Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
I stumbled across Pirate Borg back at Gen Con a few years ago, impressed by publisher Limithron’s booth setup and the overall presentation of the swashbuckling RPG book. Fast forward to the present, where the newly minted Down Among the Dead and Cabin Fever supplements are sitting on my desk alongside the Pirate Borg Starter Set and it’s high tide time that I provide an in-depth review of everything Pirate Borg.
Pirate Borg: Ashes to Ashes
Built on the 3rd party license for Mörk Borg, Pirate Borg mixes the apocalyptic setting from its namesake with its own spin on pirates and the undead. The game takes place in an alternate history of our world right around 1692 in an analogous region to the Caribbean known as the—wait for it—Dark Caribbean. Catchy, no?
As with any of the Borg games, the focus is on player agency and not so much on the minutiae of maintaining an extensive character sheet. Creating a new character is lightning fast and can be generated completely randomly, if desired, using any of the six core classes. Because of the inclusion of undead and fantastical creatures in this world, there are also options to play as an undead or a tall tale such as a merfolk, aquatic person, or sentient animal. Whether you want to sling spells, fire blackpowder guns, or whip a saber around, there are plenty of options to conjure a memorable addition to the cumulative lore of your table.
The core gameplay loop can be described in about six pages. Players roll everything when it comes to combat, essentially rolling defense when enemies attack by rolling the appropriate modifier. Even initiative can be summed up by a coin flip between the players and the enemies to see who gets to take the first crack.
This OSR (Old School Revival) approach promotes imaginative play. OSR games tend to be rules lite systems that spur on creativity through copious usage of generative tables. Monsters, items, spells, effects, classes, backgrounds—for a Gamemaster all these things are at the tip of your fingers and only a die roll away.
At times this style of game can be off-putting for me because there isn’t enough substance. It’s too bare bones or too straightforward for me to really get a solid handle on connecting theme to mechanics. Pirate Borg drowns those fears completely. There are fully realized rules for naval combat, sea shanties, developing your own treasure maps, and more. Ash—the remnants of destroyed undead—serves as a setting curveball thanks to its psychedelic properties when imbibed, which creates economic and political tension for its purveyors.
And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s a short module included towards the end of the book that packs in way more information per-page than I expected. It’s more than a suitable starting point for any Pirate Borg playthrough, offering a taste of what the game has for offer. It’s not a traditional adventure in the sense of an overarching plot. Instead, it offers a detailed setting that is more fleshed out than the undead pirates you’re sure to come across.
Pirate Borg Starter Set: Shiver Me Timbers!
If you’re in the market for trying Pirate Borg and want a singular box that contains everything you need to prepare you for your voyage, the Pirate Borg Starter Set is your best bet. As far as starter sets go, this one is right up there with the best of them in terms of content.
The included Player’s Guidebook is a slimmed down (read: 70 pages) version of the Pirate Borg Core Rulebook which basically strips out the module content and Gamemaster-specific tables like monster information and the like. It’s still substantial, but it’s designed for players first instead of catering to both sides of the table.
Players can choose to use one of the stylish character sheets from the included pad, or they can generate their pirate with one of the six dry-erase compatible sheets. With the prices of ink these days, nobody wants to be constantly printing off more character sheets, so I appreciate the inclusion of the eco-friendly option.
There are also plenty of other tangible goodies for in-person play, like the large foldout props that include maps and visual mood-inducers. These pair well with cardboard tokens that assist in running naval combat, keeping track of players/monsters/NPCs, or even tracking time of day. Throw in a thematic set of black dice and a small deck of cards for Gamemaster use, and it’s downright surprising that there was enough space in the box to fit all this. Even the boxes can be propped up so that the GM can use the inside as a makeshift screen, since a bevy of helpful tables and reminders are present within.
But what good is all this stuff in a starter set if it doesn’t include an adventure? This is where the Pirate Borg Starter Set tips the value scales all the way in favor of the players, by including a copy of the Trapped in the Tropics adventure. The players are sent to investigate a shipwreck on Eel Island that is supposedly laden with treasure. Obviously, riches aren’t that easy to come by, and there’s more to the story when it’s discovered that the ship is merely void of anything. It is a well-crafted adventure with more than a handful of memorable set pieces, all supported by the tangible items included in the box.
Down Among the Dead: We All Fall Down
Down Among the Dead is the latest Pirate Borg release, a supplement book that adds nearly 150 pages of content. Players will be happy with the three new Classes: the dungeon-delving Antiquarian, the fish-like Deep One, or the resurrected Unlocked Soul. Thallassic horror tropes are some of my favorite vibes, and the book’s mood delivers that in a big way. Even the color palette of glowing cyans, patinated blues, and algae-ridden greens capitalizes on the themes of the sea’s unknown dwellers.
On top of the usual assortment of tables and generators—including a pirate flag maker, Dark Caribbean Island generator, and a bevy of house rules to employ at your table—the bulk of the book contains three standalone adventures. These are more akin to the Trapped in the Tropics adventure from the Starter Set where it’s more than set dressing and plot hooks. They can generally be plucked and placed within your game without much issue.
Lost in the Locker throws the PCs into the depths. So far, in fact, that they’re in the Locker which serves as a sort of purgatory of lost souls. GMs are encouraged to kick off this adventure if the entire party is wiped out in a previous play session, or if there’s some kind of massive calamity at sea that might cause them to be torn from their mortal coil. The goal should be to return to the land of the living, but there’s plenty to do here if they’re feeling comfortable.
Venom in the Veins is a serpentine temple that features some supernatural elements. If you want your players to scratch the itch of forbidden knowledge or partake in an Indiana Jones-style treasure hunt, then you’ll be in good company here. Of the three, I find this one to be the weakest, but it’s still a well-thought out, sprawling temple to explore.
Into the Maelstrom is the longest of the three, offering a vampire hunt aboard a massive ship called the Maelstrom. It also incorporates the game of Three-Eyed Parrot, introduced just before the adventure begins in Down Among the Dead. After reading all three, Into the Maelstrom feels like it is the main course, and that you could actually weave the other two adventures into it if you wanted a complete experience. Plus, there’s obviously lore on how vampires are different in this setting lest your players think that a couple cloves of garlic will protect them.
Down Among the Dead is imaginative and fun, allowing players to lean into the more supernatural elements of Pirate Borg. The pages of motivation during the apocalypse are great for building characters and giving them a reason to press on. Half of them are full adventure hooks just by themselves.
It’s a fascinating, beautiful book that reflects a painstaking effort to merge quality, craftsmanship, and turning the heavy metal piracy knob to ten.
Cabin Fever: Burning in My Brain
The last bit of Pirate Borg content comes in the form of Cabin Fever, an assortment of fan-made content under Limithron’s sublabel for third-party creators, Known Conspirators. These pages were originally made as part of a content jam, and these are the entries that made the cut into a physical book.
Cabin Fever is a smorgasbord of everything pirate. There are twelve new Classes, including one of my personal favorites, the Tattooed who unlocks more tattoo ‘slots’ as they gain experience and level up. I also love the Snapjaw which is a half-boat, half-crab that begs to be investigated, put down, or commandeered depending on who you’re talking to.
Roughly half of the book contains adventures, which is something that OSR players are always clamoring for more of. I’m particularly fond of the last entry, Shanties of the Sargasso. It embodies the apocalyptic nature of Pirate Borg to a T, and takes place around Bermuda, where my appreciation for triangles comes from. The premise of a sprawling mass of seaweed spreading across the ocean while undead ships rise from the deep, encroaching on the shore…it’s visually perfect.
As good as these entries are, Cabin Fever definitely isn’t a cohesive book like the main Limithron titles are. Which makes sense, considering the significant difference in the number of authors. But the drastic change in art styles from page to page, sometimes leaning a bit too heavily on doctored, realistic photos like the Powder Keg or Privateer Classes, can be jarring. Quite a few of the entries were done in a similar woodcut style to match the core content, which I really appreciate.
That’s not to say that this supplement isn’t good, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. When you set so many minds to unleash their creative energy, you get a wide variety of stuff that pushes the envelope. For example, the Die in Six Directions Island Generator and Hex Crawl will probably become my go-to method for populating a hex map in a naval campaign, even outside of Pirate Borg. Even the Fishing rules are something that I wouldn’t really think of needing, but having them makes total sense now that I’m aware of it.
I applaud all the contributors to this project because they are all labors of love and passion for a game that has a proud fanbase. Limithron also has incredible support from people running their game through the Harbourmaster Program that offers rewards for such individuals. Be sure to check out your local shops for special events on Talk Like a Pirate Day in September as well.
Pirate Borg stands apart from a crowded field of indie tabletop roleplaying games, singing shanties from the crow’s nest as a beacon of quality entertainment.
