Just before joining the Mörk Borg release party in Stockholm earlier this March, I had the pleasure to meet Dan Algstrand, a.k.a. Norse Dork, who graciously took it upon himself to be my guide not just around our corner of the city, but also through the Swedish RPG scene in general. Later that evening, I managed to corner him for a few questions. I quoted him already in my writeup of the release party, but here is the interview transcript in full.
When I read that the creators of artpunk game Mörk Borg would have a release party in Stockholm, I decided that I would join. It’s one of my favorite games recently released, certainly one the most gorgeous ones, and its production values are through the roof (glow-in-the-dark spine, silver foil inside, different kinds of paper, …). Plus, I wanted to meet the people behind the book. What I hadn’t foreseen was the sheer number of awesome, friendly, and diverse people I would get to know.
It may appear that things have been a little quiet here at Mottokrosh Machinations HQ, but nothing could be further from the truth. In the dark depths of the Mottokrosh mind a plethora of pursuits have been progressing. So I thought it was about high time to give you a little bit of a sneak peek. Hypertellurians We’re working on a revised edition of our flagship product, with two goals: to further improve ease of comprehension and utility at the table, and to add a starting adventure.
Kia ora koutou! My name’s Liam and I’m here to take over the blog for a day. I recently got to have my first experience running Hypertellurians in an epic 7 hour game on New Year’s Eve. I mentioned it to Frank and he invited me here to tell you all about it. So here we are. But this story doesn’t start on New Year’s Eve, but rather several months beforehand.
The first pieces of commissioned artwork for Hypertellurians—back in its infancy—were the twelve interpretations of the game’s six archetypes: Alien, Beast, Construct, Revenant, Royal, and Ultranaut. Karen Reding was drafted in, and over the course of a few months painted the portraits, basing them on our gaming friends. Sometimes they represented actual playtest characters that these fine folk played, other times the concepts were made up. It had long been the plan to take pictures of the folk, with their portraits from the books, but somehow the task had always slipped through the cracks.
Welcome to the first part in a new series, where we look at the design of an RPG we have been working on for the last few months. The game is called Woaden, after the woad plant, used to make blue dye and paint, back in the olden days. It’s the spiritual successor to Hypertellurians, and while it retains some of the elements of that game, it’s going into a different direction.
I was very excited when the excellent Mud & Blood podcast asked me to run a one-shot Actual Play for them of Hypertellurians. Because it was to be released on Christmas, they asked if I could make it seasonally themed. After running a whole bunch of Christmas themed adventures over the years, it starts to get tricky to come up with new spins on elves as demons or Krampus as the the big bad.
At conventions we like to run very short demos—30 to 45 minutes—of Hypertellurians on our stand to give passersby a taste of the system, and the types of games you might play with it. Here is the reference sheet we used for our Dragonmeet demos. It’s a mashup from the recently released Heart of the Atom Isa adventure, combining several of that scenario’s scenes, items, and people into one chase scene.
Our first time exhibiting at Dragonmeet 2019 in London was a blast. In comparison to UK Games Expo it’s a smaller, but also more focused experience, since everything happens in one day. But what a day it was. My awesome convention crew were explaining, describing, running, setting up or down, selling, and generally looking after me all day, and I couldn’t have done it without them. In the end we sold out of Hypertellurians, something we’re both proud and deeply ashamed of.
Mottokrosh Machinations has two upcoming books, both to be launched at Dragonmeet, where we will be with a stall and a small crew, including artist Anna Molla, editor David Fuller, and GM Kara Payne. Jump directly to a section below, or read on. New sourcebook: Solemn Scriptures of the Battle Nuns of the Mercyful Sepulcher New short adventure: Heart of the Atom Isa Dragonmeet 2019 Solemn Scriptures of the Battle Nuns of the Mercyful Sepulcher This is our big new book, clocking in at 72 pages, many strange words, and loads of illustrations.