I want to thank Fria Ligan for sending us a copy of Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory in order to write this review. In case you are interested in purchasing it, you can do it through their official store at the price of $20.00 (about €17).
Feretory is a supplement to the award-winning doom metal role-playing game Mörk Borg, spawned by a program that allows players to expand the material. The original authors have in fact decided to launch Mörk Borg Cult to allow anyone to create content related to their TRPG. After contributions are evaluated, they are made available for free download on the official website (and can also be published). This supplement specifically contains community creations combined with new official material from the authors. This printed version was the result of a very successful Kickstarter campaign.
It is necessary to have access to the basic manual of Mörk Borg in order to relate to the Feretory manual under review here. If you want to know more about the basic manual, here is our review of it.
Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory Content Review
Taking full advantage of the players’ imagination breathes new life into the game. Having it edited and viewed by the original authors insures the original spirit of the work never gets distorted. In short: the idea of Mörk Borg Cult is fantastic!
Now, the main contents, being short and incisive like those of the basic manual:
- Creatures – The Monster Generator is a set of tables to randomly generate terrifying monsters. The huge number of possible hybrids greatly diminishes the likelihood of creating monsters too similar to each other. Eat, Prey, Kill presents pre-made monsters from every region of the world. Here, too, the quality is very high and you want to slaughter the characters with every one of them! There are rules for obtaining useful items from killing monsters: rations with their meat, items from those who had devoured… This addition is also very positive to give greater depth to the post-combat mechanics.
- Travel – Roads to Damnation specifies travel times between locations on the world map, as well as possible encounters during any journeys. In my opinion, these mechanics are fundamental and allow you to experience this RPG in a very different way. It is possible to combine apparently disconnected adventures with it, greatly facilitating the creation of long campaigns. The Gray Galth Inn is also provided. This is a tavern complete with menus, random patrons, and possible gambling opportunities. Also this setting can be reused for any number of situations, giving more depth to the (usually banal) sleeping under a roof.
- Items – d100 Items & Trinkets is a table with many quick ideas to make sure the GM always has a themed object ready for players to find. It’s a simple list, but it is useful. Even more interesting is The Tenebrous Reliquary, a collection of magical and cursed items. Who wouldn’t want the backbone of some forgotten god capable of attracting the poor and wretched?
- Classes – Classes allows you to make characters more unique and special; the more corrupt and dark the better, obviously. Within Feretory you can find Cursed Skinwalker, Pale One, Dead God’s Prophet and Forlorn Philosopher. I think the names already say enough about their potential.
- Adventures – The manual also includes some adventures with which to enjoy the content presented so far. In The Death Ziggurat a demonic being attempts to end the world by awakening the dead. The Goblin Grinder instead takes you to a city infested with goblins, cursed creatures that physically and mentally corrupt anyone who meets them. Finally, there is Dark Fort, a solo adventure that inspired the creation of Mörk Borg itself. They are all deliberately old-fashioned, recreating fun, nostalgic atmospheres.
The Manual & Its Art
It is a bit strange to think that all this content is squeezed into only 63 pages … And many of those pages are also occupied (in part) by the usual, wonderful, dark, and damned illustrations! Indeed, Feretory‘s aesthetic quality is on par with Mörk Borg‘s core manual, as can be seen from all the illustrations in this review. The dominant colors are still black and yellow, with various peculiar chromatic inserts. Silver and gold details, but never out of place; some sections are printed in a very bright fuchsia, to reinforce the sense conveyed.
The manual has a flexible cover and the quality of the materials is excellent. The layout is very eccentric, offering different solutions on each page, but all somehow consistent with one another. One section (the Dark Fort adventure) is separated into a booklet of its own. This product goes in the category of games that deserve to be in your library regardless of whether or not you have any opportunity to actually play it.
Final thoughts on Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory
If you enjoyed Mörk Borg, you will probably also deeply appreciate this expansion. One might think that in order to generate new material the author is more than capable of creating it but, here, the strength of a community is recruited, its work highlighted; there will always be ideas that would not have come to us and, thanks to these contents, the gaming experience is lifted to a higher level.
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