Wait, You Got Christmas in my MÖRK BORG!!!
Preface
This adventure includes the beginnings of something I plan on turning into a full role playing game called Jul Borg. I’ve been a fan of MÖRK BORG for quite some time, even to the point of owning Black Powder and Brimstone Role Playing Game. Let me know what you think and if you think I should release the full version. All of the St. Nicholas/Nicolas/Santa lore used in this post was inspired by the work of Chris Schweizer. His BlueSky Threads on the Companions of Christmas and his Santa’s Workshop Displayset writings contain a rich mythical look at Santa through the legends of St. Nicholas. If you want a resource for campaign material after this encounter, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Introduction
Once again, it’s time for Christmas themed role playing game adventures. I absolutely love to run Holiday themed one shots because they both fit the season and are a great way to introduce players to new game systems without interrupting an existing campaign. Over the years, I’ve run sessions adventures using the Savage Worlds Super-”heroic” Necessary Evil setting where the “heroes” had to fight off murderous V’sori gingerbread men to a Shadow of the Demon Lord adventure where the PCs aid one of Santa’s “helpers” (No Spoiler).
I’ve been regularly running Gingerbread Kaiju by Stan! as a part of our family baking weekend because it’s cute and adds eating cookies to the Kaiju Battle mix. Ever since my friend Matt used Candy and Cookies to represent monsters in our AD&D 2nd Edition adventures, I have loved using these treats as miniatures in game play and it’s especially appropriate this time of year. If you haven’t tried using cookies or candy as your foes, I highly recommend it. It’s not only delicious, it revives the old school feel of earning experience points as you go along.
I have been considering running Dungeon in a Box’s Arcane Academy Wonderous One Shot this year, but that will depend on the time my daughters and their friends have for gaming (and dissertation work). I am also working on an adventure using the Dragonbane system.
The adventure in Jul Borg uses the MÖRK BORG, as will the full product, but it is a sequel to the brief Feng Shui 2nd Edition adventure The Night the Reindeer Died I designed a few years ago. An updated version of that adventure will be published next week so you can run an adventure where evil forces siege Santa’s Workshop.
Fans of the movie Scrooged will probably recognize the inspiration, and name sake, for that adventure as the opening sequence of that film. I changed somed of the thematic background to make it fit with the overall Feng Shui setting. In my adventure the Battle-Chimp Yamato attackes the North Pole in the hopes of blowing up Santa’s Workshop because it happens to be a cornerstone Feng Shui site and its destruction will allow the Jammers to destroy multiple Feng Shui sites across time and space and win the long term cosmic struggle.
The Jul Borg adventure assumes that the assembled “Dragons” managed to hold of Battle-Chimp Yamato and prevent the destruction of the North Pole. Unbeknownst to those Feng Shui characters, there was another faction invading the North Pole for a very different purpose. This faction was an elite force of skilled special operatives under the command of Sgt. Major Herbert Gimbel.
Sgt. Major Gimbel had a rough life. While the Gimbel family was once extraordinarily wealthy and competed with Macy’s for which family’s retail chain would dominate the holiday season, the release of the film Miracle on 34th Street by 20th Century Fox in 1947 resulted in the death of most of Gimbel’s entire chain.
The last remaining Gimbel’s collapsed after the 2003 “Throne of Lies” incident where Buddy the Elf revealed the Santa at Gimbel’s was a fake. This revelation ended the company and ruined the fortunes of the Gimbel family. Sgt. Major Gimbel was a teenager at the time of the event, but he noticed two things that would enable him to get his eventual revenge on Santa and his minions.
The first revelation was that Santa Claus was indeed real and that he was willing to intervene in human affairs. Santa could have prevented the collapse of Gimbel’s in either 1947 or 2003, but instead chose to allow them to suffer. While he could understand not intervening after the Gimbels Throne of Lies incident involving Buddy the Elf, allowing Gimbel’s to collapse in the wake of the Miracle on 34th Street seemed unfair to Sgt. Major Gimbel. His great-grandfather had behaved with grace an the “Christmas Spirit” only to be rewarded with the destruction of his company and all because Santa sided with Macy’s.
The second revelation was that Santa was dependent on the power of Christmas Cheer in order to work his miracles. Even as a teenager Herbert Gimbel knew that he couldn’t get people to stop believing in Santa in order to remove Christmas Cheer, but he spent his life looking for another way. Eventually he found it.
Adventure Background
Sgt. Major Gimbel’s discovery was that a cornerstone of Santa’s power of Christmas Cheer involved the artifacts related to the powers and obligations of his companions. While the belief of children is an important aspect of Christmas Cheer, an even more vital source of it comes from the redemption of the formerly viscous. Every time Saint Nicholas convinced a cruel and murderous sinner to walk his path and aid him in spreading love across the world, the well of potential Christmas Cheer grew deeper. Yes, the belief of people was was fueled Santa’s powers, but the amount of power that could be stored relied upon having access the companion artifacts.
If Sgt. Major Gimbel could acquire and corrupt some of these artifacts, then he could simultaneously reduce Santa’s access to Christmas Cheer while creating his own reserve of Christmas Despair. If only he could find the right time, place, and artifacts to steal and corrupt.
For example, he knew that it would be nigh impossible to steal the gifts of Santa’s first companion Alba (aka Mrs. Claus). While Alba was formerly a servant of the Greek Goddess Artemis, she allied herself with Saint Nick very early and gifted him with her magical flying deer. Those flying deer are the most famous of Santa’s artifacts, but they are also among the most highly protected. It would also be quite a challenge to steal Krampus’ bundle of switches or remove his chains to free him from his obligations to Santa.
So Sgt. Major Gimbel did what anyone trained in Strategy & Tactics would do, he started with an easy target and one that would empower him to make more ambitious efforts in the future. He decided to steal the artifacts of The Pirates of Port Navidad. Each of these pirates gifted Santa with a source artifact version of the gifts they leave each year. Greedy Rita gave a solid gold coin, Lickerish Lou gave Santa the Glycyrrhiza glabra he used to make all of the licorice he would give as a gift, and Cheatin’ Pete handed over the never empty mug of apple cider vinegar he used to make vinegar candy.
The Night the Reindeer Died was the perfect night for Sgt. Major Gimbel and his crew to act and act they did. While Lee Majors, Santa, the Companions, and a host of “Dragons” defended the North Pole from Battle-Chimp Yamato, Gimbel’s special operatives infiltrated and retrieved the three Piratical Artifacts. By the time Santa and his companion noticed the artifacts were missing, about a week after the siege when new manufacturing began in Santa’s Village, Sgt. Major Gimbel had already corrupted and relocated the items. Santa’s reserve of power diminished and Gimbel acquired some of his own abilities. The corruption of the artifacts had the added benefit of putting the Pirates into a deep sleep, preventing them from using their spiritual connection to the artifacts to track them.
In this adventure, the Player Characters play a band of Companions of Christmas who have until the Christmas Cheer Counter runs out to locate the artifacts. If they fail at their task, Santa will vanish and all that will remain is Christmas Despair.
The adventure has five components, a ticking clock and three encounters at the various locations where the corrupted artifacts are stored. The fifth component is the investigation component where the players will attempt to find the locations of each artifact. This adventure is divided into sections for each of these components plus a brief character generation section where the companions will be customized.
Christmas Cheer
One of the most innovative, and underused, elements of MÖRK BORG is the ticking clock of The Calendar of Nechrubel. Since MÖRK BORG is an apocalyptic role playing game, the Calendar represents the clock ticking down to the end of days. While a Calendar based on prophetic and despairing Psalms isn’t fitting for a lighthearted Santa Themed adventure, a ticking clock to the end of Christmas Cheer is.
At the beginning of the adventure, the World has a level of Low Normal (3) Christmas Cheer. This level of Cheer has two effects on game play. The first is that it determines how many times each companion can use his or her special ability per day. Each companion has a special ability that can be activated using a Presence DR 12 roll. If the power is successfully activated, the character can use one of their available slots (currently 3). If the roll fails, then you will take d2 hit points damage and be at a disadvantage when accessing Christmas Cheer for the next hour. They will also have to make a Christmas Cheer roll based on the current level of Cheer. If the Christmas Cheer roll results in a 1 being rolled, then one point of Christmas Cheer is lost.
At the current level of Christmas Cheer, all tests are rolled on a d10 meaning that any failed result has a 10% of draining one point of Christmas Cheer. At this point, that one point would lower the rating from Normal (3) to Low (2). When Christmas Spirit hits a level of No Spirit, Companions and Santa Claus can draw upon the dwindling reserves, but if they roll a 1 on a d2 (50%) then all Christmas Cheer is hopelessly lost forever. If all Christmas Cheer is lost then Santa and all his companions will disappear forever, unless resurrected in a future adventure by recharging Christmas Cheer somehow.
However, unlike MÖRK BORG, Jul Borg is not a hopeless endeavor. Unless the world is at maximum Spirit, every time someone rolls the maximum value on a Christmas Cheer roll one point of Spirit is gained. This simulates the fact that Santa and his crew were able to keep delivering presents even during the 1970s and other periods of low Spirit. The only way to increase Christmas Cheer beyond 8 points is to add Companions and Artifacts. Each new artifact allows a roll of a d20 and on a roll of 20 it increases the maximum Cheer level.
It should be noted that while adding Artifacts and Companions doesn’t guarantee an increase in maximum Cheer, the theft or corruption of one does automatically decrease Cheer by 1 and their return automatically returns those points. There are far more than 8 Artifacts, but the loss of these three Artifacts has had a significant negative effect on Santa’s power and it will be up to the PCs, as Companions or “Apprentice” Companions, to save the day.
Character Creation
In JUL BORG, the players will take on the role of either one of St. Nicholas’s Companions or an Apprentice Companion of their own design. Full Companions are more powerful than Apprentice Companions, but gaming groups are limited to two Full Companions at the start of the adventure. At each location, there will be an Ancient Artifact that Apprentice Companions can attune with a Presence 12 Test. Success on the test will grant them Full Companion status and the artifact will either remain as it was or transform into the Apprentice Companion’s chosen Artifact. That chosen artifact should be thematic for the character. For example, Greedy Rita was known to be an extremely greedy individual and so her Artifact was a coin.
This section will provide the statistics for 2 Full Companions for your players to select from as well as character generation rules for Apprentice Companions.
The Four Companions
Belsnickel
Belsnickel is one of St. Nicholas’ less horrifying or sinister companions. While many of St. Nicholas companions are redeemed monsters, either of the supernatural or human variety, Belsnickel was a kind man who lived in the forest seeking to help children find their way home. Over time he began to notice that a lot of the children who got lost in the woods were well-behaved children who came from poorer families. St. Nicholas noticed Belsnickel’s kindness and recruited him to help children find their way home around Christmas-time.
Krampus
Krampus is a well known figure from Germanic St. Nicholas folklore. He is a horned and hooved creature who is one of the many punishment based counterparts to the kind St. Nicholas. Like other punishment based companions, he metes out justice to wicked children on the December 5th, the night before the Feast of St. Nicholas. Just as there are many punitive companions of St. Nicholas, so too are there many Perchtenlauf (horned creatures who haunt the shadows) and Krampus spends the majority of the year protecting people from these creatures.
The Investigation: Finding the Artifacts
How the players go about locating the various locations of the artifacts is largely up to you and your group, but it will likely take a combination of investigation and the use of Christmas Cheer powers. The North Pole does have a sophisticated observation system, so the player characters will be able to use it to determine that Sgt. Major Gimbel and his crew are the culprits. From there, it is just a matter of negotiating the investigations to guide them to the three locations: the small town of Mead Pit, Idaho has the Glycyrrhiza glabra, the Mystery Archive of Kemeia (located in the Kaisariani Forest in Greece) is the storage place of Rita’s Coin, and the Gimbel Estate outside of Las Vegas stores the never ending mug of Apple Cider Vinegar.
Encounter 1 — Mead Pit
Mead Pit is a small town located in central Sweden on the coast of Lake Siljan. The town is named after their famed Mead recipe and their entire economy is dedicated to the production of “The Pitts” mead and other fermented alcohols. Sgt. Major Gimbel had a botanomancer in his employ fuse the Glycyrrhiza glabra with one of the trees at The Pitts Orchard where the corrupted plant has altered the fruit from the tree and the honey produced from the pollen of its blooms. All of the brewmasters at The Pitts have tasted a batch of mead tainted with the licorice essence and all but one quit working at the brewery. Only Jons Boel remains at work, but he plans on making a massive batch of licorice to hand out to members of the community, which will make the whole town succumb to sloth and laziness.
The player characters will have to find a way to remove the Glycyrrhiza glabra from the tree Knowledge 14 Test, or via the use of a power, and then purify it Presence 12 Test (using Christmas Cheer Rules apply so failure can result in loss of power). Once the plant has been secured, they will need to inspire the brewmasters to make a batch of Holiday Licorice and Holiday Mead to reverse any damage that has been done. This can be done via persuasion rolls (Presence 14) or via the use of various Companion Powers. It’s really up to you and this whole section should be a role play heavy encounter.
If you do want to add one fight, I recommend the use of an Ash Tree Wife. This opponent can also be the botanomancer who corrupted and bound the plant to the orchard tree. This is especially useful if none of the characters have a high Knowledge stat or a power that they could interpret to be useful in saving the tree.
Encounter 2 — The Mystery Archive of Kemeia
After being destroyed in a horrible battle millenium ago, the archive of Kemeia remained abandoned. It is currently overrun with Kallikantzaroi, indifferent to the history of the place. Rumors say that the archive is rich with treasures and ancient books and gold.
The Mystery Archive of Kemeia is located in the scenic Kaisariani Forest in Greece. The location is a popular tourist destination and offers a wonderful escape from the city below. The Archive is located in a hidden cave in the middle of the forest. The players can find this either by using Christmas Cheer powers, interrogating a prior boss (PRS 12 Test), or another means of your choosing. Given that this is related to Greedy Rita’s coin, an interesting lead would be that the citizens of Athens and the Greek government have shifted all investments into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, especially other cryptocurrencies. Maybe even Gimbel-Coin. Characters can discover this information on a KNW 12 check.
Once in the archive, the characters will have to face a number of foes. You can either download the larger version of the map or copy and paste the map below which can be easily enlarged to use as a battle map.
In each room, except 2 and 3, roll 1d6. On a 1-3 that is now many Kallikantzaroi are in the room, otherwise the room is empty. Unlike those in room 2, these wandering Kallidantzaroi don’t count against the total in room 3.
Room 1 — A notable gate with a hidden keyhole to the south. The gate is an old rusted bronze greek gate that dates back to just after the Peloponnesian war and depicts the betrayals of Alcibiades.
Room 2 — A silver key is among the rubble on the ground. Picking up this key magically alerts 2d4 Kallikantzaroi from Room 3 to enter and attack.
Room 3 — Greedy Rita’s Gold Coin is in a glass trophy case here. The case is sealed and can only be opened with a Christmas Cheer roll to negate the anti-Christmas field that is infused with the glass. This roll is at +2 if the characters have the staff from room 6. This room also houses 12 (minus those who entered room 2) Kallikantzaroi.
Room 4 — A puddle of dark water (the tears of Medusa poured out when her lover Alcibiades spurned her) that turns a person to stone when touched unless the person makes a successful Toughness 12 test.
Room 5 — A corpse of a pirate, a breastplate (-d4) close by.
Room 6 — An ancient staff and a map in a chest. This ancient staff is a former Christmas Artifact used by Saint Nicholas. An Apprentice Companion can attune the staff with a Presence 12 Test.
Encounter 3 — Gimbel Compound
The Gimbel compound is located outside of Las Vegas and Gimbel has found a way to access the local water supply. He is using this access to taint the water with the Apple Cider Vinegar from Cheatin’ Pete’s never ending mug of Apple Cider Vinegar. This corruption of the water supply is having a massive negative effect on Vegas nightlife as everyone who drinks the water comes under the illusion that they have the “perfect system” to beat the House and win via innovative cheating methods. All 21/Blackjack players think that they can count cards (they cannot), slot machine players are inventing and selling magnets “guaranteed” to beat the slots, and so on. The casinos are overwhelmed with cheaters and on the verge of closing down.
Players can locate the problem via the normal methods (Powers or a Knowledge 12 investigation to find out about the rampant cheating). Casino bosses won’t know who is responsible, but player characters might notice that the devices guaranteed to beat the slots and the books on card counting are produced by Gimbel incorporated. The Gimbel family is well known in Vegas and used to own a shop in Caesar’s Palace’s mall, but that failed a long time ago. The old guard still know the way to Gimbel’s compound though and will direct the players.
The compound has two buildings that are well guarded by Gimbel’s Anti-Claus Soldiers (around 20 of them) and Gimbel himself. You can play this out as an action packed shoot ‘em up between the two buildings on the compound or as a stealth mission. Place the Mug in whichever building and room you wish and have fun. Remember that after the Mug has been retrieved, it must be cleansed (Presence 12 Test) or Vegas will continue to be out of hand. Additionally, after defeating Gimbel, the player characters can try to convert him into a new Companion (Presence 14 Test).
Jule Borg is an independent production by Christian Lindke and Geekerati Media 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.
First, thanks for the kind mention of Gingerbread Kaiju. Second ... this is freakin' awesome! I want a PDF version I can put on my pad and carry to game night!