Ancient Skin
Content: A complex and variable (not to mention twisted) crawl through Sarkash
Writing: Efficient but vivid descriptions of locations and inhabitants punctuated by grim wit
Art/design: Marvelous maps; type design helps map the connections amongst locations and items
Usability: Provides checkboxes to track variables (but if you mark this pamphlet, you’re a heathen and you deserve whatever misery befalls you)
Anzhela and the Caged Skulls
Content: English breakfast with a side of TPK; running will only make you die faster
Writing: Text heavy, but creates a vivid atmosphere and provides psychological depth to the antagonist, something not often found in Mörk Borg
Art/design: Excellent, expressive depictions of the titular characters
Usability: Includes an alternative d6-based encounter-resolution mechanic; a bit more complex than some scenarios, but the additional moving parts make for an interesting and memorable scenario
Basilica of the False Prophet
Content: A desperate descent. An unexpected plunge. A shattered hope?
Writing: Miserable and descriptive encounters, backed by elegant mechanics, make a narrative descent into madness.
Art/design: A masterful balance of utility, consistency, and style. Haunting yet austere illustrations and maps fill but do not dominate the pamphlet.
Usability: Pairs well with Western Wall (also by Rugose Kohn).
BASILISK!
Content: A dungeon scrawl for filthy scvm who’d do anything to escape the apocalypse.
Writing: Mörk Borg rules returned to Dark Fort style.
Art/design: Characterful and easy to print rules with understated but effective navigation aids.
Usability: Currently under active playtest.
Black Bvrn Bridge
Content: Includes an inventive adventure-specific condition
Writing: Provides context and important details about the scenario
Art/design: Subdued but effective colors; concise but atmospheric map
Usability: Logically and linearly laid out
Book of Misery
Börk Morgue #666
Content: Random tables, optional rules for dice & powers & armor/weapons/combat, pointy teeth, monsters & NPCs … and a Börk Morgue & a Maus Borg
Writing: Presented with a personable tone with plenty of wry wit
Art/design: Loaded with Mörk Borg aesthetic elements, color, and some creative layouts
Usability: Adds some deeper complexity in some areas (especially complex) and some irreverent variety all around
Calo’s Book of Monsters
Content: 20 monsters as well as a region for them to inhabit and local rumors for PCs to overhear
Writing: Provides lots of exposition on each monster as well as multiple adventure hooks and detailed stat blocks
Art/design: Features detailed black-and-white illustrations against a stylized Mörk Borg-yellow ground
Usability: GMs would be well-advised to read each entry carefully and take note of the copious details
Cities of the Dying Land
Content: Two dozen tables to create a living, breathing settlement
Writing: Tons of little details to add real personality to locations
Art/design: Good use of Mörk-Borgy colors while being easy on the eyes; physical version glows under a black light (awesome)
Usability: Keep a notepad handy; there are too many characteristics to remember unaided
Corny Groń (Black Peak)
Content: Adapts and builds on the Dark Fort concept with wilderness locales, dungeons, and thematic enemies and items
Writing: More elaborate than its source material, but adds more mechanical intricacy and plenty of character
Art/design: Wiśniewska’s woodcut-inspired illustrations create a distinct sense of time and place
Usability: Complex but not overly complicated
Corpsewake Cove
Concept: “There is no nest of scurvy rats as foul or felonious as the pirates of Corpsewake Cove!”
Content: A self-contained, sandbox-style swashbuckling adventure from inciting incident to bloody climax
Writing: Text-heavy but clean, clear, and effective on all levels; includes lots of description as well as stat blocks, tables, and other mechanical components
Art/design: Balances out the verbal elements with lots of vivid, nautically themed designs
Usability: A fair amount of content and moving parts to manage, but nothing a seasoned and conscientious GM can’t handle
Creatures of the Dying World 2
Content: 20 fantastic creatures translated from one dying world to another.
Writing: Light on rules, with greater emphasis on the legends that that spawned them.
Art/design: Original illustrations and individualized design choices lend character to each creature.
Usability: Rumors and legends lend flexibility to determine a creature's abilities.
Creatures of the Dying World 3
Content: 19 sanity-shaking creatures. d66 delusional prompts to manage the fallout.
Writing: A thorough mix of indescribable humor and horror. With a fantastical sanity system that won’t take your players out of the game.
Art/design: Impressionistic and inked illustrations capture both the silly and the strange.
Usability: Text which balances between utility and style from passage to passage.
Cult of the Bubbling Waters
Content: Tenets and random tables for those seeking to enjoy the Warm Embrace
Writing: As with any cult, alternatingly cheery and welcoming or seethingly malicious
Art/design: Primarily text with graphic elements to aid use
Usability: Faster than a real bath and almost as pleasant
Dark Fort
Content: A solo dungeon crawler; useful as a generator alongside Mörk Borg’s GM tools
Writing: Clear and concise; primarily mechanical but with bits of effective descriptive text
Art/design: More traditional than Mörk Borg’s, but still atmospheric
Usability: Extremely efficient layout
Death and Pestilence
Content: A deadly, disturbing dungeon full of pure weirdness
Writing: “Quasi-ethereal necromagical death-tendrils” is an apex example of what you’ll find here
Art/design: Excellently integrates text and graphics into the dungeon map
Usability: A little visually overwhelming at first, but easy to navigate once you have a feel for it
Death Temple Sztun
Content: Some nasty creatures and permanent effects (including abrupt deaths)
Writing: Concisely creates a strange, ominous atmosphere
Art/design: Maps are clear without sacrificing visual style
Usability: Color and typography strongly supports easy navigation
Backer reward for the Feretory funding campaign
Deck of Corpses
Concept: “A deck of 36 corpses the GM may turn to whenever the PCs stumble across yet another dead body.”
Content: A heap of bodies, some of whom also have loot
Writing: Some strange and gruesome remains; not for the faint of heart, but definitely for Mörk Borg
Art/design: Conservative but effective
Usability: Includes a unique mechanic involving the official Corpse Plundering table and clock time
Deck of Evil Objects
Content: A 15-card deck with 3 additional cards (2 for the Deck of Treasures and 1 for the Deck of Secrets)
Writing: The descriptions will make you want to use these even though the mechanics will probably kill your character
Art/design: Sets the tone well without overcrowding a small space
Usability: Draw a card. Read the card. Repeat.
Deck of Secrets
Concept: “Use this deck during character creation […] to add background.”
Content: 36 violent, sordid, and bizarre selections to flesh out your characters’ personal histories
Writing: Well-crafted to inspire players’ imaginations and add compelling depth to characters
Art/design: Nice, macabre art on card backs, and textured backgrounds add some visual depth to each side
Usability: Just draw and then despair
Deck of Terribly Broken Bodies
Concept: “Instead of rolling a d4 and checking the table in the core rules, draw a single card from this deck whenever a PC reaches zero HP.”
Content: 38 severe injuries at 4 levels of severity (correlating to the 4 results on the Broken table in the core rules) with different results for different damage types
Writing: Visceral, vivid, and violent (obviously)
Art/design: Overall nice design; use of vivid yellow skulls to emphasize severity is a solid, well-devised feature
Usability: Very straightforward so you can focus on suffering from the wound instead of deciphering it
Deck of Treasures
Content: 36 items with mechanics for incorporating the canonical Corpse Plundering Table
Writing: Nice descriptions of items and enumeration of their mechanics
Art/design: Relatively conservative but effective
Usability: Straightforward in itself, but requires some reference to the core rules
Doorway to Blasphemy
Content: A Mörk Borg adventure and Slipgate into the world of Qvke Borg
Writing: Efficiently describes the many dynamic environmental effects and triggers the define Quake level design in text.
Art/design: Sickeningly detailed map with bold colors that emulate classic Quake texture. Clean text layout with efficient sidebars for each room.
Usability: Surprisingly self-contained, only the explosive rules require Qvke Borg to run. Excellent preview to the full Qvke Borg experience.
Escape the Dullahan
Concept: “When the dark rider calls, you have two choices: flee, or join the flight of the damned.”
Content: A deck-based randomized adventure; a creative concept and well executed
Writing: Clean, atmospheric writing with sharp imagery
Art/design: Excellent illustrations and layouts
Usability: Well-organized main sheet, and encounter stats on each card, and available in multiple formats to suit printing preferences
Every God Will Fall
Content: An varied assortment of divine (presumably) entities
Writing: Backstories and descriptions contribute genuine (often sympathetic) character
Art/design: Illustrations and other design elements equally contribute to characterization
Usability: Yes, please
Fathomless Despair
Content: A pocket map of the Valley of Unfortunate Undead. Complete with its creatures, and contents.
Writing: A historical account of the valley’s many ruins and follies, and a brief taxonomy of the undead they left behind. Intended to inspire not direct.
Art/design: Efficient grouping, color coding, and placement accommodate each aesthetic flourish.
Usability: Can be folded to fit in your pocket. Designed to minimize flipping. Pre-record the creature stats to truly optimize your experience.
Fisk Borg
Content: Primarily an optional rules supplement but also includes a new class, fishing gear, hirelings, and a sprawling aquatic bestiary
Writing: Knows that it’s a grimdark fishing simulator and revels in that
Art/design: Combines various image types and styles to create an eclectic visual character; text is laid out for easy reading and navigation
Usability: Absolutely packed with content, but the table of contents and graphic design make it easy to find what you’re looking for
Flails Akimbo
Content: An arena-style adventure with special mechanical conditions
Writing: A good balance of exposition and stats
Art/design: Brings a familiar but distinctive character to Mörk Borg’s aesthetic
Usability: Kill your way to freedom
Forbidden Psalm
Content: A full, stand-alone 28mm wargame based on (and compatible with) Mörk Borg
Writing: There’s a lot of it—which is necessary for a tactics game—but it’s straightforward and clear in its exposition
Art/design: A balance of familiar graphic and typographic maneuvers balanced with the technical clarity and readability demanded by a more complex system
Usability: A more methodical, strategically oriented game, but a good fit for fans of wargames and Mörk Borg
Forbidden Psalm: Forbidden Wilderness
Content: A cryptid hunting expansion for Forbidden Psalm.
Writing: Diverting mechanics and troubling art allow the cryptids to speak for themselves.
Art/design: Simple, effective design that transitions from chalk illustrations to text.
Usability: Drops easily into existing Forbidden Psalm campaigns. Requires Forbidden Psalm.