Latest / These Solitary Defilements! - A Dark Fantasy Mörk Borg Actual Play Serial Novel / These Solitary Defilements! Introduction and Character Creation

Transcript

These Solitary Defilements! Introduction and Character Creation · These Solitary Defilements! - A Dark Fantasy Mörk Borg Actual Play Serial Novel

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, and in actual fact, you are listening to These Solitary Defilements!
0:07
[music]
0:14
SPEAKER_01: A dark fantasy serial novel by me, Ryan Leandres, written by the die and doomed to die.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: This solo actual play is going to feature cursed language,
0:29
SPEAKER_01: adult situations, terrible violence, body horror, and the intensely occult.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: If you're a metalhead, you'll be fine.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: The wind from the west, from the sundered land.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Rot rides it, and the stench of blood.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Cursed walker, will you travel there?
1:06
SPEAKER_00: To the valley of the unfortunate undead?
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Our young ones are taken.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Known for his vile crimes and alchemy of flesh.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Distances shift.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: Paths between places warp.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: As if this pale, lightless world possessed a will and bitter life.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: Its mercy curdled to wrath.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Over a too long age.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: Who are you?
1:52
SPEAKER_00: The grave robber with silver glittering between cracked fingernails?
1:59
SPEAKER_00: The mystic who would bend the world's miserable heart away from its inevitable end?
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Most likely it makes little difference.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: No one has seen the sun in years.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: The old care more for sacrifice and god offerings than their bawling spawn.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Doomsayers are proved right, time and again, and embraced by hidden powers.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's best to surrender to trust your own instinct and skill rather than
2:44
SPEAKER_00: the whim of the dice.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Before all is drowned in welcome silence, life locked and failing in a dark fort.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: When the world was but water,
3:04
SPEAKER_00: dust, and clouds thick With plague-fat flies came she,
3:13
SPEAKER_00: first of the basilisks.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: From the cracks of the Bergen Crypt, she crawled.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: She bears the head of denial, Luzi, who looks up and down.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Yet all shall be well, her twin,
3:37
SPEAKER_00: Head of Deception claims to be the first prophet of Truths Now Prostituted by Verhu.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Few have ever seen her the oldest, but many walk her twin paths.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: She spawned many since the dawn of time, their conceptions not without agony.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: All were cast down, the cliffs of Bergen Crypt.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: Only he survived.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Down in the valley of unfortunate undead,
4:19
SPEAKER_00: his eyes locked upon the mountain's peak, he spits out curses upon his evil mother.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: The head gorg is bitter, rank with envy, That Only His Twin Furhu Knows The Damned Truth.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: Time And Again His Prophecies Are Brought To Be.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: The Piles Of Gold Gift Riches From His Faithful Tater And Slide, So Tall Are They.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Anuk Schlager,
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Monk Of The Cretan Order,
5:02
SPEAKER_00: Encountered The Basilisk Furhu In the year 565,
5:09
SPEAKER_00: and set down that creature's whispered prophecies.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: These lost texts came to be known as the Nameless Scriptures.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: 300 years later,
5:26
SPEAKER_00: while working on a new cathedral,
5:29
SPEAKER_00: The two-headed basilisks,
5:31
SPEAKER_00: an orthodox branch of the Cretan Order, uncovered Schlager's tomb.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: And with it, the scriptures.
5:42
Since then, all events described within have come to pass.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: The prophecies are absolutely, factually true.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And have thus supplanted all other scripture.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: Around this cathedral has grown Galgenbeck, the greatest city that ever was.
6:12
The world dies even now.
6:16
Reality decays.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Truth becomes dream and dream.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: Truth.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Cracks grow in the once stable structures of the past,
6:28
SPEAKER_00: allowing things misshapen and vile to worm through, emerging into day's wan light.
6:39
The known world closes in,
6:42
SPEAKER_00: bounded to the west by the massive Bergen Crypt with its catacombs
6:48
SPEAKER_00: and ice caked peaks and surrounded by the endless sea to the north
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Many have plowed the waves furrow in search of new lands.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: They all return against their will, alive or dead.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: You just heard some of the wicked lore written by Pelle Nielsen for
7:21
SPEAKER_01: the tabletop role-playing game Mercborg.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: Hi Traveler,
7:26
SPEAKER_01: please accept my sincere if trepidatious welcome to These Solitary Defilements,
7:33
SPEAKER_01: a Mercborg Solo Play and Serial Novel.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for giving this little podcast a try.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: I very much appreciate it.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: Allow me to give thee a rundown of where you are.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm Ryan Leandres, aka The Wizard, your personal wizard, at your service.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: I wear many hats,
7:52
SPEAKER_01: as we all must,
7:53
SPEAKER_01: but my favorite hats are poet, writer, metalhead, radio host, plus actor.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have a hard, sweaty, and enduring love for tabletop RPGs, probably like you.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: Mercborg has been my most recent and lasting obsession.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: A true indie darling.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: A game that is Swedish for Dark Fort.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: Ooh.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: Merckborg was made by Pelle Nilsson and Johann Neuer of Occult Ortmastar Games
8:22
SPEAKER_01: and Stockholm Cartel.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: I hope I'm saying those right.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: It is absolutely a fucked up art house doom metal album of a role playing game
8:31
SPEAKER_01: where wretched souls die miserably in psychedelic horror scape dungeons.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: You know, like our real lives.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: Take a look at some of the imagery from the book,
8:42
SPEAKER_01: if you happen to have the internet about, because, wow, it is wild.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: It is not just an RPG, it is a bonafide, kick-ass art piece.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: You will not be displeased.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: This podcast is very likely to showcase a lot of heavy metal and dungeon synth that I enjoy.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just, it's just like peanut butter and jam for Murkborg.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: It's in the evil DNA.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: So, Because I really love emergent storytelling and improv,
9:12
SPEAKER_01: I started up a Solitary Defilement campaign,
9:16
SPEAKER_01: which is the independently made companion ruleset to run Mercborg Solo without
9:21
SPEAKER_01: a dungeon master.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: Wanna come along?
9:25
SPEAKER_01: Sick.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: I knew you were cool.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: I'll be writing up a definitive serial novel as our story emerges
9:34
SPEAKER_01: and we'll be publishing it bit by bit on the Substack
9:37
SPEAKER_01: at thesesolitarydefilements.substack.com.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: So if you'd like, no pressure, you can find me there.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: I'd appreciate a follow if you dig what you hear in.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: As the story unfolds,
9:50
SPEAKER_01: I might ask for your help in deciding the odd story beat with a poll or something.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
9:57
SPEAKER_01: So, here's the deal.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: In case you are unfamiliar with this game, in Mercborg, we are stuck in the Dying Lands.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: A large-ish island continent split into various petty and dwindling kingdoms
10:10
SPEAKER_01: and territories that are essentially overrun by things that have emerged from
10:15
SPEAKER_01: the dark cracks of the earth.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: Earth with a U as far as I'm concerned.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: Gruesome things.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: Eldritch things.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: You know the stuff I mean.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: Everyone, living and dead, are awaiting an apocalypse of misery that has been foretold.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: The prophecies leading to this apocalypse come from Verhu,
10:35
SPEAKER_01: one of the two heads of the great basilisk known as HE, all caps.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: These prophecies have been coming true for decades without fail.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: It is believed that you cannot hope to evade your horrid fate.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: Denial of the prophecy and your own prescribed doom,
10:53
SPEAKER_01: especially by suicide,
10:55
SPEAKER_01: is a sin punished by the Inquisition of the Church of the Basilisk.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: For you are meant to await your end with eyes opened and suffering all the while,
11:04
SPEAKER_01: so that you may reach the supposed shimmering fields beyond death.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: As far as most know,
11:11
SPEAKER_01: these shimmering fields could be a little more than your classic opiate lie for
11:16
SPEAKER_01: the masses.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: The skies are gray or dark,
11:19
SPEAKER_01: plague and disaster sweep the ground, and ugly people live as scum in their grimdark
11:27
SPEAKER_01: Now, while
11:32
SPEAKER_01: I will certainly stoke the flames of that bleak vision,
11:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm not super interested in writing about completely horrible shitbag people.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, we'll find out together who I'll be writing about.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: How about right now?
11:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: Let's make our main character.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: With me so far, friends, buds, reavers of men and defilers.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: Let's put our shit kickers on and kick some shit.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: What sort of character should we play?
12:06
SPEAKER_01: There's some wicked and super unique flavorful character classes that can be chosen
12:11
SPEAKER_01: from or rolled at random if you want.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: And if you grab a copy of Mercborg and read through it,
12:16
SPEAKER_01: you'll also absolutely see where this game shines.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: Cool.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, stuff like that.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: Super sick.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: But I think for our main character,
12:54
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to go OG and roll it all up from scratch,
12:59
SPEAKER_01: like the heathen kings of old, as the book initially prompts you to do.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: So let's do that.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's see what we get.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: Here's what the page says.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: In this world, there are those who seek riches or redemption.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: Some say the apocalypse is escapable, that it might even be stopped.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: And there you walk in discord and despair.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: One hand holds 2d6 times 10 silver.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's roll.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: Here's a d6.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: That is a six.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: And this is also a six.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're being blessed by the basilisks, at least for now.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: That's 120 silver.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: Cool.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: The other hand holds a water skin and D4 days worth of food.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: D4, go!
13:50
SPEAKER_01: That's a two.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: Two days worth of food.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: Your soul and your silver are your own and equally easy to lose.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: Cool.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: To begin with, you are what you own.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: It's that kind of game where we'll need to keep track of food rations
14:04
SPEAKER_01: because we could easily starve to death.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: It's the kind of old-school renaissance game where most of our character is defined
14:11
SPEAKER_01: and suggested by from the random and scant inventory that we will start with.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: Let's roll the rest of our equipment.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: First table, D6.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: Let's go!
14:23
SPEAKER_01: Another, another six.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: Yay!
14:27
SPEAKER_01: Woo!
14:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm very pleased.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: Number six is donkey.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Not bad, is what it says.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's lovely.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Donkeys are lovely.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Hell yeah, I love that.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay, next table we need a D12, a die 12, bum bum bum, that is an 11.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: A Bottle of Red Poison, D4 Doses.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: One dose, we'll take it.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Next table is another D12.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm rolling with my ultra-heavy black steel dice,
15:05
SPEAKER_01: where the borders are skeletal hands clutching each other.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: My favorite set of dice, the most evenly rolling I have found as time has gone on.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: And of course, the most thematically Merkborg.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: Alright, D12 on the final table.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: That's a six.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: We get a toolbox.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: Toolbox has ten nails, tongs, hammer, small saw and drill.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: Could certainly be useful when wandering through the wastes.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: Now here's a big one.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: We roll on the weapons table.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: We're going to roll a die ten.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: One being okay and ten being progressively good.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: Here we go, here we go.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: Roll high, baby, roll high.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: Yes, that is a 10.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: And the 10 is indeed, shit yeah, the 10 is indeed the Zweihander.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: The big two-hander greatsword, hell yeah, it's gonna do d10 damage.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: We like that.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: This is sweet, this is a good start.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: A donkey and a huge sword, not bad.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's do armor.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: Armor table is a d4.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: That is a four.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: That is heavy armor.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: Ooh wee!
16:19
SPEAKER_01: Holy shit.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: This is too good.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: We've rolled a little too well.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: This worries me.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: As I tend to roll very, very badly.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: If you roleplay at all,
16:29
SPEAKER_01: you'll probably have that one friend that rolls terrible, piss-poor numbers.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: That's me.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: Well, we have a donkey.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: We have a huge fucking sword.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: We have the heaviest armor in the book.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: I think it's pretty clear that we have a knight on our hands.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: A donkey knight.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: A donkey rider.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: I like that.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: I like that a lot.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: We'll find out eventually what that means to be a donkey rider, but I am super into this.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Right off the bat, some tragic Don Quixote vibes.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm feeling fairly macho today, so I think I'll make them a dude.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: This guy is gonna be grim, a prickly knight, all clad in the darkest black steels.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: The Enormous Sword is black too, definitely.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: And the donkey itself is,
17:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure, a pleasant gray, by contrast, with big, beautiful and friendly eyes.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: This character is this knight's only friend in the dying world.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: Her name will be...
17:33
SPEAKER_01: Her name will be Beauty.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: And God,
17:37
SPEAKER_01: I hope the knight dies before she does because it won't be pretty otherwise,
17:42
SPEAKER_01: I suspect.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: Now we need to roll up some stats for this knight.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: He could end up anywhere between formidable and pathetic.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: So here's a little about the rule system of Mercborg,
17:52
SPEAKER_01: so that when you hear the dice clink,
17:54
SPEAKER_01: you'll be able to picture it in your mind's eye.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: It's real rules-light compared to something like D&D, Dungeons and or Dragons.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: You have four stats you roll up, and once you do, only the modifier number it gives you matters.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: The modifier is similar to Dungeons & Dragons and end up giving us somewhere between
18:14
SPEAKER_01: a minus three or a plus three to all the challenge rolls that we're going to make.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: And the stats are as follows and we'll roll them in order.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: Strength, which you would use to crush a skull with a weapon or your bare hands.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: Agility,
18:30
SPEAKER_01: which you use to avoid getting your own skull crushed,
18:33
SPEAKER_01: either by an attack or by teetering off a rope bridge lined with skulls.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: There's your presence stat, which is a nice little catch-all.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: You would use it to throw a skull at someone with action.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: Presence is also the stat you would use
18:59
SPEAKER_01: We didn't roll up any scrolls for our starting inventory.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: But if you have one on your person you can cast it whenever you want for good
19:18
SPEAKER_01: or ill.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: You can keep using them again and again so it's not like D&D
19:21
SPEAKER_01: where once you use it it's lost.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: You lose it if you lose it.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: Either you get rid of the item or it is taken from you.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: Now scrolls will also So you can always fail if you're rocking a two-handed weapon like we are.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: And on a critical fail when trying to cast a spell,
19:36
SPEAKER_01: there is a hilarious and amazing disaster chart that we would roll upon.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: Heavy armor,
19:42
SPEAKER_01: if worn,
19:43
SPEAKER_01: will also mess up your scroll casting as well,
19:46
SPEAKER_01: so it seems pretty clear
19:48
SPEAKER_00: that we will not be particularly magical.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: We better end up being tough.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: And let me tell you,
19:53
SPEAKER_01: the fourth and final stat is toughness,
19:56
SPEAKER_01: which is how thick your skull is, so that you might endure bodily trauma.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: Toughness also affects your character's hit points,
20:04
SPEAKER_01: and I'm sorry to say, we're not going to start with very many of those.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: Some might say an embarrassment of hit points,
20:11
SPEAKER_01: a sorrow of hit points, Okay, let's see what we get.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: So if you're creating a character from scratch,
20:19
SPEAKER_01: we're allowed to roll an extra die and drop the shittiest one for two of the stats
20:25
SPEAKER_01: that we think will be important to us.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: The first stat on our character sheet is strength.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: Now I think we want this guy to kick some ass, especially if they're not a magic-y person.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: So let's roll four die six instead of just the usual three.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: And here's what we get.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: We get... four.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: Five, two, and one.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: So we will drop the one.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: That will give us a total of eleven.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Four, five, two.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: That will give us strength, according to this chart, of a plus zero.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: I was hoping for better, not gonna lie.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: But plus zero, honestly, is nothing to shake a skull at in Merc Borg.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay, agility.
21:09
SPEAKER_01: He's a big clunky knight, so maybe I'll just do the 3d6.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: A two, get a three.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: And we get a three.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: Oof.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: That will amount to a minus one agility.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: It is what it is, and it ain't what it ain't.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna get hit a lot,
21:29
SPEAKER_01: but hopefully that this armor will keep our poor knight from the gates of death.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: Presence.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: Now I like presence.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: Toughness would be real important on a fighter,
21:42
SPEAKER_01: but I want our main character to be observant and clever, I think.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: And it would be more fun for us if we could get behind someone who sees things.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: Someone with a force of personality as well.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: That kind of person has options, and anything could happen.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: I like that.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to use the second four deus roll we have on this stat.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we got a four.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: We got a two.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: We got a six.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: We get a five.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we drop the two.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: Gives us a 15 for a plus two presence.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Not too shabby.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Plus two is no joke.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Okie dokie, last one.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: Toughness.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: We've got a one.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: We have a six.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: We have a four, okay.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: They give us an 11 again, which gives us a fat old plus zero, neutral enough.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: Again, we're gonna be leaning pretty hard on this armor.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: I think this guy's armor is going to be pretty important to him.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: Wow, let's see how many hit points our grim fellow gets.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: He gets a die eight, apparently, plus our toughness, which will be zero, unfortunately.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: And we get...
23:00
SPEAKER_01: We got a six?
23:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: That is graciously not a one.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: Now there actually is a final, final stat for our protagonist.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: How many omens he gets to have.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Omens are basically fate points that we can spend per day to change how our rolls shake out.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: Because we have some kind of DESTINY.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: Because strange beings from other worlds are playing a game of their own.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: The omens are very, very helpful.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: The Solitary Defilement rules allow more than the usual starting two.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: It allows up to four.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: I have here a die four.
23:36
SPEAKER_01: Let's see how many our boy can hold.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: Three.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: So, what do we do with these wonderful numbers?
23:45
SPEAKER_01: When we roll to do something, it's called a test.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: I'll typically roll a 20-sider, add the modifier from a stat that makes sense.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: Again, somewhere between The standard normal DR is
24:10
SPEAKER_01: That's really the gist of it.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: It's real simple and pared down,
24:13
SPEAKER_01: so you can focus on what really matters, which is to suffer in filth.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: Well, those are the numbers.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: Who is our protagonist?
24:37
SPEAKER_01: The last step is cheekily, name your character if you wish, it will not save you.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, I want this to hurt me personally when he dies,
24:48
SPEAKER_01: I think, so I'm gonna get a bit self-insertion here, I'm sorry.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: First name,
24:52
SPEAKER_01: I think,
24:52
SPEAKER_01: is gonna be Ryan,
24:55
SPEAKER_01: but spelled more fantasy-like, you know, R-I-O-N, or something dumb like that.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: If your name is R-I-O-N, I'm deeply sorry.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: Now we know he's covered in the most impressive black steel armor
25:08
SPEAKER_01: that you have ever laid your pretty eyes on.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: Almost entirely black is Judgment Day and embossed,
25:15
SPEAKER_01: I wanna say,
25:16
SPEAKER_01: in some kind of fine gold filament outlining family heraldry, I suppose.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: The Game of Thrones fan in me wants to make this super iconic.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: I love a thematic plate of armor.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be like full plate armor is what it's gonna be.
25:33
SPEAKER_01: Let's just go full on Dark Souls.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: And because his name is Ryan,
25:38
SPEAKER_01: and I like a name that rhymes just a little bit,
25:41
SPEAKER_01: that heraldry, I think, is going to be a lion.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: Ryan Blacklion.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: And he wears his inherited family armor.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: And his inherited super rad two-handed warsword.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: Also replete with a lion theme.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: Likely.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: So we have some silver to spend to kit us out before we truly face the world.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: Looking at the equipment page,
26:07
SPEAKER_01: we could grab ourselves some more rations because we didn't get many of those.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: Do we need rope?
26:13
SPEAKER_01: A tent?
26:14
SPEAKER_01: Scissors?
26:15
SPEAKER_01: Hmm...
26:19
SPEAKER_01: Now, we've got two other official Merkborg supplements to draw from.
26:23
SPEAKER_01: We have Ferretory and Heretic.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: And I know Heretic has something I've wanted to try out for a while.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: Black Powder Weapons.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: Black Powder Weapons for the rich and foolhardy, it says.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: Do we want to live deliciously?
26:45
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we do.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: Expensive, exotic, and very loud.
26:50
SPEAKER_01: These strange weapons could hail from a number of infernal places.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: It says here it has the feature loud.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: Lesser creatures might roll for morale when a shot is fired.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: Anything more intelligent will notice and investigate.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: So it can draw attention to you and get you in trouble.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk a bit about morale.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: Morale is an important part of Merc Borg combat.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: Enemies and NPCs have a morale number,
27:15
SPEAKER_01: and whenever something tests their morale,
27:17
SPEAKER_01: like a loud scary black powder boom,
27:19
SPEAKER_01: let's say,
27:20
SPEAKER_01: we can roll some dice,
27:22
SPEAKER_01: and long story short, it might lead to them either fleeing or surrendering.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: And the best part about this is at the bottom of the black powder weapons table,
27:31
SPEAKER_01: it says, remember, if you can buy them, so can everyone else.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I will open that can of worms, let's go.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we could get ourselves a pistolet that does D6 damage for 80 silver,
27:49
SPEAKER_01: but powder shot is 50 silver.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: So we are just short to afford that stuff.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's go big or go home.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: If we can't afford shot anyway for all 120 silver and not buying any extra comforts
28:05
SPEAKER_01: for our poor donkey knight, like,
28:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:07
SPEAKER_01: more rations,
28:09
SPEAKER_01: we could get a culverin,
28:11
SPEAKER_01: which is a medieval personal cannon that can be carried like a rifle of sorts.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, let's do it.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, you know what?
28:21
SPEAKER_01: This is going to be a Donkey Knight thing, I think.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: Donkeys are good at carrying stuff, right?
28:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, the odd packs of black powder.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: I think I want to combine the Culverin with the Zvi-Hander Sword into one weapon.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: Just stay with me, stay with me.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: The Sword Cannon of the Donkey Knights of House Black Lion.
28:45
SPEAKER_01: Shit.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this does have a historical precedent.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: I have seen, I have seen medieval gun swords in museums.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: It was a thing.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: Look up pictures.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: It's wild.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: Basically a blade with gun barrels.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so yeah.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: Let's fucking run with that.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: Hell yeah.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm getting pumped here.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: So the last thing we can do is roll on some optional tables
29:08
SPEAKER_01: to flavor our Donkey Knight with some history or personality traits.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm not super keen to follow personality prompts in Merc Borg
29:17
SPEAKER_01: because they can be pretty samey with the Grimdark thing.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: So I won't follow it to the letter, but let's just see what we get.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we can bounce off it for inspiration.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we got a table, roll a D, 20, 20 sided die, 17, which is bitter.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all right, that makes sense.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: It makes sense to me that a wandering Donkey Knight in black should be fairly bitter.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can dig it.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay, wants us to roll twice on this.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: That is a seven, which is nihilistic.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: Not quite my jam.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: I'm not really a big fan of nihilistic characters or nihilism.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: It gets to be a bit too one note.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: And I think caring about the world's important, even if it's on fire.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: Especially when it's on fire, as a matter of fact.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: Let's roll that one again.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: Three.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: Problems with authority.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: I think our Donkey Knight is probably the last surviving member of his house, eh?
30:23
SPEAKER_01: Let's lean into it.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: He has no master now, and doesn't want one again.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now the Broken Bodies Table.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: What ailment does he start with?
30:32
SPEAKER_01: Yippee!
30:32
SPEAKER_01: That's a D20.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: Not quite an ailment,
30:37
SPEAKER_01: so to speak, but he is covered in, for some, in brackets, blasphemous tattoos.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, shit.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: Cool.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm weighing another reason not to take his armor off.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: I imagine the Inquisitors of the Church of the Basilisk wouldn't be impressed
30:53
SPEAKER_01: with tattoos telling tales of the old ways and the old gods that went with them.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: Okay, next table.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: 20, let's go.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: 10, Nihilist.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: Fucking, fucking fuck.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: No, goddammit.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: Reroll.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: Dammit, Merkborg, work with me here.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: 17, You stutter when lying.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: Ooh, I like that one a lot.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: That will get us into trouble.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: This knight has a code of some kind and going against it can be heard in his voice.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: All right.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay, here's the final table for peppering your backstory.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: This is the Troubling Tales table.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: It says, roll a die 20 or throw a knife at the page on the right.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I forgot about that knife part.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, fuck it.
31:43
SPEAKER_01: Let me find a knife.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: Hang on.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: I honestly, honestly have just the thing.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: I'll post a picture.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: BRB.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I ordered this switchblade earlier this year, honest to God, over the border to Canada.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how it didn't get pulled at customs,
31:58
SPEAKER_01: but it's a serpentine and ritualistic switchblade, a switchual blade, if you will.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: The handle says Troll Slayer on it, which is sick.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: The other side has like this goblin-y face that looks like the Motorhead logo.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: Got this from the Wizard of Barge online shop.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: Shout out to Wizard of Barge.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you hear that flick?
32:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's super, oh, no, yeah, it's, yeah, it's, it's sharp enough.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: Ouch.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: Uh, well, fingers will heal fast.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: Mmm, that's good audio.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm gonna put the book on the floor.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: All right, book is on the floor and your mom is a boar.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: Knife away!
32:43
SPEAKER_01: Nope, missed.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: Try it again.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Shit, yeah.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay,
32:50
SPEAKER_00: we hit...
32:51
SPEAKER_01: It's a quote type thing.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: It says, burn or be burned is the fate you accept.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: Ooh, I love it.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: I think House Black Lion ended in fire.
33:05
SPEAKER_01: I think most houses probably did,
33:07
SPEAKER_01: as all things are pretty well dwindling in these the dying lands.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: Which brings me to this exciting bit of Murkborg genius.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: At the start of every in-game day, We must roll on the calendar of Necrobel.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: In the land of Tveiland is the greatest city that ever was.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: No king or queen rules in Galgenbeck, but an arch-priestess,
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Josilpha Meegol.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: Deep beneath the cathedral of the two-headed basilisks,
33:51
SPEAKER_00: in a cool black chamber crossed by shards of light, lies her throne.
33:59
Josilpha, old but still young,
34:04
SPEAKER_00: commoners gossip that she colludes with the god Necrobel, who gave her eternal life.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: Necrobel, Necrobell, the shadow that covers all.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: Necrobell is melancholy, crop failure, conflict and war.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: It is said he whispered the apocalyptic prophecies in Verhoo's ear.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: On the calendar of Necrobell, we will choose a die.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: In fact, let's do that right now.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: I think the die we choose will give us a projected length of in-game time before
34:54
SPEAKER_01: the apocalypse actually happens.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: We have a D100,
35:01
SPEAKER_01: which will provide us with years of in-game pain,
35:04
SPEAKER_01: a bleak half-year at a D20,
35:06
SPEAKER_01: a fall in anguish at a D10,
35:09
SPEAKER_01: one cruel month in a D6, and the end is nigh on a flip of the coin.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: I think we should go with a die 20.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: A bleak half year.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: The risk will always be there that the apocalypse will approach.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: So we will roll this die 20 at the beginning of every in-game day within the story.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: If we roll a 1, One of the seven prophesied miseries will come to pass.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: We'll then roll on the calendar of Necrobel,
35:42
SPEAKER_01: which is a long and morbid sequence of catastrophic psalms.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: The passage we roll is the misery that comes to pass.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: That misery is permanent.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: Here's an example.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: The sky shall weep fire and a great stone shall plummet as a city fallen from heaven.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: Its gift is death and madness is its herald.
36:04
SPEAKER_01: Great!
36:05
SPEAKER_01: So we would take that and we would run with it and we would see where that fits
36:09
SPEAKER_01: and what it means for the story we're in.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: Eventually a seventh misery will arrive and when it does that is the end of the world.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: This is perhaps the raddest and most defining feature of Merckborg,
36:22
SPEAKER_01: knowing that the world will end.
36:23
SPEAKER_01: Can it be stopped?
36:25
SPEAKER_01: Maybe?
36:25
SPEAKER_01: That's up to the story we want to tell.
36:28
SPEAKER_01: We'll see what emerges and works for us as it comes.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: Now I'll be
36:46
SPEAKER_01: The Defiling You and Me with the Solitary Defilement Supplement
36:50
SPEAKER_01: for Mercborg Solo Play by a creator called 1d10 plus 5,
36:55
SPEAKER_01: which removes the need for a traditional dungeon master
36:58
SPEAKER_01: by feeding you rolling tables that provide you with narrative prompts to riff off
37:03
SPEAKER_01: of, And direct scenes and stir shit up with.
37:06
SPEAKER_01: It uses a three-tiered success system where when you want to do something and make
37:11
SPEAKER_01: a typical test roll,
37:13
SPEAKER_01: you roll to see if you get a success,
37:15
SPEAKER_01: a partial success,
37:16
SPEAKER_01: or a fail,
37:17
SPEAKER_01: which is a game framework that the tabletop RPG Apocalypse World changed
37:22
SPEAKER_01: the gaming scene with many years back.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: Well now, defilers, we have our Donkey Knight.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: We have a solo adventure written for Solitary Defilement that we are going
37:33
SPEAKER_01: to pass him through,
37:34
SPEAKER_01: also made by 1d10plus5,
37:36
SPEAKER_01: called Park Pale, Hunting Necromantic Bastards in a Schleswig Country Garden.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: Sounds good to me.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: Let's discover this thing together.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to these Solitary Defilements, and more specifically...
37:52
SPEAKER_01: The Solitary Defilement of One Ryan Blacklion.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: Book One.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: Chapter One.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: Park Pale.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks for your time.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: I really do mean that.
38:09
SPEAKER_01: If you found this podcast out in the wilds,
38:11
SPEAKER_01: you can follow it and read the fiction parts
38:14
SPEAKER_01: at thesesolitarydefilements.substack.com.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: And you can find me on Instagram if you want, at thewizaard.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: That's the wizard with two A's because I was too damn slow.
38:28
SPEAKER_01: This is produced by the will of the Watchers by the Gate of Horn.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: But credit really goes to the lore and vision of Pell Nilsson and Johan Neuer,
38:38
SPEAKER_01: of Occult Ortmastar Games and Stockholm Cartel for Morkborg,
38:42
SPEAKER_01: and 1D10 Plus 5 for the solo play supplement Solitary Defilement.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: The solo module Park Pail is also by 1D10 Plus 5.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: The title track is Descending Into Darkness by Disrape,
38:54
SPEAKER_01: and the closing credit song is Gravfrost,
38:57
SPEAKER_01: with a cover of Misanthrope by Bloed Belsvinens.
39:00
SPEAKER_01: Please find these people online or in meatspace and support their stuff.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: I'll imagine you listening to more of my foolishness next week.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: Until then, burn or beep.