Dark Borg

As players and enemies often use weapons with a long range, the game includes rules for firefights, which include new initiatives such as "Overwatch": An action that allows players to watch over a specific area and attack enemies as they move within the area. One day everything will burn and turn black. Dark Borg is an apocalyptic role-playing game about lost souls and fools in search of salvation, forgiveness, or the last remaining riches in a grim and dying world. In Dark Borg, you will confront draining necromancers, sneaky skeleton warriors, and creeping wickheads. Take a walk in the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead, the catacombs beneath the Bergenscrypt, or the confusing Sarkash forest. But leave your hope at home - the world's cruel fate is sealed, and all your vain heroic efforts will certainly end in death and horror. Or will they?

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Dark Borg is hard to describe. The developers themselves call it the role-playing version of a doom metal album. The game is what is known as an Old School Role-Playing Game, as it takes lots of inspiration from the earliest role-playing games and their mechanics. Dark Borg mixes this with a heavy and dark aesthetic that permeates all aspects of the game. The game takes place in an alternative and apocalyptic medieval era filled with magic and monsters, whose greatest desire is to tear you apart and devour you.

In Dark Borg, players are not grand heroes out to save the world, but rather lost souls trying to find a bit of salvation before their time is up. Death is an inevitable factor in Dark Borg and players must be prepared that it is only a matter of time before they lose their character in a bloody manner and must create a new one.

One of the best examples of the game's focus on the inevitable is its doomsday clock. At the start of the game, a dice roll is agreed upon ranging from 1d2 to 1d100, and each day within the game, this dice is rolled to determine whether the world's end comes a step closer. If this is the case, a "psalm" from the book is read, which then causes a disaster. This culminates with the 7th disaster - the end of the world.

The game proceeds as a kind of verbally improvised play, where players in collaboration with the Game Master create a story with the players' characters in the main roles. It is the Game Master's role to control the rest of the people and enemies the players meet, as well as to create and deepen the locations the players visit. It is important to keep in mind that the player and Game Master are not against each other even though the Game Master controls the game's enemies. Tabletop role-playing is primarily about creating an exciting narrative together, and in the case of Dark Borg, it is also about how gruesome, magnificent, or comical a death the players' characters end up having.

Despite the game's very heavy aesthetic, it has a surprisingly light rule set and is therefore very easy to get started with. This also means that there are not rules for everything and the Game Master must therefore be ready to make decisions on their own in many cases. Dark Borg also has a lot of cool resources that are freely available to players. This includes special character sheets, dungeons to play through, new types of characters and monsters, and much more, which you can find here. Another fun initiative included in the game's core book is a list of metal artists who have inspired the game and which can advantageously be played on the stereo while you venture into Dark Borg's merciless world.

Free League

Free League, or Fria Ligan is a Swedish board game producer. They have produced a number of well-known role-playing games, several of which have won prestigious awards. They focus on science fiction and fantasy themes, often taking place in an alternative version of our world. They are behind titles such as: ALIEN The Roleplaying Game, The One Ring, Vaesen Nordic Horror, Tales from the Loop, and Forbidden Lands.