 |
| Front cover by @JohanNohr |
The Story
Vriprix the mad wizard bids the desperate, brave and the foolish to venture into the ruins of Kergus.
He seeks the Forbidden Pslam , a nameless scripture that Vriprix claims can stop the darkness.
Whether there is truth to the mad wizards ramblings or not, his coffers run deep: promised riches await those strong, quick or cowardly enough to survive bearing back treasures from the lost ages.
And in these times, good coin is hard to come by.
Today on the blog I have a review of a miniatures game inspired by and compatible with Mork Borg RPG by K.R.D Designs (Kevin Rahman) called Forbidden Psalm which was kindly sent to me.
Let's take a look at this adventure at the end of the world.
First of all before you even start to look at the rules in Forbidden Psalm what hits your first is the art work and design style that covers this rulebook. It reminds me of album art works from bands such as Mastodon and Gorjira with its other worldly feel.
As you read through the pages you notice its not like normal rulebooks as it has this DIY punky ecstatic with differnt text sizes and styles which for me gave me the sense that the world of Mork Borg isn't quite right.
The Game
The game is 28mm based which can either be played against another player, solo or co-operatively. The rule book encourages you to use any miniatures you have or use the random tables which we will look at later to create your own 5 person war band.
Then all you need is some dice (D20's) a tape measure a 2ft by 2ft table and you are good to go.
Th game is measure in inches and uses a Dr12 on a D20 dice which means you need a score of 12 to succeed when all modifiers are taken into account.
As soon as you have finished the short intro to the story (featured above) you are straight into creating a warband.
You can of course choose your own names for you characters or you can use the handy book of names which uses a random roll of 2 D10 to generate the names and your title.
 |
| Picture from https://itch.io/ |
After this you will be on to giving stats to your Characters.
You have to take one of the following stat lines +3, +1, 0 and - 3 or +2 +2 -1 and -2
these will be used for determine the Agility, Presence, Strength and Toughness in that order.
Health points Hp is 8 + the Toughness of your character so if it has a minus to the stat it will end up you HP being lower.
The good thing is that all HP does recovery to your characters maximum at the end of each encounter.
Your characters also get one Flaw and One Feat which is decided on a roll of a D20.
Flaws could range from having a Gammy foot which gives your character -1 to movement or even Putrid smell which all models within 3 inches of you suffer minus -1 to their presence test.
 |
| Picture from Forbidden Psalm's Kickstarter Page |
The feats can give advantages such as Meat Head adding +2 to your strength but -1 to presences or Hard to see so range attacks can hit you but spells still can.
These adds another layer to each of your characters with each having something that could or could not be useful during a game.
Next up is acquiring that all important equipment.
If you have models that you want to use already and they have weapons of course you can just buy the equipment to match that model or you can change to what ever you would like.
You can even use the warband member generator to help you create each aspect of a model using a dice roll such as hair style, eye colour, weapons etc which is perfect if you want to kit bash a model from scratch. This creativity is really at the heart of this game.
At the start you have 50 gold you can spend on items such as armour, bandages, one handed and two handed weapons and even spells.
Each item has its cost and information on how many slots it may take in your item list and there is a weapons list that will give the information on how much damage it will give as well as any special actions and modifiers (Strength or Agility) you will need to use.
In the game you can chose one of your characters to be a spell caster which will cost you 5 gold out of your 50 gold for equipment. No spell caster can use scrolls if they have heavy armour or a shield and you can't cast spells in close combat.
Each spell caster comes with two random spells scrolls one Clean and one Unclean
Again you roll a D10 to decided each of the spells.
 |
| Picture from https://itch.io/ |
All spells have a limited range of 12 inches and during your games if you find a scroll that character can use it per the spell casting rules.
When casting a spell you roll a presence test trying to beat a roll of 12 and that same spell multiple times in a scenario.
If you do roll a fail or a critical a tragedy occurs and you will have to mark this on your characters stat sheet.
Theses tragedy do carry between games and are spent when rolling on the calamity table.
If you do fail to cast a spell which is called a fumble you will then roll on the calamity table adding any tragedy to your dice rolls.
Lets just say you don't want to roll on this table as you could have effects such as the spell caster fingers split open and you start bleeding to death, The spell casters hands start to glow with hell fire and you have to drop all weapons and suffer d4 damage or worse still you could be dead.
These calamities last until the end of the scenario or unless stated.
 |
| Picture from Forbidden Psalm's Kickstarter Page |
Playing the Game.
Setup
First you will chose one of the 10 scenarios in the book to play and if you will be playing solo, Co-op or vs. All the rules for each style of play are in built each scenario which is great as no need to learn any new rules.
Scenarios are to be played over 6 rounds unless stated but you can make more rounds if you wanted to for example if your are using a bigger table size than recommended.
The scenarios are set out in this order
Ramblings Of The Old Wizards- So what Vriprix wants you to do
Goal- What you are here to do
Reward- What the mad Vriprix is offering
Setup and Treasure- How to set up the table
Deployment- Where you place your models before the start of the game
Threats- What monsters are present
Solo Play- How to play the scenario solo
Co op- How to play the scenario as friends
End Game- How the game ends.
There is also an RPG symbol with extra text which is for use for the RPG game.
The 10 scenarios range from collecting black spotted fungi from dead corpses to getting back Vriprix's socks (he believes thats were wizards store their power) from some pesky goblins and keeping the dead dead.
 |
| Picture from Forbidden Psalm's Kickstarter Page |
Setting up the a table with terrain is recommended to reduce line of sight with each player placing a piece of terrain on the table.
After placing terrain players roll a D6 adding the number of currently added pieces of terrain on the table eg if 6 pieces are on the table and you roll a 3 this would make a total of 9 pieces of terrain to use which you should stop there.
Determine conditions are an optional rule for your games which can for example
give you conditions such as rain which makes agility test -1 or lightening where each model has to roll a D10 on a 1 they suffer 2 damage form a lightening strike or even night which means models with out a light source (lantern etc) or 6 inches near a model with a light take -6 to their rolls and cant be target by ranged attacks or spells.
Deployment
Before the start of the game you will need to roll for initiative which is a D20 roll and the highest players roll goes first.
Following the scenarios set up each player then places a model on the board 6 inches from the table edge unless otherwise stated in the scenario.
Omens
At the start of each scenario each player has six Omens they can use once per scenario at any time even after dice rolls.
For example Fate: Re roll any dice yours or someone else or
Cancel one Critical or Fumble
These will indeed be useful in your games but you will have to choose when to use them wisely.
Each player takes it in turns to activate a single model where
they can make a movement and an action but must move before it makes an action or the activation ends.
Movement and Actions
Models can move a number of inches equal to 5+ their agility with
terrain smaller than 1 inch can be moved through freely but terrain over 1 inch must be climbed and is at a speed of 1/2 movement and must end on a flat surface.
Models can also jump 3 inches gaps or less but must pass an agility test (D12). On a fail they take 1 damage per inch they fall rounded down but on a fumble they also gain an injury.
Actions can be a ranged or close combat attacks, using a piece of equipment, using an Omen or casting a spell, picking up/dropping treasure or items off the ground or even picking up dead or downed models 1 inch away and you can even interact with treasure or scenario items 1 inch away
Combat
Combat is straight forward you check your range so if you are in close combat you need to be within 1 inch of another model and pick the weapon you will attack with. Use the D12 test using any appropriate modifiers that are detailed by the weapon. Close combat can be risky as you are attacked back at the same time but your opponent will suffer -3 to their roll. This is negated if a friendly model is within 1 inch.
Both roll to hit and roll for damage fo any successful hits achieved by both models.
If the target of the attack survives and has not activated it can do so still for that round.
If you fumble your attack you drop your weapon.. not good.
Ranged attacks have a maximum range of 12 inch's and are performed on targets that you can see. You can't attack any models in close combat and if a model is obscured you apply -3 to the hit roll.
Again using the D12 test you then add any modifiers to see if you hit and if you have a gun for example mark off one ammo on your stats.
On a success you roll your weapons damage.
You can also throw weapons up to 6 inches but suffer a -3 to the roll and the weapon is places on the ground next to your opponent regardless if you hit or not.
Ranged weapons count as one handed makeshift weapons in close combat so you can at least try and fight off an attack.
 |
| Picture from Forbidden Psalm's Kickstarter Page |
Damage
When you successfully hit you roll the weapons damage dice then deduct the amour value from the result. Armour always reduces damage unless other wises stated then you reduce that models HP by the damage amount and Critical hits do cause max amount of damage but you still have to apply the opponents armour.
Leaving Combat.
If you don't want to stay and fight you and try to leave combat but your opponent can decide to try and top you of course.
Your opponent rolls a D12 agility test and if it passes you don't move. If this fails you can move up to your movement value with no other actions taking place but if they fumble you can move and take an action but if they get a critical roll they can attack you.
Moral
Moral checks need to be taken when a model is critically hit or they strike a downed model.
On a fail the model flees the fight and starts moving its max movement towards the nearest board edge which you will need to do in the next activation and continue to move the model towards the boards edge until they either leave the a battlefield or a pass their roll.
If a model does flee combat the enemy can not attack that model.
When a models HP is equal to or less then 0 and the model is considered downed (model is faced up)
If a downed model takes any more damage they are killed and will need to be faced down to mark this.
Any downed models must pass a death save at the end of the scenario to see if they have died or managed to somehow crawl their way to safety which will be a roll against the models toughness stat.
On a fail they are dead on a pass they are wounded and you will need to roll on the injury table. This could lead to broken bones to missing a limbs which will effect the models stat line in some way.
On a critical success they are still injured but have learned something new (may be not going to attack that big monster by themselves) and get a new feat.
 |
| Picture from Forbidden Psalm's Kickstarter Page |
Monsters
Of course in this game you will becoming up against monsters and there are some nasty ones at that.
The pictures used for each monster are really atmospheric with a nice mix of professional artist works and children's works which as you will see later makes a great way of creating your own monsters.
Monsters are activated in the game once all players models have activated. If there is more the one monster you can use a dice roll to randomly activate them.
To activate the monsters they are a few monster behavioural steps.
First you check their special rules on the card and then check to see if the monster sees any other model differnt from it and yes it can attack other monsters too. If it can't see anything it will just stay still or there is an added rule it might still.
If it does see something thats not the same as it's self it moves 2D6 toward that model and
always goes to the closest model even if it can see more then one. If one or models are the same distance the roll a dice to see which one it targets.
If it lands 1 inch form a model it attacks using the normal close combat rules.
 |
| Picture from Forbidden Psalm's Kickstarter Page |
 |
| Picture from Forbidden Psalm's Kickstarter Page |
All monster still make checks at D12 but does not use modifiers this is even when it's attacked or targeted by spells.
Monsters do not prioritise downed models unless it is stated in the scenario which may save one of your warbands to a horrible fate.
Monsters do take moral checks if it's ever hit by a critical hit. Roll 2 D6 and if you roll above its moral the monster flees moving 2D6 until it leaves the field or is killed. Any monster with - for their moral ignores the moral rule.
You can also meet monsters in a random encounter during one of your games.
There is a table for this where you will roll a D20 and depends on if your playing solo, Co-op or VS which have a number for how many particular monsters spawn.
As you warband is after coin you can even go harvesting sweet meats from the monster that you slay as there are those that will pay for such delicacies.
When a monster is killed you can use an action to harvest the monster which is a presence test and on a success they gain an organ which they can sell for 5 gold but this will take an equipment slot.
On a fail they are disgusted with themselves and must make a moral check. Let's face its probably not a nice job.
There Be Treasure
As your warband fights they way through the scenario they will always be looking for gold and if they are lucky they may find a bit of treasure too.
The scenario will indicate how and when you will roll for treasure and when rolling for treasure you make a D10 presence check but if you fail the models cuts their hand on a rust nail and is take one damage witch ignores armour.
If you pass they roll on the treasure table to see what they have found.
They can add this to their equipment slot if they have one free if not it is left on the ground for another model to claim it.
The treasure can be anything from gold coins (these don't take an equipment slot) to rolling for a random weapon on the weapons table or even a relic.
If you find a relic you will roll on the relic table to see what you get but any duplicates you will have to re roll.
 |
| Picture from Forbidden Psalm's Kickstarter Page |
All 10 scenarios can be played as one off games but for a full on experience a campaign is the way to go.
Campaigns
If you are playing a campaign you following all the normal rules of the game but there are a few additional rules that will be added for keeping track of your warbands progress.
After each encounter each warband with at least one standing member gets 10 gold for taking part and you will of course roll for death saves and any injuries that occur.
You will also be able to sell items you find.
Selling Items
You can sell your weapons and armour but not any spell scrolls you may have.
These can be sold to Vriprix at half of the value in the weapons table rounded up or you could sell to the shady merchant.
Now Vriprix does not like the merchant but he buys items for 1 more gold the Vriprix. The merchant can sell you random weapons, random armour, random pieces of equipment and a random relic.
But.. As I said Vriprix does not like the merchant so when buy from him roll a D20 on a 1 Vriprix catches you and one of your models loses a limb.
If you are caught a second time Vriprix refuses to deal with you until one of your warband is sent away or you replace that member with a new one butt hen the merchant stops dealing with you.
 |
| Picture from Forbidden Psalm's Kickstarter Page |
Also during the campaign you can gain XP
Warbands can gain XP by killing monsters, surviving scenarios, treasure collected, models you have downed, passed death save rolls and warband members who die.
You can then spend XP to improve warband members mobility, Remove warband members injuries, re roll a members flaw (getting rid of that putrid smell), gain a new feat and even bring a warband member back from the dead but they will have a new flaw.
If you warband has less than 5 members you can recruit another member to you warband but they will come with no equipment so make sure you have enough gold to get some new equipment. Also if you have that warband member not pulling their weight or just bad luck well you can fire them but they take all their equipment with them.
Lastly you can reallocated equipment to members, place items into your party stash and buy new equipment too after each game in the campaign.
If the 10 scenarios were not enough for your campaign or one off games there is a bonus scenario and a guide on how to create your own so theres plenty of scope to create your own scenarios for a more personalised campaign.
At the back of the book there are some pictures of some models to give you an idea on what you can create fro your own warbands as well as cut outs of models you could photocopy to try out the game if you dot have any models just yet.
There is even a guide on how to kit bash your own miniatures with some handy youtube and websites to help and a table to randomly generate a model by rolling for each part right down to the hair cut.
This will no doubt help new and old gamers alike to get some inspiration in creating settings and warbands for the game.
My thoughts...
So first off I received the physical soft back book and I really the A5 size and how the contents is laid out with its differnt fonts and other worldly pictures which gives this book a cool DIY feel with a slight uneasiness which matches the world that this game is set in.
The rule set is right up my street as it gives you a good intro story to the world and goes straight into character design.
The rules are easy to understand and wont take you long to pick up and start playing. The rules have a great flexibility to them allowing for gamers to create their own warbands and stories with a good simple to follow campaign system that allows you to create your own scenarios.
Even if you are new to gaming this book helps you with handy cut out characters in the back of the book and some helpfully advice and pointers to You Tube and other content creators to help get started making your own gaming tables as well as ideas on creating your own warband. I like there are random tables to roll on which helps decided names of each model and even a table to help create every detail of a miniature from hair styles to what they are wearing as this also adds that RPG feel.
This book has been well put together not just ascetically but also at the heart of it the rules set making it easy to follow and to understand with out having to know the Mork Borg world but keeping the main aspect of creating your own adventures and warbands right at the forefront.
If you looking for a game that has lots of potential for narrative play as well as the ability to create warbands in a world were collecting black mould and wizard socks for gold while trying to stay alive against various strange monsters is your idea of fun then this is a game for you.
If you would like to pick up a copy of Forbidden Psalm you can purchase the book as a PDF on Drive thru RPG
The physical book will be available soon from
Also keep your eyes peeled on Kickstarter as Forbidden Pslam will be back with a new expansion soon.
More information can be found here
1 comment:
where did you get those minis
Post a Comment