourful, the ziggurat depicted side on as a cutaway. This a solidly done, if simple location, that is easy to drop into a jungle somewhere in the Game Master’s campaign. However, it is yet another ziggurat location and the Game Master will need to come with a reason why the Player Pirates might want to go there. This is because there are no hooks with which to get them involved.

The second location is Alexander Jatscha-Zelt’s ‘The Cartographer’s Den’. This details Nathaniel Pellwick and his home, a wealthy shop and town house in Port Royal as it was before it was struck by an earthquake. Pellwick has a reputation across the Dark Caribbean as a master cartographer, who buys, draws, and sells maps and charts of its islands and seas. His own maps are remarkably detailed and often depict secrets and routes unknown. This has earned him the patronage and protection of the good and the bad of the port. The Player Pirates can come to Pellwick as customers and develop into a recurring contact and resource who will in turn buy from them. The location details both Nathaniel Pellwick, who he is, what he wants, and what he is currently doing, his services, what he buys, and his house from the master bedroom and other rooms on the first floor to the cellars under the house. This could be simply enough, but the description includes a plot too. Pelliwick has let slip that he has come into possession of a unique chart, but despite enquiries of several interested parties, has so far refused to sell. Some of those parties are willing to go further and hire agents to steal the map. Alternatively, Pellwick suspects a burglary and hires extra protection. As to the chart itself, the details are left up to the Game Master to decide, but suggestions include ‘The Isle of 1000 Corpses’ which follows in the issue, as well as locations in Ravaged by Storms by Golem Productions, Down Among the Dead by Limithron, and These Bloody Sales by ThisEffinGM.

‘The Cartographer’s Den’ is the issue’s highlight. It gives a setting and options in terms of how the Game Master uses it. Its only limitation is when it is set, that is before the earthquake in Port Royal, but other than that, this is flexible and easy to use.

The third adventure location is ‘The Isle of 1000 Corpses’ by Philip Reed. This is the foulest and vilest of the trio—and intentionally so. Subtitled ‘A Shocking Tale of Dark Caribbean Carnage’, it describes an island of floating corpses and body parts, undead and flailing such that it swims randomly across the region. Complete with random rumours (oddly all true) and encounters, everything on the island is made of undead, rotting flesh and rattling bones. This includes a spire of corpses that form a lighthouse, a sea turtle sanctuary that has accidently been turned into a sanctuary of zombie sea turtles(!), and a rotting whale corpse home to sailor called Jonah. Also included is a trio of ‘meaty jetsam’, the corpse raft, corpse barge, and corpse cay, sea-going corpse vessels to add to the naval combat aspect of the roleplaying game. It is inventively grim and grungy and brings an element of the Grand Guignol to Pirate Borg. However, there are no hooks to get the Player Pirates to the island and the Game Master will need to develop them herself.

This is less of an issue for the fourth and final adventure location in Tales from the Locker #1. Julius ‘kin’ Karajos’ ‘Ash Fall’ opens with an Ash meteor crashing to the earth on a nearby island, which with the revelations as the nature of ASH—created from burnt zombies—has led to an ASH rush as pirates, cultists, and Spanish miners seek to capitalise on the bounty. By the time the Player Pirates turn up, the mining site has turned into a hellhole. The soldiers accompanying the Spanish miners have turned it into an armed camp, miners continue to descend into the crater where they scrape Ash from the weird stone meteor, all are in danger of catching the ASH disease which eventually turns sufferers into undead (which can then be burnt down into ASH), and the jungle seems to seethe and regularly and violently encroaches on the camp. The scenario has a weirder feel to it than most others for Pirate Borg, being infused with Cosmic Horror a la H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Colour Out of Space’.

The four adventure locations are followed by a trio of new Classes. The ‘Ironclad’ by Thomas Zitkevitz details a warrior swathed in armour salvaged from a lost conquistador and gain benefits from it such as carrying ‘Heavy Metal’ weapons that are double the size and inflict extra damage and ‘Deflect Shots’ with armour so shiny it can reflect bullets back at their firers! Christopher Samson’s ‘Occult Sailor Master’ whose navigational ability is supernatural indicated by the symbols on his body. These can be activated for spell-like effects, for both normal and maritime play. For example, Shoals warns of hidden danger, secrets, and hidden doors, whilst at sea, guides the ship through dangerous waters, negating potential travel penalties, whilst Jolly Roger can paralyse a foe with fear whilst in naval combat, makes it easier to have enemy crews surrender or mutiny! Lastly, the ‘Tusked Raider’ by Ed Bourelle is a feral hog twisted into an anthropomorphic creature renowned for its toughness. It can be a ‘Greased Pig’ less easy to be hit in the first round in combat, an ‘Indiscriminate Eater’ that heals more if it overeats, and ‘Pig Headed’ with a bonus to resist being controlled, influenced, or coerced where it was once cowed and preyed upon. All three Classes are simple and easy to add to a campaign and give a player lots more options, playing around with the horror and the Pulp tones of the setting.

Penultimately, Tyler J. Stratton’s ‘Quartermaster’s Corner’ presents Two-Tone Heller, a ready-to-play NPC that can be added to the crew of the Player Pirates’ ship. As his name suggests, his manner can flip depending upon the circumstances from jovial leader to harsh disciplinarian. The write-up suggests Gibs from Pirates of the Caribbean or Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket. It is followed by the tables, ‘D12 Problems Among The Crew’ and ‘D20 Crew Punishments’, which would support stories that involve Two-Tone Heller, but also be useful in a Pirate Borg campaign in general.

Tales from the Locker #1 starts and ends with tables. The Old School Renaissance has its ‘I loot the body’ or ‘dx Things to find on a corpse’ tables, and Pirate Borg has its equivalent, which is ‘d10 Messages in a Bottle /on a Corpse’. Written by Ed Bourelle, this has entries such as “I be marooned on a spit of sand no bigger than a whale’s back, with a pistol, two damp biscuits, and a singing skeleton. If mercy yet sails these waters, look for the carrion gulls that circle above me. I’ll share secrets better than gold.” and ones that link to the adventure locations given earlier in the fanzine, like, “Pellwick marked a reef that no man had seen, not even the oldest salt among us. We laughed until our hull split upon it at dawn, just where his ink had dried. He even charted the graves on the beach before we dug ’em. If ye meet the man, ask him what else he’s been drawin’.” These serve as good prompts, as does the ‘Plot Twists’ at the front of the issue, also by Ed Bourelle. These provide two set-ups and then three explanations for each, in a manner similar to the Patrons format of Traveller. For example, ‘In Port’ opens with the Player Pirates in a port when one of the ships anchored in the harbour lets lose an unexpected broadside on the harbour front or another vessel, potentially even the one aboard which the Player Pirates serve. The options for hook include Deep Ones shanghaiing the ship and testing the guns, vengeful ghosts settling a grudge with the ship’s guns, and the ship’s crew mutinying. These are solid ideas which the Game Master can easily develop with the addition of some stats and so on.

Physically, Tales from the Locker #1 is excellent. The artwork is good, the fanzine is well-written, and the cartography decent. This is a good-looking affair, but that gives it a slickness that some might argue that a fanzine should not have.

Tales from the Locker #1 is an impressive first issue. The only problem with it is the lack of hooks for several of the adventure locations, but other than that, the content is all easy to use or add to a campaign. The star of the issue is ‘The Cartographer’s Den’, but no Pirate Borg Game Master will be disappointed by the content in Tales from the Locker #1.

The Other OSR: The Cavern of Cursed Tears

The Cavern of Cursed Tears is a low preparation, pick-up-and-play scenario for Pirate Borg, the self-described, “Worst Pirate RPG Ever Made™!” Published by Limithron, it is an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game is set in the Dark Caribbean, a sea of tropical islands marked with European towns and fortresses and ruins of civilisations long gone, of shipwrecks with rich cargoes and even richer treasures, and of the Scourge. The Scourge made the dead walk once again, ghosts return to haunt the living, and monsters lurk ready to the foothold that the Europeans have established in the region. The governors and the viceroys, representatives of kings and queens, have forced to adapt and rule with no contact from home following the Scourge and even take advantage of the situation, especially since the discovery of the abilities and addictive nature of ASH, the ash of the burned and ground undead. Some seek to make money from the trade in ASH and some seek to control it, whilst others seek to repress it. This is another cause of the conflict in the Dark Caribbean. Pirate Borg casts the players as members of a crew who will sail the ASH-tinged waters the Dark Caribbean, raiding and smuggling, carousing and drinking, adventuring and exploring. Pirate Borg is based upon Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and also published by Free League Publishing.

The Cavern of Cursed Tears is said to be the last resting pace of the treasures of not one, but two pirate captains who happened to be in love with each other. The Cavern of Cursed Tears is rumoured to be of interest to both the British Royal Society and the Inquisition. The Cavern of Cursed Tears is said by many pirates to be cursed, but that will not stop Sir Barrington from looking for a crew to sail him to the island where it is located and then lead an expedition into its depths. These are just some of the rumours that can be discovered about the Cavern of Cursed Tears and certainly, the Game Master could create more. The rumours are the reason to get the Player Characters and their expedition to the mouth of the sinkhole that drops away into the dark. Below there are caverns filled with bones, caverns filled with bats, a cenote and a water maze, and much more that the Player Characters need to traverse before they get anywhere near its secrets.

The Cavern of Cursed Tears is straightforward and linear, there are good reasons for this, both in game and out of game. In game, this is a limited network of caves, but split over two levels. The lower level is mostly underwater and there is a great sense of verticality throughout. The Player Characters will need to do a lot of climbing and jumping to clamber from one cavern to the next, whilst below, any Player Character who can swim well and/or hold his breath will be at an advantage. In addition, the Antiquarian and Deep One Classes from the Down Among the Dead supplement for Pirate Borg are also appropriate, whilst any Player Character with a musical ability will be very useful. Out of game, The Cavern of Cursed Tears is straightforward and linear because it is presented in a trifold format with the whole of the cave network presented on the inside three pages, running from left to right as a side view cutaway, rather than as a more traditional top down map. This allows the descriptions of the upper parts of the cave network to be placed above the side-on view of the caves, with the descriptions of lower parts placed under the side-on view. This is a fantastic layout and as the Player Characters progress through the caves, the attention and eye of the Game Master is pulled across the inner of the trifold, and into the depths of both the cave network and its secrets.

There are elements of the supernatural in the upper two, sandwiched layers of the Cavern of Cursed Tears, notably Chonchonchon, Lord of the Grotto, a necrotic crocodile, but they come to the fore at the end of the cave network, below the upper sections. Here there is a lake and classic Mesoamerican step-pyramid with its own secrets to discover and treasures to plunder. There are some fantastic moments here, such as a shaft lined with dozens of skull-shaped stones, each with a glyph on their foreheads. The glyphs can be played as a tune and when that happens, five thousand glowing skulls appear, and chanting, form stairs leading down… This has a fantastic sense of pulp action a la the Indiana Jones films–and it is not the only one in the scenario. Plus, of course, there is something nasty protecting protecting the secrets of the Cavern of Cursed Tears. The stats for the cast and bestiary of the scenario are given on the back of the trifold and here and there, there are extra notes for the Game Master.

Physically, The Cavern of Cursed Tears is very nicely presented. It is clear and very easy to read and the trifold format is used highly effectively. The map, or rather the sideview of the caves, is well done, as is the step-pyramid below.

The Cavern of Cursed Tears will probably take a session or two to explore. It has a strong emphasis physical exploration with hints of the supernatural that manifest more fully at the end of the scenario. Self-contained, it could be run as a convention or demonstration scenario, but the Game Master might want to cut out the middle section of the cave network to ensure that her Player Characters reach the end. Otherwise, The Cavern of Cursed Tears is very easy to add to a Pirate Borg campaign. It has secrets, it has treasures, and both of those will attract all sorts. The Cavern of Cursed Tears is an entertaining mini-dungeon done the Pirate Borg way.

Your Pirate Borg Starter

The Pirate Borg Starter Set is the introduction to the self-described, “Worst Pirate RPG Ever Made™!” that is Pirate Borg. This Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game is set in the Dark Caribbean, a sea of tropical islands marked with European towns and fortresses and ruins of civilisations long gone, of shipwrecks with rich cargoes and even richer treasures, and of the Scourge. The Scourge made the dead walk once again, ghosts return to haunt the living, and monsters lurk ready to smash the foothold that the Europeans have established in the region. The governors and the viceroys, representatives of kings and queens, have forced to adapt and rule with no contact from home following the Scourge and even take advantage of the situation, especially since the discovery of the abilities and addictive nature of ASH, the ash of the burned and ground undead. Some seek to make money from the trade in ASH and some seek to control it, whilst others seek to repress it. This is another cause of the conflict in the Dark Caribbean. Pirate Borg casts the players as members of a crew who will sail the ASH-tinged waters the Dark Caribbean, raiding and smuggling, carousing and drinking, adventuring and exploring, and the Pirate Borg Starter Set comes with everything necessary for a group of two to seven players to enjoy a mini-campaign set within the Dark Caribbean.

The Pirate Borg Starter Set is a packed box. It contains a sixty-page ‘Player’s Guidebook’, the sixty-page ‘Trapped in the Tropics: A Pirate Borg Adventure’, six Player Character Creation Worksheets, a pad of twenty-five character sheets, ten poster maps, and a set of twelve dice. It also includes a set of twenty-two reference cards for general play and the scenario, tokens for use with the maps, and two Dry/Erase pens for use with the Player Character Creation Worksheets. The inclusion of the latter points to an absence of pre-generated Player Characters that would normally be expected to be found in a roleplaying game starter set. Instead, players have to create their characters to play through the ‘Trapped in the Tropics: A Pirate Borg Adventure’. This points to the fragility of characters in Pirate Borg because players may have to replace them as the Dark Caribbean is a sea whose waters are deadly. It also provides a player with the full Pirate Borg experience, and of course, the Player Character Creation Worksheets make that process easier and faster.

The ‘Player’s Guidebook’ is very much a cut down version of the full Pirate Borg rulebook, even down to having the same page numbers. This is intentional because it makes reference to the Pirate Borg rulebook easier. Inside the front page there is a replication of the Player Character Creation Worksheet, but beyond that there is an explanation of how to create characters, the rules, the roleplaying game’s six base Classes, plus the two optional Classes. A Player Character is is defined by his Abilities, Class, gear, and Devil’s Luck. The five Abilities are Strength, Agility, Presence, Toughness, and Spirit, each rated between ‘-3’ and ‘+3’. There are six Classes and two optional Classes. Each provides adjustments to Abilities, basic Hit Points, and starting Devil’s Luck. The Brute is a raging melee fighter who gets a trusted weapon like a ‘Brass Anchor’ or ‘Rotten Cargo Net’ and when he gets better, he might gain a ‘Boomstick’ or ‘Grog Breath’, the latter enabling him to belch in the face of an enemy and stun him! The Rapscallion is a sneaky, cutthroat scallywag, which as a Class requires an ordinary deck of playing cards to play. The Rapscallion starts with a single speciality such as ‘Burglar’ or ‘Sneaky Bastard’, and gain more or even double up on already possessed specialities. He can also drink Grog to heal himself. The Buccaneer is a sharpshooter and treasure hunter, and is also a skilled tracker. The Swashbuckler is a brash fighter, who might also be an ‘Ostentatious Fencer’ or ‘Inspiring Leader’, and when he gets better, he could be the ‘Shakespeare of Insults’ or a ‘Calculating Cutthroat’, the former adding damage to attacks with his wounding taunts, the latter letting the player achieve critical hits on a natural roll of nineteen as well as twenty. The Zealot has prayers like Heal, Curse, and Holy Protection, which are learned randomly and can be cast several times a day without the need to make a roll or a test. The Sorcerer draws power from supernatural spirits and ghosts to cast spells like Spiritual Possession, Clairvoyance, and Raise the Dead, not whilst near cold iron or holding metal.

The Haunted Soul is either a ghost, conduit for restless spirits, has an eldritch mind, is a zombie, suffers from vampirism, or is a skeleton. Each provides a benefit and a penalty. For example, restless spirits constantly communicate with the conduit to grant a random Arcane Ritual which can be cast without a Spirit test, but must be cast before dawn the next day or conduit suffers damage. The Tall Tale can be one of the Merfolk, an aquatic mutant like a crab or The Great Old One, or a sentient animal such as a ‘Foul Fowl’ or a ‘Clever Monkey’. Although both the Haunted Soul and the Tall Tale are given as optional Classes, they are not really Classes, but closer to a Race or a Species as in other Old School Renaissance roleplaying games. This is because not only do they not get any better with experience, but the player also then rolls for an additional ability out of the standard six. Their inclusion, though, is unbalancing, granting a Player Character extra abilities that other Player Characters without either the Haunted Soul or Tall Tale options simply does not have the equivalent of. Further, the six core Classes not balanced either, especially when it comes to their progression. Several of the Classes like the Rapscallion or Buccaneer have multiple specialities or features that can be taken twice, whereas the Brute and the Swashbuckler do not. Of course, there is no need for the Classes to be equally balanced, but some rough equivalency would not have gone amiss.

To create a character, a player rolls for his Abilities, Class, gear, and Devil’s Luck. Gear includes weapon, clothing, and a hat. Optional tables provide for backgrounds, distinctive flaws, physical trademarks, idiosyncrasies, unfortunate incidents and conditions, and thing of importance. Of these which a group might want to avoid is rolling for Class since it avoids too many of the same Class serving in a ship’s crew.

Mechanically Pirate Borg is based upon Mörk Borg—hence the name—the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and also published by Free League Publishing. A player rolls a twenty-sided die, modifies the result by one of his character’s abilities, and attempts to beat a Difficulty Rating of twelve. The Difficulty Rating may go up or down depending on the situation, but whatever the situation, the player always rolls, even in combat or as both Mörk Borg and Pirate Borg terms it, violence. 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? Armour can also be damaged, due to a Fumble when defending, reducing its protective effectiveness, and a critical hit in combat inflicts double damage or allows another attack. A Player Characters whose Hit Points are reduced to below zero is dead, but at zero, is broken and can recover.

Every Player Character also has the Devil’s Luck. Each Class receives a different amount of this, but all can spent to inflict maximum damage on a single attack, reroll any die, lower the Difficulty rating of a Test, neutralise a Critical or a Fumble, and to lower damage suffered by a random amount.

A Player Character may also have access to Arcane Rituals, such as Dark Delusions, which creates illusions in the minds that can see the caster; Phantasmal Fauna, which summons a ghostly hound or shark until sunset; and Thalassomancy, which fill the lungs of targets with sea water, causing them to suffocate. There are some truly nasty Arcane Rituals in this list. For example, The Black Spot which literally marks the target for death or Release the Kraken, which summons one of these great creatures in the nearby sea. If a Player Character fails to cast an Arcane Ritual, then a roll may be made on Pirate Borg’s Mystical Mishaps table. Other forms of magic in Pirate Borg include a quick and dirty pair of tables for handling alchemy and a list of Ancient Relics, such as the Conch Shell of the Abyss, which enables the wielder to ask a corpse one question or Mermaid Scales that when eaten grant the ability to breath underwater for a few hours.

Pirate Borg being a pirate roleplaying game, the one thing that it definitely needs is rules for ships and nautical combat. A vessel is defined by its Hit Points, Hull, Speed, Skill, Broadsides, Small Arms, Ram, Crew, and Cargo. Hit Points includes its condition and the health and morale of the crew; Hull, its armour; Skill the skill and training of the crew; Broadsides, the damage inflicted by a vessel’s main cannons; Small Arms the damage done by swivel guns and muskets; Ram, damage done in a ram action; and Crew, the minimum and maximum number of crew the ship can carry. Combat is conducted in thirty second rounds, and in that time, the captain moves the ship, the Player Characters take an action, and the Crew can take actions such as ‘Fire Broadsides’, ‘Full Sail’, ‘Boarding Party’, and more. Speciality Crew includes Legendary Captains, Strict Bosun, Deck Sorcerer or Priest, and so on. The rules cover crew skill, morale, cargo, repairs, and optionally—surprisingly, weather! An earlier section gives a list of sea shanties that the crew can perform each day, which might be to raise the crew’s morale or put out all the fires on a ship! Stats for the various ships are given on the Reference Cards included in the box.

What the ‘Player’s Guidebook’ does lack—and understandably so—is a bestiary and such things as tables for generating random encounters. What it does include is summaries of the rules, including those for naval combat, for ease of play.  Overall, the ‘Player’s Guidebook’ is attractive and functional, providing only the absolutely necessary details that a player is going to need.

For the Game Master there is ‘Trapped in the Tropics: A Pirate Borg Adventure’, which promises British Redcoats, rival pirates, booby traps, hordes of zombies, and cursed relics. It is specifically designed to teach the Game Master and her players the rules and how the game is played. So, there is more advice here for the Game Master than might be found in another scenario, but as a scenario in a starter set, it makes sense. It tells the Game Master how to prepare for the first session, gives her notes for tone, stye, and inspiration, of which there is lots (and pleasingly, is not afraid to suggest looking at other piratical games, especially wargaming rules), and suggests a way in which the adventure can be run as a one-shot. There is advice on running different aspects of the rules and a handy list of the tenets for both the Game Master and the player. The scenario is designed to be played using the included maps and tokens.

The scenario begins en media res and essentially in the same fashion as Pirates of the Caribbean! The Player Characters and their vessel have been hired by the Spanish Inquisition to locate a shipwreck on Eel Island. As the Player Characters emerge from the jungle, they find themselves on the beach, betrayed by a crewmember, attacked by Red Coast. Then zombies! It is an exciting start and the cues from Pirates of the Caribbean continue with the exploration of the island and the discovery of the target ship—hanging almost upside down deep into the jungle. Then on to a neighbouring island which is close by. One interesting aspect of the scenario is that in introducing both Pirate Borg and its setting of the Dark Caribbean, it also introduces the concept of ASH, how it is made, and how it is consumed. It is a fairly grim process and the scenario does suggest alternatives if the gaming group is unhappy with the concept. On Scrub Island the Player Characters can acquire a ship, and armed with a major clue they should have been able to acquire, set sail properly! This gives them a bit more freedom of action and opens up the play style a bit, first enabling the players and their character to experience some naval combat and explore Gibbet Town, a British port on a neighbouring island. The scenario will culminate in a disaster and a delve deep under an island in search of treasure leading to a confrontation with its guardians.

The scenario is well designed and written, taking the Game Master and her players hand-in-hand through the different aspects of Pirate Borg’s play. There is good advice throughout on the different aspects of the rules and the scenario, plus useful discussion of what to do next once the Player Characters have completed the adventure. The scenario is also entertaining and fun, both for the Game Master and her players, the former being giving a pair of intriguing NPCs to portray.

The ten poster maps show a mixture of maps and artwork. There are maps of the various islands and Gibbet Town, deck plans, and an illustration of the hanging ship in the jungle. There is also a plain sea map for use with the naval combat rules and one of the whole Dark Caribbean and even a double-sided treasure map that the Game Master is expected to tear in half! The tokens include ships for naval combat, NPCs and monsters, and one for each of the Classes in Pirate Borg. There are even tokens for the chicken, crocodile, and parrot companions (and there are other animals on the other side) that the Player Characters could have! There are even tokens to represent the approximate time of day. All together, the tokens are simply useful and their inclusion is well thought out.

Physically, the Pirate Borg Starter Set is fantastic. Both the ‘Player’s Guidebook’ and the ‘Trapped in the Tropics: A Pirate Borg Adventure’ books are sturdy and colourful, and the maps, along with the tokens, are going to look great on the table. Both books are both very well written, the scenario in particular being full of little extra details such as suggestions how to portray the major NPCs by referencing various films. Lastly, both inside of the lid and the inside of the base box have tables on them to help the Game Master run the game. There is even the detail of the embossed lid that gives  the Pirate Borg Starter Set a pleasingly tactile feel.

Like any good starter set, the Pirate Borg Starter Set can be used as more than an introduction to the setting of Pirate Borg. An experienced group can still play ‘Trapped in the Tropics: A Pirate Borg Adventure’ and beyond the adventure, the other content in the Pirate Borg Starter Set can be used as part of an ongoing campaign. The ‘Player’s Guidebook’ as a rule reference guide, several of the maps can be reused as can the Reference Cards, and the Player Character Creation Worksheets can be used over and over. Plus there are the dice…

The Pirate Borg Starter Set is an impressive box, offering a combination of simple, but highly thematic rules and an engaging, entertaining scenario, all supported by some useful play aids that will extend its usefulness beyond the completion of the scenario. Which all together is a great introduction to Pirate Borg. If other publishers within the Old School Renaissance were thinking of producing a starter set, the Pirate Borg Starter Set has just set the standard by which they will all be judged.

The Other OSR: Buried in the Bahamas

The skies darken as the storm clouds gather and the winds begin to whirl. The Tarrantula is caught in a hurricane and as her pirate crew tries to ride out the worst of the storm, up and down the swells as tall as her masts, a wicked galleon bears down upon her. A ship with hull of bones and torn black sails, flames roaring from the eyes of the skulls mounted on her aft, and then there is her crew. Black skeletons. They leap upon the crew of The Tarrantula and as battle swirls across her deck, one of the crew screams out, “Land!”. This is the beginning of Buried in the Bahamas: An Introductory Adventure for Pirate Borg. Specifically, it is designed to serve as an introductory adventure for not just for the players, but also the Game Master, one that can be run as the beginning of an ongoing campaign or as one-shot scenario that can be shortened to run as a one-shot, suitable for convention play. It begins with a linear introduction that will introduce the players and their characters to the setting and the rules—including how combat and the Devil’s Luck work—before throwing ashore and into a situation where they have more freedom of action. With this agency, they can sail the seas of the Dark Caribbean, fight zombies and sharks, and go in search of treasure!

Buried in the Bahamas: An Introductory Adventure for Pirate Borg is published by Limithron. As an adventure for Pirate Borg, it takes place in the Dark Caribbean, a sea of tropical islands marked with European towns and fortresses and ruins of civilisations long gone, of shipwrecks with rich cargoes and even richer treasures, and of the Scourge. The Scourge made the dead walk once again, ghosts return to haunt the living, and monsters lurk ready to smash the foothold that the Europeans have established in the region. The governors and the viceroys, representatives of kings and queens, have forced to adapt and rule with no contact from home following the Scourge and even take advantage of the situation, especially since the discovery of abilities and addictive nature of ASH, the ash of the burned and ground undead.

Buried in the Bahamas: An Introductory Adventure for Pirate Borg is based upon Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and also published by Free League Publishing. As an introductory scenario, it presents the Game Master and her players with a simple set-up and outlines the step-by-step process that will take everyone from an introduction to Pirate Borg and the Dark Caribbean through character creation and into the game and the scenario. This is intentionally tight at the beginning, with a battle scene that begins en media res and so throws them into the action, enables the players to establish their characters and get used to the rules, but as the scenario progresses, it opens up and the players and their characters have greater freedom of action.

The layout of Buried in the Bahamas is also designed with this in mind. The initial battle scene is all presented on a double page spread, including its set-up, guidance for the Game Master, what the players and their characters have to do, and the monsters and NPCs detailed the margins. The next scene is laid out in similar fashion, but presents more options in terms of what the Player Characters can do on the island they have been shipwrecked on. The island is tiny, but there is still room to explore and direct the other survivors, whether that is to build shelter or a raft to get off the island. What will drive the Player Characters to leave the island is not just survival, but the treasure map they were handed by the late captain of The Tarantula.

It is possession of this treasure map that will drive the second half of the scenario, pushing the Player Characters to sail to the other two islands nearby where the entrance to the cave where the treasure is hidden may be found. These islands are larger and far more detailed, enabling the Player Characters to spend time in a shanty town, dive on a wreck, and explore zombie-infested ruins. Ultimately, the Player Characters will discover the entrance to the Cave of Seven Skulls where the treasure has been hidden. The cave leads to a tomb complex, one that the Player Characters will have an advantage in exploring if their backgrounds are academic, archaeological, or linguistic in nature, but even so, this is a potentially deadly complex, but the rewards are high in terms of both coin and magic.

The Game Master can run Buried in the Bahamas as written and it will provide multiple sessions’ worth of play and potentially, lead into a longer campaign. Alternatively, the middle section of the scenario, where the Player Characters explore the larger of three islands in the scenario as a mini-hexcrawl, can be cut and the scenario run in fewer sessions, or even a single session. Throughout the scenario, there is advice for the Game Master and references to the core rules for Pirate Borg. The advice for the Game Master is stronger at the start of the scenario and that is appropriate, since this start is designed to ease both her and her players and their characters into the setting and the game.

Physically, Buried in the Bahamas is very well laid out. Almost everything is clearly presented and easy to read. The thing that is not, is the actual advice for the Game Master as it is given in a pale grey text on a white background making it difficult to read. Otherwise, the maps for the scenario are all nicely done and the artwork is reasonable.

Experienced players will enjoy it and get into its set-up and play faster, but Buried in the Bahamas: An Introductory Adventure for Pirate Borg is a really good beginning scenario for Pirate Borg. It is not only flexible in how it is used, but it effectively helps the Game Master guide her players into the world of the Dark Caribbean and the play of Pirate Borg.

Miskatonic Monday #374: Plus Ultra

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: Plus Ultra

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michał Pietrzak

Setting: Hispaniola, 1665

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twelve page, 499.59 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Zombies of the Caribbean

Plot Hook: “This town (Town)

Is coming like a ghost town”

– ‘Ghost Town’, The Specials

Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, five NPCs, and some zombies

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Unwinnable war against a warlock can turn into a time chase

# Decent pre-generated Investigators

# Kinemortophobia

# Necrophobia

# Chronophobia

Cons

# Unwinnable war against a warlock can turn into a time chase

Conclusion

# An experience in horror before the Investigators have the chance to put the knife in

# Can be the end of the world if the Investigators do not get the hint

The Putney Pirate

When you are called into to investigate a violent assault at an address in Putney, Southwest London, it sounds like any other day on the job in Putney, let alone London. When it turns out that that the assailant is described by an eyewitness as looking like, “… [S]omething straight out of one of those pirate films.”, then you know this is no ordinary case. It is, instead, a case for The Folly. Or rather, the ‘Special Assessment Unit’ of London Metropolitan Police Service, which in particular deals with magic and the Demi-Monde, and under the command of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, registered practitioner of Newtonian magic, is increasing the number of its operational staff as crimes involving magic also rise. Which includes the Player Characters, who are then assigned to investigate the affray at the house in Kingsmere Close. Whilst the victims of the assault are not saying much, it quickly becomes clear that they are up to no good, as they have turned the house into a cannabis farm and are not the actual owners of the house. Further, once an Initial Vestigium Assessment has been conducted, it confirms that magic was used in the assault, and that very definitely means that this is a case for the Folly. So where is the owner of the house? Who is the man dressed like a pirate, quite likely an unlicensed practitioner of magic, and why did he attack the operators of a cannabis farm in a quiet corner of Southwest London? All pressing questions in Jimmy’s Last Dance: A Swashbuckling Case File of Family Intrigue.

Jimmy’s Last Dance: A Swashbuckling Case File of Family Intrigue is an investigation and case file for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game, based on the Rivers of London novels by Ben Aaronovitch. Published by Chaosium, Inc., this is a lengthier case file than previous releases for the roleplaying game, one that will probably take two or so sessions to play through. Or it can be added to campaign, perhaps run after ‘The Bookshop’ from the core rulebook or the case files, Going Underground – A Case File for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game and The Font of All Evil: Murder and Mayhem Besides the Thames. One issue perhaps with the scenario is that it set in a specific year and that it involves a political scandal that was at its height at the time. The year is 2016 and the scandal is The Windrush Scandal. Of course, the authors advise the Game Master to handle the issue with care and it is certainly not a problem that The Windrush Scandal is part of the scenario—in fact, it is actually woven into the plot of the case file—but rather that the timeframe is quite specific and thus difficult to shift the case file to another year.

There are multiple plot strands to the investigation, ones that will lead the Player Characters to a criminal gang, a solicitor with less than ethical standards, a rotten son-in-law and a bare-suspecting daughter, and an old lady with interesting secrets of her own. Then ultimately to the ‘pirate’ who attacked the cannabis farm and who has his own agenda throughout the scenario. Sometimes that and his movements will intersect with those of the Player Characters and their investigation. Although they can return to the Folly to conduct research, most of the investigation is confined to the borough of Putney itself and involves lots of Police dogwork—interviews, surveillance, and so on. Over the course of the investigation, the Player Characters will be conducting multiple interviews, all of which nicely presented to help the Game Master answer their questions and portray the various NPCs. In addition, there are some decent handouts that the Player Characters will be able to find through various research avenues.

There is good advice for the Game Master throughout the scenario. This starts with suggested Player Character types and roles, how to portray a pirate without sounding like Robert Newton, and continues with notes from both Peter Grant and Ben Aaronovitch. It is recommended that at least one Player Character be a police officer or detective and that one be a Newtonian apprentice or hedge wizard. Suggestions are given too, if the players want to roleplay pre-generated characters from the core rulebook. The oddest advice is on various pieces of British vernacular, such as the meaning of the term ‘old bag’ when used as a pejorative to describe a woman, old or not. Whilst a British audience will find this amusing, for a non-British Game Master, it explains the vernacular and gives alternatives where necessary. This gives her the choice of enforcing the verisimilitude with the given terms or using less pejorative ones. The structure of the scenario is nicely supported with both a relationship map and a plot progression chart, to help the Game Master keep track of the investigation and more importantly, the location of the ‘pirate’.

Physically, Jimmy’s Last Dance: A Swashbuckling Case File of Family Intrigue is clean, tidy, and easy to use. The maps and plot progression diagram are easy to use, the advice is good throughout, and the portraits of the various NPCs are excellent.

Jimmy’s Last Dance: A Swashbuckling Case File of Family Intrigue is a richly detailed investigation that combines parochially British charm and menace, backed up with good advice for the Game Master—and if things go right, a cozy ending.

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Chaosium, Inc. will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

Screams on Screen

They say that if you want to make it big in Hollywood, you are going to have to sell your soul. Not necessarily the devil, but to some studio executive for certain. Life is hard trying to make it big in Tinseltown, but that does not stop a whole lot of people trying—and when they get there, from working just as hard to stay on top, or as close as they can get. Fame and fortune, and your name up in lights on the marquee at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard beckon if you work hard enough, have got the talent, and get lucky. Right now, you got some of that and more—a contract. A contract with Starfall Studios, where, “The Brightest Stars are brought down to earth, just for you!”. In truth, you are a B-List actor, perhaps on the way up, perhaps on the way down, and also in truth, Starfall Studios has not had a hit in years. However, you know you can change that, because you know you are good and with the new management and the new funding, this could be your chance to get noticed. If not make a big hit, then big enough to maybe get an award nomination, get picked up by a bigger studio, and get put in bigger pictures.

This is the set-up for SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, a cinema-themed campaign for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown, the horror roleplaying game published by Parable Games. In the campaign, the players take on the roles of actors working for a small film studio in Hollywood, trying to make some blockbusters and get noticed. It has five scripts, each bound to be a surefire hit in which the actors get to prove how good—or bad—they are and make Hollywood sit up and take notice! Effectively, each player is roleplaying an actor who is playing a role in five different films, so five times—and slightly more—the roleplaying as in any other campaign or roleplaying game, unless they always play the same role and play it to the camera. Then, the best thing of all, a roleplaying game like Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown and thus SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, has got a budget bigger than any Hollywood studio. So, it can make any film and it will never blow the budget!

Actor creation in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream works like that in Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. First, a player selects an Archetype, a Background, and a Fear. Then for SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, he selects a Starring Role. This can be ‘The Leading Hero’, ‘The Stunt Performer’, ‘The Thespian’, ‘The Heartthrob’, ‘The Love Interest’, ‘The Comic Relief’, ‘The Method’, and more. Each Starring Role has a Star Power and Audience Expectation. The Star Power is a unique ability that the Actor can perform once per quarter of the Doom Clock, whilst the Audience Expectation is something that if done on screen will gain the Actor the favour of both the audience and the Director, and so boost his career. So, for ‘The Love Interest’, the Star Power is a ‘A Healing Heart’ that enables the Actor to make a Heart Check and regain Hit Points if they perform a romantic scene, whilst the Audience Expectation ‘Break Heart/Bow Minds’ in which the Actor wants the audience’s favour to fall in love with them and so will make romantic confessions, and have moments of passion or tear-jerking moments to get the audience to love them.

Depending upon how well an Actor performed, he or she can receive an Accolade or a Review. Both are awarded by the Director. Engage in both Star Power and Audience Expectation and an Actor will earn an Accolade, but if not, he or she may be in line for a Bad Review. Accolades include the ‘Performance Award’, ‘Hall of Fame’, ‘Rabid Fanbase’, ‘Top Billing’, and so on, whilst Bad Reviews include ‘Hamming It Up’, ‘Worst Actor Ever’, and ‘Boring Performance’. Accolades provide a minor benefit, whilst Bad Reviews act as minor disadvantage. For example, ‘Performance Award’ gives the Actor a piece of armour to use in the next film, but once used, it is gone, whilst ‘Looking Fit’ grants Advantage on acts of athleticism. The Bad Review, ‘Diva Reputation’ means that if the Actor fails a Check that would advance the Doom Clock, if they also fail a Strange Check, they suffer Soul damage.

It is possible for a player to change his Actor’s Starring Role and the book suggests that if multiple players want their Actor to take a particular Starring Role, then they should audition! However, the awarding of Accolades and Bad Reviews is the purview of the Director and can be subjective. The problem is that they are effectively grading a player’s roleplaying skill and performance—good, bad, or indifferent—and that is not natural to roleplaying as a hobby. The advice on the matter is cursory, but nevertheless, this is a fun mechanic and enforces the film studio and life in pictures set-up of SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream. What the Director might want to do perhaps is encourage the input of the players in deciding the Accolades and Bad Reviews, possibly forming an association of Hollywood critics and roleplaying its members too to expand the roles that the players take?

Once set up, SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream presents five very different ‘scripts’ or scenarios. Each is very nicely formatted, including a set-up, a Classification Board, details of what the Director knows, enemies, weapons, and items, the epilogue, and the Doom Events. The Doom Events are the four events per scenario that can be triggered over the course of the script, whilst the Classification Board categorises the scenario. Actually the ‘SHIVER Board of Classification’, for each scenario it lists the length of play time, number of players required, Subgenre, Film Age Rating, Content Warning, Recommended Ability Level, and Watchlist. The latter includes the archetypal films that the script references and that the Director should watch for inspiration. Every film lists the roles required as well.

All five adventures in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream can be played through in a single session, or two at the most. The first is ‘A Little Adventure’, which is inspired by Honey I Shrunk the Kids and The Incredible Shrinking Man and finds a family visiting Grandpa for the weekend only to find him missing and themselves suddenly shrunk into a big world where they must battle toys, pets, and insects from doll’s house across the garden to find a way to get back to the right scale. ‘Crossbones’ Treasure’ is inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean and The Goonies, and is a classic pirate tale that has the cast race across the Caribbean in search of pirate treasure and facing ghosts, undead, and a giant crab. The third scenario is ‘Intergalactic Planetary Temple of Terror’ is a Science Fiction film which is in parts Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars, and Flash Gordon. The Player Characters are galactic criminals who escape space prison and are chased by their robot masters known as the Authority all the way to an ice planet where they will be faced by a dilemma whose outcome will affect the universe! A combination of Lord of the Rings, Legend, and Clash of the Titans*, ‘Medieval Dead’ is a fantasy romp in which the Player Characters are would be heroes, apprentice members of the Adventurer’s Guild, who are forced to suddenly graduate to actual, proper heroes when at the annual Merry Heroism Festival, an army of skeletons and a skeletal dragon, led by the Necromancer kills them all. Plus, he also kidnaps the princess. So not only a revenge mission, but a rescue one too which pokes a little fun at Dungeons & Dragons too, all the way to Mount Gloom. The last scenario is ‘Deep Red Sea’ which is inspired by the Indiana Jones series of films, Jaws, and Atlantis: The Lost City. What starts as a shark hunt to improve the tourism of a Pacific coast town in 1941 turns into a confrontation with a big sea monster and an evil cult from under the sea!

* Hopefully the original and not the dire 2010 remake.

Now all five of the scenarios in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream are linear. This is to be expected, as after all, they are meant to be films being shot by a film studio. They could also be extracted from the book and run as one-shots, but that would be to ignore the meta-level written into the campaign, that is, the fact that the Player Characters are Actors. Where the players get to roleplay Actors in five different films over the course of SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, in between, they get to play the Actors themselves. Between each film there is an interlude. Starfall Studio is running a very busy schedule, so the Actors will have little time between wrapping up shooting on one picture and shooting the next, so will be confined to the Star Trailer Park. In the first interlude, between ‘A Little Adventure’ and ‘Crossbones’ Treasure’, the players get to introduce their Actors and what their Starring Role is and each is visited by their Agent for the dreaded Performance Review. This is when the Accolades and Bad Reviews are handed out. One odd issue perhaps is that the Actors all share the same Agent, but that does also suggest a certain creepiness to their situation and this is only enhanced by the ominous events which can occur to one or more of the Actors. These ominous events are inspired by the previous films which the Actors have just finished making and serve to add to the creepiness as more and more of them occur as more films are made. One option to offset the oddness of the single Agent, is to have the players roleplay the different Agents for their Actors, which will add another level of roleplay to the campaign and make it a little more like troupe play.

Over the course of the four interludes, life at the Starfall Studio lot gets more and more mysterious, like the scriptwriter on all five films going missing or a rabid fan running amok, until ‘The Last Reel’. Drawing inspiration from This is the End and Scream 2, in this campaign climax, the Actors are forced to step out of their heroic roles and become heroes themselves as they attend the Star Gala at Starfall Studios’ Ciné Star Megaplex and confront one big conspiracy and one big villain, who has been pulling the strings all along, proving, of course, just how evil Hollywood actually is!

Supporting the campaign in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream is ‘The Compendium’. This lists all of the NPCs and monsters which appear in the various films, plus the Inventory for each.

SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream is not just a collection of film-themed and film inspired horror adventures. It is more than that and in part, that is where the campaign comes alive, in having the players not only roleplay the cast of characters onscreen in the campaign’s five films, but also step back from that to have them roleplay the Actors performing as the cast of characters. It calls for more roleplaying upon the part of the players, which can be as hammy as they like, because, after all, the Starring Roles are archetypes. And if they want to be inspired by particular actors who resemble those Starring Roles, then all the better.

SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream is a really entertaining campaign that in presenting five films to make, offers lots of variety, and having the players roleplay both the film casts and the Actors, gives them lots of roleplay to get their teeth into—a clever, well-executed combination.

The Other OSR: Pirate Borg

They came for the freedom of the new world. They came for the richness of the climate and the beauty of the islands. They came for the plunder, carried by the great Spanish treasure fleets, ferrying the ingots of silver mined in the Americas home to make Madrid the capital of the richest nation in the world. At times they would be given permission to harass and steal from the ships of other nations. At other times, they would be chased across the sea as criminals and when caught hanged to a man. Then the Scourge came. The bodies of dead sailors made to walk again, ghosts of those driven from their ancestral homes, skeletons strewn with seaweed and the muck of the sea, and monsters unknown, let alone imagined. They came from the sea and fell upon settlement after settlement. The survivors holed up in the towns and cities which could be fortified and strongholds that already were. Then a strange discovery was made. The ash of the burned and ground undead had strange effects upon the body and mind. When consumed, it could debilitate and destroy either, causing limbs to wither and rot, make you hear colours, see sounds, and feel taste, turn the world grey and lifeless, but it could toughen the skin, make you see in the dark, and even make you aware of the universe. This is ASH. It is a drug that can be brutally harvested, but sold for untold wealth. It drives its own black market, but has caused conflict and trade wars across the region. Addicts have sunken eye sockets, darkened lips, and faintly glowing bones. The most notorious source of ASH is Nassau Town, the ruins of an imperial colony on New Providence Island, a plethora of driftwood shacks and canvas tents that is home to the Brethren of the Coast, rebels, thieves, and vagabonds. Elsewhere, the loss of support from London has driven Lord Hamilton, governor of the Jamaica colony, to employ pirate crews to protect British interests even as the power of the West India Company grows. The French Indies has drifted into indolence and incompetence, dominated by criminal syndicates and cruel cultists. The Viceroyalty of New Spain on Cuba has grown rich and fat on the transport of bullion and ASH, but quivers under the beady eye and sharp accusations of the Inquisition. Folktales of the cities of gold and temples strewn with jewels and treasures lure the unwary to the Yucatán, but few return. Everywhere and elsewhere, cultists lurk, worshipping their foul masters, the Great Old Ones, as laid out in the dread pages of The Necronomicon, welcoming their prophet, The Sunken One, each Solstice in remembrance of the day that the Scourge arose and in the hope that The End of Days will come. Welcome to the Dark Caribbean.

The Dark Caribbean is the setting for Pirate Borg. Published by Limithron via Free League Publishing following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is based upon Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and also published by Free League Publishing. Mörk Borg is notorious for its Artpunk style and layout, vibrantly done in chrome yellow and neon pink, seen by some as distracting and unreadable. Pirate Borg is not so much Artpunk as ‘pirate punk’, its colours muted in comparison, but actually far busier in terms of layout and content. There are typically a lot of tables in any roleplaying game based on Mörk Borg, but Pirate Borg has even more! It is a book packed with tables and information and tables of information that is all useful, but which keeps coming and coming at the reader! One thing that Pirate Borg does share with Mörk Borg is that both are pre-apocalyptic roleplaying games, the end of the world hanging over everyone’s future, but where in Mörk Borg everyone actually knows that it is coming, this is not the case in Pirate Borg. In the Dark Caribbean, there is a sense of pervading doom, of hopelessness, but not necessarily of the end. The roleplaying game does include a history that ends in the Abyss—and the Game Master’s copy of Pirate Borg cast into the sea—but this is not hardwired into the setting. The Game Master is free to pick and choose what he wants from the history or ignore it altogether.

In Pirate Borg, the Player Characters are members of a crew, adventuring across the Dark Caribbean. Each is defined by his Abilities, Class, gear, and Devil’s Luck. The five Abilities are Strength, Agility, Presence, Toughness, and Spirit, each rated between ‘-3’ and ‘+3’. There are six Classes and two optional Classes. Each provides adjustments to Abilities, basic Hit Points, and starting Devil’s Luck. The Brute is a raging melee fighter who gets a trusted weapon like a ‘Brass Anchor’ or ‘Rotten Cargo Net’ and when he gets better, he might gain a ‘Boomstick’ or ‘Grog Breath’, the latter enabling him to belch in the face of an enemy and stun him! The Rapscallion is a sneaky, cutthroat scallywag, which as a Class requires an ordinary deck of playing cards to play. The Rapscallion starts with a single speciality such as ‘Burglar’ or ‘Sneaky Bastard’, and gain more or even double up on already possessed specialities. He can also drink Grog to heal himself. The Buccaneer is a sharpshooter and treasure hunter, and is also a skilled tracker. The Swashbuckler is a brash fighter, who might also be an ‘Ostentatious Fencer’ or ‘Inspiring Leader’, and when he gets better, he could be the ‘Shakespeare of Insults’ or a ‘Calculating Cutthroat’, the former adding damage to attacks with his wounding taunts, the latter letting the player achieve critical hits on a natural roll of nineteen as well as twenty. The Zealot has prayers like Heal, Curse, and Holy Protection, which are learned randomly and can be cast several times a day without the need to make a roll or a test. The Sorcerer draws power from supernatural spirits and ghosts to cast spells like Spiritual Possession, Clairvoyance, and Raise the Dead, not whilst near cold iron or holding metal.

The Haunted Soul is either a ghost, conduit for restless spirits, has an eldritch mind, is a zombie, suffers from vampirism, or is a skeleton. Each provides a benefit and a penalty. For example, restless spirits constantly communicate with the conduit to grant a random Arcane Ritual which can be cast without a Spirit test, but must be cast before dawn the next day or conduit suffers damage. The Tall Tale can be one of the Merfolk, an aquatic mutant like a crab or The Great Old One, or a sentient animal such as a ‘Foul Fowl’ or a ‘Clever Monkey’. Although both the Haunted Soul and the Tall Tale are given as optional Classes, they are not really Classes, but closer to a Race or a Species as in other Old School Renaissance roleplaying games. This is because not only do they not get any better with experience, but the player also then rolls for an additional ability out of the standard six. Their inclusion, though, is unbalancing, granting a Player Character extra abilities that other Player Characters without either the Haunted Soul or Tall Tale options simply does not have the equivalent of. Further, the six core Classes not balanced either, especially when it comes to their progression. Several of the Classes like the Rapscallion or Buccaneer have multiple specialities or features that can be taken twice, whereas the Brute and the Swashbuckler do not. Of course, there is no need for the Classes to be equally balanced, but some rough equivalency would not have gone amiss.

To create a character, a player rolls for his Abilities, Class, gear, and Devil’s Luck. Gear includes weapon, clothing, and a hat. Optional tables provide for backgrounds, distinctive flaws, physical trademarks, idiosyncrasies, unfortunate incidents and conditions, and thing of importance. Of these which a group might want to avoid is rolling for Class since it avoids too many of the same Class serving in a ship’s crew.

Name: Peter ‘Green’ Wright
Class: Sorcerer
Strength 0 Agility +0 Presence +1 Toughness 0 Spirit +4
Hit Points: 4
Devil’s Luck: 3
Holding Breath: Two minutes
Carrying Capacity: Nine
Spells: Raise the Dead
Background: Merchant
Distinctive Flaw: Paranoid Physical
Trademarks: Increasingly gangrenous
Idiosyncrasy: You become a murderous grump when hungry
Unfortunate Incidents And Conditions: You have no memory before a few days ago.
Thing Of Importance: perfect cube made of crystal
Gear: Container – bandolier, Cheap Gear – pipe & tobacco pouch, Fancy Gear – blanket & pillow, wooden knife (d4), old uniform, wig

For the most part, Pirate Borg keeps everything mechanically as simple as Mörk Borg, though with some adjustments for the genre and setting. A player rolls a twenty-sided die, modifies the result by one of his character’s abilities, and attempts to beat a Difficulty Rating of twelve. The Difficulty Rating may go up or down depending on the situation, but whatever the situation, the player always rolls, even in combat or as both Mörk Borg and Pirate Borg terms it, violence. 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? Armour can also be damaged, due to a Fumble when defending, reducing its protective effectiveness, and a critical hit in combat inflicts double damage or allows another attack. A Player Characters whose Hit Points are reduced to below zero is dead, but at zero, is broken and can recover.

Every Player Character also has the Devil’s Luck. Each Class receives a different amount of this, but all can spent to inflict maximum damage on a single attack, reroll any die, lower the Difficulty rating of a Test, neutralise a Critical or a Fumble, and to lower damage suffered by a random amount.

A Player Character may also have access to Arcane Rituals, such as Dark Delusions, which creates illusions in the minds that can see the caster; Phantasmal Fauna, which summons a ghostly hound or shark until sunset; and Thalassomancy, which fill the lungs of targets with sea water, causing them to suffocate. There are some truly nasty Arcane Rituals in this list. For example, The Black Spot which literally marks the target for death or Release the Kraken, which summons one of these great creatures in the nearby sea. If a Player Character fails to cast an Arcane Ritual, then a roll may be made on Pirate Borg’s Mystical Mishaps table. Other forms of magic in Pirate Borg include a quick and dirty pair of tables for handling alchemy and a list of Ancient Relics, such as the Conch Shell of the Abyss, which enables the wielder to ask a corpse one question or Mermaid Scales that when eaten grant the ability to breath underwater for a few hours.

Pirate Borg being a pirate roleplaying game, the one thing that it definitely needs is rules for ships and nautical combat. A vessel is defined by its Hit Points, Hull, Speed, Skill, Broadsides, Small Arms, Ram, Crew, and Cargo. Hit Points includes its condition and the health and morale of the crew; Hull, its armour; Skill the skill and training of the crew; Broadsides, the damage inflicted by a vessel’s main cannons; Small Arms the damage done by swivel guns and muskets; Ram, damage done in a ram action; and Crew, the minimum and maximum number of crew the ship can carry. Combat is conducted in thirty second rounds, and in that time, the captain moves the ship, the Player Characters take an action, and the Crew can take actions such as ‘Fire Broadsides’, ‘Full Sail’, ‘Boarding Party’, and more. Speciality Crew includes Legendary Captains, Strict Bosun, Deck Sorcerer or Priest, and so on. The rules cover crew skill, morale, cargo, repairs, and optionally—surprisingly, weather! An earlier section gives a list of sea shanties that the crew can perform each day, which might be to raise the crew’s morale or put out all the fires on a ship! Besides tables for flotsam and jetsam, encounters, and events, Pirate Borg lists stats for and illustrates a wide variety of vessels, from raft, dinghy, and canoe to galleon, man-of-war, and ship of the line. Added to this are a fortress, and to fit the Dark Caribbean, a ghost ship, a ship of bone, and a vessel from the deep. This is a very pleasingly comprehensive list.

The bestiary is categorised into pages of dark terrestrial, dark avian, dark aquatic, and dark flora. Added to this are families of creatures. Thus, for skeletons, there is the Lookout, The Rank & Vile, Deadeye, Hulk, Bosun, Warlock, and Cap’n. It does similar things for zombies and ghosts, whilst also adding a scavenging seagull and the amusingly named obscure oyster cult. Deep Ones and the Coral Shoggoth add an element of the Mythos. Big beasts of the sea include the Undead Megalodon, Kraken, Davy Jones, and Leviathan. Marrow Cannons, like the Marrow Carronade and the Marrow Mortar are sentient, undead weapons, whilst there are stats for archetypes such as the Naval Mastermind, Inquisitor, Necromancer, and Sunken One. This is an excellent selection of creatures, highly thematic and fun.

Besides tables for generating random ships and derelicts, treasure maps, riddles, uncharted islands, and jobs and quests, Pirate Borg includes a mini-sandbox for the Player Characters to explore. This is ‘The Curse of Skeleton Point’ which a description of an island, its key locations, and important NPCs, threats, and plot hooks. They include widespread word that the local governor’s daughter is missing and that he will pay for her safe return, legends of a treasure hoard in the castle at Skeleton Point, and an evil witch in the swamp. Each of the major locations—Coral Town, the old lighthouse, the Nameless Temple—and more, are all given very easy to use two-page spreads, with the castle given more space. There are three mini-dungeons too, and all together, ‘The Curse of Skeleton Point’ offers a lot of play. If there is anything missing in the scenario it is that given how up-front Pirate Borg is about ASH, it does not have much of a role to play in the scenario.

Physically, Pirate Borg is a smorgasbord of tables and options. In fact, so many tables that they threaten to overwhelm the reader. This is not say that the tables are not useful—they are—but rather that the layout can feel cramped in places and sometimes it does feel as if the text needs room to breathe. Whilst there is an index, one extra devoted to the book’s many tables would have been useful. Otherwise, the presentation, the artwork, and the writing are all well done.

Pirate Borg is lacking in terms of advice for the Game Master. Bar advising the reader that this is not a roleplaying game about slavery, genocide, sexual violence, or other distasteful aspects of history, there is no advice on how to run Pirate Borg. In the main then, it is primarily relying upon the previous experience of the Game Master and her players to run and play Pirate Borg. However, with that experience, what both Game Master and players will find is a fully realised and accessible setting whose genre will be familiar to most and which does not rely upon a detailed knowledge of the Golden Age of Piracy. Although it does include a nod to the coming apocalypse, unlike Mörk Borg, in Pirate Borg, this does not hang over the players and their characters like some ever present doom cloud, leaving them room to explore and adventure in the setting, which consequently feels more open and detailed. Pirate Borg is not only easy to play, but its familiarity is also easy to grasp, and it supports with everything that a gaming group will need for a pulpy pirate horror game in the Dark Caribbean, and more.

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Today, Thursday, September 19th 2024, is International Talk Like a Pirate 2024.

The Kickstarter for PIRATE BORG: Down Among the Dead is currently running here.