Adventures
Apocrypha
Content: Rules, Tables, Character Traits, Diseases, Treatment & Body Mods, Dungeons, Bounties, Followers, Gear, Summoning, Monsters, Monstrous Classes. A little of everything.
Writing: A variety show with distinct blends of humor and horror throughout.
Art/design: Dementedly scrawled art and public domain images cut through with Mörk Borgian Design Sensibilities
Usability: Clear rules, table of contents, thoughtful page references at the beginning of the monster section.
Apostles of Affliction
Content: A faith-ridden plague village crawl.
Writing: Fully embodied horror with grotesque diseases manifested as consuming horrors.
Art/design: A charnel house of heavily textured, ashen gray, and crumbling pages.
Usability: Best when paired with Pilgrims of the Penitent zine and card deck.
Ashes of Käsedorf
Content: A beast hunting, rubble looting, post-battle ruin crawl.
Writing: A classic silver-chasing hexcrawl with a surprising level of motivation and intrigue.
Art/design: Vibrantly recolored and overlaid prints produce an impressionistic collage.
Usability: Organized into rough narrative sections to aid in reference during play.
Atticus Tower
Concept: “The foul bard Rexorn … is busy transforming suffering into music.”
Content: A sonic-themed dungeon with original creatures and NPCs
Writing: Mostly descriptive but efficient
Art/design: Exactly what it should be
Usability: A complex but surprisingly easy-to-navigate layout
Auld Clootie’s Bairn
Concept: “What has happened to suddenly change the behavior of little Angelica…and how can the Mercer family fit in to their new community?”
Content: A surreally mundane adventure with a troubled tot
Writing: Provides lots of detail and dialogue as well as suggestions for alternative plots and a metric ton of nasty insults
Art/design: Primarily designed around navigating events and conversations delivered via text
Usability: Ready to use out-of-the-box but can also be tinkered with and adapted to GM taste and need
Babalon's Hangover 2
23 contributors
Content: Monsters and scriptures and dungeons, Oh my!
Writing: Text ranges from bloviated to concise; brisk to simple. But it is reliably miserable.
Art/design: A menagerie of styles as creative and varied as the community which spawned them.
Usability: Divided in three sections with a full index to aid navigation. Entries of varied accessibility and ease of reference at your table.
Bandits
Content: It’s not about the bandits... You’re in for a long night. Stay hydrated.
Writing: I mean, bandits are involved, but it’s a parasitic sort of relationship to the text.
Art/design: Inky black horror, in an effective simulacrum of a starter adventure.
Usability: Layout will be familiar and effective for readers of official adventures.
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 Burger
Content: A fast-food themed experience
Writing: Includes stat blocks for multiple encounters as well as descriptions and some sample NPC dialogue
Art/design: Presented as a child’s place mat complete with word jumble and crayon marks
Usability: Toy prize not included
Basilisks-A-Go-Go
Content: A quick, roll-lite, Dark Fort-esque maze. With basilisks. They have 2 heads. You have 1. Good luck.
Writing: Some quick, concise instructions
Art/design: The green circles contrast nicely against the background gradient, making it easy to navigate; the extra basilisk heads are a welcome touch, since the world needs more basilisks
Usability: Can be played with just some base stats; full character sheet not required
Beasts to Unburden
Behlibereth
Concept: “The City on the Edge of All Misery”
Content: A twisted, foreboding locale and stats for members of its three factions
Writing: Highly descriptive; verbiage, style, and syntax used by the implied “narrator” artfully adopts and reflects characteristics of the things being described
Art/design: A linear, accessible layout with sections with typographical choices differentiating sections and aiding navigation of the mechanical components
Usability: A bizarre and compelling setting for GMs to play with (and for PCs to die in)
Beinfjäll
Content: A room a day Mörktober 2023 dungeon.
Writing: Decisive bulleted room descriptions establish clear ecology, encounter context, and pace.
Art/design: A dreary isometric map of giant vampire bones and horrible little surprises.
Usability: A Twitter thread mini-map (for now)
Bestiary
Content: 40+ nightmarish monsters, a vampire-like class, lore, tables, a dungeon.
Writing: Renford P. Logan’s journalistic endeavors frame this collection of strongly themed creatures and locales. Realistic portrayals of disturbing events lend weight to the creatures and locales. It is enjoyable to both read and reference.
Art/design: Characterful two-tone illustrations and text elements in a balanced layout. Reserved but impactful use of color.
Usability: Thematic organization in a strong table of contents make for low prep referencing.
Beyond Deep
9 contributors
Content: A company town atop a Black Rock pit of horrors. 6 locations, 6 side quests, 11 artifacts (14 if you count cursed ones), 7 NPCs, and 10 monsters.
Writing: A moral quagmire inspired by the complex relationships and power imbalances of mining communities.
Art/design: Coarse, gritty, and at times dark illustrations and isometric maps in a rich black and white format. Organized two-column layout.
Usability: Highly legible. Available as a soft cover or pdf.
Big American Men
Content: Borgified lore, stat blocks for encounters, and ancillary mechanics
Writing: Recasts famous folkloric figures as sinister, larger-than-life villains
Art/design: A rich array of design choices and layouts unified by the Mörk Borg aesthetic
Usability: GMs will need to flesh out the concepts, but provides plenty of inspiration for them to do so
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
Black Shuck
Content: A short, isolation-horror scenario
Writing: Concise and to the point: “The dog must die!”
Art/design: Easy-to-read columns of text and an illustration (just in case your players don’t understand the concept of giant, black, bloody-mouthed dog)
Usability: Not a good boi
Black Stump
Concept: “A strange well is discovered in the depths of Sarkash.”
Content: A cozy little 5-room dungeon
Writing: A great mix of grim and humorous
Art/design: Nice visual and typographical work; also comes in an optional “FVCK PRINTERS” version
Usability: Solid layout; available in single or 2-page versions to suit GM preference
Blackroot Trudge
Concept: “As the PCs wander through the forest, they encounter a tree which oozes blood – all it takes is one PC to remotely approach the tree and roots shoot from the ground, dragging all the unfortunate souls of the party underground.”
Content: A detailed and malicious dungeon clearly inspired by (but not derivative of) some classic Mörk Borg crawls
Writing: Clear with plenty of attention to nuance
Art/design: Typographical choices highlight items of note in each room; stat blocks at the bottom of page for easy reference
Usability: Bulleted lists for each room help GM stay mentally organized
Bloat
Concept: “The Gourmand’s Cutlery allows the wielder to eat anything. Which is good, as the user becomes famished and must eat.”
Content: A wonderland of overconsumption and excrescence
Writing: Contributes greatly to dungeon’s character
Art/design: Just offal
Usability: Layout facilitate easy navigation
Blood Ambrosia
Content: An epicurean escapade in Alliáns
Writing: Provides the adventure’s premise, descriptions of dungeons and rooms, attending NPCs, and a smorgasbord of miserable menu items
Art/design: Abundant use of public domain images adds plenty of color and variety
Usability: The text point is small and a bit crowded on some pages, making it difficult to quickly reference and a bit tiring to read at length
Blood Money
Concept: “While languishing in a drunken stupor in a coastal town flophouse … you were abducted by a press gang.”
Content: A seafaring framework inspired by Tom Waits (and Herman Melville (and whoever wrote The Book of Jonah))
Writing: Sets the scene and provides a plethora of options for play
Art/design: Supports the nautical theme subtly but effectively
Usability: Intended more as a toolbox than a unified dungeon or set of mechanics
Blood of SHE
Content: A pamphlet dungeon made for the Crossword Dungeon Jam.
Writing: A dramatic legend of heroic magic turned to a dark purpose. With rules for your scvm to bring this blasphemous tale to an end, or open a new chapter.
Art/design: A pleasant compromise of style and function, a simple design with visual flourish around mechanical text to keep the eye engaged in multiple readings.
Usability: A well-structured pamphlet dungeon for easy reference at the table.
Bloodred Sludge
Content: A walkthrough conversion of Rotblack Sludge for Lichoma.
Writing: A conversational tone that presents both the results and thought processes behind them.
Art/design: A hybrid of the Rotblack Sludge and Lichoma design, with creature illustrations in Lichoma’s visual style.
Usability: Best if treated as a tutorial or exercise. Mark up a copy of Rotblack Sludge.
Bloody Cap
Content: Stats and description of the monster along with a short dungeon lair
Writing: Does a good job conveying maliciousness and viciousness
Art/design: Use of color reinforces the creature’s theme
Usability: Some text may be difficult to read, particularly when printed in black and white
Blunderbuss
Content: A trigger-happy township with some heavy-duty arms
Writing: Provides some context for the encounter and mechanics for getting shot by a blunderbuss
Art/design: Good use of color and form to pick out significant information
Usability: Provides the basics and leaves lots of room for the GM to make it their own
Boarding the Ouroboros
Concept: “… word has come to you from an old fisherman with great promise. He says he has seen a hulk adrift far from the shore and wants a crew of brave souls to climb aboard and plunder its riches.”
Content: A maritime salvage adventure full of mutiny and mystery
Writing: Lots of atmospheric descriptive text along with well-written letters, stats for black powder and nautical weapons, and a whole slew of monsters
Art/design: Nicely made maps; monochrome palette conveys the sensation of approaching and exploring the ship by night
Usability: Rotblack Sludge-inspired layout is extremely efficient
Bog Iron
Content: Includes bog-iron weapons, a map of the area, various encounters, and 7 creatures
Writing: Adds lots of local color that’s in line with the larger character of the Dying Land
Art/design: Draws lots of visual tropes from Mörk Borg but still maintains a distinct style
Usability: Keep it handy in case the party ever ventures through the region (or if you want some nasty weapons and monsters)
Bogfolk’s Forest
Content: “A forest cursed by an ancient witch’s heart” and d6 places to encounter there.
Writing: Description and mechanics interact to establish the setting and each new environment.
Art/design: Bogdown forest looms in false color behind a dark window to the text.
Usability: As a location generator for your random boggy encounters.
Bone Heart Crusaders
Bony Knuckles to the Face
Concept: “At any time and place in this doomed world, a sarcophagus could appear that was not there the day before.”
Content: Hook and mechanics for an undead (but surprisingly good-natured) fighting pit
Writing: Lots of descriptive details, a stable of fun mechanical features, and some interesting variables
Art/design: Art and layout are very on-brand but with their own unique flavor
Usability: Logical, efficient sequential flow
Book of Misery
Book of Misery Volume 2: Mork Borg
Content: A witch’s tome of classes, monsters, artifacts, followers, adventures—and misery.
Writing: Provides exposition to provide backstory to the various monsters, artifacts, and followers to facilitate the unprepared storyteller.
Art/design: Coarse and violent textures produce evocative creature illustrations. Variety in overall design decisions produce a collaborative zine aesthetic.
Usability: Enough content to sprinkle a little variety into your Mörk Borg if you find yourself in need of inspiration.
Bork Borg
Content: Dog breeds, dog-related items, an optional dog-based class, rules for dog PCs (with their own optional classes), and a dog-centered adventure
Writing: Clearly and affectionately written with a clever shift to the dog’s POV in the dog-PC section
Art/design: Designed for easy reading and navigation with graphic touches like a dog-head border and pawprints across pages
Usability: Sit. Stay. Good.
Box of Shadows
Content: A sprawling sandbox-style adventure set amidst a sinister miasma emerging in Grift
Writing: Incorporates copious descriptions, in-game documents, and random tables to add flavor to play; also includes numerous monsters, NPCs, and items
Art/design: Incorporates original and found art into exuberant designs and diverse layouts
Usability: Includes copious reference sheets, handouts, and topic-specific indices for GMs and players to use during play; GM-eyes-only material is segregated to facilitate more exciting solo play
Bunker Busters
Content: An irradiated wasteland of careening cars, bloody bunkers, scavengers, and survivors. Complete with standalone rules, a character sheet, and a starter adventure.
Writing: Understated, clear, and economical style that conserves its limited resources.
Art/design: Wasteland weapons and vehicles punctuate a plain text experience
Usability: Legible, organized, and printer-friendly design.
Burn Your Dead
Content: A 5-room dungeon infested with the undead
Writing: Concise descriptions with strong imagery
Art/design: Text is arranged around the central map; color emphasizes monsters and important actions; and the flame image reinforces the title and creates a sense of advancing danger
Usability: Provides no hook, but easy to drop into a game at an appropriate (or unexpected) time
Böeser
6 contributors
Content: A basilisk-bonding, child-abducting, palace of a flesh crawl.
Writing: A full-bodied blend of humor and horror that spares no raw material.
Art/design: A well-built manor of an adventure design, with tormented sketches, and fleshy full-color illustrations.
Usability: Easily referenced adventure design. A follow-up to Den of Disarray.
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
Böwhoss’ handbook: notes on internal ignition
Content: A variety of NPCs, monsters, and other hazards as well as a new scroll, a malevolent mushroom, an optional Misery-related madness, a relatively benign tavern, and a much less benign inn
Writing: The first-person POV and travelogue style have a folksy and often irreverent tone
Art/design: Typefaces, engravings, and paintings reinforce the concept while other graphic elements lend some insidious and esoteric atmosphere
Usability: Includes player-facing handouts that include lore but no mechanics or GM-specific information
Call of the Siren
Concept: “The crew of the Unjust must retrieve the Heart of the Sea, a relic said to be in the clutches of shipwreck-luring Sirens.”
Content: A perilous nautical adventure with stats for characters, monsters, and mechanics for maritime hazards
Writing: Provides the necessary information and atmosphere but avoids being prolix
Art/design: Primarily textual but well organized, and includes some illustrations with an OSR feel
Usability: Mostly presented in bullet points, which makes skimming and quick reference easier; download includes graphic and text-only versions
Cannibal Carnage
Content: A fleshy, bloody, body-themed dungeon
Writing: Primarily devoted to physical descriptions of rooms and situations (primarily monster-based) within
Art/design: Designed for reading and prep before play rather than heavy in-game usage
Usability: Does not use standard Mörk Borg terminology or stat presentation; requires consistent reference to core rulebook
Carnival of Desecration
Content: A series of carnival encounters inspired by Triple Live Möther Gööse at Budokan by Green Jellÿ
Writing: Playfully grim and sardonic, just like we like it
Art/design: “Art and Layout by no one.” Sans serif all day, baby.
Usability: Adventure flow is largely at the GM’s discretion
Castle Waip - The Quest for Softest Paper
Content: A plunge into a soiled fort to take back the toilet paper.
Writing: The kind of coarse humor you’d expect, and maybe some you don’t.
Art/design: A concise one-page dungeon with a clear map and defined layout.
Usability: Clean enough to reference in a single wipe.
Catacombs of the Briar Witch
Concept: “Annika and her son Torean – like so many others – caught the Ebon Pox early this winter. While she has slowly begun to recover, the child did not.”
Content: A sprawling adventure to find a lost child with multiple locales to explore, NPCs to interact with, and a wide variety of monsters and adversaries
Writing: Highly descriptive and replete with sample dialogue for NPCs
Art/design: Establishes the settings and atmosphere without obstructing usability
Usability: Well organized with additional material included in an appendix
Caverns of the Dryad Queen
Content: A scvm induced natural disaster waiting to happen.
Writing: A paradise engineered for deliberate and malicious misunderstandings.
Art/design: A wholesome and easily navigable minimap. A clean plaintext layout to sully with your scvmmy fingers.
Usability: Easy to print. East to read. Easy to play.
Challengers of Vanth
Content: A parody of 70s science-fiction/fantasy pop culture, seen through adolescence, writ Mörk Borg.
Writing: Restructures Mörk Borg to better incorporate TRUE SCIENTIFIC REALISM, with significantly expanded abilities, and interactions between scientific and primitive technologies.
Art/design: Retains the character of early RPG illustration and design.
Usability: A substantial core rulebook, bestiary, starter adventure, and excel character generator as separate files.
Chamber of Screams and More
Content: Five fatal mistakes for your next group of scvm.
Writing: Humorous and harrowing. With deadly accommodations for particularly resilient scvm.
Art/design: Art-heavy poster layouts with detailed adventure text on the reverse side.
Usability: Clean and calculated for reading and reference.
Chapel of Pain
Content: A dark temple crawl through a cult of shadows.
Writing: A gory supernatural survival horror. Makes use of light as a resource to maintain suspense.
Art/design: Traditional adventure layout. Gridded, un-gridded, and notated map. Handout images for significant adventure features.
Usability: Not actually a pain.