In the bleak, dying world of Mörk Borg a peculiar wizard lives alone in a tower, offering jobs to desperate warbands looking for any job no matter the danger or how meager the pay. This post is long overdue as I am a huge fan of this game. We even collaborated with the creator, KRD Designs, on an expansion to the game called Forbidden Wilderness. So needless to say, we’ve played a lot of sessions of this game and its spin-off expansions that take the game from a dark fantasy setting to a dystopian alternate great war setting, and then most recently adapted to the Cy_Borg cyberpunk setting. Oh and there’s also a sportsball game called Mörk Boll. You can use any miniatures your want and the game plays great as solo mode, versus, cooperatively, or as a tabletop RPG. There’s a lot to like about Forbidden Psalm so let’s dive into what it is and how we’ve been playing it.
According to the Exalted Funeral website:
Forbidden Psalm is a 28mm miniatures agnostic game. You can use any miniatures you already own that fit the bill or build custom minis for this game (with random tables to help you determine how to build them). Solo Play and Coop rules included. All content is also able to be used in the MÖRK BORG ttrpg.
In Forbidden Psalm you will recruit a warband of 5 greedy souls to undertake Vriprix the Mad Wizards’ bidding. But the Mad Wizard hasn’t just bet on you. You will face rivals before you will seen any of his coin. Hunt ravenous monsters and unearth dangerous relics as you search for the Psalm itself….maybe even help the Mad Wizard locate his misplaced socks.
A game of blood. Metal and death. In Forbidden Psalm your warband is disposable. Its members will suffer injuries, flaws and even unleash horrible magic. But for hardened survivors, a wealth of plunder and experience awaits.
Character creation is random and incredibly fun.
Getting started is really easy in Forbidden Psalm and like other games that use the Mörk Borg ruleset, it’s one of my favorite parts. You just need a warband of 5 members, each get assigned flaws and traits based off random tables and then the warband spends their starting money to equip weapons to each model to the best of your ability. In the beginning, your weapons will not be very effective but if one of the members of your warband dies, you can always hire another for the next scenario.
We played our first campaign in a solo mode where the game group worked together to control a single warband and we did some roleplaying between skirmish battles. We started off with these 5 low lives.
For roleplaying purposes we needed some sort of run down castle for the wizard to reside. This worked for our needs.
Members die and the warband evolves.
The scenarios are all action packed and engaging. You’ll fight off sock stealing goblins, skeletons, disembowelled ghouls, animal cultists, a Morka Porka, the Corpse Collector, the Great Maw, Sirens, an Afanc, Vampires, and the expansion called In the Footsteps of the Mad Wizard adds even more monsters and scenarios.
Miniatures agnostic games like Forbidden Psalm makes each game table unique.
The goblins are an integral part. These are from the Mörk Borg miniatures from Westfalia Miniatures who also have other miniatures for the game.
Disembowelled Ghouls can be just brutal.
Animal cultists were not something I had miniatures for but my kids did.
I used this miniature from @yasashiikyojinstudio for the Puca
and we used this mini from @axolotegaming as a Morka Porka. It was orginally meant as Kingdom Death: Monster fan content for the Boar God.
This grotesque miniature from Bestiarum Miniatures works great as the Corpse Collector
I found this cool miniature from @rocketpiggames to use as the Great Maw
I had some Sirens from Reaper Bones 5
I used the Fearsome Wilderness Dungavenhooter as an Afanc
and I really like these Vampires from Reaper Miniatures
We at one point added a rival warband using these Bestiarum Miniatures
Also highly useful are these corpses from Vae Victis Miniatures. These are great for objective markers.
And so Matt at Geektopia Games reached out to KRD Designs and soon after, we had a Fearsome Wilderness collaboration! Kevin named it Forbidden Wilderness.
From the Exalted Funeral website:
What’s that noise?
From the tales of old, and beasts of a time forgotten, comes forth a collaboration of the deadliest kind: Geektopia Games, creators of the Fearsome Wilderness board game, and KRD Designs, the mind behind Forbidden Psalm, team up to bring you new horrors for Forbidden Psalm! Featuring creatures based on the Fearsome Wilderness miniatures range and board game, Forbidden Wilderness features classic cryptids from American folklore, stated up and ready to roll.
But that’s not all! Like all Forbidden Psalm releases the fun doesn’t stop with monsters. KRD has also included Going On A Hunt, a Scenario that sends your warband on a hunt for these dreaded beasts. Don’t go unarmed, though! Be sure to take the Lever Action Rifle, a brand new item!
You can pick up Forbidden Wilderness on DriveThruRPG or at Exalted Funeral.
I packed up as much as I could before heading to Gen Con 2022 so we could play the new expansion and show off the game.
The Forbidden Wilderness expansion has an included scenario where you can hunt one of 24 fearsome critters from North American folklore including the Agropelter, Axehandle Hound, Ball-Tailed Cat, Cactus Cat, Dungavenhooter, Glawackus, Goofus Bird, Gumeroo, Hidebehind, Hodag, Hoop Snake, Hugag, Jackalope, Jersey Devil, Joint Snake, Sidehill Gouger, Silver Cat, Snallygaster, Snipe, Splinter Cat, Squonk, Teakettler, Tree Squeak, and Wampus Cat.
And then the next expansion for Forbidden Psalm came out called The Last War and we dove right in.
From the Forbidden Psalm website:
The Last War is a standalone expansion for Forbidden Psalm
The Great War, World War, War to End all Wars, the only true name it has is the Last War, for now remains not enough people to fight another.
The War ended not with a bang but a cough and splutter. The disease that took hold spread far and wide. Few survived the fever and filth. With so few humans left those that dwelled in the night took up the arms of man to fight over what was left. Those scattered beings hunt the trenches of the last war for scraps, salvage and weapons. Beasts, humans and all in between now hunt these deserted battlefields. Soldiers who have not realised the war has ended, demons of myth and nightmares and the few remaining citizens pick at what remains. As if in response to the suffering man unleashed on man, a great fog has taken the land. What dwells within the swirling mists will chill even the most hardened of veterans. What comes after the Last War? Only decay, death and destitution.
And a new warband (now called a crew) was formed.
I highly recommend checking out Knucklebones Miniatures if you are a 3d printing enthusiast like myself these miniatures are perfect for The Last War.
We started using one of my modular wargaming boards I made a long time ago, here’s a link to that tutorial I wrote.
The last war is a totally new setting and with it comes new monsters like Trench maggots, gas bugs, haunted tanks and more. Here are a few of the miniatures we used.
Trench rats!
Mud Ghouls (Reaper Miniatures Boulderkin)
Vlkolak (Wolves from Reaper Mini)
And then the holidays arrived. So we added some holiday cheer to our sessions.
My plan hinged on having cool objective markers. I’ll be making this a tradition and using these for holiday skirmish or wargaming. We play a lot of Kill Team and Warhammer too.
This was a blast and I recommend it.
Kevin then surprised us all with stats for Krampus and Santa and a free scenario called Seasons Beatings. KRD designs is so awesome. Join the discord or facebook group for free content like this.
So we definitely added St Nic and Krampus. I have a several Krampus miniatures as many of you probably also do. This one we used was an older one from Reaper Mini. The “St. Nic” miniature we used was the Santa Satan miniature from Kingdom Death: Monster.
We incorporated some Snowmen (Reaper Mini)
And then I decided we needed some Gingerbread men from @warinchristmasvillage
And the mean one himself, the Grinch from @claycyanide
Things got silly but in a gruesome way.
Side note, I thoroughly enjoy using my festive 3D printed dice mimic dice container from our friend XYKit
Forbidden Psalm goes cyberpunk with KillSampleProcess
Our game group has taken a break to play other games while I prepare for the next installment of Forbidden Psalm called KillSampleProcess. KSP is set in the world of Cy_Borg which is the cyberpunk version of Mörk Borg.
This is Cy_Borg
And this is Kill Sample Process. The hardcover version of the book matches the white cover of the previous expansions and this one comes with some excellent stickers.
We played through a handful of sessions of Cy_Borg but I’m working on miniatures and terrain so we can play some KSP soon.
I procured some secondhand miniatures off ebay so we can get this to the table sooner than later. I re-based them with some Astrogranite Debris from Citadel Paints so they look cohesive. Not sure what all we will use but we got options now.
Here’s some shots of our Cy_Borg rpg sessions. Black lights are fun.
Skirmish games need good terrain and I’m planning on using this Click Lock City 3D printable scenery I backed on Kickstarter from our good friends at Digital Taxidermy.
They actually have a Kickstarter live right now (May 2023) if you are interested. This Click Lock City Duplex campaign is live right now and expands on Click Lock City so check it out.
Now I gotta go get to work on painting it all.
Thanks for reading this blog entry and I hope it has you interested in Forbidden Psalm. I know Kevin at KRD Designs has lots of cool ideas so follow along as we see what’s next from KRD Designs.
