Delving Wolf

This week I'll continue my character creation series, continuing the series of Borg-like games characters made for a future project of mine. These will be alternating with other kinds of posts, like my solo campaigns recaps and some gameable content coming from my Duet Pirate Borg home game. This time we're going with MÖRK DÖD by Sunzenaut , a "Brutal Death Metal Chainsaw & Sorcery TTRPG" set in the same Dying Lands as Mork Borg, but with oil, industry and a lot of brutality! The horde rules are one of my favorite things of this game, something I'll probably port into other Borg games. Anyway, without further ado, let's begin! 1. Let's start by rolling our  CLASS , d6: 2,  Bonesaw Surgeon , which gives us  Bonesaw Surgery : Heal d6 HP to yourself or someone else. On a 6 you heal 6 HP, on a 1, the injured limb is amputated dealing d6 damage instead (if the surgery is to repair a vital organ or critical wound, the result of 1 is instant death instea...

The following is part 7 of my solo Pirate Borg campaign. It focuses mainly around the character I created in this post , which was so interesting to me that it prompted me to set up a whole solo campaign . You can start with episode 1 here . Let's dive right in! -Not yet a man covered in tattoos replied without stopping. - Did any of the skeletons turn to ASH?  asked the woman with the eye patch, raising her head to look out of the hole. -I didn't tell you to stop digging said the Captain with a sigh.  We'll take a look around, and if we find any you can have a dose when you find the treasure . - Thank you Captain!  She resumed her digging with renewed vigor, humming a song to give herself and the others the rhythm. Now that he was looking at her more carefully, Sam could notice the signs, sunken eye sockets and darkened lips. That woman was addicted to ASH, the powdered remains of the undead. Sam had seen many people having the time of their life with it, but even more...

A while ago I had an idea for a gambling game to add to my TTRPG games: Dice Roulette. Initially I was thinking of using 3d6 to roll it, but I almost immediately switched to d66 to have 36 possible results. So far I've used it in a Pirate Borg campaign I'm running (because modern roulettes have been around since early 1700s in France, I checked, so it would make sense for pirates in the Dark Caribbean to know them), but there's nothing stopping you from using it in any game, fantasy or not. Anyway, enough with the preamble, let's get to the game!   You're going to take two d6 of different colors, one for the tens and the other for the last digit, and ask the players to place their bets before rolling. There are 3 times of bets that can be placed: 1.  High or Low : guessing which of die color will be higher (winning their bet x 3); 2.  Even or Odd : guessing whether the last digit will be...well, even or odd (winning their bet x 2); 3.  Exact Number : guessing the to...

This week I'll continue my character creation series, continuing the series of Borg-like games characters made for a future project of mine. These will be alternating with other kinds of posts, like my solo campaigns recaps and some gameable content coming from my Duet Pirate Borg home game. This time we're going with a new Pirate Borg character (since the first one I created, Samuel Robert Thomas , is already busy in his own adventure ), but to give it a twist it'll be a character from one of the optional classes, Tall Tale! These can range from a Merfolk (with a fish-like lower half), an Aquatic Mutant ("an abominable union between man and the sea") or a Sentient Animal (which is self-explanatory). Without further ado, let's begin!  1. Let's start with finding our  CLASS , d6: 6,  Sentient Animal , so we have another roll to determine which animal we are, d6: 1,  Foul Fowl : a demonic chicken with the ability of one random relic and one random ritua...

The following is part 6 of my solo Pirate Borg campaign. It focuses mainly around the character I created in this post , which was so interesting to me that it prompted me to set up a whole solo campaign . You can start with episode 1 here . Let's dive right in! There wasn't much of a choice, therefore Sam grabbed his boarding axe and stepped forward; in that moment Catherine, whom he had forgotten about for a bit, reappeared right beside the skeleton he was about to attack. He panicked and swung his axe around as if to swat away a fly, eventually hitting the skull; he barely made a denti into it, though. The skeleton tried to swing its knife towards Sam, but he was ready: a quick sidestep and he immediately saw an opening to strike back...only for the axe to get stuck between the ribs! The situation looked dire, but he somehow managed to free his weapon and take a step back. [This last bit is me rolling a nat 20 on defense, giving me a free attack, where I rolled a nat 1, imme...

A few weeks ago I wrote a post detailing how I generated a Treasure Map for the Pirate Borg Duet campaign I run for my wife. Three weeks ago I continued that by describing how I created the island that map leads to and the pirate captain that's shipwrecked on it. Now it's time to bring the special coin that'll be the main thing to find in the treasure (which will then lead to more adventures) to life. To do that, I'll use the Coin generator included in Down Among the Dead , the newest Pirate Borg book to come to life.     1. First of all, we roll for the  MATERIAL , 2d6: 7,  Silver  (worth 1s); 2. We then roll for the  ORIGIN  of this coin, 2d6: 3, Deep One ; 3. Next we find out the  CONDITION  of the coin, d6: 6,  Mint ; 4. Now we roll for its  VALUE , d6: 4,  Normal ; 5. This is where we roll for the  TWIST , d20, but in this case I've already picked 4,  Treasure Map , for our purpose; this prompts another roll to...

This week I'll continue my character creation series, continuing the series of Borg-like games characters made for a future project of mine. These will be alternating with other kinds of posts, like my solo campaigns recaps and some gameable content coming from my Duet Pirate Borg home game. This time we're going with Ronin, a Borg hack set in an alternate reality version of feudal Japan, of which you can find a Barebones version for free here . Let's begin! 1. We start by rolling our  CLASS , d10: 10,  Sword Saint , a master of duels; 2. Then we roll our  ABILITIES , incorporating the class modifiers: -   Swiftness : 12+2=14, +1; -  Spirit : 13-1=12, +0; -  Vigor : 13+2=15, +2; -  Resilience : 14+1=15, +2; 3. The last ability is  HONOUR , but it works a bit differently: we roll 3d6 (modified by the class, in our case +1) and we keep this score as is; under 10 our character is considered  Dishonourable , while a result above 10...

The following is part 5 of my solo Pirate Borg campaign. It focuses mainly around the character I created in this post , which was so interesting to me that it prompted me to set up a whole solo campaign . You can start with episode 1 here . Let's dive right in! -You see, Sam,  Bilge continued,  the Captain is a honorable pirate, who treats us very nicely, much better than other crews I've been in before. The only thing is that she has some Rules she wants us to follow, and if we don't her mean side shows up. They're not many, don't worry, and nothing difficult, but be careful to follow them, otherwise...oh boy! -Otherwise?   asked Sam. -You don't wanna know the otherwise. -That's insane! How can you be okay with being treated like this? -Oh come on, don't be silly! We all have our little quirks. And the Captain is brave and strong enough to afford a bit more quirkiness, that's it. Besides, are you telling me the high ranks of the Royal Navy are all ...

A few weeks ago I wrote a post detailing how I generated a Treasure Map for the Pirate Borg Duet campaign I run for my wife; this week I continue that by reporting how I generated the island that map leads to and the captain of the other crew that is already there, with the help of the Uncharted Islands and Pirate generators in the Pirate Borg rulebook.  1.  For the  ISLAND , we rolled: -  Size , d6: 1, Tiny ; -  Terrain , 2d6: 6, Mostly flat ; -  Vegetation , 2d6: 7, Fertile grasslands; -  Prominent natural feature , 2d6: 4,  Numerous sea stacks ; -  Notable animal inhabitants , 2d6: 8,  Pigs and boars (large) ; -  Inhabitants , 2d6: 10,  Farming settlers ; -  Best place in the island to hide treasure? , 2d6: 10,  A sink hole ; -  Anything here worth a fortune? , 2d6: 5,  Buried treasure...somewhere  [Well, duh! But appropriate]; -  Natural Hazards , 2d6: 6,  Coral reefs ; -  Current co...

This week I'll continue my character creation series, continuing the series of Borg-like games characters made for a future project of mine. These will be alternating with other kinds of posts, like my solo campaigns recaps and some gameable content coming from my Duet Pirate Borg home game. This time we're going with the (diseased) mother of all Borg game, Mork Borg itself. For this one I'll refer to the  Barebones edition  of the game, which is just the same as the full game, just without art and downloadable for free. Kudos to Johan Nohr! Let's begin! 1. We start by rolling for our  EQUIPMENT : - d6: 5, A small wagon or smaller item (after seeing the rest of the rolls I opted for a sack which can hold up to 10 items); - d12, 8:  A metal file and lockpicks ; - d12, 6:  A toolbox with 10 nails, tongs, hammer, a small saw and a drill . 2. Next we pick our  CLASS , d6: 4,  Wretched Royalty ; 3. It's now time to roll our  ABILITIES : -...

The following is part 4 of my solo Pirate Borg campaign. It focuses mainly around the character I created in this post , which was so interesting to me that it prompted me to set up a whole solo campaign . You can start with episode 1 here . Let's dive right in! -Anyway, why are you on this island? And where are we going now?  asked Sam. -Oh, this is a good one! We're here to loot a treasure! And not just any treasure, no sir: we're about to find the one and only treasure of Captain Morel, who he hid 15 years ago. -Captain Morel? I thought that was just a myth. -Oh no, Sam!  He definitely existed. Captain Morel was among the first Europeans to reach these shores; he was present when the dead started coming back, and shortly after he left the Spanish Armada and became one of the first pirates. Eventually the Spanish got him and executed him, but they never managed to find his treasure. It was thought that it got lost to the sea when Morel was captured, but it turns out he hi...

In my Duet Pirate Borg game my wife's character recently found a treasure map, so I headed to the Pirate Borg rulebook, specifically to the Treasure Map generator, to work on it. 1. Let's start with the TYPE OF MAP  (d4): 3, Scavenger Hunt . Ok, so it'll be a multi-part hunt; I like it; 2. Next we roll for the MATERIAL  the map is made of (d12): 8, Whittled into a bone or skull . This sounds very cool, but the PC already has the map, so it's better to keep it for the second piece of this scavenger hunt; for the starting map I'll go with 1, Parchment; 3. Now we need to establish the GEOGRAPHY  of where our treasure is hidden (d8): 8, Inland . A land adventure, nice; 4. I'm not sure I'll actually use this part, but it was in the process, so I rolled it for fun: THE INVISIBLE INK IS REVEALED  (d10): 5, If soaked in alcohol . Good to know; 5. It's time to roll for the COMPLICATION  that will spice things up (d8): 8, There is so much treas...

This week I'll continue my character creation series, marking the beginning (like I said in my year recap post ) of a series of Borg-like games characters made for a future project of mine. These will be alternating with other kinds of posts, like my solo campaigns recaps and some gameable content coming from my Duet Pirate Borg home game. For the first one, we'll start with Cy_Borg , the cyberpunk version of Mork Borg created by Christian Sahlén and Johan Nohr of Stockholm Kartell. As any Borg game, character creation (and the game itself) is fast and dripping with style. As with other games before, I'll be using the Italian version of the game, so some tables might be translated slightly differently. Let's begin! 1. We start by rolling a d6 for our  CLASS : 6,  Forsaken Gang-goon , someone who used to be part of a gang but is not anymore. Why? The dice will tell us soon! We roll 3d6-2 for our Strength and get a reduced difficulty to all Presence and Agility tests. Not...

I recently started a Duet Pirate Borg campaign for my wife (it started as a one-shot, but then we decided to continue it), and during the Christmas holidays we found ourselves in a hotel for a few days, and I wanted to have a session while we were there. We were flying there, so we couldn't bring many things with us: a minimalist approach was needed. Once we were there, we found out we didn't even have a table in the room, so we adapted to play on the bed. My setup was just a set of dice, a printed character sheet + rules reference sheet, a pencil and eraser, and the Pirate Borg rulebook PDF on my phone (I was running the Curse of Skeleton Point sandbox from that book). That's it. Of course this setup would not necessarily work for  any  TTRPG, but Pirate Borg (or any of the Borg games, for that matter) work wonderfully in this scenario: the GM might roll dice for encounters or other things during the exploration or dungeon crawling phases, but not in combat, when it's ...

The following is part 3 of my solo Pirate Borg campaign. It focuses mainly around the character I created in this post , which was so interesting to me that it prompted me to set up a whole solo campaign . You can start with episode 1 here . Let's dive right in!   One member of the crew, a woman with a patch over her right eye, erupted in a howl. That seemed to break the tension, and one moment later Sam, the Captain and the rest of the crew were laughing at the sudden outburst. Captain Ramirez turned to a short man with a hook instead of his left hand beside her:  I entrust you with the newbie, Brother Bilge. Make sure he knows how to behave and that he pulls his weight . Aye aye, Captain  replied the man, who then turned to Sam with a smile:  Walk with me, mister. I'll show you the ropes as we follow the captain . Where are we going?  asked Sam  And how ccan you trust me already? I wouldn't, if I were you . Brother Bilge chuckled.  Ah, don't ...

The following is part 2 of my solo Pirate Borg campaign. It focuses mainly around the character I created in this post , which was so interesting to me that it prompted me to set up a whole solo campaign . You can find episode 1 here . Let's dive right in! He closed his eyes and started running, not caring where he was going or about any danger he could meet. Nothing could be worse than that. He ran and screamed, screamed and ran, trying to suppress any thought his brain might have; his thoughts seemed to have a different voice, but it didn't matter. Not in that moment. All of a sudden he ran into what felt like a massive stone wall, hitting it so hard he bounced and rolled backwards, ending face down on the ground. He tried to open his eyes, but everything was still black. He was definitevely alive, though; he was in too much pain to be dead. He was vaguely aware of voices around him, but it was hard to determine whether they were coming from outside or inside his ...

A bit of context before getting into the meat of it: as I mentioned in other posts, I'm in the middle of running an online campaign of Dragon of Icespire Peak (D&D 5e's Essential Kit campaign) for a few friends, and eventually they'll end up fighting the titular dragon, and I want to make it a more interesting encounter than how it is presented, because as it is in the book it is...underwhelming. So I started planning what to add: legendary resistances and actions, lair actions, some minions, making it fly and change the environment (it's a white dragon, so ice patches for players to slip on or to use as cover), but what else could I add? That's when I went to my library for ideas and, while flipping my copy of  Fantastic Medieval Campaigns  by Marcia B., a faithful rewrite of the 1974 Dungeons & Dragons rules which includes a few snippets from the supplements in its appendices, I stumbled upon Hit Locations, originally published in Supplement II: Blackmoor....

Last Sunday I had a Duet D&D session with my wife, and it led me to think about something related to DMing (GMing, Refereeing) that many of us will take for granted, but it bears repeating for those that don't: games are not sealed compartments, and what you learn in a game can and will make it easier for you to run better games in any system . Let's start with a bit of context: this is a D&D 5e campaign that started over a year ago with me as the DM and my wife and a friend of mine as the players (plus one sidekick and a DMPC to make it a party of 4) set in Eberron, my favorite "official" D&D setting. Sadly, after just a few sessions the campaign ran into an abrupt stop because of...life happening, and it was put on indefinite hold. Recently I found myself wanting to get a regular weekly TTRPG night with my wife, including solo and GMless games...and it felt like the best opportunity to bring this back as a Duet game. We are 3 sessions in at the moment, a...

This week's post is part 3 of the mini series about my new TTRPG design ideas inspired by the Mork Borg universe (see part 1  and part 2 ). My third and (for now) last idea is not a game system, but rather a supplement: the working title for now is Mork Wars . Inspired by  Grinding the MMORKG , a Cy_Borg supplement I recently found that aims to mash together Mork Borg and Cy_Borg (including a guide on how to convert characters between the two systems), this supplement aims to do something similar, but in a bigger scope: allowing a Cy_Borg campaign to include one-shots of any other Borg-inspired game while still being in the same campaign. Admittedly, as of right now I'm still waiting for my copy of Cy_Borg, which will arrive on my birthday (December 6th, almost there!) and only then I will define better this idea and properly write it down, but for now the gist is: instead Cy there is a VR game that is attracting a lot of attention lately, where you pay some credits to play as...

This post is a follow-up to the one I wrote last week  about my new TTRPG design idea inspired by Mork Borg, Bronze Borg. This time I'm going to write about the second idea I came up with recently, with the same purpose as the first one: to keep myself accountable and make sure I continue working on this. This second project is called (for now) Steam Borg  and, as the name suggests, it's a steampunk version of Mork Borg. Steampunk has always been a genre that fascinated me (although I've not ready many books about it, I should correct this! If you have suggestions, please send them my way) and it's what got me interested in the Eberron setting in D&D in the first place, before discovering that it's not actually a steampunk setting; it's still my favorite "official" D&D setting, though. My ideas for Steam Borg are all still works in progress, but so far my idea is a world where steam research has brought a lot of progress, but ended up ruining t...