What happens when you mash the very metal-focused Mork Borg together with a Warhammer-esque fantasy setting infused with history? That’s the vision that Ben Tobitt, the creator of Black Powder and Brimstone strove to bring to his new TTRPG.
Described as a “grim-dark fantasy world of swashbuckling adventure and Gothic folk horror,” Black Powder and Brimstone was funded in Kickstarter in 2024 and released in partnership with Free League Publishing in March as a supplemental text that brought the OSR-informed design mechanics of Mork Borg to a setting that resembles the 1500s Renaissance.
The game tells the story of the empire of Vaterland, which has been torn apart by two religions while other nations attempt to influence the outcome for their benefit. Meanwhile, dark forces are gathering around the country. Demons attempt to corrupt locals while the undead arise in hopes of tormenting them. Meanwhile, the people must turn to mercenaries, the church, and others to push the darkness back.
At first glance, the game’s aesthetics resemble those of Warhammer Fantasy, Games Workshop’s titular fantasy setting where men fight off demons and enemies with swords and gunplay, although it lacks a lot of the fantastical variety that surrounds the game. “BP+B is low fantasy,” Tobitt told The Fandomentals. “There aren’t any elves or dwarves or orcs or anything like that, but there are fantastical things and we brought in a lot of the superstitions of the time and made them real.” He compared it to games like Red Dead Redemption, that often draw on local mythos and incorporate strange phenomena, whether it’s a sudden UFO or alleged vampires in the Wild West. Instead, he has ghosts, demons, and other creatures out there for players to deal with.
One of the more interesting decisions for the game was basing Black Powder on Mork Borg’s rules, which are both easy to learn but also extremely deadly for player characters. “It’s brutality that goes both ways,” Tobitt told The Fandomentals. “Combat should go very fast, and I wanted to foster a bit of give-and-take between players and GMs.” He found the looseness of the rules to be rather appealing, although he does offer advanced combat rules for players to incorporate as they see fit.
Mork Borg‘s rules are set up so that characters have four stats; Agility, Presence, Strength and Toughness. Players roll a d20 against a difficulty set by the DM, and nearly all dice rolls are done by players. Tobitt did expand the rules significantly to include mechanics around cavalry combat, chase mechanics, hiring mercenaries, travel, camping, hunting, getting drunk, going mad, customizing a war wagon, pushing your luck, and much more. The game adds a significant amount of complexity to its rules compared to base Mork Borg.
One of the rules that stood out was the Devil’s Luck, a mechanic that allows player characters to push their luck and get a significant success, albeit at the expense of potential corruption. Three of the lucks are available every day, but players are forced to roll a d20 after using it each time. If they roll a 1, they receive a mutation; a development reflective of the corruptive forces at play in the universe.
The most important aspect to the game for Tobitt was providing a chance to give players a unique experience. “I want to give players that feeling of trepidation, where they’re like ‘we’re all a bunch of ne’er do wells armed to the gills with swords and flintlock pistols, but you never know what the outcome might be.'”
Black Powder and Brimstone’s Dark Style
What might catch many readers’ eye is the art style, which was drawn and colored by Tobitt himself. The art mixes the Hellboy comic book style with hints of Darkest Dungeon, although Tobitt says that the art style is more a consequence of his time working on animation for the BBC.
“I used to direct educational history cartoons for the BBC back in England,” Tobitt said. “And that cinematic animation influence permeates everything I do. So that’s why there are no lines on the background illustrations, in the way that they kind of float on top of each other. That’s an influence from animation. It also means that it’s just a way that I like to work on my illustrations in hopes of making it feel a little more cinematic than what you get elsewhere.”
While Black Powder is a smaller project, Tobitt already has many ideas for its next phase. He’s planned at least five years of content, which will include the next volume and a focus on “combat horror.” This particular genre will provide players with a Resident Evil/GTFO experience that will allow them to deal with the horrors of the Black Powder universe.
Black Powder and Brimstone is currently available on Free League’s website.
Images Courtesy of Free League
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