Due to my intense desire to avoid reading more of Daggerheart right now, I’ve decided to instead take a serious look at another one of these new-fangled roleplaying games that were written after my beard had already started going grey (specifically, it was published in 2020 – which is new-fangled compared to almost every other game I talk about here, you must admit). For the purpose, I have chosen Mörk Borg (“dark fortress” – the “mörk” part is pronounced like in “murky”). I’ve had my eye on that one for some time, but I’ve never quite been able to figure out if it’s an actual game or if it’s just some sort of practical joke – when you read through it, most of what’s on the page looks more like some sort of edgy modern art piece than a coherent game. Still, people assure me that it’s good, actually, so let’s embrace the Nordic doom and gloom and dive in…
Immediately we are informed that the end is nigh, no one has seen the sun in years, people are leaving their children to fend for themselves because they’re too busy making human sacrifices to apocalyptic gods, reality and nightmare is mixing and blending. Some people think they might save the world, but honestly, they’re probably dead wrong.
The main religion of this dying world is the Two-Headed Basilisks, who worship two god-monsters: SHE, who dwells in the mountains of Bergen Chrypt and has spawned and slain many young, of which the only survivor is HE, who makes his lair in the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead. They both have two heads. HE has Verhu, who is an arrogant prophet whose dire predictions always come true, and Gorgh, who is full of bitter resentment of his more famous brother. SHE has Lusi, who “looks up and down. Yet all shall be well” (?) and is associated with denial, and Arkh, who claims that Verhu’s prophesies are actually ones he has stolen from her.
The Two-Headed Basilisks rule the city of Galgenbeck in the land of Tveland. They enact a brutal Inquisition that captures sinners and heretics and tortures them without letting them die, because they believe that only those who face the final day alive and harrowed will get to go to the paradise of the Shimmering Fields; suicides, in particular, are despised. The head of the order is Arch-Priestess Josilfa, who might have made a bargain with the evil god Nechrubel for eternal life. Nechrubel is “the shadow that covers all… melancholy, crop failure, conflict and war.”
In the north of Tveland lies the sinister forest of Sarkash, which has started growing a little too fast for people’s comfort. In the center of Sarkash is the cemetery of Graven-Tosk, and in the center of Graven-Tosk stands a gothic ruin called the Palace of the Shadow King. The Shadow King who rules there has many sons who wander the palace grounds and playing tricks on commoners.
East of Tveland, across “the bottomless Múr” and connected to the mainland by three gargantuan bridges, is the kingdom of Grift, ruled by King Sigfúm the Kind. He is preparing his people for the time when they will all commit mass suicide by leaping from the cliffs. The Two-Headed Basilisks consider him a vile heretic.
West of Tveland is the land of Kergüs, and in the northern-most part of Kergüs lies Alliáns, the spire-city where the wicked Queen Anthelia rule. Anthelia is eternally hungry for life, colour, and warmth, and she drains them greedily from anyone who offers them to her.
South of Tveland is Wästland, where King Fathmu IX rules from the gaudy city of Schleswig. He is a selfish and greedy monarch who endlessly sends his army out to loot and plunder and sends his taxmen out to bleed the peasants dry. Wästland is also where the mountains of Bergen Chrypt and the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead can be found. Suicide cults gather in the Valley to escape the pain of their lives or to seek out Verhu and try to convince him to change his prophesies.
Beyond the these lands is only the Endless Ocean. Everyone who has tried to cross it have returned, some of them even alive.
Okay. This is all a bizarre jumble. But I can’t deny that I get a kick out of how relentlessly bleak it is. Why, it downright fills me with patriotic pride to know that Sweden, who once gifted the world with Kult, has not lost the knack for out-glooming absolutely everyone else ever!
Heading into the mechanics section, the first thing we get told is that every in-game morning, the GM has to roll a die. Which kind of die depends on how long the game is meant to last, from a d100 to a d2. If the result is a 1, a randomly determined line of prophesy comes true. They are all rather cryptic and poetic, so the GM will have to do some creative interpreting. Once six prophesies have been fulfilled and the GM rolls another 1, the world ends and you are instructed to burn the book. No way, man, this thing costs 450 crowns! I’m not too nihilistic to also be cheap!
For character creation, you can either start as a completely nondescript character with fully randomised gear and stats, or you can pick one of six classes. If you do the former and happen to get one or more “scrolls” (which are used to cast spells – you neither need to or can learn a spell by heart, spells are effectively gear in this game) with your gear, then you roll lower dice for weapons and armour. Weapons vary between a femur bone used as an improvised club (1d4 damage) and a mighty zweihänder (1d10 damage). Armour subtracts a die of damage taken, from 1d2 for the lowest kind to 1d6 for the heaviest.
You roll 3d6 for your four Abilities of Strength, Agility, Toughness, and Presence (charisma/willpower) and translate the result into a modifier between -3 and +3. If you chose a class, you get some modifiers to the roll for Abilities. To do stuff, you roll 1d20+an Ability modifier and try to beat a Challenge Rating from 6 to 18. Your starting hit points are 1d8+your Toughness modifier, minimum 1.
Combat! At the start, the GM rolls 1d6. 1-3 means that the enemies go first, 4-6 that the players go first. Players roll with Strength to make melee attacks and with Presence to make ranged attacks. Enemies don’t roll to attack, when an enemy attacks a player the player rolls with Agility to parry or dodge instead. Natural 20s are crits, granting extra damage on attacks and a free attack if you were defending, natural 1s are botches and causes you to lose your weapon on attacks and to take extra damage when defending.
If your HP ever goes negative, you’re dead. If your HP reaches exactly 0, you’re “broken” and have to roll to see if you’re just knocked out, if you’re mutilated, if you’re dying, or if, never mind, you are in fact dead. A short rest restores 1d4 HP, a long rest restores 1d6. If you have an infected wound (which you can get from the attacks of certain enemies) you can’t regain HP from resting but in fact lose more HP daily.
Enemies have a morale value that they have to roll under when their leader is slain, when half their numbers are slain, or when they lose more than half their HP. If they fail they break and run.
Characters change when the GM says they do, which usually happens when they’ve accomplished something of note, like found a treasure or slain a big-ass monster. When they change, they try to roll over their maximum HP with 6d10, and if they succeed that maximum increases by 1d6. They also roll 1d6 for each of their Ability modifiers, and if the roll is higher, they increase that Ability modifier by 1, but if it’s lower they reduce it by 1 instead. They can also randomly stumble on some silver or a scroll.
Scrolls are as mentioned effectively spells you can cast. They come in the form of sinister black magic “unclean scrolls” which hurt or disorient enemies, and slightly cuddlier white magic “sacred scrolls” which heal, influence, or provide communication. You can attempt to use scrolls 1d4+Presence modifier times per day, and you need to succeed at a DR12 Presence roll to get a spell off. Fail, and you take a bit of damage, get dizzy and can’t try casting again for a few minutes. Botch, and some extremely creative and horrifying miscast effects take place (e.g., “five twisted, skeletal arms burst from your back. The hands are mischievous, violent, and terribly cruel”).
There’s a table of “the Basilisks’ Demands” which read like some kind of freaky spell component (e.g., “a sliver from a sinner’s grave”), but I can’t find anything that references them. Okay…
We get introduced to “Omens,” which are a sort of hero points (only obviously not called that, because this isn’t a game for heroes!). You can spend them for rerolls, extra damage, that sort of thing. When you run out completely and then take a long rest, you regain a die’s worth of them (1d2 for most people, but some of those classes that are coming up get more).
Next up are a whole bunch of tables – very, very colourful ones – for random traits you might assign your character. Examples include having “very recently murdered a close relative. Very recently” and “rotting face, wears a mask.” Eeeeuuuuuurggggghhh. Don’t get me wrong. I love it. But eeeeeeuuuuuuuurrrrgggghhhhh.
Okay, here are those classes, and no points for guessing that they won’t be quite your usual fighter-caster-rogue set… The first one is the Fanged Deserter. He’s a fighty type, and also, he has a special bite attack. He also can’t use scrolls, ever – “if you begin with one, reroll, eat it, or use it as toilet paper.” He can pick from a bunch of special assets including a horseshoe that can be flung like a boomerang and might have come from Death’s own horse, or a sling woven from the long hair of one of your fallen mates. Heeeeee.
The Gutter-Born Scum is a fighter of a more roguish type, getting by on dirty tricks and luck. Less Strength, all Presence and Agility rolls have a lowered DR. Can choose among such special assets as temporarily blinding people by spitting on them and having a chance to escape certain death because the Reaper himself would prefer not to have to deal with you.
Okay, I am coming around to the idea that this game might just be awesome.
The Esoteric Hermit is the closest you get to a pure caster. He automatically starts out with a scroll, and can also choose a special skill that lets him randomly generate temporary single-use scrolls at the start of each day. He also gets extra Omens, all of which being at the cost of having very low HP, crappy weapons and poor Strength.
The Wretched Royalty has apparently been either overthrown, exiled, or maybe just gambled away his kingdom. Either way, he isn’t good at very much, but he can have some special assets with him that he’s managed to hold on to, like a talking horse that’s smarter than him and a court jester who distracts his enemies.
The Heretical Priest is kinda-sorta-but-not-really a cleric or paladin – they don’t start with any scrolls, but they can use scrolls while also wearing medium armour, unlike everyone else. Otherwise, they have good Presence but poor Strength, and can choose to start with assets like a “list of sins” that apparently reveals any evil-doers. In this setting I’m thinking it would probably reveal almost everyone, but I guess it’s all relative and some things are surely worse than others… Like the Hermit, the Priest also gets extra Omens.
The Occult Herbmaster, finally, does not get any starting special skills like the others, but instead finds ingredients to brew two randomly determined potions or poisons per day.
All the classes come complete with an unnerving backstory that you can roll randomly for, letting you determine such things as the Gutterborn Scum being born from a dead woman hanged at the gallows and the Esoteric Hermit having just sort of sprung into being in a ritual circle somewhere, without anything to explain where he came from. I am actually beaming as I type this. Also, many of the background items mention specific places in the setting, which I approve of; they slot you right into the world you’ll be adventuring in instead of letting you be a generalised adventurer.
There is an antagonist section. Some of the monsters in it are a little nondescript, basically standard fantasy mooks with some extra gore, but you also get things like you needing to kill any goblin that wounds you within 1d6 days or you’ll turn into a goblin yourself, and trolls growing bigger and stronger every time they get wounded and survive, meaning that they come back for payback tougher than the first time. Also, apparently King Fathmu is really interested in finding the cure for zombie bites, for some reason.
There is one thing called an Undead Doll that results from the Tvelandish custom of punishing “relic thieves, defamers and corrupt clerics” by imprisoning their children in porcelain doll shells and letting them starve to death. The kids commonly return as angry undead, I can’t imagine why.
There are hirelings for players to pick up, but it’s noted that they don’t work for pay but out of a pathetic need to belong. Also, they are cowards who’ll run away at the first sign of trouble, so you get what you pay for. The four kinds are Earthbound (one quarter human, three quarters dog), Wickheads (freaky things with lanterns for heads), Prowlers (regular human crooks) and Pale Ones (who are just weird and no one is sure where they come from or what they are).
There is a sample adventure called Rotblack Sludge, or The Shadow King’s Lost Heir. In it, the players get pulled off the execution block in the Palace of the Shadow King (whether they were guilty of anything seems to be up to themselves to decide) and informed that they can get clemency if they head into a local dungeon and get hold of the Shadow King’s eldest son, Aldon. The players do so and find plenty of skeletons, an old guy sitting catatonic in a high seat who randomly wakes up and starts chatting cheerfully before drifting off again, and the titular Rotblack Sludge which is a burning-hot underground river with a monster called the Gutworm living in it. There are pillars in the middle of the Rotblack Sludge where skeletons are standing eternally playing the violin. This has no bearing on anything, it’s just there.
The players can find Aldon, but they’ll have to drag him out, because he’s a lazy ass and thinks prison is fine since he gets fed and no one expects anything of him. There are also other prisoners who plead sweetly for help but attack the players if they’re set free. The master of the dungeon is a “cannibal warlock” named Fletcher, who is feuding with another dungeon resident named Lesdy. Lesdy is trying to take control of the Gutworm away from him, and Fletcher was hoping that he could hold Aldon for ransom and make the Shadow King deal with her for him. Presumably there is some kind of bargain that’s possible to strike there…
So, all in all? Yeah, this is pretty darn cool. There are like a hundred blank spots that the GM will have to fill out himself, and like a thousand ambiguous wordings and unclear rules that he’ll have to make his own judgment calls on, but that honestly seems to be meant as part of the appeal. I got admit, as someone who is perpetually chasing Completeness and never manages to achieve it, it’s kind of liberating to see a game absolutely refusing to even try…
And of course, one of the many things that the game does not allow itself page count for? Safety Tools (TM). Yeah, I know I have an unhealthy fixation on those, but for real, they make me genuinely miserable to see, and here I am just so, so, blissfully… unmiserable! Joy of joys, there is still room in this world for people who want some spice!