There are plenty of pirate roleplaying games out there; indeed, with all the movies, tv shows and theme park rides about pirates, it makes sense that this is such a popular escapist fantasy genre for tabletop gamers. But what if being a pirate was not an experience of freedom but of horror? Influenced by novels such as On Stranger Tides, Pirate Borg presents a world where empires are collapsing, the dead are rising, and the end of the world is only one botched dice roll away. And yet, adventure and treasure are still out there- if only the pirates can survive long enough to seize it.

Mork Borg shook up the roleplaying community with its grimdark (and darkly comic) approach to fantasy adventure, and CY_Borg adapted the system for a thoroughly evil futuristic dystopia. Pirate Borg looks backwards in time rather than forward, and finds the Golden Age of Piracy to be a perfect time for bloodshed. The beauty of the Caribbean proves to be a deadly trap for those who would colonize it, as they learn when revived dead bodies stand upright and seek human life, sea monsters roar beneath the sea, and strange drugs offer powers with bizarre prices. Still, where life finds a way, so does crime.

I myself helped playtest this game back at NecronomicCon 2022, and can vouch for the wild lives and deaths of our fictional characters! Pirates may not be human themselves but skeletons, mermaids or even sentient animals; they may be crazed murderers, damned sorcerers, or just people with the oddest luck in the world. They may perform magic by singing shanties, and they carry histories of strange vengeance and creeping madness. For all the horror of the setting, it lends itself well to dark slapstick comedy, and with the average chaotic group of gamers, it will probably have both!

Pirate Borg is an utterly unique game that will delight and disturb players with the courage to try it. Raise the black flag and seek plunder before the sun goes down over the sea forever!