GM: John Jones
Players: Chad Rey, Dan Frederick, Sean Nittner, Donald Owen, Ross Sigworth, Will McG
System: Vast Grimm (Mörk Borg)
Game description:
Most of humanity has become infected by one of six different parasitic würms. When a würm takes complete control, the infected host becomes what’s known as The Grimm, a hive-mind, alien, zombie-like species, whose sole mission is to assimilate or eradicate all life in the ‘verse. With the galaxy on the brink of collapse, you’ve banded together with YOUR LEGION, a motley crew of miscreants. Hell, you may not like a single one of them, but it sure beats going it alone. YOUR LEGION travels the ‘verse, salvaging what it can and making the best out of nasty situations. Now that you’ve docked your rust bucket starship to a small travel station for a much-needed recharge, the world around you plunges into darkness, illuminated only by the glow of screaming emergency sirens. Will this be the moment your lights flicker out for good, or will you defy the odds and live to fight another day?
Skyrocket into this fast-paced, rules-light Sci-Fi horror RPG that’s been called “Guardians of the Galaxy meets Aliens”. This intro adventure will get you hooked, leaving you wanting more!
Gameplay Experience:
I’ve played with John a few times and always had a blast. He’s a GM who just jumps into the game and starts offering up opportunities for action. That doesn’t work with every group (see my post on A Crack in the Temple of Secrets) but for us, the starting situation (a meal at a greasy diner interrupted by an attack from würms agents) was all we needed to get rolling.
I was playing Kruel Bardar, an Emo|Bot that simultaneously was fascinated with würms because they represented an intelligence that we didn’t understand (and couldn’t hurt Kruel) but aggrieved by the suffering they caused. I had seeping wounds, perpetually linking fluids and electromagnetic in my arms…oh, and I could breath rotting breath into people to raise them from the dead. Yeah, it’s that kind of wild game!
The other characters—ravagers, würm-infected, and cyborgs—were a perfect compliment to Kruel, full of their own wild quirks and motivations. We bonded fast and stuck together when things went south, as they kept doing over and over.
The game was mostly an intro to the system and by the end I didn’t feel like we had completed an adventure so much as played the pilot of of what could have been a space-faring series.
Take aways
- Loved jumping into the action!
- Wish we had more of an arc than “get away from the threat” but I’d happily play Kruel again on another adventure.
- Huge props to the other players for diving so deep into their character and giving me so much to play with as the only inhuman but not the only person out of place in the group!
- I dialed things to 11 at the start (killing someone to prevent them from being infected and then blowing up the entire diner) and I was very happy to see the system supported those choices and actions.
- This was my first Mörk Borg game and, as I expected, it’s primarily fueled by vibes. If you like death metal sci-fi and like OSR rules sets, you should be pleased with Vast Grimm.
- Remember Age of Ultron, when the final Ultron bot was staggering along singing “got no strings”… that was how I started the game. Heck yeah!
