Mörk Borg - session 0

Background and character creation

Nov 10, 2025

Introduction

Hi and welcome to my Session 0 of what I hope to be a longer campaign of Mörk Borg. If you’re unaware of what Mörk Borg is, here’s a quick rundown: Mörk Borg is Swedish for Dark Fort, and is a rules light RPG designed by Pelle Nilsson. It has 8 Ennie awards On the back cover of the core rulebook, it describes itself thus:

“A doom metal album of a game. A spiked flail to the face. Rules light—heavy everything else.”

To emphasize this: this playthrough will touch on subjects of body horror, torture and death among others, and will contain harsh language so if you don’t like reading that sort of thing, I kindly suggest you sit this one out.

In addition to the core rules, I do have a couple of expansions, or additions, that I will be using: first up, we have Feretory, which adds rules for overland travel, a good bunch of monsters + a monster generator, a d100 table of items and trinkets, and a couple of new classes among other things.

Secondly, since Mörk Borg isn’t specifically designed to be played alone, and I don’t have any friends, I’ve gone ahead and got myself Sölitary Defilement, “An Engine of Lonesome Death” by 1d10+5. While this is not an official expansion like Feretory, it’s still a very fine addition to the game and makes the checks in the game function like your standard PBtA game; instead of rolling d20+relevant stat against DR, you’ll roll 2d20+relevant stat against DR. In the original rules, you only had pass or fail. With Sölitary Defilement, if both only one of your d20’s are higher than the DR, you still succeed in what’s called a “Weak Hit,” which basically means that you succeed in what you were trying to do, only to a lesser degree than what you intended. Maybe there’s a complication. You succeeded in picking the lock to the abandoned shack, but someone got alerted. You managed to jump over the precipice, but twisted your ankle as you landed. That sort of thing.

I won’t go in to a ton of detail about this as most readers are probably familiar with that style of game anyway, be it PBtA or from any of the Ironsworn family games. But of course, if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll gladly help you out.

Character creation

Let’s roll some dice, shall we? I know, there’s a really cool online character generator. But I got some new dice just for this with matching yellow color, even. And I kind of want to keep it old school to some extent at least. So, without further ado, I start with the corebook and roll up a name for my character: d6 + d8 = 22 => Felban.

I decided to roll for a class (d6) and got a 6 which means I’ll be playing the Occult Herbmaster, who starts with 2d6\*10s: 80s and d2: 1 Omen(s). That’s quite an unfortunate roll, since Omens are very powerful They can be used to:

- deal maximum damage with one attack

- reroll a dice (mine or someone else’s)

- lower damage dealt to me by d6

- neutralize a Crit or Fumble

- lower one test’s DR by -4

In addition to that, Sölitary Defilement adds a couple of use for them as well: when you Search for an Object, or when you try to Conclude Your Adventure. They do replenish after you rest for 6 hours but still, I’d loved to have another one at my disposal. Alas, the dice have had their say in the matter.

Next up we shall roll for our abilities. They are Agility, Presence, Strength and Toughness. If playing without classes, you’d roll 4d6, drop the lowest one and then calculate the total, and check the corresponding table for what score you get. It will range from -3 to +3. Some classes, like our Occult Herbmaster, has set rules for these rolls, so instead of rolling 4d6, we roll 3d6, and on our Toughness roll, we add +2 to the total, and on the Strength roll, we subtract -2. Here’s how it shaked out:

Toughness: 6, 6, 4 + 2 = 18 => +3

Strength: 4, 6, 2 - 2 = 10 => 0

Agility: 5, 5, 6 = 16 => +2

Presence: 1, 3, 4 = 8 => -1

Pretty high rolls, except for the Presence, so I guess Felban won’t be charming anyone. For weapons, Occult Herbmaster rolls a d6, effectively locking them out of the highest end of weaponry. I got a 6, so Felban will be swinging a Sword (d6). For armor, I roll a d2, and got a 1, so he’s wearing a padded robe which protects for -d2 dmg.

HP is determined by Toughness + d6, and I rolled a 5, so 3 + 5 = 8. That’s about as high as you can expect to get almost, so I’m really happy with that. Mörk Borg characters are notoriously squishy, so hopefully this gives Felban a fighting chance to survive past the first few encounters...

Another roll, and I uncovered that Felban was raised in the calm isolation of the Sarkash dark, the woods just north of Galgenbeck. This makes sense, considering he became an Herbmaster. I also rolled d20 twice on the Terrible Traits table, and got 18 => Deceitful and 12 => Cowardly. I can see why the Presence was so low, and it gets even better with subsequent rolls: for Habits, I rolled a d20 and got 14, which tells me Felban is a Pyromaniac. Great. Then, for Troubling Tales I roll ad10 and got 1: “Pursued for manslaughter. There is a bounty.” Oh boy. And last but not least, I roll a d100 for an Adventure Spark to set things in motion. I get a 45: “Something has infiltrated the court.” I’m not quite sure what that means yet, but I guess I’ll find out.

For now, meet Felban:

Background

’I’m innocent.’ That’s the most frequently heard phrase in the catacombs of the Galgenbeck prison. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it’s bullcrap. I’m the exception to that rule. Not that it mattered. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wrong herbs in my possession. Manslaughter, they called it. Shit, I would never. I could never kill a man. Didn’t even know the poor bastard—why would I have a reason to end his life?

Like it or not, there I sat, stuck in that miserable, wet cell with nothing but rats and crazy, screaming idiots in the cells around, waiting for the sentence to be put in action. At first, I tried to communicate with the people in the nearest cells, but I soon figured out, the rats were probably the most intelligent lifeforms in that hellhole. I swear, on occasion it looked like they really understood me.

The days leading up to the hanging were curiously dry. I overheard the guards said something about a draught plaguing the lands. Not that it mattered much down there. But sometimes, all you need is a spark of hope. Or, in my case, a literally a spark. If you nurture that teeny tiny spark, if you really care for it, you’ll soon end up with a fire. And let me tell you—sometimes, a fire makes a fine key...

I only remember fragments of what happened after I started that fire in my cell. The smoke started filling the basement and I started screaming for help. Me, a miserable wretch sentenced to die, pleaded for my life to the guards when they came running. The blockheads actually let us out of the cells, but they underestimated the power of insane people with nothing left to lose. They cut down many, but we overwhelmed them. I managed to steal myself a blade before I vanished into the darkness.

I figured it’s best if I leave Galgenbeck behind me. Too many familiar faces. I stole away in the heart of the night, and headed south, to Schleswig. Here, I’ve been laying low for the better part of a year now, hiding in hovels and woods, traveling under false names, selling tinctures and fake cures to drunks and lepers. I thought I’d burned my past to ash. Until I got the letter.

It used my old name. The name of the prisoner who “died” in the Galgenbeck prison riot. ‘Dear Nagl’, it said. ‘It’s time I make myself known. I know who you are. I know what you are, and what you’ve done.’ Shit, reading this makes my goddamn hands tremble. ‘I’ve got a job for you. Come meet me at the Valley of the Unfortunate Dead. There’s a mausoleum there. You’ll recognize it by the name above the doors: Silfverhjelm. Come alone. I’ll be waiting. If you don’t show up within a couple of weeks, rest assured that Galgenbeck officials will find you.’ The fucker even signed it, ‘A friend.’