Mörk Borg, the doom metal TTRPG by Free League, gets an adventure with seven deadly sins chained in an off-shore prison boat where nothing is as it seems.

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Meet my guests:

Zac Goins, World of Game Design

https://twitter.com/wogdesign

Music by Jason Shaw at Audionautix.com

I would describe this as a

creature that is only seen in shadows.

It is this fur coat of an individual

that, when you notice them, the first

thought might be some sort of ape

or some sort of other shaggy beast.

But then you notice the horns and

you notice the elongated nose and you

realize that it has the face of a ram.

But it is, it is reclusive.

It avoids you, it avoids eye contact.

It flees from you until it is

pressed into a corner, at which

point there is a transformation.

Hello, and welcome

back to Making a Monster.

This is another episode

recorded at GenCon 2022.

See, back in 2020, Swedish TTRPG

powerhouse the Free League created

an RPG so wild, so committed to its

aesthetic, and so removed from the heroic

fantasy of D&D that it can't help, but

circle the conversation like the dark

mirror-self antagonist, the "nega-D&D."

It's called Mörk Borg, and Free League's

slogan for it is "a doom metal album

of a game, a spiked flail to the face,

rules light, heavy everything else."

Writing for Polygon in 2020, games

journalist Charlie Hall described the

game as a pitch black apocalyptic fantasy

game in the old school revivals genre for

fans of first edition D&D and Dark Souls.

I spoke with Zach Goins, the Creative

Director at World of Game Design

about his Mörk Borg adventure "Seven

Aboard the Shackle" and the gaming

experience it creates for both

players and game masters alike.

The first thing that I do

is I helm our publishing division.

So all the books that we make,

we make supplements for D&D

5E, Mörk Borg, Mothership, and

um, some system neutral stuff.

And then the second half of my

job is I do, uh, Kickstarter

consultation and Kickstarter, like

team leading on our own projects and

also on a bunch of client project.

So the book that I've got with you today

is called, uh, Seven Aboard the Shackle.

It is a Mörk Borg compatible adventure.

I bought the original Mörk

Borg book like two years ago.

I cracked it open and I read

through it and I'm like, I don't

understand what's going on.

This is weird.

But I put it on my shelf and I

forgot about it for like a year.

Right.

And then, uh, I was talking with

a creator at another booth across

from us at a, at a, a local con.

And I said, What is Mörk Borg?

And like, What, what am I missing here?

Because it's just a bunch of like

crazy tables and weird stuff.

And I'm like, How, how

do I parse all this?

And he said, Mörk Borg is

100% style and zero substance.

And I'm like, All right,

well that makes sense.

And so he started talking

to me for a while and I

reapproached the book that way.

And it made a, it was great.

It was fantastic, really.

It's just a really

simple D 20 based system.

So if you're familiar with D&D, most of

the rules are gonna feel right at home.

It's very small.

Modifiers positive, and.

Adjusting those roles.

And then the big things about it is that,

uh, from a mechanic side of things is

that the players roll almost all the dice.

So the GM doesn't roll for monsters.

You roll a defense check as a

player, and you can even roll the

damage for the monster as a player.

And everything is you.

And the DM is just there to

arbitrate the dice rolls.

Uh, thematically it is this doom

metal black apo apocalyptic setting

where the world is coming to an end.

We know this, the, there's a two-headed

basilisk who speaks prophecy, and

he's prophesied the world's end.

And so all the empires and, and people

of the world are in disarray and chaos,

and it's just a dark place to be.

And you are not playing an

adventurer in Mörk Borg.

You are playing one of these people

who are on their way to doom.

And so the adventures

have a really fun flare.

You know, it's balls

to the wall craziness.

Um, death is a reality that

is ever on the horizon.

And so why not just throw yourself at

crazy impossible tasks either trying

to just relish in these last days,

or maybe you have an idea or you've

been presented with an opportunity

that might stop the apocalypse.

And so, um, a big part of it is

maybe pushing against that coming

doom and trying to extend the life

cycle of this world a little bit.

So Seven Aboard the Shackle imagines

a world where there was a prison

barge off the coast of one of

these empires, and it has been

recaptured by the captives aborted.

And these captives are

near demigod like entities.

And it has been said, it has been

prophesied that when these entities

set foot on solid ground, One of the

chimes of doom will sound and we'll

be one step closer to the apocalypse.

And so your job as a party is to get

onto that ship and make sure that

no one steps off the ship again.

So I would like to present you with.

Uh, goat, like humanoid, weird

monstrosity called the Dölja,

also known as That-which-bleats.

So I would describe this as a

creature that is only seen in shadows.

It is this fur coat of an individual

that, when you notice them, the first

thought might be some sort of ape

or some sort of other shaggy beast.

But then you notice the horns and

you notice the elongated nose and you

realize that it has the face of a ram.

But it is, it is reclusive.

It avoids you, it avoids eye contact.

It flees from you until it is

pressed into a corner, at which

point there is a transformation.

It was originally thrown on board

because this creature is more

than it appears, the Dölja is this

reclusive, I almost think of it like

a, a crypted sort of a feel, right?

But it is hiding a much more sinister

aspect of itself, which is that

when it gets riled up, when it gets

agitated, when it becomes something

else in order to survive, it has a

transformation into another, uh, goat

like entity that we're all familiar

with, which is, uh, uh, Lucifer himself.

So, uh, if you push this goat, you back

him into a corner, which you have to

do in order to stop the apocalypse.

You have to rid this ship of its entities.

You will force this transformation

of this goat man into.

Uh, what we call Lucy-fire.

, he'll shed his, uh, shaggy coat.

He'll have the red skin underneath and he

will, become the thing that he was always

meant to be, um, somewhat unwillingly.

So Mörk Borg likes to take just like

D&D and other things, like it likes

to take inspiration from real world

mythologies and things like that.

So of course there's,

there's some influence there.

Um, but one of the key components of

this adventure is that there was going

to be seven, uh, uh, Demigod like

entities on this ship, and there's one

for each of the seven deadly sins, right?

And it's very subtle.

You're not gonna get into it, and you'll,

you'll probably pick up on it, but

it's not, it's not ever overtly said.

The seven deadly sins are a

classification of vices from early

Christian tradition, possibly best known

for their inclusion in Thomas Aquinas's

Summa Theologica or Dante's divine comedy.

The standard list is lust, gluttony,

greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.

And so I wanted one that

is, uh, around the sin of sloth.

Or, or, And so you get into that and

you start reading about like what was

that sin originally meant to represent?

And it's a lot of it is about the idea

of being reclusive and not engaging

with society and things of that nature,

and kind of keeping to one's self.

So how do we turn that into

a interesting villain that's

unique from everything else?

Well, a lot of these other villains

like Wrath and Lust and all these are

very like, action-oriented, engaging.

They're gonna come at the players.

This is a great opportunity for us

to create a monster, to create a

creature that the players are gonna

actually have to pursue themselves.

And so a lot of its abilities and things

like that are about avoiding confrontation

until pressed into that corner, and

then it scales quick, very quickly

into a, a much more, uh, dire threat.

Mörk Borg uses a morale system.

So as you get into encounters, creatures

are more or less likely to flee

based on their morale score, right?

So this creature has a

very low morale score.

It's going to flee very quickly.

And that's a system mechanic

that everybody with Mörk

Borg's gonna be familiar with.

Um, the other thing is that

its touch is repulsive.

So if it attacks you, if you, it

is backed to a corner initially

gonna, you know, swipe at you.

And as it does things like that,

you have to make saves in order

to avoid recoiling away from it

cuz it doesn't want to transform.

Um, so there's some aspects there.

And then the big thing that I love about

Mörk Borg bad guys is that they have

random tables of powers that they utilize.

So imagine like if your dragon in 5E

didn't just have a fire breath weapon,

but could also have four other area

abilities and you as the dungeon

master never got to determine which

one it was gonna utilize when, Right.

And so maybe, you know, it would

do breath four times in a row, but

maybe it would use a wing attack and

do something that crazy that way.

Or maybe it would have this poison stinger

on its tail and do something that way.

Or maybe it would have a, a voice

command and be able to command players.

Same thing.

Where you as the DM get to

experience what is happening

alongside the players, and you don't

always get to make the decision.

So sometimes this fight might be very

simple because the rolls that it's

just happens to get are some of its

lesser abilities, not dealing a lot

of damage, things like that, which is

great for this character build by the

way, But so, The dice are gonna fall

in a certain way and it's gonna roll

its best ability Four times in a row,

you're gonna wipe your party and you're

all gonna say like, That was real.

It happened and it was awesome.

Um, so yeah, that's, that's fun.

Uh, I think the thing that I like

most about this one though, is that

this one has a random table that

actually has unlocks built into it.

So initially the, Dölja can't transform,

but if it rolls high on its random

table chart a couple of times, it

unlocks extra options on that chart

that lead to its transformation.

So the more you engage with it in

combat, the more times you're rolling

on that table, the more likely it is

to trigger that transformation and

to unlock those higher damage dealing

crazy abilities that it has later on.

We have these great, like these seven

villains, which are really fun and

part of the adventure design and

part of Mörk Borg is I wanted to

take this adventure and exponentially

increase that sense of GM discovery.

That's kind of already built into the

monsters, but we could go further with it.

Right?

So the adventure is my idea

of what a dungeon crawl would

look like on a prison barge.

That's been a worship in its

heyday, and that then was a

prison barge now is whatever these

dimming gods have made of it.

So part of the adventure is that

you, every time the party enters

a new section of the ship, you.

Or you draw cards to discover

right there in the moment.

What is in this section?

What is the area?

What does it look like?

What has it been rebuilt as?

Right?

Is it a shrine?

Is it a trash pit?

Is it a whatever?

We don't know, right?

So we're gonna discover what the area

is and where we're gonna discover

what inhabitants are in there.

So maybe it's one of the seven, or

maybe it's one of their captives,

or maybe it's a specter from someone

that died on the ship or died.

C or maybe it's none of those things

and it's just a weird creature

that happened to get, uh, make

its way on board at some point.

And the GM is going to learn this in

the moment at the same time as the

party and have to adapt on the fly,

be imagined if on the fly to figure

out like, okay, I drew a shrine

and I drew a captive and that's it.

But this shrine says that.

Sprawling and this captive was the cook.

So, uh, maybe he's like

bound to the altar.

Maybe he's doing something as part

of the shrine and cooking something.

Like you're gonna be imagining things

and, and, and, and, uh, experiencing

a dungeon firsthand with your party.

So it's not a book that

you need to prepare for.

You just open up the book

and you start diving in.

Yeah.

It's great.

So if, And there's even been like

some hints at the beginning of the

adventure that maybe you weren't the

first group to try to do this, right?

Because the reality is because it's

all random, you could walk into

your first room and it's kind of

stacked against this happening.

But it's possible that you draw two

minions, two villains in the worst

possible situation, and you get

murdered as soon as you set foot on.

That's possibility.

The likelihood that you actually

kill all seven in time is very low.

So it really is about, um, this

experience of this is a last ditch

effort to stave off the coming doom.

And, uh, it may be a fools

hope, it may be a fools errand,

but by golly you're gonna try.

Right?

I'm the type of player that

wants the situation to the dice

to fall where they may, Right.

That's what I enjoy the most, and I like

there being a sense of risk, the sense

that there is a stake to be had, there's

consequences for your actions all.

So for me, having a party die,

having a character die is part

of the experience that I enjoy.

And so, um, yeah, it's, it's gonna, it's

like, I like that sort of feel where

we don't know, this isn't a guaranteed

success when we open up the pages.

Um, obviously there's guidance and

you can always adjust the tables

to fit your own party, so you might

feel like for you do, metal is just

an aesthetic of we want to, we.

Experience crazy monsters and we

wanna have, you know, heavy metal

music playing while we do it.

That's fine.

You can do that and that's awesome and

you can make those adjustments super easy.

But for me, it, when we talk about doom

metal in apocalyptic settings, it's the

idea that death is always a possibility

and it's always right around the corner.

And honestly, it's always the likelihood

it should be shocking when a party

gets to the end of a campaign and

is also alive because the world.

World is stacked against them.

Um, and I don't know, I, I, I see a lot

of my best memories at the table and

some of the most meaningful encounters,

role play sessions, things like that

happened when the stakes all came

to a head and something devastating

happened, or just the dice fell

weird and something crazy happened.

Um, and that's the thing that

you talk about four years,

five years down the road.

I asked Zach whether he thought

this adventure was weighted toward those

kinds of role-play moments as a player,

and his answer pointed me towards this

cooperatively scary experience that

the game creates for both the player

and the game master at the same time.

You know, it's always great

when your DM has this dramatic role play,

political intrigue or whatever, and has

it all built and there's depth and there's

meaning behind a lot of this stuff like

that for a player can be very valuable.

But for a dm, all of the ex, the

discovery happened away from the

table for the most part, right.

So I guess I would say that this

is really trying to get that

sense of discovery back into it.

So the role play options, the

creative aspect for the DM is gonna

be much higher than what you would

experience maybe in other things.

If you're running a big published

hard cover adventure in D&D, you

know how it's gonna progress.

You know what the story

looks like here, not so much.

Okay.

Zac has created a nail-biting,

edge-of-your-seat, doom metal adventure

with Seven Aboard the Shackle, and

if you want to explore a world of

pitiless chaos alongside your players,

here's how to get it at your table.

This is actually being

released at GenCon, which means it's in

no one's hands except the hands here.

But we're gonna put it

live on drive through rpg.

Very soon.

You'll be able to pick up the PDF pretty

much, I think, in the next couple weeks.

And then, uh, the print on

demand option coming a little.

We also have print copies and PDF

copies available on our web store,

which is store dot w ogd.com.

There's a core rule book.

You can pick it up in a

lot of different places.

Uh, it's published by

Free League Publishing.

There's also a free version of

the rules, on their web store.

So if you wanna pick up the

pdf, they've got a PDF option,

that's on the Mörk Borg site.

All those links are in

the description and on my website

at scintilla.studio/monster.

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