Pirate Borg turns Mörk Borg into a swashbuckling horror RPG
Horror on the high seas.
A standalone RPG based on Mörk Borg plans to take its heavy metal roleplaying to the seven seas later this year.
Pirate Borg is built on Mörk Borg’s rules-light gameplay, which boils combat down to simple defence rolls made only by the players, but moves from the original RPG’s grim fantasy land to a swashbuckling setting full of pirates, sea monsters and naval battles. The pirate theme of the game remains shot through with Mörk Borg’s grimdark horror.
The upcoming RPG isn’t an official spin-off, instead using Mörk Borg’s third-party licence to allow the use of its basic rules as a foundation.
Designer Luke Stratton has created six new core character classes to suit Pirate Borg’s world of salty sea dogs, including swashbucklers, buccaneers and rapscallions, as well as the optional classes of Tall Tale and Haunted Soul. Like Mörk Borg’s random character generator (which is definitely worth playing with online), Pirate Borg will offer a way for players to instantly create a character.
Replacing the monstrous creatures of Mörk Borg is a complete bestiary of sea-dwelling horrors, along with another generator for randomly creating monsters for players to encounter on their sails. GMs can further fill out the world with additional tables for quests, treasure, loot, shipwrecks and more.
Stratton also includes new rules for battles between ships, having previously released an extensive set of naval combat rules and materials for Dungeons & Dragons 5E under indie label Limithron. A D&D 5E-compatible campaign setting, The Dark Caribbean, is planned for 2022, which will also be compatible with Pirate Borg.
Pirate Borg’s rulebook will launch a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter next month, including the gameplay rules, world lore and a starter adventure in a physical book around 100 pages long. Players won’t need to own Mörk Borg in order to play, but Pirate Borg will be compatible with the RPG.