ORC BORG : Turn Da Stars Green!
There isn’t a Chaos God of neon, nor of publishing nor of gaming. If there was, I would class this production as it’s altar and shrine*. Orc Borg is a Zine publication, a role-playing game of hefty violence and absolute laughter. It’s built on the bones of the Swedish despair ridden OSR Mörk Borg** released by Free League Publishing
It is metal as hell, more neon than a alternate cyberpunk 1986, darker than a Swedish winter , and quite, quite mad.
I can honestly say I’ve never been as caught up in an orcish way of thinking like I had when absorbing this publication. I say absorbing as you don’t really read Orc Borg, you are caught by it, thrust along a neon infused breakneck experience and by the end of it, you know some rules you did not know before. This creation is closer to being driven through a early 90s Henry Rollins’s powered meat grinder than a read. I absolutely adore every and all pages of this utterly beautifully crazed book. I’m honestly amazed the PDF didn’t explode on completion, or the staples fly out to attack me in sudden combat.
Right. Okay, now that’s out the way, I’ll attempt to explain what Orc Borg actually is. At it’s core, Orc Borg is an action RPG, driven by the kind of punkish energy that only an Orc can deliver. No matter the type of Orc, and there’s a few, every and each of the species believe that DOOM is coming. Not doom, but indeed DOOM!. To lead up to that DOOM, each Orc will violently violence their way through the game with four abilities. These are in order: Presence, Strength, Agility and Toughness. Using these, the rolled up-Orc Origins, Physical Features (with added Stuff, Weapons and Armour) with some dashes of technorunes (one of which summons a monorail car) or Prayers that can be on anything from armour to flesh to random junk lying around.
if there is something you want that you don’t have, the best way forward is to beat up another Orc and nick his loot At it’s core, Orc Borg is deceptively simple, An Orc begins his actions by rolling a D20 and adding the appropriate ability score, succeeding if it beats or matched the Difficulty Rating. So far, so OSR. Skills and magic have a limited amount of uses, and combat feels familiar with it’s own spin on things. Of course, an Orc is never beat, so when he “dies”, he is instead classed as “mangled” and takes negative effects, which I will not spoil here. The Games Master may have to do some mental freewheeling*** as the enemy list is smaller than I like, with Other Orcs, Spacers and the Angels of The Dark Gods to beat up along the way to escape the Derelict****, but there is more than enough in the random tables to be able to replay multiple times with the same players to have a ton of cathartic fun screaming brutally like a death metal singer trying to use echo location. A long campaign is not in the books here, but that’s not the point. This is a one and done experience that does more to get you into a mood and a mindset that D&D has achieved in multiple releases. It is glorious and I cannot recommend it enough.
Go and check out the talented people behind this masterpiece here: https://rowanrookanddecard.com/
*Ask not of what I’d sacrifice **as close to a From Software RPG as we are ever going to get
***serves ‘em right
****It’s A Space Hulk