The Other OSR: The Chapel of the Hanged God

As the world slides towards its seemingly inevitable end, there are those who desperately search for ways to stop its collapse—or at least forestall its ongoing effects, if only not be the last king, the monarch whose reign would be the ultimate in failure. King Fathmu IX searches for ways in which his realm can be maintained rather than lost and now his eyeless scryers say they have seen traces of Verhu in the catacombs beneath the ruined Hangman’s Church, deep in the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead. Are these visions one more sign of the impending apocalypse or does Verhu’s chapel hide secrets that will enable the kingdom to survive? King Fathmu IX sends the worst of his servants to find out—his crypt breakers. They are given a map and a simple mission. Traverse the ruined paths and lands of the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead, gain entry to the ruins of The Chapel of the Hanged God and descend into the tunnels below, survey their extents, and take what they can, before reporting back to the capital with what information and evidence they can find.

This is the set-up for The Chapel of the Hanged God. This is a pointcrawl and dungeon adventure published by Loot the Room for use 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. This is a classic scenario for Mörk Borg, packed with its trademark mix of misery, weirdness, and horror. So much so of the latter that it carries a well-deserved content warning for suicide, self-harm, cannibalism, mind control, and more. Make no mistake, The Chapel of the Hanged God contains strong themes, suicide especially, so the warnings are necessary.

This is a classic scenario for Mörk Borg, packed with its trademark mix of misery, weirdness, and horror. So much so of the latter that it carries a well-deserved content warning for suicide, self-harm, cannibalism, mind control, and more. Make no mistake, The Chapel of the Hanged God contains strong themes, suicide especially, so the warnings are necessary.

In terms of content, The Chapel of the Hanged God is a pointcrawl consisting of eight locations, one of the actual Chapel of the Hanged God. These are connected by a series paths, some known, some hidden, the hidden ones have to be found, but consist of shorter routes. All of the routes, whether hidden or not, shift and change, so that sometimes the journey along them is shorter, other times longer. This is handled by rolling a number of dice to determine many ‘watches’ it takes to traverse along any one path. Each day consists of six four-hour watches, two of which can be spent travelling, two exploring or foraging, and two resting. So, it might take as little as two watches, or two days, for the Player Characters to make their way along a path, but on another attempt, it might take twenty-four watches, or twelve days.

Similarly, the various locations take a varying number of watches to cross. Seven of these are given a two-page spread, with an illustration on the left hand page and the description, along with a random encounter table on the right hand page. They include ‘The Wetlands’ where those who shamed themselves in service to King Fathmu IX and have been consigned to a pit of black filth which they wade across on stilts trawling the rot and the ordure for treasures that will enable them to return the king’s service; a maze of shifting walls, filled with writhing fat worms, faces leering out of the walls, and beset by torrential rains, as guards stand on the walls to stop the shambling dead and prisoners from escaping, and the Player Characters can search for treasures or a way out; and a Hermit’s Hut, wrapped in thick chains and with thick black smoke and heavy ash pouring from its chimney, whilst inside the hermit is bound and melded to the floor by thorny roots, his mouth the source of both the black smoke and heavy ash, and prophecies of dubious quality.

Eventually, the Player Characters will find their way to the ruins of the Chapel of the Hanged God. Inside is a dead man who speaks with one of three voices, making promises and attempting to persuade them that they can help the Player Characters. Of course, these are all lies and each voice is actually a demon trapped in the corpse. Below lies an ancient crypt dedicated to the Hanged God, full of looters and profane writings and dedications, but long abandoned bar one twisted servant who awaits the return of the Hanged God. There are worse things to be found though, including a gospel of the Hanged God that if read may enrapture a Player Character, proselytise him to worship the Hanged God, and even emulate the Hanged God and string himself up (this is where the content warning is required and the book actually repeats it here again to enforce the point). The ultimate secret below the Chapel of the Hanged God is the existence of the Book of the Hanged God. This vile tome is made from the skin of the god’s last priest, but is not yet complete and at least one of the Player Characters could be driven to follow the directions marked on a number of maps created via foul means—a combination of swallowing a ball of human skin, auto asphyxiation, and vomiting—each of which leads to the location of missing pages from the book. Once the book is complete it creates a book akin to one of the four described in IKHON, each of which provides numerous benefits, but at a cost in terms of sacrifices necessary and potential aftereffects. Although the Player Characters do carry a map marked with routes to the Chapel of the Hanged God, once there, it begins to change and push the owner to seek the catacomb where the Book of the Hanged God is kept, almost as if it wanted to be united with it…

Physically, The Chapel of the Hanged God embraces the neon bright colours of the artpunk style of Mörk Borg, but not the actual style. Thus, the colours are big and bold, and so is the layout with the map of the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead. The cartography, big and blocky, is serviceable at best. Despite the artwork being somewhat better than the cartography, the book does look most basic in several places.

The Chapel of the Hanged God can be run as a one-shot, the Player Characters essentially stumbling upon a map to the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead, but it works better as a scenario in which they in service—willingly or not—of King Fathmu IX and so are driven to search the loathsome, often repulsive confines of the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead to find clues and secrets that might hold back the apocalypse that everyone knows is coming. This is a journey into revulsion and perhaps the only thing driving the Player Characters onwards is the knowledge that they might find something to give them hope in the Chapel of the Hanged God, though this being a scenario for Mörk Borg, they may find something, but it may not be what they, or anyone, is really looking for.