MÖRK BOG
Knee deep in mud. Gnats eating you one microscopic bite at a time. Plagues brewed in the fecund mire seeping
into your body. The air resounding with the unsettling trills and squawks, a leering audience of marsh birds
watching you struggle through the swamp. Who knows what could scuttle, squirm, crawl, creep beneath your
feet? Would you even notice them before the bite or sting, or write it off as yet more mud sliding down a boot,
another pesky branch slapping you?
No, there’s nowhere like the marshes for things that suck and latch and slither and gnaw to hide out. Beneath
that stagnant water, inside those rot-soft, moss-ridden logs, there is a vicious free-for-all of insect, amphibian,
reptile, fish, anything that draws breath, all using the most underhanded strategies to gain one mouthful of
sustenance more than, or from, their fellow swamp-dwellers.
Step inside. Feel the mud suck at your feet with each step. If you’re not afraid, you just aren’t paying attention.
MÖRK BOG is an independent production by Ross_Hollander and is not affiliated with Ockult Örtmästare Games or
Stockholm Kartell. It is published under the MÖRK BORG Third Party License. MÖRK BORG is copyright Ockult
Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell. Everyone got their bug spray?
Why are you HERe?
1. This marsh supposedly holds the precious pale herbs that cure the zombie
plague.
2. A wanted fugitive fled into the swamp to evade pursuit.
3. You were entrusted with a vital message to deliver; it slipped out and fell into
one of the brooks that pours into the bog.
4. Rumor said that a cult has a chapel full of golden relics and precious idols
somewhere in this swamp.
5. You’ve been paid to hunt down a giant predatory bird that lives in this swamp,
which has been eating local cattle and fishers.
6. A local justice has declared a trial by ordeal for you- if you can venture
into the marsh and return alive, it’ll be taken as a divine sign of your
innocence.
7. Laying low while the lynch mob scours the town looking for outsiders to
blame for the sudden pestilence.
8. The creek had gone turbulent with downpour rain, and shunted your boat
into the marsh instead of down to the town.
9. Somebody broke into your hovels and left you all 50 silver, with a promise
for 500 more if you met them in this very swamp.
10. You’re searching for a thieves’ cache you heard was buried in this swamp-
hoping to find it before they recover it and head off to fence the goods.
Conditions.
1. Oppressively humid.
2. Damp chill to the very bone.
3. Miserable downpour.
4. Eerie stillness.
Bog Plants.
1. Priestwort. Supposedly anti-demonic. Eat the sour blossom-buds to smell nearby demons.
2. Ustpoot. When burnt, it creates a massive amount of tart-smelling smoke.
3. Imperial Broadleaf. Leaves coated in thousands of tiny, agonizing barbs. Non-lethal but
whoever touches it tests TOU DR18 each turn for 1 hour or spends it convulsing in pain.
4. Blight Geranium. Blossoms when plague is in the air. Cuttings sell for 10s/each.
5. Rock Bloat. Incredibly quick-growing ivy, 1m/min. Sturdy enough to shimmy up.
6. Jundelia. Incites forgetfulness and drains energy for half an hour if smoked or chewed.
D36 things to find on a swamp crawl.
1. Human skull, yellow-brown with age, sat atop a hewn tree stump. Can speak but
warns that if it is moved from this watch-post, a Misery will be unleashed. (This is
true.)
2. Sunken punt full of sodden goods, long since rotted and gnawed by vermin, but still
a good 2d4x10 silver in there in a moldy wooden chest.
3. Huge skeleton, vaguely reptilian in nature, long as a merchant ship. Perhaps one of
HER stillborn spawn, washed in here by the inexorable tug of the tides.
4. Hermit monk, unkempt hair and stagnant odor. Will, begrudgingly and tersely, allow
travelers a stay in his tiny hut. Refuses to give his name under any circumstances.
5. Battleground- recent, by the looks of it. Two scouting parties ambushed one
another. Uniforms are hardly identifiable, caked in mud, gore and swamp-muck.
Scavenging will yield (d3+1) d10 rolls on the weapons table.
6. A stone with a longsword rammed into it. Pulling it out is STR DR22.
7. Spray of flowers overgrowing the area, each one a seven-pointed blood-red
blossom, streaked with gold. Blossoms are inedible, but the roots are filling if not
very appetizing, boiled to a pasty stew.
8. Vicious, carnivorous shoals of eels passing through, wriggling over land and through
water. Get off the ground or they’ll gnaw right through you, d4/turn.
9. A pale, shed snake-skin, at least ten meters long, draped over various rocks and
shrubs. Could go for as much as 100s, sold to an apothecary to grind down for
powder.
10. Quicksand. Go under in d3+3 rounds. You can’t get out yourself. Throw a grappling
line out, or have somebody pull you, STR DR14.
11. Wrecked hulk of a majestic-looking warship. Wonder how that got here. Inhabited
by 2d8 skeletons, one of whom is the Captain and attacks twice per turn with a
huge, chipped scimitar (d8). Scouring the rotted closets and chests will discover
various gold buttons, chains and earrings, a small heap of loot worth maybe 100s.
12. Ancient smuggler’s cache. Somebody thought to dodge tariffs by sneaking things in
through the backwater. D8 casks of surprisingly well-preserved spirits, and an
age-stiff leather purse with 50s.
13. Stone monolith, carved with an image of a crowned storm-god smiting down a
serpent with a thunderbolt. Designs almost worn smooth with age.
14. Ghost town- a few mossy wood shacks, a nearly obliterated mud path. Rummage
the wreckage and you’ll find 2d10s uncorroded enough to keep, as well as an old
chest of fine, pristine tobacco, worth easily 100s.
15. Gaunt beekeeper, scars across face and no nose. Sleeps beneath her single,
enormous beehive. Sells honey (same function as lard, but can also serve as an
improvised adhesive or monster lure) for 8s a jar. Attack her and the swarm
emerges (HP14 ARMOR safety in numbers -d3 MORALE n/a AGONIZING STINGS
d6+1 attacks, d3 each).
16. Massacre. Looks like a bandit ambush. A few small boats, inhabitants slaughtered
and dumped into the mud, stripped of valuables and most clothing. Nothing left
behind. Footprints lead away into the muck.
17. Exile’s house, long dead. Sent out to the marshes for some crime. Seems to have
lived in isolated austerity for some time, given the wizened look of the body on the
low, well-worn bed. Nothing here but a Creton bible. Safe to stay in for the night.
18. Mud-and-twig nest of a clutch of brightly-colored newts. Turquoise, fiery orange,
orchid, 2d10 of them. (Well-known legend says that “painted newts” are magic. Eat
one whole and gain d3 Power uses for the day.)
19. Reptile chapel to the Basilisk. There’s a sermon going on when you get there. (An
alligator is the priest.) Pulpit of heaped-up mud, slabs of wood with crude images of
HE and SHE scratched on them set up alongside it.
20. Crashed carriage, half sunk into the swamp, dead horses rotting and fly-picked at
the front. Must have been about a month ago.Tattered ballgown abandoned in the
muck. Within, two bottles of perfume and one of whiskey. (20s each.)
21. Ghost of a drowned traveler, spiteful and raging at his ignominious fate. Will
demand news of the outside world (hasn’t been able to leave the swamp, fated to
haunt it). If satisfied, may reveal location of a chest of ambergris he was hauling,
an easy 200s.
22. Crumbling old watchtower, established before this place was swamped. Nothing
here, but with a little improvisation it could make a secure place to spend the night.
23. Primitive altar, made of one enormous slab of obsidian. Still has a fine residue of
some kind of incense on it, but no visible designs. Burn something of value on it and
a phantasmal projection of the reptilian demon Tel’ah manifests. She will take
your soul in exchange for your pick of doubled crops, tripled natural lifespan, or
healthy quadruplets with every birth you cause/have.
24. Bubbling, seething waters; marsh gas in the air. Carry any open flame and you may
cause a flare-up as you go through (1 in 4 chance/minute walked, 2d10 damage,
ignoring armor).
25. Sorrowful castaway, with d2 days until the goblin curse overtakes them. Chained to
a tree by their former scvm-band after they were wounded in a skirmish. Has been
stripped of all valuables, nothing to offer- begs to be killed before they turn.
26. Raided campsite. Fire still smolders among the trampled tents and one or two
severed limbs. No bodies in sight. Frisking will find 4 days’ rations, 50s, one gourd
of potable water and a wooden cylinder sealed with wax, containing about 2oz. of
gray-blue paste labeled ‘zombie cure’. (Does not cure zombies or the zombie plague.)
27. Colossal tracks smeared through the mud, like somebody was dragging a small hill
around here. They terminate at a large pond. Abandoned at the water’s edge, about
a seventh of a cow carcass, messily chewed.
28. Ancient stele embedded in the swamp. Archaic text (PRE DR16 to determine
exact wording) declares this to be the most unholy place on earth, the mouth of
Nechrubel, where demons met to hear his decrees of suffering until SHE stuffed
it with the corpses of her spawn to quiet his clamor. (Without rolling, it says
something about this place being evil and full of dead babies.) Shattering the stele
unleashes d3+1 Miseries.
29. Small backwater village, sitting cranelike over the marsh on stilts and wooden
walkways. Grimly aware of the coming end; their oracles have, for generations,
known of the point beyond which no future could be seen. For now they go about
their business, fishing and birding in the swamps. Safe to stay for the night.
30. Overgrown game lodge. Fancy furniture chewed by rats. Lizards scampering over
mud-stained priceless floorboards. Portraits rotted and illegible on the walls.
Might be safe to sleep in. Frisk the place and you’ll find a crossbow, a sheaf of
bolts, and a necklace with a crocodile bone charm pendant in the likeness of a
hunter with a drawn bow. Worth 50s. Wear it for +2 on ranged attacks, if you
sincerely believe in its power.
31. Rotten gazebo, hung with curtains of clinging moss. Ivory chess pieces scattered
about, DR14 PRE to collect the full set (100s).
32. Furious, portly noble in a sedan chair borne by four musclebound, exasperated
slaves. They’ve been lost for days now. Mug the noble and the bearers will quickly
join you (total loot would be a wallet of 75s and jewelry worth another 200s). Give
them some useful directions and you’ll be paid with a ruby-set ring worth 70s.
33. Moored swamp punt, seats 6, good condition. Flask of liquor, 2 days’ rations and 5s
worth of tobacco under the front seat. No telling if or when the pilot will be
returning to pick it up. Be a shame if somebody rowed off with it…
34. A swarm of rats lugging around a finely wrought saber, d8+1. Searching for a buyer.
Ask for two days’ food for it.
35. Fire cultist offers anyone shelter, suturing and well-done meat, but insists that
any who would enter offer a sacrifice to the flame (coin, meat, etc). The fire is hot
enough to disintegrate whatever is tossed into it, melting coins to slag.
36. Ancient tree, talks in creaking groans. Last of the speaking trees, according to
itself. Offers the Final Fruit, warns it is bitter to the weak. Eat it: 2d3 Miseries
happen at once and HE declares you anathema to all followers of the Basilisk.
