Mörk Borg

MÖRK BORG

by Pelle Nilsson, Johan Nohr (Designer, Illustrator)

MÖRK BORG är ett nattsvart, apokalyptiskt fantasyrollspel om förlorade själar och dårar som söker vedergällning, förlåtelse eller de sista skatterna i en blek och döende värld. Vem är du? Gravplundraren med spruckna naglar och skimrande silver? Esoterikern som tror att undergången går att stoppa? Ge dig i kast med kraftslukande nekromagiker, smygande skelettkrigare och knivhuggande lyktgubbar. Vandra genom De Olyckligt Odödas Dal, katakomberna under Bergen Chrypt eller den hemsökta Sarkash-skogen. Men lämna hoppet hemma - världens grymma öde är förseglat och alla dina fåfänga försök till hjältedåd är dömda att sluta i ond, bråd död. Eller?

MÖRK BORG är ett komplett rollspel i OSR-genren, som antingen kan spelas i sin helhet eller plundras på idéer till ditt egna hemmabygge. Regelsystemet kan enkelt göras kompatibelt med de flesta versioner av världens största rollspel. I boken finner du:
- En översiktlig beskrivning av den döende världen. Från De Tvehövdade Basiliskernas gotiska katedral i Galgenbeck och blodfurstinnan Anthelias kalkstenspalats, till dödsfälten i Graven-Tosk och de karga ödemarkerna i Kergüs.
- Nechrubels nedräkning, som avgör exakt hur snabbt världen går under.
- 20 ockulta Krafter som låter dig förvrida verkligheten, och lika många magiska katastrofer när du misslyckas totalt.
- Frivilliga regler som ger mer djup till spelet. Järtecken låter dig vända otur till tur i svåra lägen. Det finns Klasser med unika förmågor och egenheter, och tabeller som blåser liv i din rollperson.
- 12 varelser att mördas av.
- Spelledarverktyg med tabeller för kadaverplundring, ockulta skatter, äventyrsgnistor, grottgenerering och annat djävulskap.
- Introduktionsäventyret Svartsörja, där ni undersöker en bortglömd del av Skuggkungens gigantiska ruinpalats. Kannibalmagiker, giftmånglare från bortom tomheten och hungriga tarmvarelser väntar.

MÖRK BORG är konstruerat av Pelle Nilsson (Ockult Örtmästare Games) och Johan Nohr (Stockholm Kartell). Spelet ges ut av Fria Ligan förlag och finns på både på svenska och engelska - den engelska texten är bearbetad av Patrick Stuart (Veins of the Earth, Silent Titans).

Genres: Role Playing Games, Fantasy, Horror, Gaming, Games, Reference, Dark Fantasy

88 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2020

Reviews

[Forrest · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was first attracted to this RPG by the black-metal aesthetic, truth be told. I was pleased to find a rules-lite RPG heavy on creating atmosphere and, in particular, one that builds that atmosphere into character creation and history. Character quirks, habits, and background are amazing and dark, dark, dark. These are true murder hobos! The mood here shares similarities to Mothership and the setting book Vorheim.

The character classes (all optional - you can play without classes) are excellently constructed, both in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. Truly unique abilities and disabilities accrue to each class. All the ad-hoc home rules you've always wanted for creating a scumbucket character? They're here.

The monsters who these broken characters will face are equally evocative. For example, "Lady Porcelain" are vengeful undead spirits of murdered children inhabiting porcelain dolls in which their bodies had been entombed alive. YAAASSS!!! And they bite!

Speaking of things horrific, the adventure included herein, Rotblack Sludge is a tough little dungeon (a true, actual dungeon, in the old medieval sense) that will most definitely kill careless characters. Those who are very careful *might* survive. It's a short adventure, probably one session-worth, or two if the players are as careful as they ought to be. A nice addendum that fits the mood perfectly.

This is unlike any other RPG book. The dark poetry of the words and art lets the campaign setting breathe into your brain. It will infect you. You have freedom to despair under the crushing blackness of Mörk Borg . . . however you like! The campaign is more than a setting, though, it is a summoning, an evocation. Brilliant in all its darkness. Oh, and look for the glow-in-the-dark sigils on the spine. Yes, you read that right . . . but it may be the last thing you see in the dark, ever!

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written, striking and beautiful art direction and illustrations. I think this might be the first core book I've read that starts with the setting, and it's also its strongest point.

Just really, really good.

[Diz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a dark, dark, dark roleplaying game. Back in the 80s, this is probably what parents imagined you were playing when playing Dungeons & Dragons. The book itself is an amazing work of graphic design and the game system is easy to implement. However, the theme is just too dark for my tastes.

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very pretty, full of flavour, some great black metal stuff here - to a fault. Far too great a focus on style over substance: thoughts of darkness and gloom occupying the designer's brain, leaving little space to what actually matters, how it runs on the table or how the dungeons are built. It's spawned a rush of new designers who quite completely miss the point.

If you use this, then use it as a supplement for your B/X or AD&D game, for inspiration and insight, not on its own. There's not enough on its own. Two and a half stars.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

How new D&D should be. The closest echo of old D&D for those who miss it - when being clever meant something, everyone wasn't walking around super powerful and there weren't thousands of pages to memorize.

MY GRADE: A minus.

[[Name Redacted] · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not an RPG, not even a rules-light one. It's a glorified "Setting" book, albeit one with a great setting and exceptional aesthetics. And even as a Setting guide, it's so sparse, so half-hearted, that it's really more of a hint or a prompt.

Wish I had known all that before shelling out $33...

[Malum · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is up with Swedish people? They seem like such nice folks, but then they go and make the best death metal bands, some pretty dark novels, and the best horror RPGs. I think they are all fooling us while they secretly summon great Cthulhu.

Anyway, Mork Borg (or Dark Castle, which sounds like either an Atari game or a Jim Henson movie) is what happens when someone says "I want to make the Dark Souls video game into an RPG, but turn up the darkness and hopelessness dials to 11".

This is a game absolutely drenched in atmosphere (some of the starting weapons and items is a human femur and an evil black bible, and some of the classes are "Gutter Born Scum" and "Heretical Priest") with a super deadly rules-light chassis under the hood (apparently based on another game called Knave which I have heard of but never played, but which seems to be really popular in the old-school RPG community).

For me, personally, this seems like something I would take inspiration from for other games, but I don't know if I would actually play it. There are just so many other rules light RPGs out there right now that I don't know if yet another ruleset is really in my wheelhouse. Also, this seems like it would be great for one-shots or 2-3 adventures and I'm more of an extended campaign kind of guy.

[Mouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a beautiful game book, but more of an art book and less playable. From the moment I got it I was in love with the look and feel, but then as I looked through it I realized it was absolute beautiful chaos!
How is this playable, I honestly don’t know where to start?
It’s a total Doom Metal of a game book and could make for good inspiration for a Mad Max type of game setting.
It’s already given me lots of ideas for a Dungeons and Dragons game, maybe more like a Dark Sun setting.
I didn’t really understand the format or the rules, but that’s sort of the point of it. All I know is it makes me want to yell, “Mork Borg!” out my car window as I’m peeling out and doing donuts in the grass of my nearby park, throwing up some Dio horns and blaring the Swedish Doom Metal Music!!!! 💀 🎶 🤘🏻
It’s clear my games lack enough Doom Metal in them!!!

[Meredith Katz · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely incoherent game system that has no interest in having clear rules, letting you play anything that resembles a real character (it tells you that you don't have to name your character because it's not like it'll help), or throwing anything concise at you beyond 70 different tables to roll on to randomly generate some absolutely insane nonsense (the tables actually start on the first four pages, before ANY other game stuff is touched on). I mean, there are some mechanics in there, and stats and stuff, and technically there are rules. If you dig through it, you can probably rearrange it to make something you can actually reference; it's probably playable and I'm sure people DO play this. The thing is, the rules aren't explained in any logical way, but they also don't matter very much per se.

But... 5/5 stars, because what it ACTUALLY does well is being a completely, wildly insane zine about gothic medieval horror rp with gorgeous art. It aims to be the most grimdark extreme thing you've ever read and it achieves this in spades. I think I said the equivalent of "JESUS CHRIST, CALM DOWN MEGAN" like seven times reading this. It includes suggestions like 'Roll 1d20 or throw a knife at the page' and advises you that, when your campaign ends (in misery, because it will always end in misery) you should 'burn this book'. One ailment is having your teeth replaced with fingernails. Another one is that your skeleton is actively trying to escape your body. The actual writing is gorgeous and rich. Looks an absolute disaster to try to figure out how to play, but that's not the point. Everyone should read this as soon as you can just for the experience.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rules-lite but with more than enough tables and charts to build your own campaigns, characters and the like (not even counting what you could theoretically do yourself). Also a great book to own even if you don't run the game directly for its unique take on tabletop aesthetic and style.

[Saboridoman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Últimamente parece que solo leo cosas que me gustan. Es un juegazo pero también es café para muy cafeteros... Así que si el diseño extraño, la ambientación oscura y turbia o los juegos en que los personajes pueden morir de un navajazo no te van este juego no te gustará mucho. Eso sí, si te gusta el rollo de leer juegos de rol experimentales o diferentes vas a flipar.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

EDIT: Having now both played Mörk Borg as a player and run two adventures for my game group as a GM, I am upgrading my rating from 4 to 5 stars. I've played a number of additional systems since I first wrote my review, and have also dipped my toes into being the one behind the screen, so I've gained a great appreciation for what a rules-light system like this can do. And honestly, Mörk Borg does all that really well and rules never get in the way of gameplay. I actually love the balance on this system for the type of experience it aims to deliver. I have homebrewed a few alterations to the rules when I run it, to make it slightly more survivable. But depending on how brutal you want it to be, it works perfectly fine as written. In fact, I should probably go harder on my players because they always seem to find a way to construct a makeshift bomb and hurt my big bad before I can kill them....

Also, the book is just so metal. It's a beautiful thing to behold. 11/5 stars for style alone. I can't recommend it enough if it seems like something you'd enjoy. Plus there's a huge wealth of high quality fan-made content out there, including stuff that's been vetted and given the stamp of approval by the original creators. And even the more random stuff you can find online is pretty great. I found a very short supplement that included rules for ill-advised amateur dental surgery... and we actually ended up using them because they fit perfectly into one adventure I ran. Hats off to the community around this game!

Original review follows, below.

----

I'm giving this gorgeous book 4 stars on the basis of its defined aesthetic and consistency in style and tone alone. As other reviewers have noted, it's a work of art (hence shelving it under "art books" as well as TTRPGs) and deserves all the praise it receives on those grounds. It absolutely oozes flavour and would be worthy reading to inspire any dark, apocalyptic game regardless of what you're running. I've yet to play it, but once my new gaming group has gone through the one-shot included as part of the book (hopefully sometime next month), I'll reassess.

My first impressions of the system itself are largely positive. It's rules-light but seems quite functional; a mixed d20 and d6 system for the most part, heavy focus on rolling to determine outcomes of all sorts of things, and built logically around those mechanical choices. It skims character building down to its most essential elements; four abilities (STR, a DEX equivalent, a CON equivalent, and one which is like an amalgam of WIS+CHA) which do double duty as both attributes and skills (in the parlance of D&D) for whatever tests (checks) you need to make. I'm in favour of that over the bloat of some other systems (*cough* Call of Cthulhu *cough*). Combat looks streamlined on the GMs part, with little rolling for enemies. Seems like less wiggle room for creative combat options than with D&D or other systems with that kind of focus, but that's all GM-dependent anyway. I like the randomized nature of the Reaction and Morale mechanics for determining how enemies react, and could see the utility of porting them over to other systems, even.

Because of how rules-light it is, there does seem to be a lot left undetermined/up to the GM to interpret how things work. So many mechanics of various powers, enemy special abilities, or randomized events are described with a single sentence and not particularly detailed when it comes to the ramifications for the PCs or the world. However, I do appreciate that all the basic mechanics can be summarized on a single 8" x 5" sheet of paper (the approximate size of the hardcover book). Definitely seems like a fun game to pick up and play, but requires a creative and fast-thinking GM to roll with the lack of detailed rules for much of the world.

[Marko · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved almost everything in this. Simple and sick in an innovative way - both the game rules and graphics. Although there could have been more content.

The only thing I didn’t love, was the adventure within the book. It was a missed opportunity. Although I have to admit, that I have played the adventure and I enjoyed it a lot, but I think it was more to do with the GM and other players.

But, still a four star game publication and a must read. Would have been a five star one, if it wasn’t for its obvious debt for some of the “Lamentations of the Flame Princess” publications.

[Pearse Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I still don't understand a good portion of this game but also this book is one of the most BEAUTIFUL and HAUNTING PDFs I've ever opened. A wonderful read if just for inspiration and monster/class/weapon design. Hilarious tone and use of historic/religious and modern commissioned art. I want to play Mörk Borg now, but I also don't understand how to exactly.

[Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was dope and i will be running it for my RPG group at some point

[B.J. Swann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mork Borg is a physically beautiful product with great graphic design and some cool art.

It's extremely minimalist; you can read the book and run the sample adventure in a single afternoon.

The setting is fun, but quite sparsely developed. It's more of an embryo of a setting than real world building. There's some attempt to build a mythology about two basilisk deities, but the result is so cryptic and ill-defined it feels kind of pointless.

The system is also super basic. Everything is very random. Starting characters will statistically fail at most things most of the time, like attack and dodge rolls. Combat is a boring dice-rolling fest with no real spice, except perhaps for some fun spells which are however hard to cast and hard to find.

Mork Borg is a quick and nasty throwaway game with throwaway characters who are doomed to die. It's not meant to be deep or fair, just short and fun. Its scope is limited by its flaws, but Its flaws are also a part of its essential appeal.

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mork Borg breathes a staggeringly coherent aesthetic vision into being, weaving art, design, layout, and typography together in ways we have never seen a roleplaying game attempt before.

In what follows I will attempt to convey something of the experience of reading the book while preserving as much of that experience as possible. This won’t be a rules dissection, or a system breakdown. The rules are light, clean, fine, and almost irrelevant.

The OSR has made an art form of high-quality books, their usability honed to a razor’s edge. Mork Borg takes the greatest achievements of the movement - the rich, poetic, economical prose, the highly functional endpapers packed with useful tables, the judicious use of precision bold text in dungeon descriptions, the sensible and repeated deployment of small, contextual versions of the main dungeon map - then adds more, and more, and more, like some crazed jazz musician riffing on a theme.

How? As an example, let’s look at the cover in detail.



The material is soft, the boards ridiculously weighty. The background is an eye-wateringly bright yellow, A scribbled, horned skeleton obscures the game’s title, like Milton’s half-seen Death:

“black it stood as Night,
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,
And shook a dreadful Dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a Kingly Crown had on”

This image is recessed into the cover, as if the weight of it pushes down on the book. Rules light, heavy everything else, as the game tells us. The blood splatters on sword and shield are UV spot, raw and vibrant against the monochrome. It's the product of time and thought and intent to communicate. Psalm VII is embossed in a near hidden, clear type on the spine, between the letters of the book’s title - words you do not learn the meaning of until later (“and the darkness shall swallow the darkness”).

The Psalms are cataclysms that change the world itself. Plagues, natural disasters, mystical events. There will be six, and then the seventh will end all things. We are playing the last days of a dying world and every day the DM rolls to see if one happens. The first rule is deciding how near the end we are. The Psalms themselves are laid out like a holy book, with the verses of each Psalm forming the options of a random table. Setting meets rules meets design, and it’s pitch perfect.

Right from the start you trace the central conceit of the system with your fingers every time you pick up the book. The end of the world is literally the very backbone of this system. This is a book with a confident voice, distinctive and uncompromising in its dedication to a singular vision. Everything is bleak, black, and death adjacent. You start with a few hit points. You can name your character, but it won’t save you.

Just reading the book is disorienting. The aesthetic changes, rapidly, totally, from page to page. Punk art zine becomes 16th century religious text becomes heavy metal cassette inset. Typefaces shift chameleon-like into something better suited to the information on each page. The book uses over a hundred of them, and is happy to tell you so. Vibrant, fluorescent yellows and pinks give way to sinister maroons and blacks, wood-cuts are followed by renaissance paintings by impressionistic vision-art. Pages reveal treasures like metallic foil and textured paper. Each page is distinct, yet forms part of a conversation.

“Distances shift. Paths between places warp”, the book warns you that the cartography of your own experience is inadequate, and yet still you are caught off guard. Your maps are no good. What has served you in the past will not guide you here. It doesn’t progress like a Player’s Handbook. It doesn’t start with ‘What is Roleplaying’, or with the basic rules clearly laid out, but with teasing, lyrical prose framed by a barely visible church, emerging from the darkness.

Yet the book is no maze. It progresses with an internal logic driven by the content. Text arcs around images, takes right angles and heads down the side of pages. One image of a femur sprawls greedily across a whole page. Mork Borg luxuriates in the space it affords itself - the weapon table could have been a quarter of a page. It is given four. Your need to parse the rules cleanly is not considered. You do not matter, not really. You are a small thing, trying to survive. The tools are here but you will fail, regardless.

It’s as if someone got William Blake drunk and taught him Basic D&D.



Mork Borg pushes the aesthetics of the hobby into dizzying new spaces by deploying tools that have never been used this assuredly and this well. There is even a wonderful, accompanying album by Dungeon Synth band Gnol, and a list of ‘music that helped’. It wants you to feel something specific and bleak so that you can communicate its vision to your players, and will do everything in its power to make sure you do.

If you like dark, bleak fantasy. If you like art, graphics design, and well made things. If you derive pleasure from aesthetics. If you can handle frequent tonal shifts as a means to craft a vision. If you want to see something you haven’t seen before then buy this. In hardback. It’s exquisite.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man oh man do I want to try this! The rules are elegant, simple, and quick, the art is absolutely breathtaking, and the writing is haunting and discomforting, as it should be! This thing is a masterwork of minimal design with unique layout. Everything about it is marvelous. Even the way it begins with a hot start, no explanation of rules but diving into some of the lore. The book moves so fast that the design itself seems to portray the type of world and gameplay being created: quick, brutal, and anxious!

Bravo!

[Zoe S · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is really excellent if you can stomach it. The construction of the thing itself is striking, with liberal use of eye-searing magenta and yellow complementing the chaotic layout of the rules and background. The vibes are so heavily dark fantasy that I'm embarrassed it took me until one reference from a background for a class to realize how heavily-inspired by Berserk this RPG is. My biggest issue is that I would have a really hard time getting a crew together to actually play this. Even still, I'm seriously considering making some kind of content for this system. Definitely will pick up CY_BORG at some point. Check it out if you're interested!

[Володимир Кузнєцов · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mörk Borg (шв. Похмура фортеця) - настільна рольова гра, один з ключових представників течії Old-School Reviwal, достойний спадкоємець "Ламентацій Вогняної Принцеси", що вийшов під слоганом "Легкі правила - важке все решта" і один з перших, хто здається застовбив використання музичних жанрів у визначенні жанрів настільно-рольових (Doom metal RPG). Відмінний своїв дизайном книги і потужним похмурим світоглядом, викрученим на 11 - до стану, коли грімдарк вже настільки грім і дарк, що перетворюється на комедію. Прекрасна гра і потужна книга)

[Andy Hoover · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very short, too short maybe, highly stylized and pretty - more comic book, almost, than a rule book. Is there a game here? Not really - better for grimdark heavy metal ideas for a more robust game I would say.

Very unique presentation. Deserves awards for layout and design. Dark Souls.

[Arthur B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looks like how a doom metal album sounds, this is a tightly designed rules-light horror-fantasy RPG which allows for rapid, pick-up-and-play fun. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a game, this might be a bit too grimdark for me; as a book, it is stunningly gorgeous.

[John Baltisberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this crazy metal grim dark game. It looked fun, and simple. Light rules and over the top gloom always equal a good time. And the art and layout for the book are incredible.

[Electric · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love Black Metal, graphic design and D&D (or any other TTRPG) this a mushy, dark, desolate and brutal wet dream of a game. Even if I should never get the chance to actually playtest this very rules light game, I already lost my rotting black heart to it forever. The narrative design and all those tables provide more ideas for stories than 200 pages of 5E fluff. Hail the hidden gods. 666 dark stars.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nasty, brutish and short. In a good way, mind.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Changed my life.

[Andres Felipe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muy buen juego de rol. Fácil de implementar y da para mucho trasfondo.

[caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mörk Borg

[J.W. Donley · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG! I MUST PLAY THIS NOW!!!