The Other OSR: THREE from the LOCKER

THREE from the LOCKER is a ‘Pamphlet Bundle’ for Pirate Borg, the self-described, “Worst Pirate RPG Ever Made™!”, published by Limithron. It is published by SkeletonKey Games, which previously released the excellent fanzine, Tales from the Locker #1, and consists of a mini-adventure, Sweet Tusk, and two mini-supplements, Blood in the Water and Raise the Black, that are also available separately. In turn, they give the Game Master a location-based scenario that combines H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau with George Orwell’s Animal Farm in the Dark Caribbean; six possible situations when the ship that the Player Characters are aboard is rendered into a derelict, whether from a ship-to-ship engagement, a terrible storm, a run in with sea monsters, or other threat, and about to sink; and what might happen when a pirate captain orders his crew to ‘raise the black’ and hoist the jolly roger! All pamphlets are available on their own as well as a bundle (or pack if physical). They do share the same trade dress, so definitely feel as if they should be bought together!

Sweet Tusk promises ‘Pigs Plot, Rum Flow, Adventure Awaits’ in detailing a costal rum plantation and rum distillery that was once home to a necromancer and his cult, but is now home to a passel of pigs, some sentient, some feral, many bipedal, most of them anthropomorphised. The Player Characters could simply wash ashore at the plantation a la Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau, but the adventure’s own hooks include looking for a new source of rum, being sent to exterminate ‘feral’ pigs to prevent them from spreading across the Dark Caribbean, or being hired to retrieve an item from the plantation for its previous owners. To get the best out of the location, the Game Master should ideally combine the latter with one of the first two as that will drive the Player Characters to interact with most of the inhabitants of the plantations, its plot threads, and explore its depths.

The plantation is dominated by two factions. One is lead by Lord Wembly Trembleton and wants to restore the rum distillery and sugar mill with the aim of becoming self-sufficient, whilst Scrofa, the plantation’s spiritual leader, her sorcery twisted by the necromantic studies she found that belonged to the previous owner, is becoming increasingly and brutally isolationist. The Player Characters will need to deal with them and explore the plantations—including the tunnels that have been dug under the plantation (and make it feel like a Vietcong tunnel network)—to achieve their given objectives. Alternatively, the Player Characters might ignore them altogether and clear out the whole of plantation and take it over and run it themselves as a going concern.

Sweet Tusk has a hot, sweaty feel, sticky with perspiration and sugar and piggy peculiarity. The latter is probably the only reason why the Game Master might not want to run Sweet Tusk, talking pigs not necessarily going to suit every campaign. As written though, it adds an off-kilter element that the Game Master can throw at her players and their characters and have fun portraying a passel of pigs in the process.

Blood in the Water gives the Game Master ‘Six Sinking Ship Scenarios’. The Game Master can use this when the Player Characters’ ship, or the ship that they are on, either selecting one of the options or rolling for it. Each one has events happening on deck and three zones surrounding the vessel, out to thirty feet and beyond. The six options include the ‘Feeding Frenzy’ of a shark attack on the ship going down; ‘Tentacles from the Deep’ that flail at the ship and its crew and passenger; a ‘Powder Magazine Explosion’ that sends fire and shrapnel across the deck and beyond; the ship and floating wreckage being thrown about by ‘Angry Seas’; ghosts that come looking for new crewmembers in ‘Revenant Recruitment’; and potentially the crew and passengers being saved with a kiss by ‘Meddling Mermaids’! Since the action in each divided into four zones—three plus the deck—where different things will happen, there is a degree of procedure to running any one of these post-disaster ship encounters. Not a lengthy procedure, but quite a simple one, and they all do add a bit of flavour to a sinking ship situation beyond the Player Characters abandoning ship and racing for the boats. Added to this is a sea shanty, Sharks in the Water, that a ship’s crew can sing to give its members bonuses to tests in the first few rounds of the sinking ship. The Game Master might want to have her players and their characters learn this in response to having been in a sinking ship the first time and so learn from their experience. Blood in the Water is quite specific in the situation it needs to trigger its use and that trigger is not going to happen that often, but definitely useful to have on the shelf though.

The third pamphlet is Raise the Black. This expands upon the various effects of the jolly roger in play. First, when ‘Raising the Black’, that is, hoisting the jolly roger and its effects upon the crew of the vessel being targeted by the pirate ship. In play, the ship’s captain of the pirate ship tests his Presence and result, which depends upon the size of the targeted vessel in comparison to the pirate vessel, may leave the crew plucky still and laughing off the threat or feeling doomed and wanting no part of the battle. There are plenty of options in between and effectively determines the morale of targeted vessels. ‘Witchjacks’ are special flags, ensorcelled versions of the jolly roger, that grant special powers that can be used once per day. For example, the Banner of the Black Whale grants an extra die of damage in ramming attacks and extra damage the further it has travelled, whilst the Pennant of the Mermaid grants an extra Crew Action. A pirate captain is unlikely to want to fly a flag other than his own, so there are rules included that enable to cut up a Witchjack and sew the resulting parts and its magic into the pirate captain’s own flag. This does not always work, but it destroys the original flag. Minor, but optional rules beyond this are included to help speed up naval combat and ‘D20 Pirate Flags’ give options for both a Player Character or an NPC crew if the Game Master needs to a pirate flag quickly. Given that a third of the pamphlet is taken up illustrations of jolly roger flags, Raise the Black is the least useful of the three pamphlets in THREE from the LOCKER and add the least to the play of Pirate Borg.

Physically, the three pamphlets of THREE from the LOCKER are all decently presented. They are clearly and simply laid out and all easy to read and use. Sweet Tusk is the busiest, so is harder to read, but only slightly so, and nothing that is going to impede the Game Master running the scenario from the page. The artwork is light, but the cartography is decent.

THREE from the LOCKER is solid support for Pirate Borg, the scenario Sweet Tusk being the highlight of the three, entertaining and enjoyable, a Player Character-driven plantation-crawl that is easy to add to a Game Master’s campaign. The other two pamphlets are shorter and not quite as entertaining as Sweet Tusk and Raise the Black not quite as useful, but in the right circumstances, still good to have in the ship’s locker.

[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  . 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.

Operative Disorientation

SLA Industries is the roleplaying game set in a far future dystopia of corporate greed, commodification of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, conspiracy, and urban horror, and serial killer sensationalism. S.L.A. Industries has its headquarters on Mort City, its rain sodden, polluted, and overly populated heart, located on the industrially stripped planet of Mort and surrounded by five Cannibal Sectors, and from here it governs the planet and the World of Progress beyond, encompassing all of known space. It is here the citizens come from far and wide to enlist in Meny to become SLA Operatives and part of the mediatised programme even as they protect SLA Industries and the World of Progress from innumerable threats from without—and some from within. SLA Operatives are the creme de la creme, whose actions caught on camera garner them sponsorship, TV deals, promotions, better missions, and the best weapons that the company can offer. Every SLA Operative is a would be star. You, however are nobody, a fuck-up in the waiting, a wannabe without the brains to realise how shit you are, thinking that you are really hot, when you are just waiting for an actual SLA Operative to slice and dice you without even thinking about it or a serial killer to add you to his kill count and his path to recognition.

This is not the subject of SLA Industries, the flagship roleplaying game from Nightfall Games, but of SLA Borg, a wholly idiotic interpretation of the setting of the World of Progress—in more senses than one—that requires an entirely different and more brutally blunt game system. That game system is 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. What this means is that SLA Borg brings the World of Progress to the Old School Renaissance, though not SLA Industries since the approach to playing both roleplaying games varies widely. Funded via a successful Kickstarter campaign, SLA Borg includes the full rules for creating very disposable anti- or non-‘heroes’, handling actions and combat, a bestiary of foes that are going to be really annoyed if the fuckwits bother them, and the means to facilitate the Broken Biscuits’ probable screwups.

SLA Borg takes the setting deep into Downtown, the home of the Broken Biscuits, the civilian housemates—so think The Young Ones believing themselves to be members of the SPG—who think they are an Operative squad. This is because in the weird architecture of their sector, the housemates have been affected by The Dream, the virulent infection that decays reality. Under the effect of The Dream and the massive influence of drugs—lots of drugs—and alcohol, the Broken Biscuits think they are doing good and daily visit the sector house to collect assignments known as BPNs or ‘Blue Print News’ files from Mr. Slayer in person. Except what is actually happening is that they scrounging ‘BPMs’ or ‘Bus Pass Missions’ off the floor under the eye of a large, black and white cat, which surprisingly looks like Mr. Slayer, and is thus therefore known as Mister Slayurrr. Then they go out, attempt to complete the BPM and so help the local community be a better place, when in actuality, the local community collectively the Broken Biscuits are useless wankers. And if they get hurt, then they can get to Mike’s Kebabs, where they can scarf down donar kebabs consisting of surprisingly aromatic meat of dubious origin doused in sauce so hot they will be glad they keep their toilet rolls in the fridge. All because the kebabs of Mike’s Kebabs are renowned for their healing properties.

Rather than creating a Biscuit from scratch, a player selects one of the housemates out of the eight included, such as Digglet, a dayglo pink Manchine who thinks he is Digger, the meanest Manchine ever; Toothy Grin, either a giant rat or someone in a giant rat suit, who thinks he is both a mascot for Big Smile Burgers and a giant rat; and Klick’s End Kenny, a glue-sniffing, cider swigging lout. Then he rolls for his Knucklehead Origin, like Asylum Escapee, Plain Ass Scuzz, and Sloppy Drunk Bum, and his Speciality, like Knives Everywhere—really everywhere, Idiot Savant, and Quest Giver, who is really good at scouring the bus terminal floor for BPMs. The Biscuit is then put through a very simple lifepath system which determines adjustments to the stats—Agility, Knowledge, Presence, Strength, and Toughness, and rolls to see if they are actually alien. If they are, they are probably either deluded—actually, more deluded—or faking it.

Mechanically, SLA Borg is quite simple. Actions and attacks require a roll of a twenty-sided die to beat a Difficulty Rating, from incredibly simple or six, all the way up to should not be possible or eighteen, with twelve being normal. Stat ratings are added as necessary. Combat typically requires a roll against a Difficulty Rating of twelve and the combat rules do cover the use of firearms as well as melee weapons. This includes simple rules for handling ammunition. Rolls of twenty are critical and rolls of one are fumbles. The mechanics are player facing, so that a player will roll for his Biscuit to attack and then roll for his Biscuit to avoid being attacked.

So what do you play in SLA Borg? It includes ideas for BPMs of all types—Mauve, Pink, Starch, Bleu, Lemon, Brown, and because Nightfall Games is a Scottish publisher, Tartan and Paisley. There are almost all sixty or so ideas contained in the BPM section. They vary in detail, a few being ready to play, most requiring some degree of preparation. There is a bestiary too and details of various drugs and alcoholic drinks. Despite this, SLA Borg is not really suited to long term play. After all, there is no means of improving a Biscuit, no means of moving up or getting out...

Physically, SLA Borg is very well-presented. The artwork is as good as to be expected for a vaguely SLA Industries-related supplement, the writing is decent, and it gets away with not needing an index with its relatively short page length.

So… SLA Borg is a dumb game. Intentionally so. It is meant to be dumb. You are playing dumb characters, doing dumb things, because they hold dumb beliefs. Yet the Biscuits in SLA Borg are more victims than they are inadvertent monsters (though they may end doing foolishly monstrous things), victims of the World of Progress, victims of the hopelessness, victims of The Dream. Ultimately, they are victims because they actually want to be better and they want to make a difference, because they know that is what a SLA Operative is meant to do in order to get famous, but none of this is attainable and their attempts to do better and be better, are doomed to failure. SLA Borg is dumbass fun, playing fuckups who are going fuck up, just for a ‘Bus Pass Mission’ or two, but at the same time, it does shine a light, from below, on just how rotten SLA Industries and the World of Progress really is.

[Fanzine Focus XXXVIII] Book of Misery Vol. 2

On the tail of the 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 be 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.

Book of Misery Vol. 2 is a fanzine for Mörk Borg written and published by Gizmo in February, 2023. It contains a mix of options for both players and the Game Master. This includes new Classes, weapons, monsters, and a dungeon that can be easily brought into play and all done in the artpunk style that Mörk Borg is notorious for. It opens with the first of four Classes. The ‘Wise Zealot’ ardently spreads the word of the two-head basilisks, driven by a key belief such as ‘The End is near. Nothing can stop it. However, it is needed for the vitality of the world.’ or ‘Any written word that doesn’t see the basilisks in a positive light in heresy.’ With him, he carries a holy relic, such as a gem-encrusted drinking cup that turns any liquid placed in it turns into pure drinking water, or a terrible amulet that mocks passersby mercilessly, but lets the ‘Wise Zealot’ cast powers at an advantage. The ‘Witch Hunter’ is a version of the classic Puritan figure, agile and with good reason to hunt witches like, “At the age of ten, a witch named Hela, killed your dog in your ritual. He was your best friend. You took up arms to hunt and kill, her easiest way to find her? Kill every witch.” He is armed with such things as a crossbow or silver stakes and flashpowder or a silver sword, the latter good versus hags and witches.

More monstrous is the ‘Renegade Sanguine’, essentially a vampire for Mörk Borg. The Class has higher Toughness and Presence and also a Renegade Sanguine ability. This includes fangs as natural weapons that inflict a six-sided die’s worth of damage or with ‘Raise Thrall’, which grants the ‘Renegade Sanguine’ the ability to raise a corpse for several hours per day. The oddest of the four Classes is the ‘Reborn Fungus’, a mushroom given human form, perhaps created by a witch in a ritual gone wrong and abandoned or sacrificed by the cult his family belonged to. ‘Reborn Fungus’ might emit an ‘Ominous Glow’ of faint blue light or commit ‘Mind Theft’ by releasing spores to temporarily control others. The four Classes offer a mix of the ordinary and the outré. The weirdness of the ‘Reborn Fungus’ and the creepiness of the ‘Renegade Sanguine’ are in keeping with the styles of Mörk Borg, whilst the ‘Wise Zealot’ and ‘Witch Hunter’ are more direct in how they are likely to be played.

‘Monsters and Beasts’ describes thirteen entries, but gets off to an underwhelming start with the Amphiptere, a simple flying lizard. Fortunately, the other entries are more interesting. The ‘Runner’ has the body of a dog, demon’s claws, and a misshapen human skull for a head, that stalk the land and have to be killed in blow of their screams will summon more! ‘The Flail King’ is arrogance personified, accidently summoned by an egocentric scholar, which then killed him. ‘The Flail King’ always attempts to persuade everyone that they are the evil ones. Besides a flail attack, it also has a disorientating eye beam and a nasty bite. The ‘Lamia’ is a creature of legend that poses as a malformed building and fires magic missiles. Why? This is a question never answered in too many of these monster entries, and so they are only slightly more interesting though and feel like they are monsters simply for being monsters’ sake, with little to them to really warrant the Game Master using them in her game. The collective ‘Creatures of the Woods’, which include the ‘Will-O-The Wisp’, ‘Bark-eating arachnid’, and ‘Scorned Spirit’ are simple and easy to use. More detailed and thus actually more interesting are the ‘Rot Mana Drinker’ is an obese, lich-like creature obsessed with magic to the point that they eat it—and those that carry it, and the ‘Demön Lörd of Törture’ (or is it pain, the entry is not quite clear), who descends upon towns and villages and divides them into cultists who worship him and then torture those who refuse to. Overall, a disappointing selection.

‘Places To Go, People To See’ is more useful. ‘Sheila the Crafter’ is a combined trader and quest giver who will buy all manner of bodily remains and can upgrade black powder weapons and other interesting things. The problem is that the description is all about the sales, but not about the quests. So the Game Master will need to extract them from what she has on sale as best see can, such as goblin blood for the goblin blood poison. ‘Rurik IV’ is a warrior for hire, Kash a ‘Pirate Demon’ who has given up her piratical ways and come travelling inland to look for something, although the description does not say what. Unfortunately, and again, these suffer from being underwritten and will need some development upon the part of the Game Master.

The ’Magic Items’ include the ‘Book of Fungus’, a dangerously compelling book that grants the user the ability to cast a fungal spell each time they read it, but fail to cast the casting once too often and they have to eat the book. The ‘Flail of the Great Devil Lord’ was created and wielded by a forgotten warrior, who defeated a demon and attached its head to a chain. It is incredibly heavy, so harder to hit with, but it can do a lot more damage. These are all decent enough.

Rounding out Book of Misery Vol. 2 is ‘The Slaughter Tunnels of Pumpkin Valley’. It details of band of wildfolk who have devolved after years of being cut off in a dungeon below a pumpkin swamp. The Player Characters wake up to find themselves prisoners and have to escape, so this is an easy one to add to a campaign, even to the point of their waking up first thing to discover themselves in this predicament! Effectively ‘dungeon of the cannibals’, this is a serviceable affair.

Physically, Book of Misery Vol. 2 adheres to the artpunk style of Mörk Borg. For the most part it works, but some of the founts selected do make the titles difficult to read.

Book of Misery Vol. 2 is even more of a mixed bag than Book of Misery Vol. 1. The Classes are decent enough, but rest is too underdeveloped and too underwritten to be of immediate use to the Game Master. If she puts some work into the content, then it might be another matter, but why should she have to?

[Fanzine Focus XXXIV] Book of Misery Vol. 1

On the tail of the 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 be 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.

Book of Misery Vol. 1 is a fanzine for Mörk Borg written and published by Gizmo in December 2022. It contains a mix of options for both players and the Game Master. This includes new Classes, weapons, monsters, and dungeons that can be easily brought into play and all done in the artpunk style that Mörk Borg is notorious for. It opens with the first of six new Classes, a mixture of rebels, dissidents, revisionists, and weirdos. ‘The Thinking Thinker’ is weak, but has an enormous Presence and head—whether from a spillage of alchemical liquids, an experiment that gave him an extra brain, or a vestigial twin that was devoured in the womb and absorbed into his brain—and might be equipped with The Calculated Method Book that allows a daily reroll or a letter opener, which is no good against anyone wearing armour. The ‘Nihilistic Conqueror’ is a warrior driven to spread wrath and destruction, perhaps because he believes that his gods will despise him for his cowardice if he does not fight, he wants to see everyone he dislikes pay a blood price for having the gall to exist, or simply has anger issues. He is tough and charismatic, and armed with something like a sharpened axe capable of piercing heavy armour or be accompanied by Huginn, a trusty raven friend capable of pecking enemies when not spying all around.

The ’Hag of a Bygone Age’ is a nun who worships a dead god or has been abandoned by her god, but she has abandoned it. Weak and clumsy, her faith gives her great charisma, and she knows a single prayer, written in a dead language. These can be very powerful, such as causing the undead or those without flesh to crumble into dust or as her eyes roll back in her head and she speaks in tongues, the strength of those around her to wither and even inflict damage. ‘Man’s Best Friend’, is exactly what it suggests, an agile dog with keen senses that can roughly sniff out the number of enemies nearby or locate an object or with ‘Cujo Syndrome’, which after having been bitten by a sewer rat, his foaming teeth are infectious! The ‘Sewer Baby’ was raised in a sewer and the toxic sludge cemented his physical age, whilst being raised by rats taught him to be cunning. His childhood memories are twisted and terrible, but accompanied by a faithful rat companion, he is also capable of spitting acidic sour milk or staring at people so hard that they run away. Lastly, the ‘Ashen Warrior’ is a unique character type for Mörk Borg—a hero! Wearing heavy armour and armed with a mighty claymore, the Ashen Warrior does not have a quirk, power, or trait, but simply has Bloodlust, which grants him extra damage after killing ten enemies in combat.

Overall, this is an entertaining and interesting mix of Classes. They include the usual range of the revolting and wretched, but balance that against an actual heroic Class and a Class that can be happy in the form of ‘Man’s Best Friend’. All six could find a home alongside those given in Mörk Borg and supplements for it.

There is not one ‘Crit Fail Table’, but two. One for attacking and one for defending. Both are decent and do exactly what they are intended to do. As does ‘More Weapons’, which gives seven more weapons like the Sharpened Throwing Finger, the Stabby Sticky, and the Claymore. These are followed by twelve monsters! These include the ‘Cosmic Phase Spider’, the ‘Piskie’, ‘Undead Lightning’—a combination of the machine and the dead which pulsates lightning, ‘Carapace Man Spider’, ‘The Red Spawn of Rot’, and more. There are other monsters detailed elsewhere in the fanzine.

‘Gran’s Tea Hut’ is an encounter in the woods with a quaint little hut, the home of an old lady who sells tea. Depending upon their behaviour towards her, she will serve them tea with either positive or negative effects. If things go really bad, her granddaughter, a mighty warrior woman will step in to protect her grandmother.

The first of the three scenarios in Book of Misery Vol. 1 is ‘Howling Caverns’. A fall into a pit of sludge and waste from which a single narrow tunnel leads to a number of caverns, mostly filled with the dead or dying. There is an encounter with a sacrifice attempt, which is not going the way that most of them do, and that really is it. There is very little in the way of plot beyond the Player Characters falling into the pit and having to find a way out, so the Game Master may want to create something. Otherwise, easy to add as an encounter as a sinkhole in the wilderness or a pit in another dungeon, but not very interesting. The second scenario, ‘A Dungeon Most Pointless’ lives up to its name. The dungeon consists of nine locations, unconnected except for the fact that they are on the same map. It is not even clear if any of the rooms are actually connected and even then, one of the locations is outside of the dungeon. With no overview, no reward, or even anything in the way of a hook or a plot, the most redeeming quality of ‘A Dungeon Most Pointless’ is that you can flick the pages over very fast to get past it. The third scenario, ‘The Putrid House’ is not as long as ‘A Dungeon Most Pointless’, but it is infinitely better and proves that the author can create a decent dungeon. It starts with the Player Characters waking up in the dungeon, unsure of how they got there. To get out, they must fight past troughs of mould and fungi, maniacs, and more. It has a dark, dingy, and desperate feel and is quick and easy to run.

The editorial does not come until the last page, the inside of the back cover. It acknowledges the inspirations for the issue come from a wide variety of sources and persons.

Physically, Book of Misery Vol. 1 adheres to the artpunk style of Mörk Borg. For the most part it works, but some of the founts selected do make the titles difficult to read.

Book of Misery Vol. 1 is a mixed bag. The scenarios, for the most part, are simply disappointing. The monsters are okay, but nothing really stands out. However, and fortunately, ‘Gran’s Tea Hut’ is enjoyably charming in its simplicity, plus the six new Classes are generally interesting and playable.

[Fanzine Focus XXXII] Thoughts & Prayers 2023

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. One of the more recent retroclones to inspire fanzines is Mörk Borg, but there are fewer fanzines dedicated to its sister roleplaying games, Death in Space and CY_BORG. Thoughts & Prayers 2023 addresses this by providing support for all three.

Thoughts & Prayers 2023 is a fanzine published by the Stockholm Kartell, the design group for notable Old School Renaissance such as Mörk Borg, Death in Space, and CY_BORG. It provides support for all three of those roleplaying games—and more. That more consists of content found in the more personal style of fanzines, often consisting of filler material, but despite the professionalism of the fanzine, it does not feel out of place. The most notable aspect of Thoughts & Prayers 2023 is that it is only available direct from Stockholm Kartell and then only at conventions on the Thoughts & Prayers Tour 2023, which took in Gothcon, the Blackwork Tattoo Convention, Lincon, UK Games Expo, and Gen Con. In addition, all proceeds from the sale of the fanzine go to charity. Most of the content is written is by Johan Nohr, the co-creator of Mörk Borg, except where noted.

Thoughts & Prayers 2023 opens with ‘Hog God’, a short scenario for Mörk Borg. It begins with a fight and every drop of blood from the wounds inflicted floating into the air and shooting towards Goresnout Crag. This leads the Player Characters to a series of caves where a new god is about to be spawned attended by his Hog Men acolytes. There is a porcine fleshiness throughout this mini-dungeon, pleasingly mapped by Skullfungus. The second scenario in Thoughts & Prayers 2023 for Mörk Borg is by Pelle Nilsson. In ‘Skewed Angel’, the Player Characters find themselves the honourable winners of a lottery to remove a ‘Fallen’—either an angel or a daemon—which are despoiling the crops in the fields. This has the feel of a more traditional Mörk Borg scenario, more detailed in its location descriptions, and offering two sessions’ worth of play.

Also for Mörk Borg, ‘Who goes there, at the end of all things?’ is a table of strangers, quest givers, companions, and victims for the Game Master to roll on and develop. The longest entry in Thoughts & Prayers 2023 is Christian Sahlén’s ‘d66 ways to slay your enemies’. Beginning with ‘A (Sometimes) Spiked Flail To The Face’, this describes six interesting weapons under the categories of flails, polearms, blunt trauma weapons, blades, heavy weapons, and missile weapons. For example, the Crow’s Caw is a Bec de Corbin, which has a +2 bonus to attack, inflicts damage equal to that of a dagger, but against heavy armour, it ignores the armour modifier, and with the sound of a caw, a crow begins to claw itself out of the opponent’s armour, impeding his actions and inflicting damage. All thirty-six of the weapons in the article share the same level of inventiveness, and whilst designed to be used with Mörk Borg and SKR, they can easily adapted to work with the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice.

Christian Sahlén’s ‘Sprawling Car Park’ describes a location for CY_BORG in the manner of the CY_BORG Asset Pack. This gives a map of a typical car park and then options for what it actually is and what such locations might actually be hiding in the city of CY. The location works as well as other similar locations for the roleplaying setting. He follows this with ‘In Case of Emergency’, which presents a trio of NPCs belonging to an ‘ERT’ or ‘Emergency Response Team’. This can be used in various ways. Perhaps as a team that has to rescue the Player Characters, perhaps a rival ERT team, or a team the Player Characters are hired to act against. Christian Sahlén is also the author of ‘A Day in the Life of a Cy Corp Drone’, a short story detailing the unsurprisingly nasty last day as a regimented, monitored wage slave. It makes clear exactly why the Player Characters do not want that life… ‘Fraudulent Freemium Game Generator’ and ‘Why is the product cheap or free?’ and more by Christian Sahlén and Johan Nohr add tables for inspiration for CY_BORG and Death in Space.

The first actual content for Death in Space is the scenario ‘Cesium 66’. Written by Carl Niblaeus, this details a complete sector ready for the presence of the Player Characters. It gives people, locations, factions, and imminent trouble, including an authoritative leader, a murderous resistance/terrorist group, and science artists who only leave cryrosleep to perform Zero-G dance rituals and speed the end of the universe, and a hive decayer in an adjacent sector. Throw in some contracts and the sector is ready to boil over, seething with tension waiting to be exacerbated by the Player Characters. The other scenario for Death in Space, ‘Transit Precinct 45’, is by Carl Niblaeus and Christian Plogfors. This is set aboard an old marshal satellite station which was staging outpost for the enforcing company law and regulations during the Gem War, but is now operated by rogue corrupt marshals. They capture new prisoners and imprisoning them under false accusations. The Player Characters are hired to extract a wrongly accused prisoner whose family cannot afford the bail to free him. The station is nicely detailed and there are random events tables for the approaches the Player Characters can take to solve the situation—talking and scheming or sneaking around—as well as possible environmental events. It is a more direct affair than ‘Cesium 66’, which has a sandbox feel, but both are easy to add to a Death in Space campaign.

Extra content in Thoughts & Prayers 2023 consists of ‘Public Domain goodness’, which is a selection of black and white publicly available artwork, which can work as inspiration or illustration. ‘Regarding the misses’ discusses ways in which failed attack rolls can be made interesting, a not uncommon point of discussion in Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying games, whilst Pelle Nilsson’s ‘Broken Body Bits’ gives twelve unpleasant maladies that are annoying to the affected character as well as those around him. Jonas Stattin explores the afterlife in ‘The Hell Realms’, drawing from Buddhist traditions to describe several different hells. Unfortunately, it is not anything more than this and there is no application or development. That is left up to the Game Master and reader to do. Fortunately, ‘A Love Letter to the Reaction Roll’ is more interesting because it tells a story. Christian Sahlén begins by telling us how Dungeons & Dragons was looked down upon in the nineties in Sweden, but explains that for him, its saving grace was the reaction roll whenever the Player Characters encountered some monsters or an NPC. It is rather an endearing piece dedicated to the author’s favourite roleplaying game mechanic. Skullfungus adds ‘That weird egg you picked up last session? Yeah it just hatched, and this space-god-spawn crawled out…’, a pair of tables that do exactly what their title suggests.

Rounding out Thoughts & Prayers 2023 is the more personal, non-gaming content. In ‘Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’, Jonas Stattin provides a quick examination, but informative of the Japanese short story writer. This is more interesting and possibly useful than the earlier ‘The Hell Realms’ as it is more likely to spur the reader to investigate further. Lastly, ‘Dronedevil and Massgrav’, described as anonymous Stockholm Kartellites, pen ‘2022 in records’, reviews of the best music in the noise, drone, doom, and black genres. These are either space fillers or interesting depending upon the reader’s interest in these genres.

Physically, Thoughts & Prayers 2023 is well presented. Its artwork is more ‘Doom Punk’ than ‘Art Punk’ and works well in black and white.

Thoughts & Prayers 2023 is a good fanzine. It provides support for all three roleplaying games from the Stockholm Kartell—Mörk Borg, Death in Space, and CY_BORG—and more. That the proceeds go to a good cause is a bonus on top of the solid support, the most fun of which are the delightfully vile weapons.

The Other OSR—Frontier Scum

Beyond the great frontier lies the Lost Frontier, dominated by Covett City, a teeming, bloated city of exploited masses and stinking industries, which arises out of the tarry swamps its factories pollute. Melanethon P. Murrsom, sits at the head of the Incorporation which controls this coastal city and whose influence reaches far and wide. Inland across to Sunken Hill where coffins are chained shut before burial and the dead are said to ring their grave bells still even as looters plunder the coffins that rise from the swamp. Across Carcass County where the roots of the ancient bloodgum trees have a taste for flesh. To Slackgaff-by-the-Sea in Stubbshead County, strife riven by an unpaid debt owed to the Incorporation. To frozen Dalliance in the south across the sea, where the Allied Governess rules with a love as cold as the artic wastes beyond the newly reopened silver mines that the Incorporation previously closed and claimed to have been worked out. West to Fort Gullet, an oil city where the gun rules and Marshal Betjemen Knapp and his posse of ne’er-do-wells enforce their law at gunpoint. Beyond to Palace in the Dust Barrens where the Redrum Boys, outlaws all, protect the exiles, homesteaders, bushwhackers, and deserters from Incorporation carpetbaggers, sending them packing after taking all they have on them—plus a pound of flesh—back to Covett city, even as they ensure that the hill around remain lawless. To Sickwater Oasis in the north, where the klepto-meritocratic Outlaw Union recognises only the licences it issues, otherwise killing all lawmen and bounty hunters, and hates any other legalise otherwise to the point of murder. At the edge of the Lost Frontier stretches the Western Expanse, accessible by the hellmouth of Allhallows Canyon, and beyond that lies the Scree Knives, a purgatory of slat flats where only the desperate pioneer and sanctimonious sect finds a home.

This is the setting for Frontier Scum: A Game About WantedOutlaws Making Their Mark on a Lost Frontier. It is inspired by the Acid Westerns, such as Jodorowsky’s El Topo, Jarmusch’s Dead Man, and Zahler’s Bone Tomahawk, which twisted the traditional westerns of the twentieth century and their conservatism with the radical counterculture of the sixties. Instead of codes of honour and morality and the mythic search for justice and a chance to begin again in a land of golden opportunity, the west of the Acid Western is infused with uncertainty and loss, the landscape and its promise of renewal subverted by avarice and ambition. The Lost Frontier of Frontier Scum is not the frontier of the Wild West, nor the frontier of the Weird West—its horrors being mundane and manmade, but a frontier, almost a hallucination of a twisted frontier of its very own. Published by GamesOmnivorous, Frontier Scum is an Old School Renaissance adjacent roleplaying game, inspired mechanically by Mörk Borg, in which the players take the roles of Outlaws. They are criminals and they are guilty. They did the crime they are accused of and are going to be hanged. Perhaps, if they can escape their fate at the end of a noose, then perhaps they can make their mark—pull off the biggest heist, win the biggest pot in a poker game, hit a silver motherlode, or even reap their own brand of justice—on the Lost Frontier.

An Outlaw in Frontier Scum has four stats—Grit, Slick, Wits, and Luck—which range in value from -3 to +3. He also has a pair of traits which make him stand out, a crime which he most definitely did commit and why he is wanted (dead or alive), a background which helps define starting skills and equipment, plus a bonus skill and a bonus item. He also has a canteen of water, a stolen horse, and a gun and some ammunition. Most importantly, he has a hat. This hat will save his life. Probably. So, he should keep it close. Probably wear it. Character creation is entirely randomly, except skills. These are devised by the player, though the event which inspired their selection is randomly determined. 

Windor ‘Grubworm’ Casket
A Charlatan and a Fraud
Outlaw Scum with ‘An Artist’s Soul’ and ‘Plague-Pox Scars’
Who is Wanted Dead or Alive for the Crime of Attempted Fraud

Grit -2 Slick 0 Wits +1 Luck -2
Hit Points: 2

Skills
Sympathetic Begging (lost all his stock)
Bargaining (sold some actual treasure)
Disguise Disease (you caught the Plague-Pox)

Items
Self-Help Bible
Expensive Perfume
Tin of sixteen biscuits

Stolen Mount
Donkey (HP 2, Morale 8, slow, bad at manoeuvring)

Gun
Pocket pistol (d6)

Hat
A stiff bowler, brushed to perfection, with an emergency ten dollar note inside the hat.

Mechanically, Frontier Scum requires a simple roll of a twenty-sided die against a Difficulty Rating, the standard Difficulty Rating being twelve, with the appropriate stat applied as a modifier. The standard rules for Advantage and Disadvantage are used, the former primarily derived from a Outlaw’s skills, and each player has an Ace up his Sleeve, which can be expended to reroll any die result which is not a one or twenty. If a player rolls a natural twenty on an ability check, he has the choice of choosing an additional Ace or a new skill. (This new skill must relate to the situation under which it was rolled, up to a maximum of six skills.) However, if a player rolls a natural one on an ability check, every player loses all of their Aces! In general, Frontier Scum is player-facing, so the players roll the dice, for example, to hit with an attack or to avoid an attack rather than the Game Master rolling an NPC’s attack.

Gun combat is nasty, and shots always hit (except tricky shots which require a roll). Damage dice can explode, so characters can be killed with a single shot or hit with extra shots from fanning a pistol or slamming in more rounds from a repeater rifle! Fortunately, every good character should be wearing a hat. If a player is shot, he can ignore damage by having his hat shot off his head. Which is an entertaining emulation of the genre! Then afterwards, once the fight is over, a player can roll his character’s Luck to retrieve his hat and see if it is still wearable.

An Outlaw can take damage that reduces him to zero Hit Points, necessitating a Death Check. This can result in straight death, but it might leave him dying and losing ability points, but it could also result in the Outlaw gaining ability points! An Outlaw can also suffer one of two Conditions—Drunk and Miserable. Of the two, Drunk is the more entertaining, with the Miserable Condition either due to being skunked, rain-sodden, frostbitten poisoned, exhausted, or some other cause, which prevents the Outlaw from healing when rested until the cause is addressed. When Drunk, an Outlaw swaps two abilities at random and that is always how he reacts when drunk. It is a potentially entertaining effect, and depending on the value of the abilities swapped, could be disadvantageous to the Outlaw or advantageous.

For the Game Master there are numerous tables upon which to roll for inspiration, from ‘Scum on the Trail’ and ‘Scum on the Streets’ to ‘House Loot’, Pocket Loot’, and ‘Tomb Loot’. There is even a ‘Going on a Bender’ table, followed by ‘What Was Won’, ‘What was Lost’, and ‘Who You Owe’ tables for evening’s carousing at the saloon. There are tables of employment opportunities and bounties too, sufficient enough to provide a variety of encounters, set-ups, and developments. Frontier Scum also includes the scenario, ‘Escape the Organ Rail’, which begins with the Outlaws held aboard a black penal train being transported to their execution. Naturally linear in design—after all, the Outlaws have to fight and make their way up the train to the engine to effect an escape, the scenario is presented in car order from the Outlaws’ cells to the engine. Each car is shown in cross section rather than floor plan. The Outlaws begin play shackled together hand and feet, which should challenge the players until they find the right keys. Although Frontier Scum is intended to be a more mundane version of the Old West than the horror of the Weird West, the scenario does involve elements of the weird and horror. If the Outlaws succeed in stopping the train and escaping, there is the chance they get away with some loot, find themselves a patron, or if they want, there is an ‘Epilogue Or How To Spend 10,000 Silver’ table if they scarper.

Physically, Frontier Scum has an immediate presence. It is done as a board book, with a non-glossy, plain matte cover and no spine so that the glue binding is visible. The feeling in the hand is rough and tactile like no other roleplaying game. Inside, the black and white layout is done as a Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogue and it is incredibly atmospheric, pulling the reader into the setting with tight blocks of black and white, and period style illustrations. The graphic design on Frontier Scum really brings the game to life and adds so much to its atmosphere.

Imagine in 1895 if the paste up artist at Sears, Roebuck and Co., high on absinthe and laudanum, sat down to create a game of the vanishing frontier. Frontier Scum: A Game About Wanted Outlaws Making Their Mark on a Lost Frontier is what you would get, a roleplaying game of the last, dark days of desperate Outlaws surviving on a dream of the frontier turned nightmare, ravaged by avarice and ambition, and the vicissitudes of modernity and misuse.

Screen Shot IX

How do you like your GM Screen?

The GM Screen is essentially a reference sheet, comprised of several card sheets that fold out and can be stood up to serve another purpose, that is, to hide the GM’s notes and dice rolls. On the inside, the side facing the GM are listed all of the tables that the GM might want or need at a glance without the need to have to leaf quickly through the core rulebook. On the outside, facing the players, is either more tables for their benefit or representative artwork for the game itself. This is both the basic function and the basic format of the screen, neither of which has changed very much over the years. Beyond the basic format, much has changed though.

To begin with the general format has split, between portrait and landscape formats. The result of the landscape format is a lower screen, and if not a sturdier screen, than at least one that is less prone to being knocked over. Another change has been in the weight of card used to construct the screen. Exile Studios pioneered a new sturdier and durable screen when its printers took two covers from the Hollow Earth Expedition core rule book and literally turned them into the game's screen. This marked a change from the earlier and flimsier screens that had been done in too light a cardstock, and many publishers have followed suit.

Once you have decided upon your screen format, the next question is what you have put with it. Do you include a poster or poster map, such as Chaosium, Inc.’s last screen for Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition?  Or a reference work like the GM Resource Book for Pelgrane Press’ Trail of Cthulhu? Or scenarios such as ‘Blackwater Creek’ and ‘Missed Dues’ from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition? Or even better, a book of background and scenarios as well as the screen, maps, and forms, like that of the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack published by Chaosium, Inc. In general, the heavier and sturdier the screen, the more likely it is that the screen will be sold unaccompanied, such as those published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment for the Starblazer Adventures: The Rock & Roll Space Opera Adventure Game  and Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG.

So how do I like my GM Screen?

The Mörk Borg GM Screen comes as a five-panel screen, very sturdy, in portrait format. The outside of the screen is perhaps anything unlike which has been seen before for Mörk Borg, the pitch-black pre-apocalyptic fantasy roleplaying game which brings a Nordic death metal sensibility to the Old School Renaissance. Instead of the riotous assault of electrically vibrant yellow and pink highlights on swathes of black, abrupt font changes, and metallic embellishments. Instead, we have a polyptych of images in white and red on black depicting scenes from the last days of Tveland’s pre-apocalypse. Bloodied demonic skulls, ominously dark towers in the distance, a cultist with sacrifice, a headless statue—or is it?—of angel in a graveyard, and great beasts scrapping over a mound of corpses. The end is nigh and the Mörk Borg GM Screen lest you know it…

The inside of the Mörk Borg GM Screen reverts to its traditional vibrant yellow and with various tables laid out across the inner panels. Working from the left, the first panel provides the means for the Game Master to create NPCs on the fly, including name (both male and female) and trade, along with a concern, a want, what he or she thinks of the forthcoming apocalypse, and lastly a trait to help make him or her memorable. Thus, Urkin the Shitshoveller, who walks with a limp, is concerned because she has kidnapped kin and wants bloodshed in response, but ultimately believes that mankind is doomed. Should the Game Master want it, an optional table can add a twist like Urkin actually being the head of a murder cult or an inquisitor! The next panel—‘Prices May Vary’—covers just about everything that the Player Characters might want to purchase, from chalk and chewing tobacco to scissors and scrolls, as well as weapons, services, armour repairs, and beasts.

The middle panel is the meat of the game and comes with the admonition that the Game Master ‘Only ever roll when failure is interesting’. So here the Game Master can see the Difficulty Ratings, rules for Violence—who Goes First?, Attack, and Defence—and tables for ‘Where Does it Hurt?’ and when an NPC, or probably a Player Character, is ‘Broken’, all at a glance. The next panel provides the stats for Sword Fodder, Worthy Foes, and The Big Bad, whether that is an Underpaid, tired guard, something all Claws, eyes, spidery legs, or The Demon Appears! Beneath this is pair of tables, one for ‘Unclean Powers’ and one ‘Sacred Powers’. All together—and in some cases combined with the NPC creation tables on the first panel—the Game Master can quickly pick and modify an opponent without the need to refer to the rulebook. The last panel is more perfunctory, proving a big table of ‘Items and Trinkets’ and another for the weather, but the entries on the former can be quite intriguing.

Across the top of the panels are pointers for the Game Master. For example, ‘Stores might be understocked’ and ‘Some will try to scam the PCs’ on the prices panel, which add just a little extra. Now initially, it does look as if the Mörk Borg GM Screen does not come with anything extra. This is in part because the extras it does come with are slim, the same shade of yellow as the inside of the screen, and are actually attached to the screen by means of corner pockets that the sheets neatly slip into—perhaps a little too neatly as they are slightly awkward to slot back in. On the front of the first sheet is devoted to Traps—how Player Character triggered the trap, what the trap is, who or what built it. On the reverse, is ‘Somewhere to Drink’ with a select menu, a menu for those who lack funds, patron traits, and answers to the question, ‘Why is the Innkeeper Twitching?’, all of which goes to creating an encounter or even an adventure in itself should the Game Minister want it. On the other separate sheet on the one side is ‘The Tablets of Ochre Obscurity’ is a set of random spell effects worked into tablets, whilst on the other, is a big table of ‘Forty City Events’.

Physically, the Mörk Borg GM Screen is a sturdy game aid. It feels solid in the hands and should withstand reasonable handling, as well as stand up on the table. Everything on the inside of the screen is easy to read—the black on yellow is very clear—including the cursive founts used. If there is an issue with the durability of the Mörk Borg GM Screen, it is that two separate sheets, as cleverly stored with the actual screen as they are, are not as solid and are likely to get separated and lost.

As a roleplaying game, Mörk Borg is mechanically light enough that the Game Master can get away without needing to resort to a screen. However, the Mörk Borg GM Screen is useful in both providing the tables routinely referenced during play and tables of prompts and ideas that the Game Master can very quickly pick or roll up—even at the table if necessary. Ultimately, the Mörk Borg GM Screen is not a necessity, but if you have one, it is perfectly functional and serviceable.