October 5, 2022 • 17 mins
Mörk Borg, the doom metal TTRPG by Free League, gets an adventure with seven deadly sins chained in an off-shore prison boat where nothing is as it seems.
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Meet my guests:
Zac Goins, World of Game Design
https://twitter.com/wogdesign
Music by Jason Shaw at Audionautix.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Zac Goins (00:01):
I would describe this as a
creature that is only seen in shadows.
It is this fur coat of an individual
that, when you notice them, the first
thought might be some sort of ape
or some sort of other shaggy beast.
But then you notice the horns and
you notice the elongated nose and you
(00:21):
realize that it has the face of a ram.
But it is, it is reclusive.
It avoids you, it avoids eye contact.
It flees from you until it is
pressed into a corner, at which
point there is a transformation.
Lucas (00:36):
Hello, and welcome
back to Making a Monster.
This is another episode
recorded at GenCon 2022.
See, back in 2020, Swedish TTRPG
powerhouse the Free League created
an RPG so wild, so committed to its
aesthetic, and so removed from the heroic
fantasy of D&D that it can't help, but
(00:56):
circle the conversation like the dark
mirror-self antagonist, the "nega-D&D."
It's called Mörk Borg, and Free League's
slogan for it is "a doom metal album
of a game, a spiked flail to the face,
rules light, heavy everything else."
Writing for Polygon in 2020, games
journalist Charlie Hall described the
(01:17):
game as a pitch black apocalyptic fantasy
game in the old school revivals genre for
fans of first edition D&D and Dark Souls.
I spoke with Zach Goins, the Creative
Director at World of Game Design
about his Mörk Borg adventure "Seven
Aboard the Shackle" and the gaming
experience it creates for both
players and game masters alike.
Zac Goins (01:38):
The first thing that I do
is I helm our publishing division.
So all the books that we make,
we make supplements for D&D
5E, Mörk Borg, Mothership, and
um, some system neutral stuff.
And then the second half of my
job is I do, uh, Kickstarter
consultation and Kickstarter, like
team leading on our own projects and
also on a bunch of client project.
(01:59):
So the book that I've got with you today
is called, uh, Seven Aboard the Shackle.
It is a Mörk Borg compatible adventure.
I bought the original Mörk
Borg book like two years ago.
I cracked it open and I read
through it and I'm like, I don't
understand what's going on.
This is weird.
But I put it on my shelf and I
forgot about it for like a year.
Right.
And then, uh, I was talking with
a creator at another booth across
(02:21):
from us at a, at a, a local con.
And I said, What is Mörk Borg?
And like, What, what am I missing here?
Because it's just a bunch of like
crazy tables and weird stuff.
And I'm like, How, how
do I parse all this?
And he said, Mörk Borg is
100% style and zero substance.
And I'm like, All right,
well that makes sense.
And so he started talking
to me for a while and I
(02:43):
reapproached the book that way.
And it made a, it was great.
It was fantastic, really.
It's just a really
simple D 20 based system.
So if you're familiar with D&D, most of
the rules are gonna feel right at home.
It's very small.
Modifiers positive, and.
Adjusting those roles.
And then the big things about it is that,
uh, from a mechanic side of things is
(03:03):
that the players roll almost all the dice.
So the GM doesn't roll for monsters.
You roll a defense check as a
player, and you can even roll the
damage for the monster as a player.
And everything is you.
And the DM is just there to
arbitrate the dice rolls.
Uh, thematically it is this doom
metal black apo apocalyptic setting
(03:23):
where the world is coming to an end.
We know this, the, there's a two-headed
basilisk who speaks prophecy, and
he's prophesied the world's end.
And so all the empires and, and people
of the world are in disarray and chaos,
and it's just a dark place to be.
And you are not playing an
adventurer in Mörk Borg.
You are playing one of these people
(03:44):
who are on their way to doom.
And so the adventures
have a really fun flare.
You know, it's balls
to the wall craziness.
Um, death is a reality that
is ever on the horizon.
And so why not just throw yourself at
crazy impossible tasks either trying
to just relish in these last days,
or maybe you have an idea or you've
(04:07):
been presented with an opportunity
that might stop the apocalypse.
And so, um, a big part of it is
maybe pushing against that coming
doom and trying to extend the life
cycle of this world a little bit.
So Seven Aboard the Shackle imagines
a world where there was a prison
barge off the coast of one of
these empires, and it has been
(04:27):
recaptured by the captives aborted.
And these captives are
near demigod like entities.
And it has been said, it has been
prophesied that when these entities
set foot on solid ground, One of the
chimes of doom will sound and we'll
be one step closer to the apocalypse.
(04:48):
And so your job as a party is to get
onto that ship and make sure that
no one steps off the ship again.
So I would like to present you with.
Uh, goat, like humanoid, weird
monstrosity called the Dölja,
also known as That-which-bleats.
So I would describe this as a
(05:10):
creature that is only seen in shadows.
It is this fur coat of an individual
that, when you notice them, the first
thought might be some sort of ape
or some sort of other shaggy beast.
But then you notice the horns and
you notice the elongated nose and you
realize that it has the face of a ram.
(05:31):
But it is, it is reclusive.
It avoids you, it avoids eye contact.
It flees from you until it is
pressed into a corner, at which
point there is a transformation.
It was originally thrown on board
because this creature is more
than it appears, the Dölja is this
reclusive, I almost think of it like
a, a crypted sort of a feel, right?
(05:53):
But it is hiding a much more sinister
aspect of itself, which is that
when it gets riled up, when it gets
agitated, when it becomes something
else in order to survive, it has a
transformation into another, uh, goat
like entity that we're all familiar
with, which is, uh, uh, Lucifer himself.
So, uh, if you push this goat, you back
(06:14):
him into a corner, which you have to
do in order to stop the apocalypse.
You have to rid this ship of its entities.
You will force this transformation
of this goat man into.
Uh, what we call Lucy-fire.
, he'll shed his, uh, shaggy coat.
He'll have the red skin underneath and he
will, become the thing that he was always
meant to be, um, somewhat unwillingly.
(06:35):
So Mörk Borg likes to take just like
D&D and other things, like it likes
to take inspiration from real world
mythologies and things like that.
So of course there's,
there's some influence there.
Um, but one of the key components of
this adventure is that there was going
to be seven, uh, uh, Demigod like
entities on this ship, and there's one
for each of the seven deadly sins, right?
(06:56):
And it's very subtle.
You're not gonna get into it, and you'll,
you'll probably pick up on it, but
it's not, it's not ever overtly said.
Lucas (07:03):
The seven deadly sins are a
classification of vices from early
Christian tradition, possibly best known
for their inclusion in Thomas Aquinas's
Summa Theologica or Dante's divine comedy.
The standard list is lust, gluttony,
greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.
Zac Goins (07:21):
And so I wanted one that
is, uh, around the sin of sloth.
Or, or, And so you get into that and
you start reading about like what was
that sin originally meant to represent?
And it's a lot of it is about the idea
of being reclusive and not engaging
with society and things of that nature,
and kind of keeping to one's self.
So how do we turn that into
(07:41):
a interesting villain that's
unique from everything else?
Well, a lot of these other villains
like Wrath and Lust and all these are
very like, action-oriented, engaging.
They're gonna come at the players.
This is a great opportunity for us
to create a monster, to create a
creature that the players are gonna
actually have to pursue themselves.
And so a lot of its abilities and things
(08:02):
like that are about avoiding confrontation
until pressed into that corner, and
then it scales quick, very quickly
into a, a much more, uh, dire threat.
Mörk Borg uses a morale system.
So as you get into encounters, creatures
are more or less likely to flee
based on their morale score, right?
So this creature has a
(08:22):
very low morale score.
It's going to flee very quickly.
And that's a system mechanic
that everybody with Mörk
Borg's gonna be familiar with.
Um, the other thing is that
its touch is repulsive.
So if it attacks you, if you, it
is backed to a corner initially
gonna, you know, swipe at you.
And as it does things like that,
you have to make saves in order
to avoid recoiling away from it
(08:43):
cuz it doesn't want to transform.
Um, so there's some aspects there.
And then the big thing that I love about
Mörk Borg bad guys is that they have
random tables of powers that they utilize.
So imagine like if your dragon in 5E
didn't just have a fire breath weapon,
but could also have four other area
(09:05):
abilities and you as the dungeon
master never got to determine which
one it was gonna utilize when, Right.
And so maybe, you know, it would
do breath four times in a row, but
maybe it would use a wing attack and
do something that crazy that way.
Or maybe it would have this poison stinger
on its tail and do something that way.
Or maybe it would have a, a voice
command and be able to command players.
(09:25):
Same thing.
Where you as the DM get to
experience what is happening
alongside the players, and you don't
always get to make the decision.
So sometimes this fight might be very
simple because the rolls that it's
just happens to get are some of its
lesser abilities, not dealing a lot
of damage, things like that, which is
great for this character build by the
(09:46):
way, But so, The dice are gonna fall
in a certain way and it's gonna roll
its best ability Four times in a row,
you're gonna wipe your party and you're
all gonna say like, That was real.
It happened and it was awesome.
Um, so yeah, that's, that's fun.
Uh, I think the thing that I like
most about this one though, is that
this one has a random table that
(10:06):
actually has unlocks built into it.
So initially the, Dölja can't transform,
but if it rolls high on its random
table chart a couple of times, it
unlocks extra options on that chart
that lead to its transformation.
So the more you engage with it in
combat, the more times you're rolling
on that table, the more likely it is
(10:28):
to trigger that transformation and
to unlock those higher damage dealing
crazy abilities that it has later on.
We have these great, like these seven
villains, which are really fun and
part of the adventure design and
part of Mörk Borg is I wanted to
take this adventure and exponentially
increase that sense of GM discovery.
(10:48):
That's kind of already built into the
monsters, but we could go further with it.
Right?
So the adventure is my idea
of what a dungeon crawl would
look like on a prison barge.
That's been a worship in its
heyday, and that then was a
prison barge now is whatever these
dimming gods have made of it.
So part of the adventure is that
you, every time the party enters
(11:09):
a new section of the ship, you.
Or you draw cards to discover
right there in the moment.
What is in this section?
What is the area?
What does it look like?
What has it been rebuilt as?
Right?
Is it a shrine?
Is it a trash pit?
Is it a whatever?
We don't know, right?
So we're gonna discover what the area
is and where we're gonna discover
(11:29):
what inhabitants are in there.
So maybe it's one of the seven, or
maybe it's one of their captives,
or maybe it's a specter from someone
that died on the ship or died.
C or maybe it's none of those things
and it's just a weird creature
that happened to get, uh, make
its way on board at some point.
And the GM is going to learn this in
the moment at the same time as the
(11:50):
party and have to adapt on the fly,
be imagined if on the fly to figure
out like, okay, I drew a shrine
and I drew a captive and that's it.
But this shrine says that.
Sprawling and this captive was the cook.
So, uh, maybe he's like
bound to the altar.
Maybe he's doing something as part
of the shrine and cooking something.
(12:11):
Like you're gonna be imagining things
and, and, and, and, uh, experiencing
a dungeon firsthand with your party.
So it's not a book that
you need to prepare for.
You just open up the book
and you start diving in.
Yeah.
It's great.
So if, And there's even been like
some hints at the beginning of the
adventure that maybe you weren't the
first group to try to do this, right?
(12:32):
Because the reality is because it's
all random, you could walk into
your first room and it's kind of
stacked against this happening.
But it's possible that you draw two
minions, two villains in the worst
possible situation, and you get
murdered as soon as you set foot on.
That's possibility.
The likelihood that you actually
kill all seven in time is very low.
(12:54):
So it really is about, um, this
experience of this is a last ditch
effort to stave off the coming doom.
And, uh, it may be a fools
hope, it may be a fools errand,
but by golly you're gonna try.
Right?
I'm the type of player that
wants the situation to the dice
to fall where they may, Right.
That's what I enjoy the most, and I like
(13:15):
there being a sense of risk, the sense
that there is a stake to be had, there's
consequences for your actions all.
So for me, having a party die,
having a character die is part
of the experience that I enjoy.
And so, um, yeah, it's, it's gonna, it's
like, I like that sort of feel where
we don't know, this isn't a guaranteed
success when we open up the pages.
(13:36):
Um, obviously there's guidance and
you can always adjust the tables
to fit your own party, so you might
feel like for you do, metal is just
an aesthetic of we want to, we.
Experience crazy monsters and we
wanna have, you know, heavy metal
music playing while we do it.
That's fine.
You can do that and that's awesome and
you can make those adjustments super easy.
(13:56):
But for me, it, when we talk about doom
metal in apocalyptic settings, it's the
idea that death is always a possibility
and it's always right around the corner.
And honestly, it's always the likelihood
it should be shocking when a party
gets to the end of a campaign and
is also alive because the world.
World is stacked against them.
(14:18):
Um, and I don't know, I, I, I see a lot
of my best memories at the table and
some of the most meaningful encounters,
role play sessions, things like that
happened when the stakes all came
to a head and something devastating
happened, or just the dice fell
weird and something crazy happened.
Um, and that's the thing that
you talk about four years,
(14:39):
five years down the road.
Lucas (14:40):
I asked Zach whether he thought
this adventure was weighted toward those
kinds of role-play moments as a player,
and his answer pointed me towards this
cooperatively scary experience that
the game creates for both the player
and the game master at the same time.
Zac Goins (14:56):
You know, it's always great
when your DM has this dramatic role play,
political intrigue or whatever, and has
it all built and there's depth and there's
meaning behind a lot of this stuff like
that for a player can be very valuable.
But for a dm, all of the ex, the
discovery happened away from the
table for the most part, right.
So I guess I would say that this
(15:18):
is really trying to get that
sense of discovery back into it.
So the role play options, the
creative aspect for the DM is gonna
be much higher than what you would
experience maybe in other things.
If you're running a big published
hard cover adventure in D&D, you
know how it's gonna progress.
You know what the story
looks like here, not so much.
Okay.
Lucas (15:39):
Zac has created a nail-biting,
edge-of-your-seat, doom metal adventure
with Seven Aboard the Shackle, and
if you want to explore a world of
pitiless chaos alongside your players,
here's how to get it at your table.
Zac Goins (15:51):
This is actually being
released at GenCon, which means it's in
no one's hands except the hands here.
But we're gonna put it
live on drive through rpg.
Very soon.
You'll be able to pick up the PDF pretty
much, I think, in the next couple weeks.
And then, uh, the print on
demand option coming a little.
We also have print copies and PDF
copies available on our web store,
(16:11):
which is store dot w ogd.com.
There's a core rule book.
You can pick it up in a
lot of different places.
Uh, it's published by
Free League Publishing.
There's also a free version of
the rules, on their web store.
So if you wanna pick up the
pdf, they've got a PDF option,
that's on the Mörk Borg site.
Lucas (16:30):
All those links are in
the description and on my website
at scintilla.studio/monster.
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a Monster, I want to ask you to consider
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(16:50):
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(17:30):
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(17:51):
See you next week!
I would describe this as a
creature that is only seen in shadows.
It is this fur coat of an individual
that, when you notice them, the first
thought might be some sort of ape
or some sort of other shaggy beast.
But then you notice the horns and
you notice the elongated nose and you
(00:21):
realize that it has the face of a ram.
But it is, it is reclusive.
It avoids you, it avoids eye contact.
It flees from you until it is
pressed into a corner, at which
point there is a transformation.
Lucas (00:36):
Hello, and welcome
back to Making a Monster.
This is another episode
recorded at GenCon 2022.
See, back in 2020, Swedish TTRPG
powerhouse the Free League created
an RPG so wild, so committed to its
aesthetic, and so removed from the heroic
fantasy of D&D that it can't help, but
(00:56):
circle the conversation like the dark
mirror-self antagonist, the "nega-D&D."
It's called Mörk Borg, and Free League's
slogan for it is "a doom metal album
of a game, a spiked flail to the face,
rules light, heavy everything else."
Writing for Polygon in 2020, games
journalist Charlie Hall described the
(01:17):
game as a pitch black apocalyptic fantasy
game in the old school revivals genre for
fans of first edition D&D and Dark Souls.
I spoke with Zach Goins, the Creative
Director at World of Game Design
about his Mörk Borg adventure "Seven
Aboard the Shackle" and the gaming
experience it creates for both
players and game masters alike.
Zac Goins (01:38):
The first thing that I do
is I helm our publishing division.
So all the books that we make,
we make supplements for D&D
5E, Mörk Borg, Mothership, and
um, some system neutral stuff.
And then the second half of my
job is I do, uh, Kickstarter
consultation and Kickstarter, like
team leading on our own projects and
also on a bunch of client project.
(01:59):
So the book that I've got with you today
is called, uh, Seven Aboard the Shackle.
It is a Mörk Borg compatible adventure.
I bought the original Mörk
Borg book like two years ago.
I cracked it open and I read
through it and I'm like, I don't
understand what's going on.
This is weird.
But I put it on my shelf and I
forgot about it for like a year.
Right.
And then, uh, I was talking with
a creator at another booth across
(02:21):
from us at a, at a, a local con.
And I said, What is Mörk Borg?
And like, What, what am I missing here?
Because it's just a bunch of like
crazy tables and weird stuff.
And I'm like, How, how
do I parse all this?
And he said, Mörk Borg is
100% style and zero substance.
And I'm like, All right,
well that makes sense.
And so he started talking
to me for a while and I
(02:43):
reapproached the book that way.
And it made a, it was great.
It was fantastic, really.
It's just a really
simple D 20 based system.
So if you're familiar with D&D, most of
the rules are gonna feel right at home.
It's very small.
Modifiers positive, and.
Adjusting those roles.
And then the big things about it is that,
uh, from a mechanic side of things is
(03:03):
that the players roll almost all the dice.
So the GM doesn't roll for monsters.
You roll a defense check as a
player, and you can even roll the
damage for the monster as a player.
And everything is you.
And the DM is just there to
arbitrate the dice rolls.
Uh, thematically it is this doom
metal black apo apocalyptic setting
(03:23):
where the world is coming to an end.
We know this, the, there's a two-headed
basilisk who speaks prophecy, and
he's prophesied the world's end.
And so all the empires and, and people
of the world are in disarray and chaos,
and it's just a dark place to be.
And you are not playing an
adventurer in Mörk Borg.
You are playing one of these people
(03:44):
who are on their way to doom.
And so the adventures
have a really fun flare.
You know, it's balls
to the wall craziness.
Um, death is a reality that
is ever on the horizon.
And so why not just throw yourself at
crazy impossible tasks either trying
to just relish in these last days,
or maybe you have an idea or you've
(04:07):
been presented with an opportunity
that might stop the apocalypse.
And so, um, a big part of it is
maybe pushing against that coming
doom and trying to extend the life
cycle of this world a little bit.
So Seven Aboard the Shackle imagines
a world where there was a prison
barge off the coast of one of
these empires, and it has been
(04:27):
recaptured by the captives aborted.
And these captives are
near demigod like entities.
And it has been said, it has been
prophesied that when these entities
set foot on solid ground, One of the
chimes of doom will sound and we'll
be one step closer to the apocalypse.
(04:48):
And so your job as a party is to get
onto that ship and make sure that
no one steps off the ship again.
So I would like to present you with.
Uh, goat, like humanoid, weird
monstrosity called the Dölja,
also known as That-which-bleats.
So I would describe this as a
(05:10):
creature that is only seen in shadows.
It is this fur coat of an individual
that, when you notice them, the first
thought might be some sort of ape
or some sort of other shaggy beast.
But then you notice the horns and
you notice the elongated nose and you
realize that it has the face of a ram.
(05:31):
But it is, it is reclusive.
It avoids you, it avoids eye contact.
It flees from you until it is
pressed into a corner, at which
point there is a transformation.
It was originally thrown on board
because this creature is more
than it appears, the Dölja is this
reclusive, I almost think of it like
a, a crypted sort of a feel, right?
(05:53):
But it is hiding a much more sinister
aspect of itself, which is that
when it gets riled up, when it gets
agitated, when it becomes something
else in order to survive, it has a
transformation into another, uh, goat
like entity that we're all familiar
with, which is, uh, uh, Lucifer himself.
So, uh, if you push this goat, you back
(06:14):
him into a corner, which you have to
do in order to stop the apocalypse.
You have to rid this ship of its entities.
You will force this transformation
of this goat man into.
Uh, what we call Lucy-fire.
, he'll shed his, uh, shaggy coat.
He'll have the red skin underneath and he
will, become the thing that he was always
meant to be, um, somewhat unwillingly.
(06:35):
So Mörk Borg likes to take just like
D&D and other things, like it likes
to take inspiration from real world
mythologies and things like that.
So of course there's,
there's some influence there.
Um, but one of the key components of
this adventure is that there was going
to be seven, uh, uh, Demigod like
entities on this ship, and there's one
for each of the seven deadly sins, right?
(06:56):
And it's very subtle.
You're not gonna get into it, and you'll,
you'll probably pick up on it, but
it's not, it's not ever overtly said.
Lucas (07:03):
The seven deadly sins are a
classification of vices from early
Christian tradition, possibly best known
for their inclusion in Thomas Aquinas's
Summa Theologica or Dante's divine comedy.
The standard list is lust, gluttony,
greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.
Zac Goins (07:21):
And so I wanted one that
is, uh, around the sin of sloth.
Or, or, And so you get into that and
you start reading about like what was
that sin originally meant to represent?
And it's a lot of it is about the idea
of being reclusive and not engaging
with society and things of that nature,
and kind of keeping to one's self.
So how do we turn that into
(07:41):
a interesting villain that's
unique from everything else?
Well, a lot of these other villains
like Wrath and Lust and all these are
very like, action-oriented, engaging.
They're gonna come at the players.
This is a great opportunity for us
to create a monster, to create a
creature that the players are gonna
actually have to pursue themselves.
And so a lot of its abilities and things
(08:02):
like that are about avoiding confrontation
until pressed into that corner, and
then it scales quick, very quickly
into a, a much more, uh, dire threat.
Mörk Borg uses a morale system.
So as you get into encounters, creatures
are more or less likely to flee
based on their morale score, right?
So this creature has a
(08:22):
very low morale score.
It's going to flee very quickly.
And that's a system mechanic
that everybody with Mörk
Borg's gonna be familiar with.
Um, the other thing is that
its touch is repulsive.
So if it attacks you, if you, it
is backed to a corner initially
gonna, you know, swipe at you.
And as it does things like that,
you have to make saves in order
to avoid recoiling away from it
(08:43):
cuz it doesn't want to transform.
Um, so there's some aspects there.
And then the big thing that I love about
Mörk Borg bad guys is that they have
random tables of powers that they utilize.
So imagine like if your dragon in 5E
didn't just have a fire breath weapon,
but could also have four other area
(09:05):
abilities and you as the dungeon
master never got to determine which
one it was gonna utilize when, Right.
And so maybe, you know, it would
do breath four times in a row, but
maybe it would use a wing attack and
do something that crazy that way.
Or maybe it would have this poison stinger
on its tail and do something that way.
Or maybe it would have a, a voice
command and be able to command players.
(09:25):
Same thing.
Where you as the DM get to
experience what is happening
alongside the players, and you don't
always get to make the decision.
So sometimes this fight might be very
simple because the rolls that it's
just happens to get are some of its
lesser abilities, not dealing a lot
of damage, things like that, which is
great for this character build by the
(09:46):
way, But so, The dice are gonna fall
in a certain way and it's gonna roll
its best ability Four times in a row,
you're gonna wipe your party and you're
all gonna say like, That was real.
It happened and it was awesome.
Um, so yeah, that's, that's fun.
Uh, I think the thing that I like
most about this one though, is that
this one has a random table that
(10:06):
actually has unlocks built into it.
So initially the, Dölja can't transform,
but if it rolls high on its random
table chart a couple of times, it
unlocks extra options on that chart
that lead to its transformation.
So the more you engage with it in
combat, the more times you're rolling
on that table, the more likely it is
(10:28):
to trigger that transformation and
to unlock those higher damage dealing
crazy abilities that it has later on.
We have these great, like these seven
villains, which are really fun and
part of the adventure design and
part of Mörk Borg is I wanted to
take this adventure and exponentially
increase that sense of GM discovery.
(10:48):
That's kind of already built into the
monsters, but we could go further with it.
Right?
So the adventure is my idea
of what a dungeon crawl would
look like on a prison barge.
That's been a worship in its
heyday, and that then was a
prison barge now is whatever these
dimming gods have made of it.
So part of the adventure is that
you, every time the party enters
(11:09):
a new section of the ship, you.
Or you draw cards to discover
right there in the moment.
What is in this section?
What is the area?
What does it look like?
What has it been rebuilt as?
Right?
Is it a shrine?
Is it a trash pit?
Is it a whatever?
We don't know, right?
So we're gonna discover what the area
is and where we're gonna discover
(11:29):
what inhabitants are in there.
So maybe it's one of the seven, or
maybe it's one of their captives,
or maybe it's a specter from someone
that died on the ship or died.
C or maybe it's none of those things
and it's just a weird creature
that happened to get, uh, make
its way on board at some point.
And the GM is going to learn this in
the moment at the same time as the
(11:50):
party and have to adapt on the fly,
be imagined if on the fly to figure
out like, okay, I drew a shrine
and I drew a captive and that's it.
But this shrine says that.
Sprawling and this captive was the cook.
So, uh, maybe he's like
bound to the altar.
Maybe he's doing something as part
of the shrine and cooking something.
(12:11):
Like you're gonna be imagining things
and, and, and, and, uh, experiencing
a dungeon firsthand with your party.
So it's not a book that
you need to prepare for.
You just open up the book
and you start diving in.
Yeah.
It's great.
So if, And there's even been like
some hints at the beginning of the
adventure that maybe you weren't the
first group to try to do this, right?
(12:32):
Because the reality is because it's
all random, you could walk into
your first room and it's kind of
stacked against this happening.
But it's possible that you draw two
minions, two villains in the worst
possible situation, and you get
murdered as soon as you set foot on.
That's possibility.
The likelihood that you actually
kill all seven in time is very low.
(12:54):
So it really is about, um, this
experience of this is a last ditch
effort to stave off the coming doom.
And, uh, it may be a fools
hope, it may be a fools errand,
but by golly you're gonna try.
Right?
I'm the type of player that
wants the situation to the dice
to fall where they may, Right.
That's what I enjoy the most, and I like
(13:15):
there being a sense of risk, the sense
that there is a stake to be had, there's
consequences for your actions all.
So for me, having a party die,
having a character die is part
of the experience that I enjoy.
And so, um, yeah, it's, it's gonna, it's
like, I like that sort of feel where
we don't know, this isn't a guaranteed
success when we open up the pages.
(13:36):
Um, obviously there's guidance and
you can always adjust the tables
to fit your own party, so you might
feel like for you do, metal is just
an aesthetic of we want to, we.
Experience crazy monsters and we
wanna have, you know, heavy metal
music playing while we do it.
That's fine.
You can do that and that's awesome and
you can make those adjustments super easy.
(13:56):
But for me, it, when we talk about doom
metal in apocalyptic settings, it's the
idea that death is always a possibility
and it's always right around the corner.
And honestly, it's always the likelihood
it should be shocking when a party
gets to the end of a campaign and
is also alive because the world.
World is stacked against them.
(14:18):
Um, and I don't know, I, I, I see a lot
of my best memories at the table and
some of the most meaningful encounters,
role play sessions, things like that
happened when the stakes all came
to a head and something devastating
happened, or just the dice fell
weird and something crazy happened.
Um, and that's the thing that
you talk about four years,
(14:39):
five years down the road.
Lucas (14:40):
I asked Zach whether he thought
this adventure was weighted toward those
kinds of role-play moments as a player,
and his answer pointed me towards this
cooperatively scary experience that
the game creates for both the player
and the game master at the same time.
Zac Goins (14:56):
You know, it's always great
when your DM has this dramatic role play,
political intrigue or whatever, and has
it all built and there's depth and there's
meaning behind a lot of this stuff like
that for a player can be very valuable.
But for a dm, all of the ex, the
discovery happened away from the
table for the most part, right.
So I guess I would say that this
(15:18):
is really trying to get that
sense of discovery back into it.
So the role play options, the
creative aspect for the DM is gonna
be much higher than what you would
experience maybe in other things.
If you're running a big published
hard cover adventure in D&D, you
know how it's gonna progress.
You know what the story
looks like here, not so much.
Okay.
Lucas (15:39):
Zac has created a nail-biting,
edge-of-your-seat, doom metal adventure
with Seven Aboard the Shackle, and
if you want to explore a world of
pitiless chaos alongside your players,
here's how to get it at your table.
Zac Goins (15:51):
This is actually being
released at GenCon, which means it's in
no one's hands except the hands here.
But we're gonna put it
live on drive through rpg.
Very soon.
You'll be able to pick up the PDF pretty
much, I think, in the next couple weeks.
And then, uh, the print on
demand option coming a little.
We also have print copies and PDF
copies available on our web store,
(16:11):
which is store dot w ogd.com.
There's a core rule book.
You can pick it up in a
lot of different places.
Uh, it's published by
Free League Publishing.
There's also a free version of
the rules, on their web store.
So if you wanna pick up the
pdf, they've got a PDF option,
that's on the Mörk Borg site.
Lucas (16:30):
All those links are in
the description and on my website
at scintilla.studio/monster.
And before we close this episode of Making
a Monster, I want to ask you to consider
supporting the show through Patreon.
Producing this show takes a lot of
time, commitment, and an increasing
amount of travel as I interview
experts on game design, literature,
(16:50):
history, and conservation biology.
Just a few bucks a month can help keep
this show a part of my professional
experience and bring you new stories
and insights almost every week.
Plus it comes with fun bonuses like
behind the scenes content, the Making
a Monster Discord, and stickers!
If supporting the show monetarily isn't
(17:10):
an option for you, consider following the
show on your podcast platform of choice.
And if you feel I've earned it,
leave me a five star review.
It's a small thing, but it goes a long way
towards helping people discover the show.
And it is a real gift to me
and the creators I feature.
Stick around for spooktacular monster
stories all through the month of October,
(17:30):
including more interviews from gen con
and ghost stories from the IUCN Red List
as the podcast explores the monsters in
my upcoming project book of extinction.
All the details are on my website
at scintilla.studio/monster.
That's S C I N T I L L A
dot studio slash monster.
(17:51):
See you next week!
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