This is an amazing book with one of the best magic resource and spell pool mechanic I read in a long time. Please note the combat rules have also changed since my review. Please check out my Dungeons & Dyslexia review here https://youtu.be/NqjWRxOGTuM

Never played any osr/ttrpg like this. Everything hit every note. The aesthetic, mechanics, and genius implementation of social media for coven interaction, a way to make the community and the game one in the same. Currently my fav game with all it does. Great job. 9999 / Recommend.

Don't let the content warning give you preconceptions. While this game does have lots really SICK stuff in it, the book gives very thoughtful lore and setting explanation that makes your party of vile magic wielding witches GOOD aligned, you will be mechanically admonished for being bad just for the sake of being bad. This game is very thoughtfully written and while it does broach mature subjects it does it with care and taste.

TLDR: Best game about Witches, I have ever read. Period.

The long part: The tone of the book all throughout is that of a conversation, like you could hear the rules read in the author's voice. The book starts with a letter from a disciple that explains the nature of their magic and the origin of its discovery that pulls me right into the world. It aims to get me emotionally invested in the places and the people and succeeds, the black and white art gives it the feel of older photos or drawings that I might associate with an age of witches.

Combat is really fast and player facing. You get sort of a familiar mechanic of enemies always assumed to hit and the player must roll their own dice to try and avoid being hit by the enemy, but it hastens this by limiting the number of rounds that happen in a combat with nameless enemies. Very well done. Makes the stakes higher, prevents GMs from lying to you about the enemy hitting or not.

The magic is incredibly unique and interesting. So vile they don't want to use it on their own bodies and each spell has a bit of a reference to real practical magic where the part symbolically becomes capable of something a little extra. It's a very interesting casting mechanic that gives you a reason to do the gorey SICK part of the game. (It even has esoteric dice rolling mechanics for it!) and a host of witch classes that get their own built in ability and special weapons and magic items. Your witch feels very unique to the other witches in your party, and the shared magic pool makes magic and problem solving a collaborative process.

Black Branch HQ is very detailed, your players will be able to easily think of it as home because it is quite well mapped and detailed.

Cherry on top -- The thick chapter of random generator tables for all the cool stuff you might need during your adventures, and its great inspiration for coming up with your own stuff if you play long term enough to need unique items for the tables. (Paranormal Abominations are very cool) It also includes a starting adventure, which is just great because usually with niche games I only get to play them as a oneshot, so having the starter adventure included in the book always makes it feel a little more complete to me.

The only Cons I would give it is that the PDF in its current state is not Bookmarked or Linked, so cliking page numbers does not take you anywhere and there are no bookmarks to zoom around the book comfortably. But thats not even a reason enough to knock a star off for me, the contents are fantastic, and Bookmarks and Links can always be added later maybe.

I’m digging this a lot. I enjoy that they are not shying away from “adult” subject matter. The “”piece by piece” narrative could make for some really in-depth and fun role playing. Love the OSR/MB blend of game mechanics. Art is stellar, you can tell with his writing that this was a labor of love.

As a huge fan of Exordium and The Spine of Night, I was hoping for something great, and expecting at least some tidbits I could take and repurpose. Unfortunately this module not only fell short of my hopes, it fell short of my expectations for a mediocre module.

To start, the premise is very thin, and an illogical premise at that: obtain a mysterious substance, but no one will tell you what it is, where it is, or how to cultivate it. Except, of course, a bunch of people the party meets along the way. The art is poorly placed and ill-fitting. Why did you dedicate an entire page to a meager horse eating grass? The font is awful. Gothic font they scatter throughout is literally illegible. The d8 rumor table is somewhat interesting, but it does not indicate which rumors are true and which are false. I guess the DM is supposed to figure that out on their own! Also the rumor table contains some things that aren't rumors, such as "- A child once sang you a song of Sarkash, its lyrics brought you to tears though now you can remember nothing but the sorrow of it" That's not a rumor - that's fluff.
Here are things that are referenced in the module, but not defined anywhere, and left up to the DM to figure out what to do:

• "the two headed basilisks" - who are they?
• What is Lake Onda?
• What is Schleswig city?
• Who are "Matriarchs Against Dead Dreaming"
• What is "Galgenbeck"
• Who are "monks in the Cretonic enclaves in Tveland"

The 3d8 pilgrim generator is poorly formatted. Should be a table. How many pilgrims are there? It's not clear. Regions are poorly detailed. There is little to no information regarding the environment - sights, sounds, smells, etc. And there are logical inconsistencies - two characters, Ditmar and Frixco are said to be loudly arguing with each other. Then two paragraphs later one is said to be high on a drug and speaking gibberish. Which is it? Are they having a conversation or is one high and speaking gibberish?

The one dungeon that is in this module is on-rails - an extremely linear dungeon that as a single fork which regroups at the end.

In summary, this module appears to prioritize style over substance, but fails to deliver either. There are much better modules out there than Veilgrave. This is in need of a complete rewrite and needs an actual editor.

Edit: I see the author has replied and decided to take the feedback personally and instead chose to attack me for my critique. All I can say is that is extremely unprofessional at the least. I read the entire module: it is absoltely abysmal. Quite Literally, there are free modules that are orders of magnitude better both in creativity, completeness and cohesiveness. Perhaps the author should adhere to the guidelines: feedback is supposed to be informative and constructive.

Drug-fueled desolate settings, where every good thing could quickly become a bad thing - welcome to Mork Borg. As someone who has had the pleasure of introducing the setting of Mork Borg and various associated adventures to new and experienced RPG players at conventions and local game stores over the years, I will be the first to admit that this setting is not everyone's cup of tea. Buyer beware - you should know the game system for which you are buying an adventure module!

That said, Veilgrave offers a narrative that is spot-on with the flavor of the setting. The introduction is loose enough that it allows Gamemasters to flex this into their own campaigns or get really creative with why the players are there. Better yet - ask your players why they are there; often their ideas are the best ones!

I really appreciated that Veilgrave, while maintaining an overarching story, doesn't railroad players into following a set path. You can choose to follow the breadcrumbs dropped by the NPCs or strike out on your own. You can avoid the danger or charge right in. Heck, you can even go through the "dungeon" from either end (for better or worse). And the ending is as flexible as the beginning; players can drive their own destinies here (and reap the consequences of their actions).

Remember this is going to be a product for Mork Borg, so you should expect body horror, brutal descriptions, metal/gothic-inspired fonts and art, deadly encounters, and a very flexible setting to accompany the rules-light aspect of the core game.

PS to answer Gray, the reviewer who left a list of questions; the answer to all of these are in the core rules for Mork Borg, as they are parts of the setting itself:

• "the two headed basilisks" - who are they?
• What is Lake Onda?
• What is Schleswig city?
• What is "Galgenbeck"
• Who are "monks in the Cretonic enclaves in Tveland"
• "Matriarchs Against Dead Dreaming" is a parody of "Mothers Against Drunk Driving", a non-profit organization from the real world.

A strong choice for an ever-hungry Mork Borg table. Veilgrave balances measures of mystery, NPC intrigue, action, and apocalypse that you can mold into a one-shot, the beginning of something wholly other, or a "refreshing stop along the way" if something long-running needs a shakeup. By refreshing, I mean, yeah, characters may die and/or be changed forever, but isn't that what you are looking for? GREAT DARK VIBES.

I don't often write reviews, but I was quite irked about a one-star review by a reviewer who seems to be completely unfamiliar with Mork Borg, the system for which the module is written - and I thought that unfairly impacted the early review score of this module.

I was a playtester for this module (and I hold the honor of playing the first character who died to this adventure!) - and the entire group had a blast playing this over two sessions. And the best part is - we found an early on backdoor to the big dungeon and actually missed out on a ton of what this sandbox module offers - so being able to finally see the module in it's full glory and being able to read all we missed out on is super cool.

There is a lot to like here - the creators clearly understand Mork Borg and what makes it special. The sandbox module oozes the perfect atmosphere - grim, heavy metal, dark trippy fantasy. The hook - being debtors who can clear their name if they each bring back a coffinload (yes!) of some elixir/drug called kairos - is a fun, unique start. The characters don't really know much beyond the name of this substance, and that it's source is somewhere in the Sarkash forest. It only gets wilder from there.

The deeper into the forest and the dungeon you go, the weirder things become, but not in the gonzo way of some adventures - this module keeps a consistent tone, and the further we went the more and more it kept delivering. Many Mork Borg products are very short, and sometimes a shorter module is good for maintaining tone, especially when it's a horror-fantasy game like this one. It's great to see a longer work, a sandbox, with the potential for lots of variance in playthroughs.

I think this is definitely a stand-out Mork Borg product, and I think fans of the Mork Borg system, tone, and setting are going to absolutely love Veilgrave.

Don’t understand or agree with the 1 star review elsewhere. Bought a few of Severed Books products and enjoyed them immensely and so have my players. Found out about the Kickstarter for this and it lead me to find The Spine of Night which I love too. I think it’s a great book in my opinion. Yes there were some font changes requested for legibility which I get some people might have a hard time with, a lot of Mork Borg leans very heavily into the black metal logo art punk style so for me I think that comes with the territory. But they responded to that and updated the PDF within hours. I love how the adventure progresses through the increasingly doomy sites and I feel like it’s got a great atmosphere seeping through the pages. I’m really happy with it and looking forward to the hardback arriving, sure my players will love it too (if they survive it) and probably love it even more if there’s some casualties along the way…

This is one hell of a book. It's an OSR adventure that's definitely NOT for kids, but isn't edgy just for the sake of being edgy. There's some genuinely disturbing stuff here. Rather than being "gonzo," Beaneath has a coherent narrative. Oh, it's still "out there", but everything in here is in here for a reason. There is a story here, and a meaning behind that story. Beneath has everything you could look for in an "adult" campaign. Sex. violence, horror, adventure, and treasure. The illustrations are good, plentiful, and shocking. The creatures and items are unique. This will resonate with 80s kids and millennials alike. And that's no mean feat.

Beneath has its own mini-setting, one closer to our own past than most "fantasy" settings. To wit: it's a medieval-ish setting in which the majority of people are Catholic/Christian. This is central to the theme of Beneath, and for that reason, it may be difficult to drop into your existing game. But, if you can find a way to run this, the juice will definitely be worth the squeeze.

The maps here are very useful as well. There are larger maps, and each room or area has its own, smaller map, plus a kind of "you are here" showing where on the larger map that place is. Saves you flipping back and forth. That's clever.

This is the kind of stuff the "edgy" OSR types wish they could write. If you're looking for an "adult" adventure, where "adult" means "mature, disturbing, thought provoking, and explicit", instead of "hurr durr boobies", Beneath is for you.

Review:

The first time I played Dungeons & Dragons, I was the DM and using the Introduction to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Game box set. Before writing this, I googled a bit to remind myself of everything that was in that set, and the search brought back a flood of fun memories, but there was one memory that stood out even before research. It was a particular battle that ended up moving through multiple rooms and corridors, one that went against the players badly at first but that they were able to turn around using some creativity. It was a fight against a Gelatinous Cube, and it was my first real D&D war story, the first story of my own adventure that I would tell people.

The Gelatinous Cube is one of those truly iconic monsters from D&D, yet like a lot of those iconic monsters (like Beholders or Mindflayers), it seems to be more known than it is actually fought. That being said the appearance of one is normally a big moment in an early dungeon, and I use the word big literally. At CR of 2 in 5e, it is often one of the earliest large enemies that can be fought. Its design fills up every corner of a corridor, communicating that this is not something you can get around. You must fight it to move forward, and this is often low enough level so it happens with a party who are used to goblins.

But again, that’s if the party fights one. We often start our campaigns at level 3, or even if we don’t, our first level dungeon doesn’t thematically fit with one of these monsters.

I had the pleasure of digging through Massive Gelatinous Cube Monster Manual, which was provided to me for the purpose of this review. This book is connected to Massive Gelatinous Cube made by Severed Books, a series of d6 dice that are scaled and designed to double as miniatures for Gelatinous Cube, and this monster manual is designed to give ideas on how to use them.

Having the dice themselves isn’t required to get good use out of this product, though if you do have some, you are probably anxiously looking for an opportunity to use them in battle.

The book

The main point is that we have a very cool mini for a very iconic but kind of bland monster, and what are we going to do with them? Well obviously, we are going to have the players fight some Cubes, but first we are going to spice them up a little bit to make this fight even more memorable.

The main part of this book is to provide a monster manual for Gelatinous Cubes. There are various types offered here, each tied to the color and style of the physical dice. These types will primarily give some variation to the theme by changing some of the features of their abilities or create different dangers based on the type of Gelatinous Cube you are encountering.

Each variation has its own abilities and particular dangers, whether it be a molten cube that leaves behind a fiery trail behind itself or one that has a magnetic pull to it. That one is interesting because it means you might actually get to use the coolest part of a Gelatinous Cube that nearly no adventure has ever fallen for (since you can just step out of its way) – the ability to absorb the adventurer inside itself. The armor-clad fighter is going to have a rough day with this one.

The second part of the book provides some ideas for encounters and arrangement of cubes, and in this part you can really see what the goal is here. The point is to make a low-level enemy into a high level and possibly deadly encounter. While the individual layouts are not as worthwhile as the actual stats, these maps actually helped me to stop thinking of these monsters as single monster encounters and instead as a group that attacks together.

To see TechnoFunkBoy's Conclusion find his whole review here: https://www.everythingboardgames.com/2021/11/massive-gelatinous-monster-manual-review.html

Just played this (the first half anyway) twice in 1 weekend. I played it with my normal D&D group on Firday night for some practice, and then with a group of old friends who are huge Dead Milkmen fans, but did not know D&D at all.

Both games were very different, but I was suprised how much the group who knew nothing of The Dead Milkmen loved this module, and how easy it was to play for a group that knew nothing of D&D. Though it does leave a lot of holes in the writing, I really feel Tiny Town was not well fleshed out at all, but I love the absurdity of everything. For $9, I would say this is a must have for any Dead Milkmen fan who loves D&D 5e.

A great bit of gamin fun for Dead Milkmen afficianados. Still pretty fun even for those who might not get all of the in-jokes. A nice one-off if you're looking for a tongue-in-cheek run for your party

Some great content generation for creating established relationships between players. I'm not one for dice drop games so I have no comments on that. Only flaw is the lack of a Table of Contents, which is sorely needed since the layout will drive you insane faster than the Necronomicon.

Me esperaba un buen diseño y páginas distintas que pudiera usar para llevar mi campaña.