The Other OSR: Down Among the Dead

Down Among the Dead describes itself as ‘A Terrible Expansion’ for Pirate Borg, the ‘Worst Pirate RPG Ever Made’. In the case of the latter claim, Pirate Borg is actually highly accessible, especially in the form of the Pirate Borg Starter Set, an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game is set in the Dark Caribbean, a sea of tropical islands marked with European towns and fortresses and ruins of civilisations long gone, of shipwrecks with rich cargoes and even richer treasures, and of the Scourge. The Scourge made the dead walk once again, ghosts return to haunt the living, and monsters lurk ready to smash the foothold that the Europeans have established in the region. The governors and the viceroys, representatives of kings and queens, have forced to adapt and rule with no contact from home following the Scourge and even take advantage of the situation, especially since the discovery of the abilities and addictive nature of ASH, the ash of the burned and ground undead. Some seek to make money from the trade in ASH and some seek to control it, whilst others seek to repress it. This is another cause of the conflict in the Dark Caribbean. Pirate Borg casts the players as members of a crew who will sail the ASH-tinged waters the Dark Caribbean, raiding and smuggling, carousing and drinking, adventuring, and exploring. In the case of the former, Down Among the Dead is the first official supplement for the roleplaying game, providing four adventures, three new Classes, skills, motivations, even house rules, and a lot more.

Down Among the Dead is published by Limithron via Free League Publishing following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It contains three new Classes, new skills, adds motivations for Player Characters, four sets of tables for generating different aspects of the setting and game, and three lengthy adventures, all of which can be added to an ongoing campaign. The first new Class is ‘The Antiquarian’, which is essentially Indiana Jones (or other swashbuckling archaeologist of your choice) for the Age of Sail, complete with a phobia, a holy grail—perhaps discovering lost temples or ruins and ancient treasures or the origins and dark secrets behind the creation of ASH, and an ’Expertise’ such as ‘Theology/Arcana’, ‘Athletics’, or ‘Occultism’. The ‘Deep One’ brings a Lovecraftian touch to Pirate Borg, its origins such as ‘Hybrid’, ‘Bathyal’, and ‘Abyssal’—the type and depth of water it comes from—determining starting stats, and its options include either ‘Shaman’ or ‘Warrior’. The former learns Pelagic Sorcery Spells, whilst the latter is armed with a cultural weapon like a coral and seashell long knife or a piece of driftwood with stingray spikes and learns combat techniques. Lastly, the ‘Unlocked Soul’ is resurrected spirit who has returned to the surface after dying and being cast into Davy Jones’ Locker. This Class is living on borrowed time as there is a increasing chance that Charon will reclaim his soul, but in the meantime, he can regenerate wounds and regrow limbs, ask questions of the dead, become like transparent water, and more, though his skeleton might itch from within because it is made of coral or his head might be able to spin right round and he cannot see a particular colour.

All three Classes are good, bringing fun archetypes into Pirate Borg. All three can be played as written, but the ‘Unlocked Soul’ is best used for an NPC or for Player Characters who have also escaped Davy Jones’ Locker—perhaps after playing through ‘Lost to the Locker’ later in the book—and wanting to multi-class upon returning to the surface.

One possible negative aspect of Pirate Borg is the limited number of Class features that a Player Character can have. A Player Character gains one per Level, so typically by Fifth or Sixth Levels, there are no more abilities to choose from. ‘d66 Skills for the Seasoned Sea Rover’ remedies that with a list of alternative skills that a player can select from instead of taking a Class feature, and not once, but twice for each skill. For example, with ‘Gunsmith’, a Player Character can repair black powder weapons, lower their chances of misfires, and improve their accuracy and damage inflicted, and if taken a second time, improve their accuracy and damage inflicted again. With ‘ASH Apothecary’, a Player Character can cook ASH down to a potent crystallised form that when consumed has a greater effect, but also sells for triple the price, and if taken again, these effects are doubled! From ‘Deadshot’, ‘Barrelman’s Eyes’, and ‘Font of Chaos’ to ‘Salvage Diver’, ‘Agile Amputee’, and ‘Siren’s Tongue’, this is an entertaining selection and there are a lot here that a player will want to choose from rather than one of his character’s Class Feature. There is the option to roll randomly, but the Game Master could also use these skills as rewards during play or simply allow Player Characters to have both these skills and their Class Features to make them more capable and heroic.

The ‘Motivations During the Apocalypse’ can be used for both the Player Characters or NPCs, whilst ‘House Rules’ gives options for the Game Master in terms of design notes, examples, and tips. These range from rerolling initiative each day and adding Armour Class to the game when one Player Character fights another (instead of rolling to defend) to having damage dice explode and playing Pirate Borg in either Nightmare or Heroic modes! Many of these address issues that a Game Master might have with the roleplaying game and some of them push Pirate Borg away from the Mörk Borg model and closer to a Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game. All though are options that enable a group to play the roleplaying game in the style it prefers. The other general support for Pirate Borg includes four sets of tables for generating elements of the Dark Caribbean setting, including a ‘Jolly Roger Flag Generator’, ‘Dark Caribbean Island Generator’, ‘Coral Reef Generator’, and ‘Coin Generator’. ‘Dark Caribbean Island Generator’ and ‘Coral Reef Generator’ both come with examples, but all four are useful adding further details to the Game Master’s Dark Caribbean campaign.

The first of the four scenarios in Down Among the Dead is ‘Anchor Drop Falls’. It is a short, two-page location detailing a set of caves behind a five hundred foot high waterfall where pirates and/or conquistadors are said to have buried their treasure, Deep Ones have made a home, and then been driven out by a hungry, giant crab. It is a plain and simple affair, with the location descriptions placed around the map, that is very easy to run from the page and just as easy to slot into a campaign. ‘Anchor Drop Falls’ can be played in a single session, whereas the other three scenarios are much longer and much more detailed.

‘Lost to the Locker’ is a seabed, sandcrawl in which the Player Characters awaken to find themselves dead in a purgatory of small islands and shipwrecks, and will very likely do so again should they die again. The aim is for the Player Characters to escape back to the realms of the living, requiring a vessel and an exit, as well as several coins called ‘Obols’. Finding all of these forms the focus of the scenario. Once they freed themselves from the floating rocks they have been chained to, the Player Characters will be ferried by Charon to the liminal space of ‘The Locker’. Overseen by Lady Oblivion—ethereal, watery Egyptian priestess or Reef Ghoul?—this region consists of just eight locations, including the pirate-town-like Port Oblivion with its wrecks and boulders home to Lost Souls like the Player Characters; the Pellucid Palace of volcanic glass where Lady Oblivion holds court; and the Inverted Galleon, capsized and chained to the seabed. Every location details vessels that might be repaired or stolen, how Obols might be gained, as well as numerous NPCs, random encounters, and more. There is a lot of detail to this concentrated sandbox and a lot of elements that the Game Master can bring into play. It is fantastically liminal place with plenty for the players and their characters to do and plenty of random elements that Game Master can use to enhance the undersea unreality. ‘Lost to the Locker’ can be used as written, following a ‘Total Party Kill’, but it could also be used as a non-standard campaign starter.

The second scenario veers towards the fantasy horror of Robert E. Howard, rather than the Lovecraftian horror of ‘The Deep One’ Class, with its use of Serpent Men as the villains of the piece. ‘Venom in the Veins’ details an ancient shrine to the Slithering One, rumoured to be the last known location of a missing conquistador, to hold ancient knowledge, to be target of French spies and revolutionaries, to be source of a deadly venom, and so on. Overseen by a once-human shaman corrupted by necromancy and his undead serpentfolk guardians, this is snake-infested, trap ridden, but nicely detailed dungeon that requires some set-up to get the Player Characters to explore its depths. There is plenty of treasure to be found and no little forbidden knowledge, but lingering over that has its own consequences. Particular attention is paid to the traps and puzzles, which makes running it easier. ‘Venom in the Veins’ would be a perfect adventure for the Antiquarian Class given at the start of the supplement.

‘Into The Maelstrom’, the third scenario in the supplement requires more experienced Player Characters and takes a classic Gothic set-up and gives it a piratical, nautical twist. Instead of a haunted house, the setting is a haunted galleon, The Maelstrom, a galleon with blood-red sails of flesh that is home to  Albrecht the Tideborn, a Deep One vampire, and his vampiric crew. The Player Characters are hired to sneak aboard and rescue an important VIP that Albrecht the Tideborn is holding prisoner and also to slaughter as many of the vampires as they can. However, that is not the only reason the Player Characters to want to board The Maelstrom. They will each have their reasons. All of this is set up ahead of time, using a deck of ordinary playing cards and the rules for ‘Three-Eyed Parrot’, a game provided prior to the scenario. This includes the identity and location of the VIP being held prisoner, the identity of the Player Characters’ Patron, the location of a powerful ritual, the location of an artefact, and so on. The cards are then divided into their suits and then used as decks to determine random prisoners, mundane items, treasure, and encounters. The scenario is played against the clock and there is a strong chance that prisoners will be sacrificed before the Player Characters rescue them—the scenario even suggests that the Game Master tear up the card for a particular NPC if the Player Characters fail to save him!

The main feature of the scenario is The Maelstrom, but also detailed are ‘The Dead islands’, the former Virgin Islands in the Lesser Antilles, infested by ASH addicts, cannibalistic pirates, and the undead, its coats marked by numerous derelict ships and wrecks waiting to be picked over. Several locations are detailed on the island, including Charlotte’s Cove, the main settlement now overrun with vampires, the swamp encroached Ruins of Whitby Abbey, Sanctum of the Feathered Tree—home to an orangutan sorcerer, and other locations. This gives the setting longevity beyond the scenario itself, and there are notes too, if the Game Master wants to run it as a one-shot, short campaign, or a long campaign, and even includes tournament mode and scoring! As such, ‘Into The Maelstrom’ is a tool kit that the Game Master needs to adjust fit her players and for full effect is best run over multiple sessions. This brings all of the brine and rot of the sea to the Gothic and the doomed romance and horror of the Gothic to the Dark Caribbean. When their characters  have enough experience to play it through, ‘Into The Maelstrom’ should be a grand, memorable scenario for the players.

Physically, Down Among the Dead is very well laid out, and the artwork and cartography are excellent. Everything is very easy to use.

Down Among the Dead has everything a Pirate Borg Game Master would want. Three good scenarios, two of which have really memorable locations, content that the Game Master will still come back to, and options that the Game Master and her players can pick and chose from to make Pirate Borg theirs.

The Other OSR: The Cavern of Cursed Tears

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Other OSR: Creatures of the Dying World

Mörk Borg is not short of monsters. Since its publication in 2020, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing, has been supported by numerous third-party supplements and scenarios, which includes numerous new threats. The world of Mörk Borg is a dangerous, even lethal one with relatively little chance of survival for the Player Characters, so new monsters are always going to be useful. Primarily to confront the characters with foes that their players have never seen before, so in game such as Mörk Borg, a bestiary is invariably going to be useful. Creatures of the Dying World: A Bestiary by Jonny Bloozit #1 gives the Game Master some twenty-one monsters, parasites, magical constructs, lurkers, and other threats, all of which are presented in full, succulent colour. This is because they are written and drawn by the author and in some ways, Creatures of the Dying World: A Bestiary by Jonny Bloozit #1 is as much an artbook as much as it is a roleplaying supplement. There is a looming, lurking quality to the art style, often spattered with the muculent and malodorous mess of the midden. All of the entries get a full-page entry with the minimal stats of Mörk Borg monsters leaving plenty of room for the illustrations and the descriptive text. The latter varies in length from one entry to the next and places an emphasis on the folklore to the creatures described. Even this varies from one entry to the next. However, Creatures of the Dying World: A Bestiary by Jonny Bloozit #1 is no A Folklore Bestiary, The Merry Mushmen’s gold standard by which any Old School Renaissance or Old School Renaissance-adjacent bestiary must be measured. In fact, the folkloric elements are underwritten in place and the Game Master will need to extract them from the text rather than use them as written.

There are some common themes running through Creatures of the Dying World: A Bestiary by Jonny Bloozit #1. There are creatures from swamps and marshes and associated with filth and decay, such as the Bogmen which seek to suffocate, envelop, and digest its victim, but is immune to weapon damage, whilst the ‘Giant Leechworm’ is exactly what you think it is. The ‘Miasma’ is an evil spirit attracted to filth and decay and spreads diseases like the sniffles and the plague, whilst the ‘Plague Fly’ settles on carrion, fresh battlefields, and rubbish dumps in swarms, causing fever-like symptoms in those it bites and laying eggs in open wounds. Worm-like creatures are common too, such as the Cavern Worm that is like a deep sea tube worm that hides in crystalline tubes only to snap out and bite at its victims, The weirdest of the worms are the ‘Howling Worm’, a magical plant-human hybrid which howls and shrieks loudly when anyone comes near, so they are used as alarms much to the annoyance of anyone else living nearby. 

Not all of the entries in Creatures of the Dying World: A Bestiary by Jonny Bloozit #1 are simple foes that the Game Master can throw at his players and their characters. There is a version of the ‘Crystal Skull’ that is a combination of magical artefact and personality, containing the bound soul of a priest or herbalist who is not very happy about being so bound. Consequently, he is ill-mannered, angry, and contemptuous of the Player Characters, but might be persuaded to help. What is in no doubt is the Game Master will have fun portraying the unfortunate soul! The entry for ‘Dagon’ is really more illustration than description and adds little that is of use. The ‘Plague Doctor’ is an adaptation of the seventeenth century figure that sought to treat the bubonic plague, both as NPC and Player Character. It is suggested that the towns and cities setting of the Dying World are home to many Plague Doctors, who attempt cures through bloodletting, which can be dangerous if failed, and similarly use magical cures to shorten illnesses, though such an attempt will lengthen the illness if the attempt fails. In comparison to other Classes for Mörk Borg, this is underwritten, but there is perhaps scope for development.

Creatures of the Dying World: A Bestiary by Jonny Bloozit #1 is a slight affair at just twenty-one entries and sparse descriptions for too many of them. Similarly, the emphasis upon folklore in the entries veers towards the meagre rather than the substantial, and in places, that lack gives less for the Game Master to work with and work into her campaign setting. And whilst there is no denying the effectiveness of the artwork in Creatures of the Dying World: A Bestiary by Jonny Bloozit #1, it cannot wholly make up for the underwritten nature of some of the bestiary’s entries. Creatures of the Dying World: A Bestiary by Jonny Bloozit #1 does not wholly suffer from a case of style over substance, but the Game Master is likely to want to develop some of that substance herself to make fuller use of the bestiary.

Your Pirate Borg Starter

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

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

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

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

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

Mechanically Pirate Borg is based upon Mörk Borg—hence the name—the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and also published by Free League Publishing. A player rolls a twenty-sided die, modifies the result by one of his character’s abilities, and attempts to beat a Difficulty Rating of twelve. The Difficulty Rating may go up or down depending on the situation, but whatever the situation, the player always rolls, even in combat or as both Mörk Borg and Pirate Borg terms it, violence. So, a player will roll for his character to hit in melee using his Strength and his Agility to avoid being hit. Armour is represented by a die value, from -d2 for light armour to -d6 for heavy armour, representing the amount of damage it stops. Medium and heavy armour each add a modifier to any Agility action by the character, including defending himself. This is pleasingly simple and offers a character some tactical choice—just when is it better to avoid taking the blows or avoid taking the damage? Armour can also be damaged, due to a Fumble when defending, reducing its protective effectiveness, and a critical hit in combat inflicts double damage or allows another attack. A Player Characters whose Hit Points are reduced to below zero is dead, but at zero, is broken and can recover.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Revenants in the Renaissance

The year is 1348 and mankind is subject to a divine punishment for its sins. For the last two years, all of Europe has suffered the devastating Black Plague which seems to spread fire and kills almost everyone it touches. The symptoms are easy to spot, black spots on the skin and swollen lymph nodes called buboes. Yet there is a second symptom, one that remains secret, one that the Papacy fights in a hidden war, and one it is desperate to eradicate—the Revenant Plague. Victims of the Black Plague are known to rise and not only spread its symptoms, but also feed upon the flesh of the living. The Papacy instituted the Ordo Mortis, a military order dedicated to not only fighting the secret war against the Revenant Plague, but also to keeping knowledge of the war against the Revenant Plague a secret. Word of it cannot spread, for it would weaken faith in the Catholic Church. It means that not only do all of the symptoms of the Revenant Plague have to be eradicated, but do any signs of infection and all knowledge of it. The members of the Ordo Mortis will face holy challenges in cutting down the risen revenants and unholy challenges in keeping its duties a secret. This is the set-up for Píaga 1348, a storytelling game from NEED! Games, the Italian publisher best known for the Fabula Ultima TTJRPG.

As a supernatural horror roleplaying game, Píaga 1348—meaning ‘Plague 1348—requires some choices to be made in terms of its set-up. To that end it includes a discussion of safety tools, though surprisingly without a reference to the X-Card. It suggests three options in terms of tone—‘Dramatic’, ‘Sinister’, and ‘Grotesque’—pairing them with the film, The Name of the Rose, the computer game Bloodthorne, and the films, Army of Darkness and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, thus effectively doubling as a bibliography. The tone is going to affect both the game’s style of play and its atmosphere, going from Greek tragedy to splatter punk with streak of black humour with creepy and mysterious in between. Further choices need to be made as to the nature of the world. This includes the size of the Revenant outbreak, the character and name of the Pontifex, the size and motto of the Ordo Mortis, and the nature and size of the missions that its soldiers—the Player Characters—are to be sent on. Lastly, the player who will take the role of the Ludi Magister—as the Game Master is known in Píaga 1348—is decided. This is important as the players will take in turn to undertake this role from one mission to the next. The process for this set-up is shared between the players.

A soldier in the Ordo Mortis will likely look like and be equipped any other knight, though he need not be. A Soldier is simply defined by several traits. These are the ‘Motto of the Ordo’; ‘Name’, including both full name and nickname, if any; ‘Description’; ‘Weapon’, which can either be physical or metaphorical (metaphorical is the better of the options here as it tends to be more flexible); and ‘Armour’, which should ideally be figurate rather than physical. These are the five core traits, but he also has entries for ‘What I Want’, ‘What I Don’t Want’, and ‘Traumas’, the latter physical, psychological, and social wounds suffered when a conflict is lost. A player simply has to define these traits in order to create his Soldier, either creating them or picking them from the suggestions included in the rulebook.

Name: Gunther of Cologne

Motto of the Ordo: Holy is our mission, unholy is their end

Description: An arrogant ex-tax collector with an eye for opportunity

Weapon: Everyone has a weakness and I will exploit every last one

Armour: Faith will only get you so far, money will get you further

What I Want: The favour of his Holiness, a penny in his pocket

What I Don’t Want: To die penniless

Once a mission has been decided upon, the player to the left of the Ludi Magister becomes the ‘Soldier on Duty’ and the Ludi Magister asks him what he perceives and based on those answers, frames the scene for her players, primarily the ‘Soldier on Duty’ as he will be leading the action for the scene and his player the conversation with the Ludi Magister. The advice for the Ludi Magister is to twist the interpretation of the senses that the ‘Soldier on Duty’ to make it dramatic and set the tension high from the start to reflect a world in crisis—physically and spiritually. The scene proceeds as normal until the point where something occurs that the ‘Soldier on Duty’ does not want to happen, in which a conflict ensues. When a conflict ensues, the player of the ‘Soldier on Duty’ decides what his Soldier wants to do and builds a dice pool based on his five core traits. For each of them that the player can persuade the Ludi Magister to include, a six-sided die is added to the pool. Every result of five or six counts as a Success and only one Success is required for Soldier to achieve the objective outlined by the player. The Ludi Magister will narrate the outcome of the dice roll, though if a failure because no Successes are rolled, the Soldier on Duty will suffer a Trauma.

Any excess Success go into the Morale Pool, which on subsequent turns, the ‘Soldier on Duty’ can draw from to increase the size of dice pool. Additional dice can come from the two sources. One is the other Soldiers, who can contribute dice based on their traits. The second is from a ‘Gamble’, in which the player adds a die of another colour to his dice pool. On a result of one, two, or three, nothing happens, but on a four, five, or six, the Soldier is ‘Exposed’. What this means that is a Soldier on Duty can still succeed—that is, roll a five or six—and still be ‘Exposed’. When ‘Exposed’, a roll is made on the ‘Gamble’s Outcome’ table. The result might be that a Soldier cannot use any further ‘Gamble’ attempts in the mission or that the Soldier is wounded and infected by a Revenant! Another way to gain more dice is for the Soldier to sacrifice himself, but will also result in his death. Whatever the result, the outcome is narrated by the player.

What is important here is there is an economy to a player’s use of his Soldier’s five core traits. If they can be used all in one go whilst a Soldier is the ‘Soldier on Duty’, then they can be refreshed to be used on subsequent turns. Whilst a Soldier can use them to help another Soldier who is the current ‘Soldier on Duty’, it will mean that he will have fewer to use when it is his turn to be ‘Soldier on Duty’. Running out of traits and having none to confront a situation when a ‘Soldier on Duty’ on Duty means that he will automatically fail. This forces a player to husband the use of those traits from scene to scene.

When a Soldier suffers a Trauma, it can be physical, psychological, or social, the nature of which is decided by the Ludi Magister. In general, the effect of a Trauma is more narrative in nature than mechanical, except under two circumstances. One is if a Soldier is either bitten, scratched, or wounded by a Revenant as a first or second Trauma, in which case the Soldier becomes a carrier of Revenant Plague. He can hide this, but if he dies, he will rise as a Revenant. The other is the effect of the third Trauma which will cause the Solder to exit the mission. How depends on the type of Trauma. A physical Trauma means he has died, a psychological Trauma pushes him into madness, and social Trauma makes him flee the Ordo Mortis all together. At this point, the Soldier can become a Tutelary, a dead soul watching and protecting the other Soldiers, or a Spectator, able to tell scenes from his former life that might give hints as to the current situation when it his turn to be the ‘Soldier on Duty’.

Play like this continues from round to round, with the Ludi Magister narrating another scene between them until the mission is over. At the end of a mission, the surviving Soldiers have a chance to reflect upon their actions and their successes—if any. At this point, the players have the opportunity to change various traits and even add another ‘What I Want’ or ‘What I Don’t Want’. After that, another mission, typically in another session, can be run by another player serving as the Ludi Magister.

Píaga 1348 provides a lot of support for the Ludi Magister. This includes several good examples of play, hints in terms of framing scenes and the narrative, motifs of the Ordo Mortis, and suggestions as the nature of Revenants and the world. There are several scenarios too. These are not scenarios in the traditional roleplaying sense, but more a themed set of prompts and rumours that the Ludi Magister—whose ever turn it is—can use to set up a mission. Píaga 1348 comes to a close with a quick-start and some designer notes, but also includes an excellent appendix of ‘Historical Essays’ which are these for everyone to read. Covering such subjects as the power of the pope—Boniface VIII, warfare in the period, famine, pestilence, and the nature of death, these are short pieces, but useful and informative.

Physically, Píaga 1348 is fantastically presented. The woodcut style artwork and the use of a Gothic fount very gives it a singular look and conveys a lot of atmosphere to the Ludi Magister.

Píaga 1348 can be seen as the answer to the question, “What would a zombie uprising look like in the Middle Ages?” Which is as terrifying, if not more so, than it would today since it follows awful deaths by the Black Plague and it would be regarded as the vindication of the danse macabre and the triumph of death over life. It also places the Soldiers of the Ordo Mortis on a mission from God himself to wipe out not only death itself, but all signs and knowledge of this triumph of death. That means they have to kill the living too, including the innocent. What this means is that Píaga 1348 is a simple and oppressively atmospheric storytelling game with a brutal edge.

The Other OSR: Candle

The Player Characters know that they are in trouble when they appear somewhere different than to where they were. The Player Characters know that they are in trouble when they appear somewhere to the stench of incense, blood, and burnt hair, and the sounds of screams echoing around the high-vaulted ceiling of the room lit by blood red candles. The Player Characters know that they are in trouble when they appear in a summoning circle, one marked with lines filled with salt and powdered silver, and two of the five cultists in the room dead on the floor, their throats cut. The Player Characters know that they are in trouble when they appear somewhere and towering over them is a devil, skin like blackened iron, his horns craping the ceiling, and steam rising from every one of his pores. He is looking down on them and he is furious. As well as knowing that they are in trouble, the Player Characters have no idea where they are, how they got there, and even if there is a way out of where they are, let alone the reason why the devil is angry at them. And they definitely have no idea that the situation they are in is entirely their own fault.

This is the set-up for Candle: A Reverse Dungeon Crawl. Published by Loot the Room, this is a scenario for 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. Although the scenario can be run at almost any time, it actually requires a bit more set-up, ideally in several adventures run before Candle. This is because of the ‘candle’ of the tile, which is what puts them in their new and terrifying situation. The candle, or Taper, consists of two feet of thin, twisted wax with a goat’s hair wick. When lit it provides light equivalent to a candle visible to the person holding and anyone touching the wielder. Although it burns with the strong smell you would expect from burning hair, the wax never melts and the candle burns indefinitely, and its light is only visible to the wielder and those touching him. The intent is that Player Characters get used to benefiting from it, being able to move in the dark without being seen—although the smell will be a giveaway. At which point, the Game Master runs the scenario and the Player Characters suffer the unforeseen consequences of the Taper’s use and origins.

The devil’s name is Gomduloch. Not only does he hate being summoned, he thinks the Player Characters are somehow connected to his being summoned, and now he hates them. Having butchered some cultists—and definitely willing to butcher more—he is coming for the Player Characters. So not only do the Player Characters have to find their way out of a dungeon filled with cultists, dead bodies, roaming imps and devils, and all the perversity and horrors you would expect of a cultists’ lair, but they have to do that whilst being chased by a very angry devil.

The scenario begins in what would be the last room in any other dungeon, the room where the summoning would be about to take place were this any other dungeon. Then it proceeds to present its rooms backwards, from thirty-three counting down to one, and the exit. Divided over two Levels, one above ground, the other below, the dungeon is relatively linear, but instead of the Player Characters going in and discovering its secrets as they get to towards the end of the dungeon, here they begin by discovering those secrets on the way out. There are plenty of secrets to be found and discoveries to be made. The secrets will help the Player Characters, often to withstand, at least temporarily, the influence and reach of Gomduloch, whilst the discoveries tend towards the gruesome. What else would you expect though, it is a scenario for Mörk Borg after all. The challenge, ultimately, is to discover a way to banish Gomduloch and get away. In the case of Candle, survival is its own reward, so the players and their characters should expect very little reward beyond that.

Physically, Candle: A Reverse Dungeon Crawl is well presented. Each location is given a one-page description and the map for the relevant Level is also included on the two-page spread. Bar the Taper itself, there is no artwork in the book. The only issue with the presentation is in the choice of fount for the sidebars, which is too fine and too light to be read with any ease.

Reverse dungeons are not new. In most cases, they set up the Player Characters as prisoners and expect them to escape their confinement, making them about breaking out, not breaking in, but others flip the dungeon by making the Player Characters the monsters not the heroes. Reverse Dungeon, published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000 is an example of the latter, whilst Escape from Astigar’s Lair, published by Judges Guild in 1980, is an example of the former. Of course, Candle: A Reverse Dungeon Crawl is definitely an example of the former, but given the nature of the Player Characters in Mörk Borg, it could also be argued as being an example of the latter. That said, as much as the Player Characters are monstrous in Mörk Borg, they face worse monsters in Candle.

The problem with Candle: A Reverse Dungeon Crawl is the Taper. The Game Master has to set the scenario by luring the Player Characters not only into finding it, but also using it and coming to love. Without that, the scenario is far less effective. There is no advice for the Game Master to ease or overcome that problem. Nevertheless, once set-up, Candle: A Reverse Dungeon Crawl opens with a bang and keeps the horror going with the desperate Player Characters going to be so glad to have escaped their imprisonment in the cultists’ lair, let alone the anger of Gomduloch!

Millenarian Mayhem

In the beginning the Immortal made the world and all that was in it. Then made strife by bringing the Amortines, the first beings into the world. They hated their father and two of their number strangled him, and so brought another god into the world, Destruction. Yet the Amortines danced and procreated in their victory, and so begat the Lamentides, the dreadful sons, and the Allurimorns, the sublime daughters, and they in turn begat their own children, the Dreads and the Sublimes. When their passions grew too wild, Life and Death, the eldest of the Allurimorns and Lamentides, invited them all to a great banquet in Heall where they captured them and sealed them in Life’s urns. It is said that when the Amortines’ prodigy escape their prisons and are once again abroad in the world, then the Last Day will begin in earnest. In Painyme, it is both said and feared that this day draws close, for Death has already closed the First Gate to Heall and turned the dead away, leaving the unquiet dead to wander… Five of the twelve border kingdoms surrounding have been consumed by the Weald surrounding the Petty Baronies before the great city of Assartum, home to the Ecclesiarch, His Excellency Boniface Pontfex IV. A crusade has been declared against the Traitor Gods and the Templars have already killed their first Traitor God. Day by day, more and more heretics give themselves up to or are thrown on the Pyre, but even those who have been given a chance for absolution for their heresies upon joining a guild by the Church of the Divine Corpse are being tempted once again by the gifts that Traitor Gods promise. Just as those who seek absolution join guilds for the safety in numbers they offer, so too do those who accept such gifts join cults for the protection they offer.

This is the set-up for Doomsong, an eschatological, pre-apocalyptic roleplaying game of heretical temptation and divine punishment and survival horror. Published by Cæsar Ink., it is described as a ‘Roleplay Macabre’, which places it in the ‘grim dark’ genre. The players roleplay characters who have either committed heresy by accepting a gift from one of the Traitor Gods or have committed various crimes, and sort absolution by joining a guild, or joined a guild to serve. The guilds can be gravediggers’ guilds, philosophers’ guilds, signmakers’ guilds, ratcatchers’ guilds, woodcutters’ guilds, and Wyccefinders’ guilds. Understandably, gravediggers’ guilds have become common since the First Gate to Heall was closed. Members of the Wyccefinders’ Guilds are allowed to truck with the Dread or the Sublime in return for the Occult abilities they grant, but this does not mean they will be absolved. Over the course of the game, the Player Characters will work to achieve their aims, serve their guild, avoid being accused of heresy, and if they do give into the temptation of the Traitor Gods’ gifts, keeping them hidden.

Prior to character generation, the players decide upon the nature of their characters’ guild and what it does. The guild is the focus of the campaign and provides a ready source of NPCs in the form of guild officers (positions which the Player Characters can also fill), equipment as well as a base of operations, and when the Player Characters begin recruiting, replacement Player Characters. In addition, the players, their characters, and their guild will have access to a calendar which can be used to track days, particularly the holy days and holidays, as well as the progress of any wounds that have to heal, activities that the Player Characters might want to do day-by-day, including cooking, crafting, foraging, keeping watch, engaging in a hobby, recruiting, working on a project, and more. It also includes Advancement, the spending of Experience Points followed by a Player Character training, the result of which is primarily random.

A Player Character in Doomsong is defined by his Origins and his Traits, and the path by which he came to be a member of the Guild. In combat, he also has Toughness and Footing. Toughness represents how difficult it is to harm the Player Character, whilst Footing is expended to defend against attacks. In addition, he will have Protection if he wears armour, which adds to his Toughness. If a Player Character is very lightly defined, the creation process does a lot of heavy lifting in adding depth to him. It uses a lifepath system which first gives him an Origin and then takes him through his youth to adulthood and perhaps beyond, pushing him towards the decision to join the Guild. At the end he will likely be presented with a choice between giving himself up to the Pyre or joining the Guild. The former means being burnt as a heretic, whilst the latter gives him protection from the ecclesiastical authorities and a possible path to redemption.

There are six Origins—‘Wild Thing’, ‘Guttersnipe’, ‘Farming Family’, ‘Middle Class’, ‘Wealthy Elite’, and ‘Star-Crossed Babe’ and multiple options in the Lifepath. Each step in the Lifepath process gives a player a choice of traits to pick from, a table of events with entries that will give him another trait or an exit to another step. Some entries determine a particular aspect about the Player Character, most represent jobs of some kind, others might give the gift of a relic, whilst others will tempt a Player Character into acts of heresy that will lead either to the Pyre or the Guild. The process is relatively quick and definitely easy—and it has to be. Player Characters are fragile. Life in Doomsong is short, brutal, and bloody. In other words, they die fast and they are fast replaced. What is interesting here is how it feels, which is like a cross between the complete career path for a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Player Character and Player Character creation for Traveller, but done at a gallop!

Name: Maub
Toughness 4 Footing 4 Protection 0
TRAITS
Wealdean, Tracker, Swift-footed, Avowed, Ruthless
ABILITIES
Canine Familiar
ORIGIN – Welcome, stranger. The Guild takes anyone seeking sanctuary within its walls. We have high-born and low, the scum of the earth and those who would turn their backs on the dull existence of daily life. Whatever has brought you here will not surprise us.
WEALD – Growing up beyond the border castles brought as much peculiar freedom as it did danger. Concepts like law and ownership were foreign to you.
THIEF TAKER – You were tasked with hunting criminals to the Petty Baronies and beyond.
JUSTICE – A stony voice commanded you use the blood of a foe to daub your hate on unworked stone.
DO YOUR DUTY – Those who join the Guild for selfless reasons are its greatest and most ill-spent asset.
JOIN THE GUILD – You stood at the threshold of the Guild, throwing the rest of your life away to the vagaries of fate. Whether you felt relief or fear when they accepted you, we do not know.

Mechanically, Doomsong is relatively simple. To have his character succeed at a Standard Check, a player rolls a single six-sided die and attempts to roll five or more. A Player Character’s traits, equipment, conditions, and allies can add modifiers, ranging from ‘-1’ and Hindering to ‘+3’ and Defining and Perfect, though the latter is rare. If the task is Focused, then the player rolls two six-sided dice and keeps the highest, but if Hasty, the player rolls two six-sided dice and keeps the lowest. If the result is under the target number, the Player Character has failed with cost; if equal to the Target Number, it is success with a cost; and if over the Target Number, it is a straightforward success.

In addition, a player can choose to flip the Doomcoin (an ordinary coin will do, but the roleplaying game does have its own coin as an accessory). If the result of the flip of the Doomcoin is a Skull, the result of the Standard Check is one step worse, but one step better if result of the flip of the Doomcoin is a Crest. Either way, this is the only means by which a Player Character can achieve a critical success or a critical failure. Further, once flipped, the player keeps the Doomcoin in front of him. His character is now doomed and the Game Master can force the player to flip it on any test, but can only do this once. It then passes back to the Game Master and can be picked up by another player. Whatever the result, failure is permanent and the task cannot be reattempted; the cost of failure is permanent; critical results are spectacular; and a Player Character with a particular skill or trait does not fail because of a lack of knowledge or expertise, but because of the uncertainty of the situation.

Combat is slightly more complex. Each Player Character has two actions in a round represented by two six-sided dice, or Action Dice, whilst NPCs have one action and thus one six-sided die. At the start of the round, each player sets his character’s Action Dice according to the actions that he wants him to take. He will set an Action Die at one if he wants his character to ‘Aid’ another or ‘Draw’ gear; at three if he wants his character to carry out a ‘Light Strike’ or hasty attack with a non-heavy weapon or ‘Recover’ and regain Footing; or to five if he wants his character to perform a ‘Heavy Strike’, a focused attack with a non-light weapon or ‘Set Up’ a ‘Standard Action’ or ‘Standard Strike’ whose trigger the player can also establish. There are two Actions per die face and a player is free to choose from them as he wishes, even performing the same action twice, though the same weapon cannot be used for more than a single attack in a round. The Game Master counts up from lowest numbered to the highest, from one to six, completing all of the actions for one face of the die before moving onto the next. Ideally, this is set up with each player placing his two dice on the two choices he has made in the Action Block on his character sheet.

The actual attack roll in Doomsong is not treated as a Standard Check, but a Special Check. The difficulty number varies, being based on the defender’s Toughness, which can be modified by his player or the Game Master spending Footing to have his character or NPC dodge or block the attack. As with Standard Checks, the results be under, equal to, or over the difficulty number. If under, the attacker is off-balance and will lose Footing; if equal, the attacker delivers a graze and will also lose Footing, whilst the defender will lose Toughness; and if over, the attacker will inflict more damage, reducing the defender’s Tougher even more, as well as inflicting other effects, depending upon the weapon type used in the attack. For example, a bludgeoning attack might leave the defender staggered, battered, or with a smashed face, whilst a slashing attack might leave the defender grazed, scarred, or with a sliced face. Flips of the Doomcoin can also increase the result of an attack roll and potentially inflict even greater damage.

In terms of background, Doomsong provides details of the ecclesiastical calendar of Painmye, along with overviews of its geography and social hierarchy, and also the hierarchy of the Church of the Divine Corpse. The most attention is paid to its pantheon of The Immortal and The Immortal’s misbegotten progeny, detailing each of his children and his children’s children and so on, including their prayers and the cults devoted to each of them. Twelve of the Traitor Gods—Chance, Feast, Frenzy, Honour, Hope, Justice, Oblivion, Panic, Perception, Rot, Toil, and Vorcacity—grant occult gifts to their followers and so give the opportunity for the tempted to become a Wycce, an agent of one of the Traitor Gods. Familiars—canine, laceworker, or rat—are the most recognisable of the occult abilities granted by the Traitor Gods. For example, the Sublime called Feast gives his patronage to those that give generously to others, especially of their scraps of food, his familiars being vultures, boars and gowenflies, and his vow being to feed the hungry. In return for feeding the starving, his Wycces learn abilities such as ‘Attuned Forager’, enabling them to sense food stores, ‘Nature’s Bounty’ which cures food of any rot, or ‘Amphora of desire’, by which they can enchant a jug or bottle of alcohol that is so enticing, anyone who drinks it is likely to fall unconscious should he try to stop. All of the abilities have three and many actually have positive effects despite how the Church of the Divine Corpse might regard them.

In addition includes an extensive bestiary of NPCs and monsters. All have their own Action Blocks. Some of the NPCs are simple recruits to the Player Characters’ guild, but others include militia, assassins, duellists, templars, and more. There are stats for normal animals as well as familiars, and also the favoured children of the various Traitor Gods. For example, Laceworkers are favoured by Chance, preternaturally lucky (which means that when the Player Characters are confronted by them, the Game Master can force players to flip the Doomcoin, even their characters are not Doomed, and flip it a second time if it does not favour the Laceworkers) spiders that lay their eggs in partially consumed corpses that can later rise as a Husk of Chance. The Opri are associated with the Sublime Frenzy, birthed by her hatred of the Church of the Divine Corpse after the Ecclesiarch ordered the murder of sister, the Sublime Joy. The Opri hunt the pious and hunger for the bones of the holy, often desecrating churches and villages in the process, whilst their bite turns men into Opri-Falsere, servants that grow to look like the feline Opri with the passing of each full moon whilst dedicating their lives to them in secret. Given that the First Gate of Heall has been closed, it is no surprise that the Unquiet Dead are also detailed. The journey of both body and soul are described in detail, whilst there are descriptions of numerous types of the undead, all pleasingly different to that found in most other roleplaying games. Rounding out Doomsong is a selection of flora and fungi.

Physically, Doomsong is a stunning looking book. Black and white, but with grim and grimy artwork reminiscent of both Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, First Edition and the Fighting Fantasy series. This should be no surprise that its artist also drew the illustrations for Themborne Games’ Escape the Dark Castle: The Game of Atmospheric Adventure and Escape the Dark Sector: The Game of Deep Space. The layout has an early modern look to it in terms of style and feel, whilst the book has pleasing physicality in that its jacket actually doubles as a Game Master reference, whilst the inside back cover actually has a pocket for the Doomcoin! Another interesting design choice is the use of colour, used in conjunction with the Traitor Gods as if they are offering something bright and enticing in comparison to the sackcloth and ashes that is the everyday existence of Painyme.

There can be no doubt that Doomsong is a fantastic looking book, one that reeks of desperation and fear in the face of an encroaching biblical Armageddon. Yet this is both a help and hindrance. A help because it imparts so much of the roleplaying game’s atmosphere and apocalyptic alarm, but a hindrance because it makes Doomsong look like a more complex and more daunting roleplaying game than it really is. It also hides some issues with Doomsong. One is that there is no advice for the Game Master on how to run the roleplaying game, whilst the other is that there is no discussion of what a Doomsong scenario or campaign looks like. There is the sperate campaign, Lord Have Mercy Upon Us, in which the Player Characters are members of a gravediggers’ guild helping to bury the multitudinous Unquiet Dead, and Doomsong leans that way in terms of a set-up, but that requires further purchase followed by long term play and commitment rather than enabling the Game Master and her group to play just from the core rulebook. Yet despite its mechanical simplicity, Doomsong is not suitable for inexperienced Game Masters given its lack of advice as to how the game runs, what a scenario looks like, and what a campaign looks like. Even an experienced Game Master will be challenged to set something up from scratch and whatever that is, it may not be what the designers intended to best showcase their design.

There is a piquant sense of epoch-ending trepidation and existential anxiety to Doomsong. It casts the Player Characters as heretics seeking absolution, but tempted time and time gain with occult gifts that in some cases might actually do some good, more than the simple, extremely fragile mortals that they are, are actually capable of, knowing that to give in to that temptation so is heresy once again. This is the core dilemma at the heart of the roleplaying, one that reeks of dread and despair that might yet be forestalled, but ultimately in Doomsong, leaves it to another book to really show the Game Master how that will play out in the short term, let alone the long term.

The Other OSR: The Thing from the Swamp

On the edge of civilisation lies Lake Onda, pregnant with rain, its waters ready to break. Already, they gulp at its banks, choking the earth and saturating the trees and the plants and subsuming them into a mire that spreads and spreads. The inhabitants of the surrounding villagers eke out what life they can, drowning from the moment they were born on the hot, moist air, never knowing the comfort of a respite from the rot and the stench. The lucky few escapes to a life of poverty elsewhere, free of their sodden origins. The unlucky few falls prey to a coalescence of mouldering vegetation and undergrowth into a brain sparked into life by the violent storms that wrack the skies above the lake, its only feeling being one of hunger. The villagers only know it to be something foul and want it ended. King Fathmu’s royal biologist wants a cutting from the creature for his gardens. Some have had visions of a nascent godling born in the swamps and know they would be well rewarded were they to nurture and protect it to its intended status. There is said to be a temple in the swamp with an entrance to the underworld where great riches lie ready for the taking. The right flowers of the swamp can be harvested for useful remedies.

This is the set-up for The Thing from the Swamp. Published by Loot the Room, this is a scenario for 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. The scenario focuses not on the swamp, but on the remains of a building that has slumped into the swamp and what lies underneath its cracked roof. This is a complex of rooms dedicated to researching and testing the creature that lives in the fetid caves beyond, that with the building’s collapse have succumbed to the stagnant waters of the swamp, the walls pierced with tough roots and dripping slime and mould, the air thick with spores ready to infest the lungs.

The remnants of the research and experimentation can be found throughout the complex, but they are not the only things to be found in the waterlogged ruins. There are riches to be recovered—but this is a scenario for Mörk Borg, so not very much, and the fabled flowers to be harvested, but there are also signs of Frankenstein-like experiments too and encounters with various parties with an interest in the creature, perhaps to capture it, perhaps to kill it, and there is also a worshipper of the creature, bidden to tend unto godhood. Most of these will be encountered at random. Perhaps the strangest thing that the Player Characters will find is ‘The Walker’, a mobile mecha suit powered by a human heart, which could be used to attack the creature, but is almost as dangerous to operator as it is to anyone it attacks.

As atmospheric as The Thing from the Swamp is, it is poorly set up. Like other scenarios for the Old School Renaissance, it is designed for emergent play, but it suffers from emergent comprehension too. In other words, the elements of the story that can come into play as the Player Characters explore the complex, also emerge as the Game Master reads the scenario. This is poor design that hinders the Game Master’s preparation efforts. The Game Master should have been given this information upfront as a necessity. However, the technological elements of the scenario, including the obvious signs of pseudo-scientific research being conducted in the complex and ‘The Walker’, make the scenario far more flexible than one would think. Of course, it is easy to plonk almost anywhere remote on the island of Tveland, the default setting for Mörk Borg, but with adjustments, The Thing from the Swamp could work just as well with CY_BORG or Pirate Borg.

Physically, The Thing from the Swamp is well presented. There are some nice touches away from the scenario such as its content warnings being presented as The British Board of Film Classification film classifications from the 1970s. Away from this, the layout is clean and tidy with the map presented on each two-spread marked with the locations being described. It is light on artwork, but the descriptions make up for that. It does need an edit though.

The Thing from the Swamp is an atmospherically soggy dungeon whose secrets will emerge as the Player Characters explore, though they should have been signposted earlier for the Game Master. It otherwise is a classic self-contained dungeon for Mörk Borg, easy to add to a campaign or run on its own.

The Other OSR: Vast Grimm – Space Raiders

It has been over six hundred years since the First Prophecy of Fatuma came to pass. The SIX, the Disciples of Fatuma, who following the prophecies put down in the Book of Fatuma, made a pilgrimage to the Primordial Mausoleum of THEY and deployed the Power of Tributes to decrypt the Mystical Lock sealing the Mausoleum. It was then that the They drew in the stale air of the Mausoleum, becoming one with the THEY and breathing out the parasites. The Six scattered, bringing the word and the infection of THEY to every corner of the ’verse. Then the Gnawing began. The parasites of THEY gnawed their way out of the infected. They spread. They gnawed their way out of planets. They spread. The infected split open. The planets split apart. Now mankind clings to life, looking out for any signs of THEY or hiding it inside them in the hope that it never erupts and spreads… The Earth is gone. Shattered into large pieces. There are places and planets where the remnants of Mankind survive, squabbling over resources and power, fearing the parasitical infectious word of THEY, but not without hope. There are whispers of a means to escape the end of this universe by entering another, one entirely free of THEY. It is called the Gate of Infinite Stars. Yet time is running out. The First Prophecy of Fatuma came to pass and so has every other Prophecy of Fatuma since. Except the last Seven Torments. Will the last Seven Torments come to pass and allow the Würms and the Grimm to consume the ’verse and with it, the last of Mankind? Or will the lucky few find their way to the Gate of Infinite Stars and at last be free of the Würms and the Grimm in a better, brighter future? That is, of course, if everyone fleeing through the Gate of Infinite Stars is free of the gnawing…

This is the set-up for Vast Grimm. Published by Infinite Black, it is a pre-apocalypse Science Fiction roleplaying game compatible in tone and structure with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. In the near unspeakable horrors of the future that is Vast Grimm, the survivors do what they can to survive, banding together as Legions that can work together to explore what remains of the galaxy, scavenge what they can, deal with emerging threats to survivors, and all as long as they can until they and the survivors can flee this universe. Not all choose to join a Legion. Instead, they band together to raid other survivors, to plunder and pillage what remains of civilisation, to salvage what they can, and survive in whatever way they can—and that way is not always humane or even necessarily human. They are not Legion. They are Space Raiders!

Vast Grimm: Space Raiders introduces a new way to play Vast Grimm—Factions! To go with the Factions, it adds new Classes and then it adds a galactic hexcrawl, as well as presenting a history of Space Raiders. The Space Raiders of old mostly picked through the wreckage of failed colonies and stations, with only a few groups being more sinister and vicious. That changed with the Prophecies of Fatuma coming to pass and the infection of THEY beginning to spread. The nastier, more rapacious groups have grabbed their own territories and only in recent times have their ships been seen beyond their borders. It cannot be too long before they are fighting. There is a map in Vast Grimm: Space Raiders onto which the Game Master place the factions. The new Classes are the Brutal Savage, the Merciless Mercenary, the Plunderluster, and the Salty Dog, whilst the Factions are the Claws of Doom, Cybersharks, Killer Clowns, Greyskrulls, Jolly Dodgers, Reapers, and Revenants.

The Brutal Savage is almost soulless, but very ferocious scoundrel. Strong and tough, he may have been a survivor who would have starved had he not eaten the flesh of his dead comrades or was thrown into an airlock by her mother before she and the colony he grew up on became one of The Grimm. ‘Skillz’ might be having ‘Gangrenous Goo’ for an arm that feeds on his arm, but can also rots away at anything that it touches, or he might have a stare so worthy of the Abyss that it saps morale. What morals the Merciless Mercenary had have long since been replaced by greed, having either been maltreated by Shit King Saule once too often and grown tired of being his muscle or dreams nightly of a display tank of decapitated heads that with enough credstiks will be his. Strong and menacing, his ‘Skillz’ might be good with building bombs or as a natural troublemaker, whether it is his attitude or the smirk on his cut up face, he attracts attention at the start of every fight, giving his allies an advantage. The Plunderluster does everything with a swagger. Graceful and charismatic, he either grew up in a troupe of traveling performers, stealing as they performed, or is actually a service bot, reprogrammed to talk like a pirate! His ‘Skillz’ might be that everything he does is done with flair, increasing his Critical roll range, or that his Grimm Compass has been hacked to spin wildly when The Grimm are near! The Salty Dog grew up a raider, perhaps after having been found by raiders abandoned in an escape pod and not eaten or even thirteen years ago, was teleported from an ancient festival where he was dressed and acting like a pirate into this hell of a future and has yet to work out if he is actually hallucinating. His ‘Skillz’ include being able to talk to ships and thus has a bonus to repair or modify them or is a skilled pillager and has a bonus on scavenging.

These are just some of the options for each Class, but all four play around with a combination of the classic pirate figure and the space pirate or raider a la the film Serenity. So, some are of a more brutal and nastier nature than others, the Brutal Savage and the Merciless Mercenary versus the Plunderluster and the Salty Dog. Vast Grimm is a bleak, often savage setting, and all four Classes fit its ‘Grim Dark’ post-apocalyptic future. Of course, it is up to the Game Master to decide whether they fit the game she is currently running, but all are going to require mature players.

All seven Factions are given a quick description, some Netwürk Chatter about them that can be speculative, partially proven, or cross-reference, and some further details that can include sample NPCs and crew descriptions as well as equipment. The Claws of Doom is an all-MAnchiNE raider Faction whose members replace a single arm with a strong claw and are led by DOOM-1, whose has replaced his other with a pincer, the crevices of his cyberware filled with dried blood. The Cybersharks crew ships which attack other ships with tentacles and replace their jaws with metal mandibles. The Killer Clowns want to make the ’Verse more colourful and wear clown masks and carry brightly coloured balloon animals filled with toxins on balloon belts, lead-filled rubber chickens, or squirting flowers that shoot acid! They even know the Collapsible Clown Car Tribute that miniaturises a starship and kills everyone aboard. This is intentionally, absurdly silly and are even available as a Space Raider subclass which replaces the ‘Skillz’ of another Class.

The Greyskrulls are former reapers, sympathetic to The Grimm, but with only a couple of known Crew detailed, are under described and developed, as are the Jolly Dodgers, a faction of smugglers lead by a captain known as Princess pain for her capacity to withstand torture at the hands of Shit King Saule. In comparison to the other Factions, there is not a lot of flavour to them and the Game Master will need to develop the Netwürk Chatter a little harder to attract the attention of his Legionnaires. The Reapers are the oldest Space Raider Faction and are infected by The Grimm, whilst the Revenants are led by Captain Sully Bloodbeard, who was vented by his crew over three centuries ago and returned as a Void Revenant, occupying one body after another, his remains hidden deep within the Graveyard where the best wreckage can be found!

The Revenants are the target in the hexcrawl adventure included in Vast Grimm: Space Raiders. The Player Characters’ Legion is hired (or bullied) by a Space Raider Faction to search the Graveyard for the remains of Captain Sully Bloodbeard or Shit King Saule levies a bounty on Captain Sully Bloodbeard’s ship, the Revenant’s Revenge. Collect either, or even both, and the Legion gets plenty of credstiks, a possible ally, and an even greater reputation. Deckplans are given for the Revenant’s Revenge as are a set of tables for generating the ships—including their type, condition, and what might be found aboard—within the Graveyard and the location of Captain Sully Bloodbeard’s remains. This can be run as a procedural adventure on the go or prepared by the Game Master, perhaps with access to Vast Grimm: Space Cruisers to provide expanded detail about the ships found in the Graveyard, and ultimately brings the Player Characters up against a major faction in the major Vast Grimm universe that will likely end in an epic battle aboard the Revenant’s Revenge.

Lastly, Vast Grimm: Space Raiders details some extra Tributes besides Collapsible Clown Car and some Space Raider Mods such as Black Flag and Plank Walker. A set of tables also provides plenty of Space Raider booty for the Player Characters to loot.

Physically, Vast Grimm: Space Raiders adheres to the Artpunk aesthetic of both Vast Grimm and Mörk Borg, with its use of vibrant, often neon colours and heavy typefaces. It looks amazing, a swirling riot of colour that wants to reach out and infect everything, but where the core rules were not always the easiest to read, the simplicity of the content in this supplement make it easier to read and use.

Vast Grimm: Space Raiders sends the Vast Grimm universe off in another direction, piratical at the very least, but likely even grimmer than Vast Grimm. This is a sourcebook of Space Raider adversaries, but also a sourcebook for roleplaying Vast Grimm as even more self-interested space bastards than usual. The latter probably lends itself to a shorter, one-shot scenario or campaign than the former, but either way, Vast Grimm: Space Raiders makes the Vast Grimm universe an even grimmer—and with the addition of the Killer Clowns (from outer space)—sillier future.

—oOo—

The Kickstarter campaign for Vast Grimm – Escaping Stasis, a starter set and expanded rules can be found here.