Unknown Ukraine

Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine is a special book. Obviously, it is a supplement for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying , the Roleplaying Game of investigative folklore horror set in nineteenth century Scandinavia published by Free League Publishing. It is special because it something more than a straightforward supplement for the roleplaying game, though to be fair, it is actually a very straightforward supplement. Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine is special because it is the first book to be published as a result of the Free League Workshop, the community content programme for Free League Publishing’s various RPGs such as Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, Sybaroum, and Twilight 2000. More importantly, it is special because of the circumstances of its development and publication, and that the proceeds of its sales go towards charitable causes in support of the Ukraine. These include United24, Come Back Alive, and Uanimals.

Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine is an anthology of creatures of myth and legend drawn from the folklore of Ukraine. Published by Society of Mythic Ukraine, based on an earlier project, Maloviy, which combined descriptions and details of these famous creatures with excellent artwork. This is continued in this Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine. The volume may only be a very slim one at just seventy-four pages and just twenty-seven entries, but it is superbly illustrated. Each is given a detailed write-up that runs to two or three pages which includes an excerpt from the Society’s library, a description, the creature’s characteristics, a full list of its magical powers—and all of them have this list, combat stats, the ritual associated with the creature, and examples of conflicts, plus a secret associated with the creature. The rituals are typically commonly held means of warding against the creature, whilst the conflict examples are actually story hooks that the Game Master can develop into mysteries of her own. There are three such conflicts per entry, giving her a total of eighty-one to play with! However, the creature entries in Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine do differ from those in the core rulebook. This difference is the inclusion of specific examples of Enchantments, Curses, and Trollcraft that a creature might employ. These are not normally listed in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, but are included here to make the use of each creature by the Game Master that much easier.

The collection opens with Bezdonnyk, which lives at the bottom of abysses and chasms where there is a bottomless lake or stream. It cannot stray from these locations because it represents the body of a suicide victim never found there and so never buried. When confronted, it might cause blindness or Christian symbols to shatter, or it might bestow the Gaze of the Abyss and magical power as well as knowledge of an enchantment or curse. The conflicts include looking for a missing, often bullied boy, removing the Sight from a boy who believed he has been cursed by a Bezdonnyk, and a village which secretly makes sacrifices to a Bezdonnyk to ensure its nearby springs grant healing. The grim nature of the entries in Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine continues with the Bohynka, an evil spirit born from the deaths of women who died giving birth, committed suicide, or aborted their babies, as well as from the deaths of betrothed girls who died before their weddings. She stalks pregnant women and women with newborns, stealing the babies before they are baptised and leaving behind monsters in their cradles. The stolen child is then twisted into an evil spirit. If that is not enough, Bezdonnyk also strangle people in their sleep, frighten and attack cattle, drive horses away, and devastate pastures. She appears as either an ugly old crone or a pale girl with long black hair. The conflicts include a village where the inhabitants cannot sleep feeling as if they are being strangled and a priest summoned to help was found strangled dead, a village where a new mother is being driven mad because she feels that her child is not hers, and a Bohynka who has returned to enact its revenge on those who drove her to suicide.

Other entries include the Chort, an evil spirit that is the cause of most misfortunes in the world. Cunning, wicked, insidious, and dangerous, it can inflict illness and bad luck to both people and livestock, incite people to commit evil deeds, tempt them to sell their souls to it in return for magical powers, and wilt fields and crops. A Chort is humanoid with animal features—hairy with horns, donkey ears and tails, a pig snout, and hooves—and always dresses in shades of red, typically fancy boots, a hat and a coat. The Nichnytsia is an evil night spirit that appears as a pale woman with long, dishevelled hair, bulging eyes, and a mouth twisted in terror, as well as gnarled, bony hands with long nails, dressed in a white nightdress so long that she looks like she is floating. Either the restless soul of a girl who suffered an unnatural death, a witch, or of someone who died in terrible agony or grief, she lives by day in nearby chasms, but at night sneaks into houses to pick first on children, sending nightmares, pinching and tickling, and feeding them a foul yellow milk which causes a child to be sick. She can also inflict insomnia or a lethargic sleep in which the sleeper has terrible nightmares. The Pesyholov is more typically monstrous, a wolf-headed humanoid with a single eye, believed to be descended from man-eating giants, a practice it keeps today, keeping its victims in pits, fattening them up until they are ready to eat!

Not all of the creatures or spirits in Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine are malevolent. For example, the Brodnytsia, which looks like a pretty girl with thick black braids, builds and protects fords across rivers and swamps so that people can cross them in safety as well protecting children who come too close to the water. This kindly spirit lives with beavers in their dams and will also protect places and people nearby, breaking damns to unleash the held back waters on fires or invaders! She can detect evil doers or those up to no good and lead them into whirlpools where they will drown. Since the Brodnytsia is a kindly spirit, conflicts associated with her involve things that have been done or anger her. The three include looking for the missing wife and brother of a famous hunter and tanner, who unfortunately has annoyed a Brodnytsia by hunting her beaver living companions; searching for a missing troupe of performing artists; and discovering why the dams and fords near a village keep breaking and the area flooding despite the villagers making good repairs.

Khukha are cute and fluffy nature spirits found in fields, forests, steppes, and caves, their forest types often waking with an incredible noise under the canopy that resembles knocking, squeaking, purring, and grunting. They do help those trouble and warn about the dangers in a forest, though some do see them as evil and vengeful. The Krynytsia is the spirit of the well or water spring, who ensures that the weather is good for the harvest and the fertility of the land. When she appears, it is as a young woman of great beauty with long, flowing blond braids. The better maintained her well or spring is, the better the weather and the better the harvests, and the more beautiful she is, but if neglected, the waters will stagnate, and the village and its surrounds will be beset with drought and evil spirits, the latter inflicting misfortune, illness, and disasters.

One of the stranger creatures in the bestiary is the Skarbnyk. Only appearing as a set of floating red eyes, the Skarbnyk guards hidden treasure, but only evil treasure that has been gained through theft, betrayal, or pacts with wicked spirits. The Skarbnyk will do this in return for the owner’s soul when he dies and if anyone does try to steal it, the treasure will turn into potsherds or snakes! However, the Skarbnyk will allow a swap to take place if the thief is willing to give up his soul. The Spryiia is the spirit of a person’s skill or talent which normally dies with the person, but it can be passed on to a child at birth, this being indicated by a birthmark. The Spryiia appreciates hard work and so will leave a person if he becomes too lazy. Mechanically, the increase in the skill is represented by a magical gift that increases a skill by two. The Zharook is either a household spirit or a god of fire that resides in the stove. This many-headed, many-eyed serpent can also be vengeful if it or the stove is shown disrespect and will set fires in the house. It can also make people gossip because it enjoys talking about rumours and news between its various heads!

Physically, Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine is a lovely looking book. The artwork is rich, wonderfully bringing its entries to life. The writing is slightly rough in places and it does need another edit. However, it would be churlish to grumble too much about this, given that the book is for a good cause and how good the book looks otherwise.

There are some common themes running through Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine, such as girls and women having suffered terrible deaths, spirits protecting streams, wells, or swamps, and so on, but this countered by the strangeness of other entries such as the Zharook or Skarbnyk. Yet all of the entries in the bestiary are going to be strange to most of the audience for it, the folklore and stories of creatures and monsters native to Ukraine having rarely travelled beyond its borders. With Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine they have, and in return, Game Masters and players of Vaesen can travel east to cross those borders and investigate mysteries new and different. Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Mythic Ukraine is an excellent introduction to Mythic Ukraine for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying.

Friday Fantasy: Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest

Conall Yellowclaw is on an urgent quest. The son of King Erin has been kidnapped and the king laid the blame firmly on Conall’s three adult children and locked them up in the royal dungeons. King Erin has also granted one chance to prove their innocence and buy their freedom: venture beyond the kingdom’s borders and acquire the famed brown horse belonging to the mysterious King Lochlann. Now he has heard of this King Lochlann—and hopes that most, if not all of the terrible stories he has heard about him are untrue, but he has no idea where he can be found and certainly no idea that he even had a horse—brown or otherwise. Worse, Conall is just a simple tenant farmer, getting on a bit and probably past the age when he should be going off on adventures—even if it is to fulfil a quest given to him by his king. Fortunately, he is persuasive and he is pretty sure that he can talk someone, or rather more than someone, preferably a party of younger, more capable adventurers, into accompanying him and fulfilling the quest on behalf of King Erin. Since time is short, he approaches them directly and asks for the Player Characters’ help.

Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest: A folkloric adventure for Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons is an adventure designed for play with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition using roughly five Player Characters of Fourth Level and should offer between two and three good sessions’ worth of play. Inspired by the tale ‘Conall Yellowclaw’ from the 1892 collection, Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest is intended to be a fast-paced and light-hearted adventure, one which can easily be run as a one-shot or added to a campaign—the latter especially if the fey play a significant role in the Dungeon Master’s campaign. It will require access to the Elemental Evil Player’s Companion, Volo’s Guide to Monsters, and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything as well as the core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.

If the Player Characters agree to help Conall, they have a few hours or so to conduct a little investigation in the Kingdom of Erin—a very minor kingdom, so easily added to the Dungeon Master’s own setting if necessary—and learn not only the route to Lochlann, but also possibly a clue or two which suggests that not all is as it seems. Then they are ready to set out, the road to Lochlann twisty, overgrown, and little used. Nevertheless, there are encounters to be had on the way, some pre-written, others requiring a little development once rolled on the encounter table. Some of these encounters have the potential to be quite fun—an agitated blink dog who appears and wants help because there are children stuck down a well, two fey arguing about who is the best dancer and are about to come to blows, and a young man planting beans in a field—although he does not know it, they are of course, magical beans. In fact, it would have been nice to have seen these developed and used as a means to give the Player Characters clues as what the might be found at Castle Lochlann, a boon perhaps, or if the encounter goes wrong a bane. Further, some of these encounters have more potential for roleplaying and interaction than the written ones—first with a Band of Bandit Cat Bards who all known the ‘Song of the Empty Food Bowl’ and a Hill Giant Goatherder, who is very hungry. These feel much more confrontational than the others and do not lend themselves quite as well to roleplaying as the others do.

Finally, the Player Characters arrive at the forbidding Castle Lochlann. The adventure suggests two means of gaining entry—through the front gates or sneaking in. If they try the direct approach, King Lochlann will be welcoming, but eventually and effectively show them the door to both castle and kingdom. Ultimately, the Player Characters will probably try the latter and get into the stables. Most of the castle itself seems abandoned and is given little description—here the Dungeon Master will need to improvise. When they find the famed brown horse (and perhaps something else, because after all, the scenario was never going to be just that and just that easy), King Lochlann gets to reveal his true self, give a monologue, and shout, “Stop them!” in true villainous fashion. A showdown ensues, which should be a challenging given that King Lochlann is a high-Level Sorcerer. If the Player Characters fail, the Dungeon Master will need to improvise a suitable. If they succeed, then they get to return to King Erin, with the mysterious Brown Horse (and more), and helped release Conall’s children. The scenario suggests several treasures which might be found in Castle Lochlann should the Player Characters go looking.

Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest is intended to be light-hearted adventure with a dark edge. It probably tends towards the latter than the former, in part because there is relatively little scope for levity as the scenario is written. There are humorous possibilities in some of the encounters and the Dungeon Master may want to develop those a bit more than the encounters already given. This is not the only possible scope for expansion in the scenario. There is the whole of Castle Lochlann to detail and there is the distinct possibility that in true villainous fashion, King Lochlann, will himself escape. So he could return in a sequel seeking his revenge!

Rounding out Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest is a full set of stats and maps for the adventure. Physically, Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest does require another edit, but the adventure is decently written and easy to understand. The publicly sourced castle map could perhaps be clearer, but the artwork, also publicly sourced, is much better handled and adds a certain charm to the whole adventure.

With its fey charm, Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest may not be suitable for every Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition campaign, but that fey charm means that it could be adapted to settings where that element is strong. Perhaps in King Arthur Pendragon or even Liminal for the modern day. Would be interesting to know why he is called Conall Yellowclaw though.

Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest: A folkloric adventure for Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons is a charming little scenario easy to drop into a campaign and easy to expand.

Friday Fantasy: Frostlands of Fenrilik

Far to the north of the continent of Ghelspad lies the frozen lands of Fenrilik, accessible just once per year. Its separation means that in comparison it was little touched by the Titanswar which beset the southern continents of Scarn, but refugees from the Divine War made their way north in its aftermath and continued trade between Ghelspad and Fenrilik means that certain practices have been imported, but not widely spread. The indigenous peoples of the frozen north, primarily the ice fey called the Eschek, are tribal, worship spirits rather than gods, rarely war with each other, and barter for goods and services rather trade away precious resources. Rent in two by the massive Torbor Gorge, the Roof of the World is not only dangerous due to the artic winds and temperature, ice and snow, there are many native species which are also highly dangerous to the unwary. These include the titanspawn known as Blood Gardners, whose haunting song lures victims into its clutches who are then kept alive to feed the Bloodfruit which the creature relies upon for survival; Frost Maidens, former Dryads whose trees were frozen and themselves turned into an icily undead version of its former self; and Crawling Glaciers, gargantuan oozes of solid ice which slowly scour the continent. There is another threat, as yet unknown, which lurks beneath the continent—the scorpion-men known as Skerrai, which surge up onto the surface to attack and capture victims they can implant with their larvae. Welcome to the Frostlands of Fenrilik.

Frostlands of Fenrilik is a supplement for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, which describes the northernmost continent on the world of Scarn, the setting for the Scarred Lands setting published by Onyx Path Publishing. Previously described in Strange Lands: Lost Tribes of the Scarred Lands, this supplement is available via the Slarecian Vault, the community content programme for the setting. It expands upon the history, geography, civilisations, and religions of Fenrilik, supported with rules for travel and survival in the arctic wastes, new races, subclasses, and spells, new monsters, and an introductory adventure designed for Player Characters of First to Third Level.

Frostlands of Fenrilik introduces the continent via the journal of Yenei Koneru, Vera-Tre researcher and adjunct of the Ganjus Vigil, who like the Player Characters has made the long, only once-a-year open journey to Fenrilik, first to continent’s ‘major’ port of Stasiam and from there to its only city of Kovokimru—and beyond. Yenei Koneru and her companions will also appear in the supplement’s scenario. It opens with descriptions and a table of Fenrilik’s weather, its major settlements, and tables for both encounters and environmental hazards. The latter in particular highlights how deadly Fenrilik actually is, from avalanches and thin ice to fissures and geothermal vents, whilst it is suggested that the encounters be used to imperil the Player Characters’ survival rather than being used as combat encounters. The culture and attitudes of Fenrilik’s tribes are described in quite broad detail, leaving the Dungeon Master to develop further specifics. If the opening chapter is missing something, it is a map of Fenrilik, although one is given at the end of Frostlands of Fenrilik. Unfortunately, the map is not all that interesting and should really have had a few more landmarks indicated.

Definitely detailed though, is the continent’s one city, Kovokimru. It receives a full chapter to itself compared to the thumbnail descriptions of the towns and villages detailed earlier. Mostly built using a mix of wood and the famed hardened icework of the Eschek over geothermal vents which keep the city warm, Kovokimru is inhabited by several tribes and includes a large market and trade hall, as well as a Mage’s Guild, which grew out of a personal lending library into a school and guild. Numerous NPCs and locations are described as well as the holidays and festivals which take place over the course of a year. The fact that Fenrilik is only accessible once a year means that the Player Characters will probably be spending that year in and around the city bas their base of operations, so these festivals are something that the Dungeon Master can develop plots and adventures around, helping to bring the setting further to life. This is in addition to the quartet of adventure seeds included at the end of the chapter, which although involving an entertaining range of combat, diplomatic, investigative, and magical challenges, will need a fair of development upon the part of the Dungeon Master. Three locations are also described and mapped—an inn, a tavern, and a flophouse. However, it is disappointing that no map of Kovokimru itself is provided.

One big cultural difference between Fenrilik and Ghelspad is the use of money. The tribes of Fenrilik value metal of its practical use rather than any monetary value. Consequently, any money the Player Characters arrive with will not be as valuable as it might be back home. Instead, they will find themselves bartering for goods and services—and being paid in kind! However, the peoples of Kovokimru accept most visitors as long as they contribute to city’s welfare, which can include menial jobs if anyone is down on his luck. Given how important this aspect of the city is, it is a pity that a few examples are not included in the supplement’s discussion of it. Nevertheless, this will force both the players and their characters to think differently when it comes trading and bartering, and the roleplaying possibilities that this lends itself to.

The other location described in detail in Frostlands of Fenrilik is Tobor Gorge, which divides Fenrilik in two and is hundreds of miles long and a mile deep. It has only one crossing point opposite Kovokimru and only one easy means of getting down—a rickety lift-and-pully system, which you need to be hooked into lest you be blown into the gorge. Alternatively, it can be climbed down, but that is perilous. The sides of the cavern are doted with caverns, most of which have yet to be explored, leaving the Dungeon Master to detail them and turn them into adventure sites. There are a couple of adventure seeds, although these are not as inventive or as interesting as those for Kovokimru.

Frostlands of Fenrilik also adds a number of new character options and new spells. The Eschek, inaccurately described as ‘winter gnomes’ are actually creatures of ice renowned for crafting ice into tools, furniture, and buildings. Those few who travel beyond Fenrilik require a frost ring to enable to withstand the high temperatures of the south. The Krampek are satyr-like, but their horns are antenna actually used as part their communication, with a disarming appearance which often gives them an advantage when attacking first. They are highly suited to living underground and most of them are slaves of the dreaded Skerrai. The third new race is the oddest and the most recent to appear. They are Taslenh, again creatures of ice, but created when an ooze known as an ‘ice warden’ imprints on a humanoid. They remain both humanoid and ooze, so a bit odd!

Although there are no new Classes in Frostlands of Fenrilik, it does detail four new sub-classes. These are the College of Hope for the Bard, who boosts morale and brings comfort across the frigid lands of the north; the Way of the Winter Soul as a Monk Tradition, who can direct cold or heat damage through his hands, become one with fog, steam, and snow, and so on; the Ice Walker Ranger Archetypes who can survive in the frozen north and even fashion arms and armour from ice; and the Ushada Marked is a Sorcerous Origin which draws from Fenrilik’s primal spirits. They also serve as spiritual leaders for some communities, often replacing Clerics, which opens up roleplaying possibilities for any Player Character. Overall, this a good mix of options.

Frostlands of Fenrilik includes a list of the spells used on the continent, and adds new ones too. Some have a cold theme, such as the Cold Snap cantrip which casts cold deep into the victim’s bones and Ice Shards which creates shards that float around caster, which can be used as an Armour Class bonus or expended to shoot at opponents and do damage. Particularly cruel are the Fracture and Rupture spells, the former snapping one of a target’s bones, the latter fracturing his skull. Most of the spells have been crafted by the Titans. For example, in response to an attack by his fellow Titans, Golthain the Faceless crafted Empathy of the Faceless One to ensure that his attackers felt the same damage they inflicted upon him. A Bard and Druid spell, it affects five attackers and if any are reduced to zero Hit Points or are killed, this rebounds on the caster as his player has to making saving throws to avoid being stunned for a Round. The spells are a good strong mix of interesting theme and flavour, though of course, specific to the Fenrilik and the Scarred Lands setting.

The bestiary, ‘Creatures of Fenrilik’, adds monsters particular to the frozen continent and its frigid environs. There is a slight predilection for the gargantuan in the dozen or so given, such as the aforementioned Crawling Glacier; the Fell Deer, great shaggy beasts whose tusk-like antlers curve down and are used to break up the tundra to get at the lichen and moss it feeds on, and which are used as beasts of burden, travel, and rarely war; and the Gelidiceph—an ice kraken! Perhaps more an immediate threat is the scorpionmen-like Skerrai, who may or may not be the artic version of the Sandmaskers from the far southern deserts, and who lurk in the tunnels beneath Fenrilik, allegedly for something… Even the immature Skerrai are deadly, perhaps too deadly for low-Level Player Characters and the Dungeon Master may want to use them with care lest they overwhelm her players and their characters. Their desire to implant their larvae in their victims adds an element of horror to any encounters with them. Also included here is the Ice Warden, flowing globs of dark blue water which imprints itself on hosts and creates the new player Race, the Taslenh.

Rounding out Frostlands of Fenrilik is ‘Into the Gorge’, a short introductory which takes the Player Characters into the caverns found in the wall of Tobor Gorge. It starts with them on the way to Kovokimru where they are offered employment—a matter of a certain missing anthropologist, one Yenei Koneru. Another job sees them explore some of the caverns in Tobor Gorge. Could the two be connected? This is primarily an exploration scenario in which the Player Characters will discover some of the secrets that lie below Fenrilik and encounter some of its strange inhabitants. Player Characters who rush in first, leaving questions for later, will be at a disadvantage and will likely have to do much to make up for earlier mistakes. However, their style of play will be rewarded with some tough—perhaps too tough—challenges towards the end of the scenario. Potentially, ‘Into the Gorge’ is a challenging scenario for First Level Player Characters, so the Dungeon Master may want to make some adjustments, but otherwise, the scenario does a decent job of introducing the setting and some of its secrets.

Physically, Frostlands of Fenrilik is generally well written and well presented. The artwork varies in style and quality, but some of it is very good. The maps though, are disappointingly bland, and again, the city of Kovokimru could have done with a map.

One aspect of Fenrilik that the supplement does not explore fully is that of survival and travel. Although the table for weather, encounters, and environmental hazards are useful, but there is no advice how travel is handled, important given that many of the tribes of Fenrilik are nomadic and that the Player Characters will definitely have to travel from Stasiam to Kovokimru. Some survival rules would have been useful.

Frostlands of Fenrilik does have some minor issues, but there is a lot to like in its pages. There are fearsome monsters and some nicely detailed locations in both Kovokimru and Tobor Gorge for the Dungeon Master; challenges for the players and their characters in terms of survival and interacting with the indigenous peoples, let alone those monsters; and then also for the players, there are interesting new subclass options and spells (which can also be used by NPCs to, of course). With a time limited means of access, Frostlands of Fenrilik is an excellent introduction to the continent of Fenrilik and a one-year campaign set in the frozen north.

[Fanzine Focus XXVII] Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic

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 another Dungeon Master and 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. Another retroclone garnering attention via fanzines is Mörk Borg.

Like Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory before it, Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic is a fanzine of a different stripe, both in terms of content and style. It is and it is not a fanzine, but it is for Mörk Borg, the pitch-black pre-apocalyptic fantasy roleplaying game which brings a Nordic death metal sensibility to the Old School Renaissance. The format is that of a fanzine, A5-sized, on matte paper rather than the gloss of the Mörk Borg rulebook, but sharing the same riotous assault of electrically vibrant yellow and pink highlights on swathes of black, abrupt font changes, and metallic embellishments. Essentially, production values higher than that typically found in most fanzines, but influential nevertheless, as seen in the recent Knock! #1 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac and Knock! #2 An Old School Gaming Bric-à-Brac. This is because although the origins of the content in Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory are amateur in origin, they have been curated from submissions to the Mörk Borg Cult, the community content programme for Mörk Borg by the designers of the roleplaying game and collated into a fanzine format. And unlike most fanzines, is available through distribution. It is essentially, a cross between a fanzine with gorgeous production values and a supplement with fanzine sensibilities.

Funded via a successful Kickstarter campaign, Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic is also longer than most fanzines. Most of its articles are fairly short though and written and presented in a sparse, often bullet-point style which makes their content easy to digest. It can be boiled down to a variegated array of tables, scenarios, and character Classes, and in true Mörk Borg style, Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic does not waste any time in getting down to its trademark doom and gloom with the first of its tables. ‘Seeds of a CVLT’ is the first of four entries in Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic by Mörk Borg co-creator by Pelle Nilsson. Its six tables provide the means for the Game Master to determine a cult’s forbidden name, status, key leadership, headquarters, cult tasks necessary to reach the Shimmering Fields, and what its members hate. For example, The Pipes of the Black Gates continues to thrive today, led by an Unseen Executor who is Loved by All, based amongst the oldest and most obscure Grift temples, where its members give all the silver to the deep well of the underworlds and despise the carers of children… Thus the Game Master has an enemy, a patron, or simply a background element to add to her game with a roll of a few dice.

Johnny Carhat adds the means to indiviualise further Mörk Borg’s standard character Classes with ‘Unheroic Feats’. For example, with ‘Butcher’, the Player Character knows to hack livestock and poultry apart and Humans are no different. In effect, the Player Character can perform rough emergency surgery on an ally who dies—to either render him broken rather than dead or into rations if they still die! There are some thirty-six of them and they can be selected or rolled randomly, and they can be selected to create certain character builds, although there is only the one suggested such build, so the Game Master and his players will need to work what Feat works with what Feat.

The first of two new Classes in Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic is the ‘Sacrilegious Songbird’ by Karl Druid. This is a Bard Class whose voice was all wrack and ruin until he did a deal with the devil and now he has immense charm and been gifted with an accursed instrument like a Hurty Gurdy or a Lute of the Acute Brute. The other is Cameron James’ ‘Shedding Vicar’, a far viler option who believes that armour is for the weak, clothes are a sin, and even his very skin an abhorrent vanity. Consequently, he peels it so that he can walk clean and glistening wet under the night sky. That skin can be used a skin whip, is marked with glyphs of power, and even traded to a higher power for temporary bonuses… One is fouler than the other, but both are in keeping with the tone of Mörk Borg.

Mörk Borg’s other co-creator, Johan Nohr, contributes ‘You Are Cursed’, a set of tables of for creating and inflicting curses on the Player Characters—twenty or so curses, who might be able to help the victim, the cost of that help, and the solution. The cause of any one of these curses is not given, but whether from a witch or the breaking of sorcerer’s wards or the setting off of a trap, the trigger is the easy bit to set up. It the nature of curse itself, which is a bit harder to detail, which is where this article is so useful. Thus this is another adventure or story generator, the results of which can be applied to a Player Character or NPC, and so push them further towards their ill-fated Doom…

With ‘The Merchant’, Johnny Carht describes not just an NPC, but also his wares, which means another table, this time fully illustrated to roll on. Whatever Mikhael the Merchant has for sale, the price is always very personal to the Player Character—quite literally, costing him actual points in terms of stats! His wares, whether a Galgenbeck Deathmask (place on the face of a corpse to discover how it died, but its theft was heretical) in Iveland or a Jar of Troll Piss (spill on the ground to prevent no beast will walk on it, though a territorial troll might) in the Wästland, vary depending upon the region where he is found. There are plenty of temptations here and Mikhael the Merchant could become a recurring NPC, if the Player Characters are willing to pay the price. Ian McClung’s ‘Blackpowder Weapons for the Rich and Foolhardy’ adds firearms as an option to Mörk Borg, but whilst they are deadly, they are very expensive, and they are slow, not to say loud. Whether their advantage of possibly inflicting a lot of damage outweighs their disadvantages will be down to the players and their characters. That is, if the Game Master agrees, for they are very much optional.

Just three monsters are described in Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic. One is Matthew Bottiglieri’s ‘The Bone Bowyer’, a vile fey which sneaks out of the Sarkash and abducts children to fashion their bones into bows and their flesh into blood-dyed cloaks. The obvious use is as a thing to hunt and possibly, rescue missing children from its callous clutches, but the option given as to what a wicked Player Character (or NPC) would have to pay in order to have such a bow as that wielded by the Bone Bowyer. Even if the first target is missed, an arrow fired from the Bone Bow will try to hit another and then another and another until it hits a target—any target! The second is ‘Borg Bitor’, a centipede-grub which feeds on stone, mortar, and wood, with acidic-venom dripping mandibles and the ability to excrete ‘Devil’s Glue’ with which to capture its prey. Worse though is the fact that the females find surrogates for their eggs in nurseries and none are any the wiser the parents are forced to hide the child from the world. The third and last is the ‘Rotten Nurse’ by Pelle Nilsson, a description of those infamous nurses who helped perform terrible experiments in Mikol’s Infirmary and who harshly punished with burial alive after being dunked in acid… When their graves were opened,  their coffins were empty. These creatures will be found in the scenario, ‘Nurse the Rot’, which follows immediately on.

The centre-piece for Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic is Karl Druid’s ‘Graves Left Wanting’. This is a large cemetery crawl, set in Graven-Tosk in Sarkash in the shadow of the Shadow Kimg’s manse, long abandoned, but with bodies still finding their way in even as the living and unliving attempt to claw their way out. Which includes the Player Characters. ‘Graves Left Wanting’ is intended as a one-shot, a campaign-starter, or even a post-campaign starter after a Total Party Kill! The Player Characters awaken in coffins and once free have the bounds of the graveyard to explore and ultimately escape… as you would expect, this is a foul, fetid, wretched place, fog-shrouded and full of the dead, the not-dead, and those in between. This is a great, doom-laden, way to kick off a campaign, or even better restart a campaign. In fact, even if the Player Characters die in Graven-Tosk they can easily wake up again in the grave and attempt to find their way out again, so there is a little bit of Groundhog Day to ‘Graves Left Wanting’…

‘Graves Left Wanting’ is followed by three scenarios, the first of which is Greg Saunders’ ‘Bloat’. This is a short, two-page mini-dungeon, home to a bacchanalian cult of excess and consumption, and as vile and rotten as you would expect. Where ‘Bloat’ is a one-session affair, Christian Sahlén’s ‘Sepulchre of the Swamp Witch’ is longer, but also details a cave complex home to a strange cult. It is said that if certain words are chanted before the witch’s altar of glyph-covered roots, any wish will be fulfilled—even powerful enough to stop the encroaching Doom! Depending on the actions of the Player Characters, fully exploring this cave complex may become an exercise in frustration, but it contains some fun twists which they can take advantage of, and if they can make it to the altar, where they can make their wishes, but this being Mörk Borg, there is a catch… Lastly, at the bequest of one of their aunts, Mother Marathuk, the Player Characters must enter the Chapel Olundan and recover the Staff of Awful Light lest the village of Tünstal sink into darkness. Placed inside rear fold, this is the last entry in Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic and the last and fourth by Pelle Nilsson. The chapel is partially populated by the Borg Bitor and the Rotten Nurse described earlier, and the more the Player Characters explore the more likely they come to their attention. Once that happens, it adds a sense of urgency to the situation as the Player Characters attempt to get away from their clutches and fulfil their aunt’s last request!

Slipped inside the front cover, ‘The Monster Approaches’ is a quick and dirty random monster generator which with a roll of a handful of dice, the Game Master can create something vile and unnerving to throw at her Player Characters—who are of course, just as likely to be almost, if not equally as vile and unnerving. It is quickly followed by Svante Landgraf’s ‘Roads to Damnation: Travel Across a Dying World’ which provides rules and randomness for travelling across the large island which is all that remains of the Dying Lands. It covers distances as well as events on and off the road, but like all tables has only a limited number of entries, so may be exhausted fairly soon. For a roleplaying game like Mörk Borg, which is designed for short campaigns, this is not so much of an issue.

In addition, Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic comes with a minimalistic dungeon crawl which is part-comic/part-poster. Drawn by Łukasz Kowalczuk, ‘The Hero Gauntlet of Hagelsecht’  shows how three brave/foolish adventurers ventured into the depths of the dungeon and did not make it out again. It is fun to see a Mörk Borg dungeon bash done as a cartoon and being accompanied by the monster stats and a mini-map could easily worked up into a mini-adventure inspired by the trio’s fate.

Physically, Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic adheres to the artpunk aesthetic as you would expect for a Mörk Borg supplement. There is a definite contrast between its dark gloomy content—and often its pages—and the bold splashes of colour, even on the matte paper stock. It is well written and the layout., perhaps a little busy in places, is easy to read.

As with any Mörk Borg release Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic can add so much to your fantasy game—especially if it is dark and grim. Its content would work in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous, Shadow of the Demon Lord, and others—with a little bit of adaptation. As a supplement for Mörk Borg, the fanzine adds more content to make the experience of playing Mörk Borg even grislier, grottier, and grubbier for all concerned, the Game Master, her players, and their characters. ‘Graves Left Wanting’ in particular is a great starting (or restarting) point, but there is so much dark and nasty content in Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic that any Mörk Borg Game Master will want to inflict it on her players.

Substitute Souls

In comparison to Tales from the Loop, there is relatively little support for its sequel, Things from the Flood. Both share a setting in Mälaröarna, the islands of Lake Mälaren, east of Stockholm, first in the 1980s and then in 1990s, the site of the Facility for Research in High Energy Physics—or ‘The Loop’—the world’s largest particle accelerator, constructed and run by the government agency, Riksenergi. Both are settings drawn from Simon Stålenhag’s artwork, Tales from the Loop contrasting an almost pastoral idyll against a hi-tech world of the Loop, robots, and skies filled with ‘magnetrine vessels’, freighters and slow liners whose engines repel against the Earth’s magnetic field, an effect only possible in northern latitudes. In Things from the Flood, the pastoral idyll has been spoiled, the lands around the Loop spoiled by a hot, brown liquid bubbling up out of the ground, Riksenergi being shut down and the Loop being sold off, robots suffering from a strange cancer, and the resulting economic crisis would lead to depression, personality changes, divorces, gambling disorders, and more… Where Tales from the Loop is positive in tone and has a fascination with technology, Things from the Flood is darker and has a fear of technology.

Thankfully for fans of Things from the Flood—and other titles from Free League Publishing, there is the Free League Workshop. Much like the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons, this is a platform for creators to publish and distribute their own original content, which means that they also have a space to showcase their creativity and their inventiveness, to do something different, and perhaps even surprise us. So it is with Somethings are Better Left Unsaid.

Somethings are Better Left Unsaid is a scenario for Things from the Flood, and whilst it does involve things, it does not involve either floods, Loops, or even Sweden. It is still set in the 1990s though, but Australia, rather than Sweden, and the Teens are still teenagers. It is the second in a series of adventures—the first being Shakespeare’s Monkeys—involving the efforts of the research company, Northstar R&D, led by its founding CEO, Jeremy Longstaff, which wants to bring some of the technological and scientific benefits, in particular, the magic of magnetite, from the Loops in Sweden and Boulder City, Nevada, to the Southern Hemisphere. It is a short, one or two session scenario set in the lakeside town of Jindabyne, a small tourist resort in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia.

Despite sharing the same location and being set in Australia, Somethings are Better Left Unsaid is a little different in comparison to Shakespeare’s Monkeys. In a way, it feels less Australian because it does not involve an intelligent creature a la the series, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo (which in Shakespeare’s Monkeys manages to feel simultaneously appropriate and inappropriate). However, because it forgoes this obvious potential for parody, it allows the authors to bring in something which is genuinely Australian and so brings colour into the scenario which was not present in Shakespeare’s Monkeys. This is Behind the News, a long-running news programme broadcast on Australia’s ABC TV and aimed at upper primary and lower secondary students to help them understand issues and events outside their own lives. Show the players an episode of this—especially those from the nineties and perhaps worked into scenes earlier in Shakespeare’s Monkeys and that would go towards adding colour to the four scenarios.

The other difference between the two scenarios is that Somethings are Better Left Unsaid brings the threat at its heart closer to home—or at least closer to school. The Teens of Jindabyne begin to have the weirder feelings than the norm—that they almost know what others are thinking and of floating just above their bodies as they fall asleep at night, just as radios keep squawking static and the sound of voices begging. Could these be connected? The one day at school, just as they are about to watch the latest episode of Behind the News, their science teacher, along with a fellow student,  faints in class. If they go to check on either of them in hospital the next day, they discover that the local doctors are both perplexed and worried, but a strange old man, accompanied by bodyguards no less, seems to be taking an interest in them. Things take a really weird turn the next day when the substitute the science teacher who is sick, Doctor Matianov, is actually the strange old man who was seen at the hospital the day before. This is not just weird, for it gets worse when it becomes obvious that Doctor Matianov is actually a terrible teacher! Just what is going on and just what does it have to do with Doctor Matianov? Is he really a teacher? Has he joined the staff at the school for reasons of his own?

Somethings are Better Left Unsaid is creepy and weird and ties into our fears—and those of the Teens—of conspiracies (Doctor Matianov is actually Russian), loss (in particular of important mentors and friends), and the supernatural (the weird voices heard over the radio, at the very least). It is darker in tone than the earlier Shakespeare’s Monkeys and is more focused and confined to just the school and the hospital, rather than being more open in terms of its play area. The result is that Somethings are Better Left Unsaid is shorter and more likely to played through in a single, intense session (though it could stretch to two). Similarly, just as with Shakespeare’s Monkeys, the decently explained plot is easily adapted to other settings—even back to Mälaröarna or Boulder City! There is however one issue with Somethings are Better Left Unsaid which it shared with Shakespeare’s Monkeys. It leaves the connections to Northstar R&D undeveloped and unexplored, and perhaps it would have been better for this scenario and the previous one to have dropped some hints or foreshadowed at the corporation’s involvement.

Physically, Somethings are Better Left Unsaid is a decently laid out document and follows the format for Things from the Flood. Some of the artwork is decent too, and the maps are nicely done. The darker turn of Somethings are Better Left Unsaid is not unwelcome scenario in what is another likeable enough affair that offers the chance to explore the world of Things from the Flood from a different perspective. It feels as if it is laying the foundation for something larger, but not telling the Game Master what it is yet, and that really needs to come through in the next scenarios to be released.

Monkey Island

In comparison to Tales from the Loop, there is relatively little support for its sequel, Things from the Flood. Both share a setting in Mälaröarna, the islands of Lake Mälaren, east of Stockholm, first in the 1980s and then in 1990s, the site of the Facility for Research in High Energy Physics—or ‘The Loop’—the world’s largest particle accelerator, constructed and run by the government agency, Riksenergi. Both are settings drawn from Simon Stålenhag’s artwork, Tales from the Loop contrasting an almost pastoral idyll against a hi-tech world of the Loop, robots, and skies filled with ‘magnetrine vessels’, freighters and slow liners whose engines repel against the Earth’s magnetic field, an effect only possible in northern latitudes. In Things from the Flood, the pastoral idyll has been spoiled, the lands around the Loop spoiled by a hot, brown liquid bubbling up out of the ground, Riksenergi being shut down and the Loop being sold off, robots suffering from a strange cancer, and the resulting economic crisis would lead to depression, personality changes, divorces, gambling disorders, and more… Where Tales from the Loop is positive in tone and has a fascination with technology, Things from the Flood is darker and has a fear of technology.

Thankfully for fans of Things from the Flood—and other titles from Free League Publishing, there is the Free League Workshop. Much like the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons, this is a platform for creators to publish and distribute their own original content, which means that they also have a space to showcase their creativity and their inventiveness, to do something different, and perhaps even surprise us. So it is with Shakespeare’s Monkeys.

Shakespeare’s Monkeys is a scenario for Things from the Flood, and whilst it does involve things, it does not involve either floods, Loops, or even Sweden. It is still set in the 1990s though, but Australia, rather than Sweden, and the Teens are still teenagers. It is the first in a series of adventures involving the efforts of the research company, Northstar R&D, led by its founding CEO, Jeremy Longstaff, which wants to bring some of the technological and scientific benefits, in particular, the magic of magnetite, from the Loops in Sweden and Boulder City, Nevada, to the Southern Hemisphere. It is a short, one or two session scenario set in the lakeside town of Jindabyne, a small tourist resort in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia.

As the title suggests, the scenario concerns a monkey—or rather a troop of monkeys, or rather it starts with one monkey and then involves a whole lot of them. Perhaps one of the Teen finds out he has a really smart possum breaking into the garden shed for food, but it turns out to be a monkey or the Teens hear about (or encounter) some weird, hippy American asking questions about the new buildings on the island out in the lake or they even hear about monkey sightings round the town. Either way, the Teens will soon encounter a troop of monkeys about town and in particular, one monkey who appears to have been modified with an antenna and ultimately wants to make friends. However, the Teens will not be only ones interested in the monkeys, or rather the one monkey, and when they investigate further, they will discover the presence of the strange American in town and his interest in the buildings on the island on the lake. Ultimately, they will follow the clues out to the island and discover not only what is going on there, but also how it affects the monkey who has befriended them, as well as the other monkeys.

Shakespeare’s Monkeys is the first in a series of adventures for Things from the Flood and a fairly sad one at that. It is short, playable in a session or two, and in general, its well-explained plot is easily adapted to other settings—even back to Mälaröarna or Boulder City! This may be a solution to a problem which the author of the scenario fails to address, and that is its setting. In Things from the Flood—and before that, Tales from the Loop—there is background information on both the Sweden and the USA of the nineties and eighties, but Shakespeare’s Monkeys has none. Just as American culture and Swedish culture are different, so is that of Australia. Whilst there is a map of Jindabyne, there is no background given either. Which leaves the Game Master with a lot of information to research to get the setting right, unless both players and Game Master want to rely upon soap operas for their knowledge of Australia, or given the fact thatShakespeare’s Monkeys involves an intelligent animal, episodes of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo (which manages to feel simultaneously appropriate and inappropriate). Now to some extent, the players and their Game Master will construct some of the elements of the setting of Jindabyne around their characters, that is built into Things from the Flood, but to shift the roleplaying game to somewhere else and not provide this is an oversight.

Another consequence of the lack of background, is that the consequences to the scenario—not the conclusion—is underwritten. Again, the Game Master will need to work out what these are, but again that will be derived from whatever she and her players develop in terms of their setting.

Physically, Shakespeare’s Monkeys is a decently laid out document and follows the format for Things from the Flood. Some of the artwork is decent too, and the maps are nicely done. Ultimately, when coming to run and play Shakespeare’s Monkeys, the issue that both Game Master and players will have address is the fact that it is set in Australia and it does involve an animal, so that may lead to some humour around the table. The issues with the background and lack of it aside, Shakespeare’s Monkeys is a likeable enough scenario that offers the chance to explore the world of Things from the Flood from a different perspective.

[Fanzine Focus XXIV] Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory

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 another Dungeon Master and 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. Another retroclone garnering attention via fanzines is Mörk Borg.

Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory—‘Feretory’ meaning ‘a portable shrine containing the relics of a saint.’ is a fanzine of a different stripe, both in terms of content and style. It is and it is not a fanzine, but it is for Mörk Borg, the pitch-black pre-apocalyptic fantasy roleplaying game which brings a Nordic death metal sensibility to the Old School Renaissance. The format is that of a fanzine, A5-sized, on matte paper rather than the gloss of the Mörk Borg rulebook, but sharing the same riotous assault of electrically vibrant yellow and pink highlights on swathes of black, abrupt font changes, and metallic embellishments. Essentially, production values higher than that typically found in most fanzines, but influential nevertheless, as seen in the recent Knock! #1 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac. This is because although the origins of the content in Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory are amateur in origin, they have been curated from submissions to the Mörk Borg Cult, the community content programme for Mörk Borg by the designers of the roleplaying game and collated into a fanzine format. And unlike most fanzines is available through distribution. It is essentially, a cross between a fanzine with gorgeous production values and a supplement with fanzine sensibilities.

At sixty-four pages and fourteen or so entries, Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory is also longer than most fanzines. Most of its articles are fairly short though and written and presented in a sparse, often bullet-point style which makes their content easy to digest. It can be boiled down to a variegated array of tables, scenarios, and character Classes, and Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory does not waste any time in getting down to its trademark doom and gloom with the first of its tables. Slipped inside the front cover, ‘The Monster Approaches’ is a quick and dirty random monster generator which with a roll of a handful of dice, the Game Master can create something vile and unnerving to throw at her Player Characters—who are of course, just as likely to be almost, if not equally as vile and unnerving. It is quickly followed by Svante Landgraf’s ‘Roads to Damnation: Travel Across a Dying World’ which provides rules and randomness for travelling across the large island which is all that remains of the Dying Lands. It covers distances as well as events on and off the road, but like all tables has only a limited number of entries, so may be exhausted fairly soon. For a roleplaying game like Mörk Borg, which is designed for short campaigns, this is not so much of an issue.

Longer is ‘Eat Prey Kill’ by Karl Druid, which can work as a companion to ‘Roads to Damnation: Travel Across a Dying World’, providing as it does rules for hunting in the Dying Lands. In effect, it is a set of mini-tables, one for each region of the Dying Lands (indicated by the often-indecipherable use of Gothic script), with each entry on the these mini-tables being a complete monster description and its stats. So in the Bergen Chrypt, a hunter might find a Tunnel Sneak (or it might find him), Nephalix Monkeys who leap from peak to peak on boney wings, tossing their victims down the cliffs below, laughing as they do, or a Ragpie, what appears to be bundle of old cloth near a pile of bones, but which embraces and chokes its victims like a dark cloak. So it is a bestiary of new creatures also, but what makes it grim is not just the table for hunting mishaps, but also what a hunter might find in the belly of the beast he is hunting…

‘d100 Items and Trinkets’ by Pelle Svensson provides exactly that, whilst Anders Arpi, Ben H, Dom Cohen, Ripley C, Johan Nohr, karl Druid, Leander E, Paul Wilde, and Flora v/d B all contribute to ‘The Tenebrous Reliquary’ which is a much lengthier and more table which contains ‘d66 Items of Doom’, including the ‘Plasmatic Idol’ which blood is spilled over it, the blood becomes a poison or the owner gains a temporary boon; a ‘Tyrant’s Tongue’, which when placed in the mouth of a skull, screams the tongue’s final words—over and over; and the ‘Claw of the Sloth’, a dagger whose small cuts can eventually freeze a victim on the spot. All of these items have a grim, dark edge to them befitting the tone of the roleplaying game. They could easily be adapted to other roleplaying games or settings with similar atmospheres. ‘The Tablets of Obscurity’ is a list of ten magical relics of a forgotten mind-cult, essentially stone tablets used like scrolls, whilst ‘The Black Salt Wind’ blows through tombs, palaces, and places deep beneath the earth, such as in the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead and the Wästland plains, its effects random each time, such as burning eyes which weep black tears encrusting the eyes or Old Salt Madness singing to you, telling to either mock or befriend everyone you meet!

Carl Niblaeus’ ‘The Death Ziggurat’ is the first of three scenarios in Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory. The Player Characters are hired by Cretun monks to climb down into a cold and dank sinkhole in the forests of Sarkash to find an ancient ziggurat and prevent a demon laying waste to the world. This is a mini-hexcrawl, set in a freezing landscape, with just a handful of locations, including the ziggurat itself, and even fewer NPCs. Combined with a set of tables to populate the sinkhole with ruins and encounters, ‘The Death Ziggurat’ is playable in a session or two and is easily added to a campaign or run as a one-shot. It also nicely tags the core concept behind Mörk Borg and that is that the world is doomed… ‘The Goblin Grinder’ by Ripley Caldwell moves the action to the city of Galgenbeck which has become infested with Goblins, with the number of its citizens affected by the Goblin Cure growing day by day. Fortunately, a local alchemist has a cure—at a cost of forty silver a vial! The scenario comes with several reasons for the Player Characters to get involved, at least initially, but not necessarily how to take the next step and get them to locations where the scenario is likely to be resolved. Once the Player Characters get to the primary location in the scenario, it is nicely detailed, grim and grimy with a certain grinding crunch to its climax. The scenario needs a little effort upon the part of the Game Master to work, but once done, this again, is playable in a session or two.

‘The Grey Galth Inn’ is not a scenario as such, but rather another set of tables for generating elements and storyhooks when at this, or another inn. So, there are tables for both ‘Would you prefer the Select Menu?’ and ‘Ah, I see, you lack funds’ (watery femur soup or thick ooze soup—ooze is pure—sound lovely), along with tables for ‘Why is the Innkeeper Twitching?’ and ‘Patron traits’. Also included is rules for the dice-based gambling mini-game called Three Dead Skulls. Of course, these tables can be used to generate content and hook the Player Characters into whatever is going on in and around the inn. 

Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory includes four new Classes. These begin with Karl Druid’s ‘Cursed Skinwalker’, a shape-shifter able to assume the form of a singular creature, such as a Murder-Plagued Rat or a Doomsaying Monkey, within a bone-cracking painful minute. The ‘Pale One’ by Tim Rudluff is an alien of weird origins and manner, able to cast a random blessing once per day, but beset by incoherent madness and self-destructive rages, whilst Greg Saunders’ ‘Dead God’s Prophet’ listens to the voices in his head telling him what to do, and is blessed by his dead god, perhaps with poison-seeping stigmata or eyes of holy fire. Lastly, the ‘Forlorn Philosopher’ who studies have failed him and rails at the lies left. The ‘Forlorn Philosopher’ can freely use and understand ‘The Tablets of Obscurity’. Some of these Classes are easier to play than others, the Cursed Skinwalker’  and ‘Pale One’ in particular feeling underwritten in comparison to the ‘Dead God’s Prophet’ and ‘Forlorn Philosopher’, both of which add to the feel and atmosphere of the Dying Lands.

Included in Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory is ‘Dark Fort’, the solo game which formed the basis for Mörk Borg. It is a short, and in keeping with Mörk Borg, nasty solo game. Complete with five character sheets, a player rolls on its tables to generate encounter after encounter, the aim being for the victim/character to survive each room, collect silver, gain a Level, and so on. Once a player has ticked each of the six advancements from gaining a new Level, the character retires, lives comfortably, and just like Mörk Borg, the world ends. It is quick and dirty, even slight, but a nice nod to the origins of the roleplaying game.

Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory can add so much to your fantasy game—especially if it is dark and grim. Its content would work in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous, Shadow of the Demon Lord, and others—with a little bit of adaptation. As a supplement for Mörk Borg it expands aspects of adventuring in the Dying Lands whilst keeping them as grim and grimy, as grisly and grotty, and as ghastly and grubby as both Game Master and players would want. Mörk Borg Cult: Feretoryy is a joyously foul and febrile first supplement, offering up a jumble that the Game Master will want to sort through and add to her game.

Friday Fantasy: Slaves to Fate

From Chaosium, Inc. with the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds) to Wizards of the Coast with the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons, publishers are seeing the benefit of fan-based content. Free League Publishing, the Swedish publisher best known for roleplaying games as Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, Coriolis: The Third Horizon, Tales from the Loop – Roleplaying in the '80s That Never Was, Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World, and Symbaroum, has its own platform for user-made content in the form of the Free League Workshop.
Slaves to Fate: An Adventure of Endless Winter is a short scenario for the near-Dark Ages fantasy roleplaying game, Symbaroum. Published by Earl of Fife Games, it is a focused affair actually intended as an introduction to a new campaign, Forever Winter. Consequently, it is linear in structure, it requires a particular set-up, and places a big responsibility with one player. The set-up is quite simple. The player characters are slaves. Mostly Ogres and Goblins, but also a mix of other races and occupations, so the player characters then. They should all be beginning characters and their players should decide how and why they ended up enslaved in the first place—captured by slavers, sold into slavery, to pay off a debt, and so on. One of the player characters should be a Changeling, and whilst Slaves to Fate provides enough in terms of motivation and background for this character, his player is free to create whatever character type he likes and there is still room for him to add elements to his backstory if he so desires. Alternatively, the Game Master can simply create this character as an NPC.

As the scenario opens, the player characters, as part of the slave coffle, have been taken north into the Davokar Forest where they are being worked all but to death felling trees and preparing lumber for shipment south. As the temperature drops and the player characters try and cope with exhaustion and not enough food and water, there is opportunity for them to escape. Several methods are discussed, but whatever the means, the player characters find themselves hounded from their camp by marauding beasts. Ultimately, they will find refuge, but all too quickly it becomes a prison and again they must escape to confront the forest itself…

The scenario does call for a degree of buy-in upon the part of the players, not least of which upon whoever will be playing the Changeling. Some players may object to being pushed from pillar to post, and may just simply refuse to the trust the Changeling, whether a player character or an NPC. To an extent the scenario includes advice on what happens if either the Changeling or the player characters die, but to get the fullest out of Slaves to Fate, the Game Master may want to talk to her players about the expectations of the scenario before play begins. Certainly she will need to do that with whomever is playing the Changeling.

Physically, Slaves to Fate is a 4.63 Mb, fourteen page, full colour PDF. The layout is clean and tidy and the illustrations are good, and generally well written even if it needs an edit in places.

In fact, Slaves to Fate is not a new adventure, it having been adapted to Symbaroum from previous versions for Zweihänder – Grim & Perilous, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Demon Gate, and the Genesys roleplaying game. The grim, near apocalyptic nature of the scenario though, fits the Dark Ages feel of Symbaroum as much as it does Zweihänder – Grim & Perilous and Shadow of the Demon. The scenario can only work as a prelude, the set-up for the campaign to come, Forever Winter, it otherwise being too linear and too bleak to really work as a one-shot. As the set-up to a campaign, Slaves to Fate works well enough and will hopefully lay the groundwork for the Forever Winter campaign.