Free League Publishing gave me a chance to check out their new offering, Black Powder and Brimstone. It is a grimdark fantasy RPG compatible with MÖRK Borge. It is a rules-light, art-heavy OSR game that offers swashbuckling adventure and gothic folk horror in an unholy blend.
It’s kind of funny that I grew up playing old-school role-playing games (I started with the 1979 blue basic D&D book) but haven’t really engaged with an OSR game until now. If this is a good representation of what’s out there, I might have to check more of them out.
Black Powder and Brimstone is set in an alternate world where holy inquisitors and demons slug it out for control of the continent while the rest of humanity struggles to survive. This is actually one of my few problems with the game. It is basically just a more demonic version of fifteenth-century Europe, which is one of the few problems I have with the game book. If you are going to make everything basically the same, including characters like Luther Martin and a religion based around the Shepard, why not just make it an alternate history game? It’s a small thing, but I would have preferred either completely original or just own the fact it’s Europe.
The book’s best feature is the incredible artwork. It is distinctive and evokes the feeling of the game wonderfully. The artwork fills every page of the book with wall-to-wall inspiration, and it lets you slide into the roles of the characters and the threats they will face easily. The rules are a little sparse but make the game quick to pick up and allow a lot of flexibility to use as is or adapt to your group. The setting, as it is presented, would be easy to shift into a different system if you wanted to use it for a campaign in your D&D or other fantasy TTRPG.
All in all, I really enjoyed checking out the game, and I will have to track down some more OSRs to investigate.
If you want to pick up a copy
Note- I was given a copy of the book for review purposes by Free League Publishing. All my opinions are my own.
Paper Phoenix ink 