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| Pirate Swag |
Pirate Borg is a pirate flavoured take on the art-punk Mörk Borg roleplaying game, which I’ve previously covered in its cyberpunk version CY_BORG. Published by Fria Ligan under the Free League Workshop, Pirate Borg is a 168-page small hardcover, packed fill of thematic artwork, with two ribbons. The cover is matte in black, brown, white and red, with some clever use of spot UV to emphasise certain aspects of the images. Written by Limithron (Luke Stratton), it packs a lot into a small space. As usual, the end sheets contain useful reference material. The artwork impacts the readability significantly less than it does in CY_BORG and Mörk Borg; it’s still striking but works much more sympathetically with the eye, not impacting legibility. The book is not yet on general release; my copy was a late pledge on the kickstarter which came with a map, cards, zine and character sheets for use at the table.
TL;DR: Pirate Borg is very well done; it takes the Mörk Borg engine and turns it into an evocative and thematic pirate game. It is beautifully presented and clearly written. You could easily use a large part of this book as a reference for other games, lifting the copious random tables to inspire a game using another system. The example setting is a flavourful sandbox. This deserves to be a big hit when it gets into general release.
The general release has been delayed as one of the zombie images caused concerns as it was being interpreted as racist; as a result, amendments have been made and the retail version will be a different printing. Stickers will be made for the the remaining stock. It’s a solid response to an unintended situation, as it’s clear from the credits page that the author is well aware of the potential for elements of the setting’s source to cause distress.
“Pirate Borg is a game about grog-swilling pirates, undead galleons, arcane treasures found in ancient temples, and high seas adventure. It's not a game about slavery, sexual violence, genocide, or any of the other abhorrent real parts of our history. Please treat these topics with the respect they deserve, or leave them out of the game altogether and go hunt some skeletons.” (from the first page)
The book is set in the Dark Caribbean, a twisted echo on our worlds. It is a paradise threatened by the Scourge, a rising wave of undead and horrific monsters which have emerged from the sea. The burnt remains of undead are used as a psychedelic drug called ASH. The pirate faction, the Brethren of the Coast, formed the Republic of Pirates based out of the ruins of Nassau Town on New Providence Island and Tortuga. The old colonial powers are there: the British with a weakly supported Royal Navy supporting the Machiavellian West India Company; the French remain, decadent, dissolute and corrupt, everything is for sale in the French Indies; the Viceroyalty of New Spain has its heart in Cuba, but the Inquisition also resides in a citadel on the mainland. The Yucatan keeps its secrets close and expeditions such as Cortes’ just disappear, but the rumours of gold endure. Finally, sailors tell tales of The Sunken One returning, as foretold in the Necronomicon, and the Abyss opening up. It’s a well constructed mix ready for the player characters to light the spark.
There is a d66 table, detailing how the Dark Caribbean will move towards the Apocalypse (unless the players intervene). Unlike its sibling games, there is less direction on how to apply the history of events and happenings to drive the plot; it is left to the choice of the scurvy dog who runs the game. There are six threads, with six stages of escalation each. It does remind me a little of a simplified Dungeon World adventure or campaign front. There’s a lot to inspire an extended campaign; this is one of the strengths of the book. There are a lot of ideas and tables which could easily be lifted to run with other engines in a setting (for example D&D or the long out of print Pirates of the Spanish Main).
Character generation starts with the player rolling for the basic equipment they have; a container (which could range from a bucket to a dinghy), something cheap, and something fancy. Next up are ability scores; these are rolled on 3d6 and modified by class (unless you’re a classless landlubber and roll 4d6 and drop the lowest dice). A table turns these into a modifier from -3 to +3. The abilities are strength, agility, presence, toughness and spirit.
Tests are made by rolling a d20 and adding the ability modifier. The base difficulty rating is DR12 - a target number of 12 to roll above (ie a 40% chance of success for a character with zero modifier). The game is player-facing for tests that affect characters (but GM can roll if appropriate - for example a creature climbing up a mast after a character). The failure rate is something to be aware of; if you want more competent - dare I say heroic? - characters they’ll need to gain experience (but the modifiers top out at +6, so there will always be a 30% chance of failing a DR12 roll). Starter characters do have a risk of being like the comedy duo from Pirates of the Caribbean if they aren’t careful.
The next rule presented is ‘holding your breath’, as drowning is likely to be a commonly present danger.
Combat is pretty similar to its siblings; there are initiative options for group or individual rolls. You critical for double damage and degrade armour on a natural 20 attacking or can make a free attack if defending, and you fumble on a natural 1 (breaking or losing your weapon if attacking and taking double damage and armour degradation if defending). Fumbling a black powder weapon has its own table.
Core character classes start with the Brute, a rough melee combatant whose trick in trade is violence; they cannot use arcane rituals. There’s the Rapscallion, a sneaky, backstabbing thief and swindler, with the luck of the devil until the devil comes to take them to hell. The Buccaneer is a skilled tracker and survivalist, and a specialist sharpshooter with a musket. It wouldn’t be a pirate game without a swashbuckler; they’ll have their own flamboyant fighting style and a feat that brings out their swagger and bravado. Zealots are often members of the clergy, but could be a cultist or a shaman. They have prayers (spells), an affinity to arcane rituals and relics and plenty of luck from whoever they serve. The final core class is the sorcerer, a conduit for spirits and necromancies entities. They too have an affinity for arcane spells and rituals, but cold iron and metal inhibits their powers.
There are also optional character classes which are slightly more offbeat in flavour. They each add something a little different, which may not be for everyone. The first option is the "Haunted Soul" which I mentioned earlier. This includes all manner of different supernatural creatures including ghosts, spiritual conduits, zombies, vampires, skeletons and eldritch minds (you're drawn to the deep and have visions of antediluvian horrors). All these classes are twinned with a core class. Hence, if you die, you could come back as a zombie or ghost.
The other optional class is the "Tall Taled". You can be a merfolk (fish-tailed, but with an additional core class); an aquatic mutant (some kind of union between man & the sea, also gaining a core class) or a sentient animal (no additional class). Drawing on a variety of genre appropriate sources, all of these give a chance to be something a little different.
Base hit points are d10 + toughness if you’re a landlubber, or class dependent. Zero hit points breaks you - negative hit points kills you. If you’re unlucky you may be allowed to bring a dead character back as a haunted soul. Otherwise you recover some HP from a short rest (d4) of around 10 minutes or more (d8) from a longer rest overnight. There are reaction tables for creatures (which mean they won’t always attack) and also morale rules to see when they will break.
There are random tables for backgrounds (which give you starting cash and additional equipment), distinctive flaws, physical trademarks, idiosyncrasies, and then unfortunate incidents and conditions that you have suffered from in the past. Finally, your character gets a 'thing of importance', an item that means a lot to them, but you'll have to decide why. All of these are decent hooks to hand a character around. I hope that there will be an online generator for characters, similar to those for CY_BORG and Mausrítter.
Experience can boost or reduce your ability modifiers (but they’ll never go down so long as they’re at +1 or less), raise your hit points, give you a new class feature and a new item. There’s no set trigger for experience.
Weapons range from blunt force implements like Belaying Pins through swords and axes to black powder weapons like flintlock pistols and muskets.
Magic is approached via arcane rituals and ancient relics. There are twenty example relics, drawing on all manner of inspirations (Christian relics, Mayan and Lovecraftian artefacts are all included). Arcane rituals can produce quite powerful effects (for example summoning the Kraken or controlling the weather) but failure results in a roll on the mishap table, which can be quite devastating at both a personal and regional level (for example, causing a significant earthquake, breaking the laws of physics, going insane, or being attacked by creatures).
Sea Shanties are a more subtle form of magic; if a ship’s crew can manage to sing them together harmoniously (or at least by passing a skill test), then they can get a benefit. The Captain’s Spirit Ability rating influences the number of shanties a crew can use in a day. Effects range from changing the weather through, to helping carry out tasks to affecting other vessels.
Alchemy is also available as an option, with tables for the kind of potion, effect and the DR (difficulty rating) to resist (should you want to). You can roll randomly or just choose the outcome.
Naval combat is covered in detail, with a simple but effective hex based system. Ships are defined with a simple set of statistics, and hit points scale between people and vessels by a factor of five (so a 20HP ship has 100HP if attacked with a personal weapon, and a ship’s cannon doing d8 damage to another ship would do d8x5 to a PC if it hit them). Rounds are typically 30 seconds long, although there’s some flex in that. Ships move, then non-Captain PCs can take a crew action. Crew action examples include firing a broadside, raking a ship with small arms fire, coming about, dropping and weighting anchor or sending a boarding party to capture another vessel. Crew actions cannot be taken once a ship is in close combat.
As well as combat, other maritime operational aspects are covered such as speciality crew, skills and morale, and all manners of operational needs such as careening the hull to remove barnacles and carry out repairs. There are rules for wether and wind, plus a good selection of random tables for encounters and events and the flotsam and jetsam your ship encounters when travelling around the Dark Caribbean. There are plenty of example ships ranging from the raft you escape from your shipwreck on, through to a Ship of the Line that you may encounter from the Royal Navy or French fleet. Of course, there are also more mysterious vessels such as Ghost Ships and Vessels that have risen from the Deeps.
There’s a decent bestiary with a variety of interesting examples, and then procedures for creating your own enemies. Skeletons, Zombies, and Ghosts all get their own spreads and are nicely illustrated. There are more esoteric and weird creatures, including drowned sailors, Sirens, Deep Ones and the fearsome Coral Shoggoth. Of course, all these pale into insignificance in the face of the fearsome Kraken when it rises from the depths, and the less said about the Leviathan or Davy Jones, the better. There are also examples of Naval crews and the Inquisition, along with more unnatural enemies such as necromancers and the Sunken Ones. A more unique option is for ‘marrow cannons’, sentient undead cannons, created by necromancers. There’s a lot in this to sustain an extended campaign without needing to create more.
Ship encounters are covered by random tables including their cargoes. Derelict vessels are also covered with extensive options, as is buried treasure (what pirate game would be complete without this?) and treasure maps (including riddles and clues). There’s a section written by Jacob Hurst [Swordfish Islands] to generate Uncharted Islands. This is done in a similar style to the Dark of Hot Spring Island, which is great (and you should check out those books if you get a chance). The plethora of GM material rounds out with a random pirate generator and a section giving random jobs and quests, plus rumours that could be rife in the port the crew find themselves in.
The book concludes with ‘The Curse of Skeleton Point’, a 33-page ambitious sandbox setting to kick off a campaign, set on the small pirate run island of Black Coral Bay. There are multiple sites to explore, factions to provoke and ally with, and plenty of hooks. There’s a basic plot line that will develop if the characters don’t interfere which raises the stakes tremendously. Will the characters work with the Governor or ally with Captain Davies?
The book concludes with a reference spread for character generation on a single spread and indexes for the book and for creatures. The end sheets have useful material for encounters at the front of the book, and for naval combat, abilities and tests and violence at the back.
So what do I think?
Pirate Borg is done very well; it takes the Mörk Borg engine and turns it into a evocative and thematic pirate game. It is beautifully presented and clearly written. You could easily use a large part of this book as a reference for other games, lifting the copious random tables to inspire a game using another system. The example setting is a flavourful sandbox. This deserves to be a big hit when it gets into general release.
19 March 2023
