That cover rocks. I love the premise and the ideas to get the crew into this adventure, and each encounter can be lifted wholesale into any OSR game with boats. I found myself wanting a few pieces of spot art to break up the text.
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The themes of dreams plus pirates mesh well, I like the idea to do this after a TPK.
I sense a missed opoortunity to use the five emotional stages of grief for the emotions of the crew. As the whole scenario is in itself quite railroady (waterway-roady :-D) one could lead the crew evary 1,2 stations a stage further, rewarding roleplaying into this. (This would need a lot more trigger warnings, though)
The mirror crew seems quite harsh, especially right before the boss? How is the system build? Is there healing between the stations?
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The Prison of the Star SovereignHuh, I hadn't thought about the five stages of grief, that could be very fitting for this adventure. I also like the idea of going along the emotions as they travel. Mine was based off Plutchik's wheel of emotions and something I read about random emotions early in dreams.
In Pirate Borg only PCs get bonuses to their rolls, so they should have an advantage against doppelgangers. Plus I see the fight against Mourn as a naval combat, so they'd be using their ship's stats. And yeah, either way, there are multiple ways to regain hit points after or during fights.
Mad respect for the art and for the dreamy choice. It's not easy, even more so for borg-like games, and I think you nailed it. I never played Pirate borg so I cannot say if the system works well, seems to me it may be great with every other morkborg affiliate, but I would play it. If you want to expand a bit after the jam with more contents for a GM i think it would be a good choice.
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The thirteen counts of charmVery nice visuals, and the whole idea of a dream scenario is cool! I like that each character could experience it a bit differently. Also, bonus points for the Surinam toad, it's one of the few things that really make me cringe.
I'm not that familiar with Pirate Borg (Mörk Börg on the sea, right?), but your submission seems like a lot of fun!
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Corpse Callers of the Sunless SphereThank you! Yeah the differing perception was inspired by a video game called The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu. I based the whole thing off a Poe poem that mentions an Eidolon and he referenced a toad and once I saw the Surinam toad I knew that was going in. I have an old illustration I was gonna put in, but didn't want to subject people to the visual. Yep, based off and completely compatible with Mork Borg (albeit with an extra ability score and seafaring rules). Playing it with Tephrotic Nightmares would be pretty cool.
A very solid little sequence with strong cursed Caribbean vibes that fit great for pirate borg! It was a little unclear at first that you just go through each sequence one by one, so might want to clarify it, though I think it might add to the dreamlike vibe if the middle sections were randomized if you are not going to have a map. The last page is also a bit hard to read to between the weathering over the text and the bright red background.
I do really like the cover too, if you could bring in some of those visuals into the later pages it would definitely help set the scene for the other dreamscapes!
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Mantle of ThornsThanks Scott. Yeah my intent was a point crawl at first but kinda ran out of time and room for a map.
I like the visual of the back, but agree it's rough for mechanics to be there. I think I'll make it just like a book blurb when I expand this out.
I think bringing in the visuals to the text would be cool, I tried with the amber section and couldn't get a good balance. But I'll definitely try again with more time.
Yo Ho. I love me some pirate stuff, even though I haven't yet actually played Pirate Borg. I'm not going to review this for specific playability within the system because I'm not familiar enough.
I can see how each zone flows naturally into the next. I think you give just enough information about those zones for a GM to be able to set the scene, though I felt it was a little bit light on exposition until I saw the table on the final page for describing the area around the players. Honestly, I think that table is my favorite thing you have here.
I think you absolutely nail the weird fiction vibe with the areas you've included in the doc. I feel like a boat adventure is the perfect opportunity to move from one big set piece into another and so on and so on, so I'm glad that you kept it tightly focused on what's interesting about the places the crew will see as they go on their nightmare adventure.
From a visual perspective, the cover is great. I think the font is just a little bit difficult to read, but not overwhelmingly so. I just think the bold is a little bit heavy and the letters are close together on page 2 and the top half of page 4. Page 3 feels fine to me though.
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In The Talon's of StolasThe random table on the back was one of the inciting ideas for this, so I'm glad you enjoy it. I have mechanical ideas to go along with the different areas, just didn't have room for them on 4 pages.
Yeah I was definitely leaning into the weird with this one haha. I've already got some ideas for more surreal dream scenarios.
Are you referring to the cover font or the interior font as difficult to read? And yeah looking over it again seems like some stuff got bolded that didn't need to be.
I love the visuals on this one. Haven't played Pirate Borg but I can see this being used in any OSR-style game :)
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Lament of the Jade Prophet
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