Morbo's Catastrophic Sanctuary
A downloadable game
It is the year 2149, and earth’s temperature has stabilized. Thanks to a network of geosynchronous atmosphere control satellites, the tumult of the Climate Era has ended and humanity’s cities have begun to sink back into their normal routines.
Risen Cairo is a metropolis in three layers, built on the banks of the Nile Ocean. Its upper plate is resplendent with solar collectors and mansions overgrown with greenery. Its middle plate houses its working class and plumes with the smoke of its industry. And its lower plate contains those who have not fully integrated into society---late refugees from the Climate Era, or those whose fortunes have tumbled them down onto the lowermost economic rung.
Society is mostly peaceful, with football and airskiff racing being at the top of the news cycle.
Nevertheless, from the shadows, a presence looms.
All this tranquility is bad for business.
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Morbo's Catastrophic Sanctuary is a full conversion hack that adapts MÖRK BORG to a near future supernatural cyberpunk metropolis that is trying to rise from the ashes of humanity's mistakes.
With it, you get 187 pages of game, including:
- No Classes, it's all open-ended
- Eight Origins, each a springboard for designing your character
- Your Behinder, a unique scrap of supernatural power that you customize
- Completely overhauled combat rules, prioritizing making predictions and reading your opponents
- Stark economic brackets and a city that physically looms over you
- A bestiary including cryptids, vampires, and other citizens
- And a starter scenario, Let's Go To The Circus
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MÖRK BORG Third Party License - Morbo's is an independent production by Richard Kelly 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. For further details about the MÖRK BORG Third Party License, see https://morkborg.com/license/
Strega Wolf Van Den Berg CCLA 1.0 License - This game uses artwork by Strega Wolf Van Den Berg (https://www.stregawolf.art/ccla-library), permitted under a CCLA 1.0 license.
Acknowledgements - This game would not be possible without Sequence Break’s Learned Mortality actual play, SurpriseRoundRPG’s Cheer Up AP, the JoJoTTRPG system by Afromenace, Clayman’s rpgmaker opus The 7th Stand User, and Kevin Piala’s wuxia TTRPG Paths Of The Peerless.
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Updates:
- As of 4/22/25, table of contents has been amended to properly reflect page numbers of early sections.
Purchase
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Disclosures:
So I personally had fun with it. If you’re trying to branch out from D&D’s gene pool and into other genres, this is worth a look. Especially if you’re interested in cyberpunk and supers.
The Behinder system allows for a wide variety of abilities, with some guide rails in the rules to re-balance them if they’re too powerful or lackluster. Also, while the Behinder system is central to the game, Behinder-less PC’s are not only possible, but quite formidable in their own right. Gaining the versatility of extra Omens in exchange for the lack of a Behinder.
Omens, normal spent to re-roll a die, can be permanently exchanged for other benefits such as a higher economic background and thus more starting cash and higher income. Cybernetics are gained on a one-to-one basis and add powers themselves: ranging from the boring extra hit points and stat increases, to the heel bearings that let you keep pace with vehicles once you accelerate to their speed. If money or Cybernetics don’t suit the PC’s fancy, extra Origin abilities can be bought with Omens.
The various Origins rang from normal humans to preternatural such as vampires and sapient animals to the downright weird: Cryptids and Emancipated Behinders. Each one has optional drawbacks and assets that make even a mono-origin party unique: Even a party of humans, though only on a technicality. Though the setting could justify any party composition, with a random table of possible reasons why the party would know each other.
Risen Cairo, though not as terrible as the dystopia as the one I am living in, is a city of haves and have-nots. A low economic class is an easy excuse for PC’s to get into trouble, and the regular Audits of Fate prevent them from just stock piling wealth. However, PC’s with high economic backgrounds will need other motives, such as vengeance, to run amok. Thankfully Morbo’s has a step in the city’s creation which has players name a location their character is familiar with: and once again a random table of possible threats to the named locations or the city as a whole.
So yeah, I think it’s worth a Hamilton.
Oh, so I can copy and paste into the comments: but not into the fucking review box?
Get your shit together Itch.io.