PATHS OF POWER: TWO EXPANSIONS FOR MÖRK BORG

 There are about a gazillion reasons I love MÖRK BORG. 

For starters, I parted company with the big, bulky math-heavy RPGS back around 2000. I'd played some of them in the 80s and 90s, but the older I got, the less interested in them I was. By the time Dungeons & Dragons 3e and 3.5 came along, I was already playing with B/X again. I've probably run Risus far more than I should have.

When MÖRK BORG appeared in 2020, it had a system that made B/X look Byzantine by comparison, so rules light it was zen. For the handful of unfortunate victims who stumbled into this post not knowing what MÖRK BORG is, a quick summary: written by Pelle Nilsson with graphic design and art by Johan Nohr and "dead people,"MÖRK BORG self identifies as a "doom metal album of a game, a spiked flail to the face...(r)ules light, heavy everything else." It's set in a late medieval fantasy world that is suspiciously Swedish and undergoing an apocalypse. The characters' lives are positively Hobbesian. The game initially had me at "doom metal," but then again I am a 55-year old goth with black fingernails and an unnerving number of pieces of jewelry with pentagrams on them. But once I got the game, what really bowled me over about MÖRK BORG was the design.

By this I mean not only the game design, but also the graphic design, because more than any game I have ever seen the two work hand-in-mailed fist to create the total play experience. As game design, MÖRK BORG wants to know what the absolute bare minimum you need to run a classic dungeon crawler is. All of the rules fit on a single page. Monsters don't have stat blocks, they hav hit points, morale, a few terse notes and a name. Spells, referred to as "Powers" in the game, are often half a sentence. Take "Foul Psychopomp," which reads "summon (d6) 1-3 d4 skeletons, 4-6 d4 zombies."

These economy extends to descriptions of the world. The regions of this dying world get about a paragraph of brief description, tops. There are no lore dumps here, no "in the reign of King Harmug IV." Instead we are told "Galgenbeck...is the greatest city that ever was" before moving on to a few lines on religion and politics. Reading the text, I often felt I was reading song lyrics instead of prose...a neat trick for a game that takes its inspiration from music.

But this is where the graphic design and layout come in. 

If the text of MÖRK BORG is the lyrics, the way the book is laid out, the art, and the presentation, are the basslines, guitars, percussion, and vocals. They convey more about the game and its setting that words could. 

An easy example is the order the information is presented in. The inside front cover and front page are random item charts: NPC names ("Man? Woman? Lost souls all."), d10 Occult Treasures, Traps and Devilry, Weather, and Corpse Plundering. Just glancing over these, a picture of the world and the kind of game MÖRK BORG is becomes clear. The first thing we learn about the setting is the prophecy that dooms it. Then we get a brief tour of the regions. It isn't until pages 16 and 17 that the first real mechanic shows up: the Calendar of Nechrubel. This is a random table present as a quasi-scriptural page divided into seven sections or Psalms. Every game day the GM rolls a die (the type of die is determined by the players ranging from d00 to d2. On a one, a "Misery" in unleashed, rolled off the table of Psalms. These Miseries change the conditions of the setting, and after 7 of them the world ends.

The point is, by page 17 we get it. The doomed world is conveyed to us in very few words and clever presentation. MÖRK BORG swept the Ennies the year it came out, taking gold in Best Writing, Best Layout and Design, and Product of the Year, with the silver in Best Game. It did this for giving us a very different way to experience game books.

But MÖRK BORG's obnoxious "in your face" presentation is not to everyone's taste...neither is metal for the same reasons. Aside from this complaint, another thing that puts some players off is that the game, by design, is sparse. Characters are defined by only four abilities (Agility, Presence, Strength, and Toughness) and character classes--a staple of this kind of game--are entirely optional and presented almost as an afterthought. They are for the most part very tongue-in-cheek takes on the classics...Fanged Deserter for the fighter, Esoteric Hermit for the mage, etc. They don't really bestow many unique abilities. Instead, characters are defined, primarily, by what they carry, not what they are.

An example of this is how magic is handled. Anyone can cast a spell or Power so long as they are in possession of a scroll it is written down on. Scrolls come in two flavors...Unclean Scrolls (think magic-user) and Sacred Scrolls (think cleric). But there are only ten powers of each type. Again...sparse.

There have been "fixes." Since its release MÖRK BORG has spawned a bewildering array of "compatible with" games. Many of these have moved the doom RPG vibe to other settings--feudal Japan, viking Europe, space, the old west, the pirate haunted Caribbean, and so on. But some have "nudged" MÖRK BORG towards being a more "vanilla" RPG. One of the best is Rodney Rickrode's Mork Manual, which complete re-imagines the standard setting into a world where the Dark Lord is returning. With classes more closely resembling classic RPG ones, a bestiary of familiar monsters, and expanded spell lists it goes a long way to address what some people don't like about MÖRK BORG.

But if, like me, you love the "doom metal" vibe of the original, but your players are whining...I mean, making legitimate requests...looking for more options and hardier characters, I have two solutions for you.

In 2024, Nicholas Volpe released Paths of Power: D666 Dark + Twisted Powers for MÖRK BORG. This introduced--alongside the Sacred and Unclean scrolls from the core game--18 more "paths" or "schools" of Powers, each with a dozen new spells. Characters could "specialize" in these paths, effectively changing what flavor of magic-user they were, or randomly acquire spells by rolling three six-sided dice and find the results. It was a huge expansion of the magic system, with 216 new Powers total.

What I liked about D666 was that it didn't just try to adapt already established classic fantasy schools of magic to MÖRK BORG. It didn't serve up Illusionist spells or Druid spells per se. These were new schools and they all had that dark, twisted, and funny flavor that made MÖRK BORG unique (I maintain that MÖRK BORG is not trying to be a "grimdark" game but is in fact taking the piss out of edgelord games). Thus you get the Path of Blood Power "Something Bloody" that soaks you in gore for ten minutes but makes you harder to hit or restrain because you are wet and slippery, of the Path of Death Power "Skeleton Valet" that gives you an animated skeleton companion for the day who is knowledgeable, well-mannered, and polite. MÖRK BORG is one of those games that doesn't take itself too seriously, and the tone of D666 reflects that.

This year, 2026, saw a companion volume emerge, Paths of Power: D44 Classic Classes. This volume adds 16 player character classes to MÖRK BORG. Some of these, like the Druid, Assassin, or Ranger, do resemble classic fantasy RPG classes we all know, but they are given very MÖRK BORG spins. Some others, the Inquisitor, Brawler, Templar, or Witchblade (my favorite) are new entries perfectly suited to the offical MÖRK BORG setting.

The classes in D44 are more robust than standard MÖRK BORG ones as well and more suited to campaigns.  Each offers 2-3 standard abilities, and then two D6 tables of additional class abilities. You roll (or choose) one ability from each of these tables , and then later on when you "Get Better" ( MÖRK BORG's version of leveling up) can roll or pick and additional ability. Many of them are quite cool. The Berserker spends a Power for example to go into frenzy: they must attack an enemy each round and may attack allies if none are available but they gain D6 temporary hit points and do double damage. The Witchblade can spend 1 or more Powers and each adds a D6 additional damage to their attacks that turn. 

In addition, D44 offers some optional rules to make player characters less fragile, and introduces the concept of conditions--like Blind, Staggered, or Stunned--into the game. Finally, it reprints every Power from its predecessor D666 in handy tables at the end of the book.

Both Paths of Power volumes are great resources for players and GMs who like the doom metal vibe of the MÖRK BORG game and setting, but want plenty of options to expand on the core game. There are other, more robust adaptations of MÖRK BORG but color inside the lines of the core game and are terrific resources. 

The Only Story You Need: More Thoughts on Glorantha

When I introduce newcomers to the world of Glorantha, I always start with some variation of the following: it's an ancient world setting that focuses on myth, and there's really only one myth you need to know. It goes something like this.

The cosmos emerges from Chaos. First comes Darkness, then Water. The Earth emerges from the waters and begins the Green Age, the spring of the world. The Sky rises from the earth and starts the Golden Age, ruled by the sun god. The world is shaken then by the birth of the Storm gods. They tear heaven and earth apart to make room for themselves. One storm god slays the sun, throwing the world into darkness and eternal winter. This ignites the Gods War. The gods fall to fighting each other, and Chaos re-enters the world. Nearly everything dies. In a last ditch effort to save the cosmos, the gods bind themselves and create Time. The time of the gods is over. It is the time of the mortal races. History begins.

It's a fractal story. The general pattern is easy to grasp. We all know this story because we all live it. Our lives begin in Darkness and Water--the womb. We are born into childhood, the Green Age, followed by youth, the Golden Age. Strife and struggle enter our lives, then decline and darkness. Our time ends and someone else's begins.

A Fractal Cosmos

But the deeper you look, the pattern repeats itself endlessly. It's there in the order of the Gloranthan seasons, the days of the week, and even the Ages of Time (which begin with exploring new powers and end with conflict and destruction). The myths of individual deities almost invariably explore how the god or goddess in question fits into the story told above, and it even dictates the layout of the Elemental Runes on your character sheet.

With new players, I like to start campaigns during Sacred Time, when some variation of the story above is retold. I don't tell the players the story ahead of time, I give it to the characters during the game. Then I play seasonally, starting with Sea Season, letting the pattern become obvious as we play. Gods and cults get introduced as necessary. I've done this hundreds of times and it's never failed me.

Skip the "Family History" section of character creation. It means nothing to newbies. Right on p. 29 RuneQuest tells you it's optional anyway. I also use the "Inexperienced Adventurers" option (p. 25) and skip choosing cults. You can get new players into the game in about 20-30 minutes with these options, and teach them the game and setting through play. Essentially, Six Seasons in Sartar was my blueprint on how to do all this.

This works particularly well at conventions. I shun pre-generated characters, and have been able to introduce first time players with their own characters and still have time to play. 

I introduced all four of my current players to RuneQuest this way. Sure, now they are all Glorantha nerds, putting their grubby little mitts on my precious tomes and getting lost in the pages of The Guide to Glorantha, but they all went into it blind. They hadn't even read the rulebook. But that's the thing about rabbit holes: you don't need to know what's at the bottom of them before you take the plunge.  

If you like what you read, consider buying me a martini! Follow this link--> ko-fi.com/therook93

Greg Stafford's "A Pyre for Gods and Heroes" at Long Last. or, Where the #$%& Have You Been the Last 5 Months Montgomery?

READERS MAY HAVE NOTED an absence of posts since August 2025. That is the longest period of silence this blog has seen since it launched in 2012.

I could tell you that I ran off and joined the circus, that I was abducted by aliens, that I joined a tantric cult and achieved higher states of consciousness one yogini at a time. The truth is, however, that I suddenly had a project on my lap that was for me a wish come true, an offer I could not refuse, and something I was willing to suspend all my projects for (including this blog). Now the cat is out of the bag, and I can talk a little about it.

Chaosium's Michael O'Brien (MOB) posts about this over on the Chaosium page (link here), but I will quote the first half of what he has to say to set up the picture:

As many Glorantha fans will know, Chaosium founder Greg Stafford long harbored aspirations to be a published novelist, and worked on perfecting his “Harmast’s Saga” novel over many years – decades even – stopping and starting several times. Greg would sometimes read and share his work-in-progress at conventions; today there are different, incomplete fan versions out in the wilds of Gloranthan fandom, but no complete “novel” per se. 

Starting in 2015, Jeff Richard, Greg’s frequent creative collaborator, and editor Susan O’Brien, who knew Greg personally, began – with Greg’s blessing – the task of gathering these manuscripts together and constructing a master text. The plan then was to work with Greg to “fill in the gaps” and, at long last, publish a novel pitched for Glorantha fans and the general reader alike. 

Jeff and Susan made solid progress. Altogether the tale Greg wanted to tell was about 90% complete. And for the parts yet to be done, Greg left himself notes about what was needed. Sometimes these notes were detailed drafts, sometimes dot points, sometimes there were even diagrams.

Sadly, Greg’s untimely passing in 2018 put paid to this three-way approach. Work on the ‘Harmast’s Saga’ project was shelved as we mourned Greg. Jeff and Susan went on to other creative endeavours…

For Chaosium's 50th anniversary year, one of the things that was decided was this was the perfect time to honor Greg by finishing, and publishing, his novel. Back in July of 2025, MOB arrived about a week early for KaijuCon, and we had dinner in Tokyo. He asked--straight-faced--If I might like to finish up Greg's novel and get it across the finish line. 

Naturally I said "no"...

...in some bizarre alternate universe. In this one I said "yes," and spent the next five months alone with Greg, pouring over what was written and his notes and trying to figure out where he had intended to go with it all.

I didn't do this alone. Susan O'Brien returned to the project as editor, and together we wrote, rewrote, and rearranged to get a text that would read something like a modern novel. Understand, this is not another King of Sartar. Greg was writing a novel, not an in-world collection of historical texts. This book was different from anything else the world has seen for Glorantha. I honestly believe it will change how people approach Gloranthan gaming. It certainly changed how I did.

I will not give spoilers, but the histories are out there. The novel takes place in the First Age, 1200 years before the events of most RuneQuest campaigns. The main events are set in 411 ST, with a lot of material showing the years and decades before that. You will see the breaking of the First Council. You will see the birth of Nysalor (and get to know him fairly well). And you will meet Harmast Barefoot, at the very beginning of his career. That is about all I will say.

Also, for the record, one thing I never plan on discussing is what I wrote and what I didn't. A lot of what I did was adding to Greg's chapters, clarifying. The chapters that were mine, I wrote using Greg's character's, following his notes, advancing his plot. So to my mind it was, is, and remains Greg's novel.

So go to Chaosium and download the sample chapter, "Invitations." And stay tuned.  

 

One of the Top Ten Adventures that Changed the RPG World(?)

The virtual table top Quest Portal has just released on their website the ten most influential and game changing adventures in the history of TTRPG, and Six Seasons in Sartar made the list!

It sits alongside undisputed classics like Masks of Nyarlathotep, The Great Pendragon Campaign, Ravenloft, and one of my personal favorites, The Dracula Dossier.

My thanks to Quest Portal for thinking I made the cut. A tremendous honor to be included in such august company. 

Follow the link here.

 

 

Be an Adventurer! 3Hex Issue 1, a quick look at a little game.

I love me a good ole' Old School hexcrawl.

This frequently throws people. I have made it fairly clear that Basic RolePlaying is my preferred rules system, a deeply simulationist game. By that, I mean that BRP attempts to model in math the genres it is applied to. Call of Cthulhu recreates the cosmic horror of Lovecraft, with a sanity system that models how people go nuts in his fiction, not in real life. RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha models the bronze age world of, no surprises here, Glorantha. It does not seek to accurately recreate the economics, sociopolitics, or brutality of the terrestrial bronze age. Pendragon is, frankly, Sir Thomas Malory summoned back from Avalon with dice. It has nothing to do with the middle ages. And Basic RolePlaying is a tool kit to model whatever genre you want. These are not games that depend on randomness. Randomness is an element, and has to be in any game reliant on dice, but they are very structured, intentional systems meant to control the type of play that emerges.

On top of that, I am known for story-oriented scenarios. The three Six Seasons books chronicle the fall of a clan, its time as a warband, and its return home. The Final Riddle is a one-way trip into madness. Again, randomness is present. Characters can fail. They can die. But there is a narrative in place. 

Old School gaming has no interest in simulation or stories. Crom LAUGHS at your narrative arcs! At Old School's core is emergent play. Roll the dice, see what happens. The results of the dice rolls, and the decisions you make, are the story. In the stricter Old School games, you don't know what character you will play until you roll stats for it. Adventures, locations, and encounters can all be determined randomly. Gygax had tons of random tables in the original Dungeon Master's Guide, and modern descendants like Old School Essentials or ShadowDark have followed suit. You can literally build the campaign, and the world, as you go. And unlike the more simulationist games mentioned above, the lighter dice systems of Old School games are little more than pass/fail mechanics. There are fewer skills (if any) to sculpt the expectations of the setting. Worlds are implied in the rules, but not explicitly modeled. You jump in, you play, and the game emerges.

Be an Adventurer! 3Hex Issue 1 (man that is a mouthful, let's call it 3Hex from here on) is a little solo-play game with decidedly Old School leanings. Author Mark Quire LAUGHS in the face of your simulations and narratives, by Crom! Yes, I promise to stop doing that. Weighing in at all of five pages, this PDF is essentially a three hex dungeon/wilderness crawl (which might have something to do with the name). One hex is The City, one is The Reach, and one is The Badlands. Each has its own random encounters generated when you enter the hex. The tongue-in-cheek conceit of the game is right there on the first page:

Be an Adventurer! THEY SAID. It’ll be fun and make You RICH! THEY SAID.

It’s not.

None of this is fun, none of this has made me rich. I’ve been stuck in this swamp for four days. There is something growing between my toes that I SWEAR occasionally giggles, I’m super hungry, AND I AM REALLY NOT HAPPY. NOT. HAPPY. AT ALL.

Your naive would-be Adventurer begins in The City, and sets out to win treasure and fame in this and other hexes (but is more likely to starve or die a hideous death). Each day of play, called a "loop," you either roll for an encounter in the hex you are in or more to the adjacent hex. At the end of each day, you gain a point of Hunger (Hunger also acts as damage in this game). At 6 points of Hunger, you are dead. But Hunger can be combatted with one of your three other stats. Groats are the coins in the game, and you start with D6. Vittles are rations, and you can spend one each day to prevent Hunger. Finally there are Upgrades, which are weapons, armor, magic items, and experience, making your little bugger (sorry, your brave hero) tougher and more resilient. Like Hunger, Vittles and Upgrades start at zero and are gained in play.

The core mechanic for tests in the game is to roll 2D6 + your total Upgrades and - your current Hunger. You will want to roll higher than your opponent's combat scores or the difficulty of whatever test you are facing.

Aside from the randomness of the game, what makes it Old School adjacent is the entire core concept. Old School games are notoriously brutal. They were survival horror games, not heroic fantasy. 3Hex leans hard into that spirit. Like Knave! or MÖRK BORG, there are no character classes here, however. You are defined by your gear. Presumably further issues will add more hexes to explore, and perhaps more complexity, but as is 3Hex is a lightning fast solo play with a sense of humor about itself. Like MÖRK BORG the fun is in your inevitable, horrible doom.

Or maybe you could get lucky?

        

The Sutra of Pale Leaves: Carcosa Manifest, Available at Gen Con in limited pre-release!

While I will not physically be at Gen Con, I will be there in sinister, psychedelic spirit. "Wonderland," which premiered in Nagoya, Japan just two weeks ago, will be available in The Sutra of Pale Leaves: Carcosa Manifest, in a limited Gen Con pre-release!

When a horrific and inexplicable act of self violence happens at a Tokyo high school, your Investigators fall down a rabbit hole where nothing makes sense and nothing and no one are what they seem. Play the Pale Prince's game... 

“93. In the Garden of Wonders, the Chosen Disciples remove the masks forced upon them in the womb. 94. There, in beds of black henbane and laughing mushroom, fevered reason lies dead and Self becomes a riddle that only silence can answer. 95. There the Chosen abandon themselves to the Court of the Pale Prince, laughing as they dance the Riddle of the Leaves. 96. These are those who know that the Court is the Garden, that the Garden is the Chosen, and that the Chosen are the Prince. 97. And in their dancing, only the Prince is there, dancing for the empty hall.”

—Sutra of Pale Leaves, 93–97

KaijuCon 2025, Nagoya Japan

 Signed copies of The Sutra of Pale Leaves today, including the second volume which has not been released yet but includes my first official Call of Cthulhu scenario, “Wonderland.” Then I ran a three hour session of Six Seasons in Sartar and a debut three-hour “Wonderland” session.