spaceships in space

Rad Brats

Rad Brats is based upon, and compatible with Mörk Borg. See legal for more information.
This document is a work in progress, entire chunks are missing, some parts are incomplete, and it's being written and tweaked on the fly as I playtest it.

About the tone:

  • Play it fast, loose, loud, and stupid
  • If Mörk Borg is doom metal, Rad Brats is skater punk
  • Take existential dread and cosmic horror, soak it in epic beast-slaying fantasy, add a healthy dash of graffiti and teenage recklessness, and run wild
  • If it makes sense while you're playing, but sounds ridiculous when you talk about it the next day, you're playing it right!

About the intent:
Mörk Borg is probably the most fun I've ever had running TTRPGs. I love how quick and easy it is to throw together a dungeon, roll up some characters, and spend an evening playing with TTRPG veterans and newbies alike. The book is beautiful, it's dripping with flavour, every time I open it, I'm flooded with ideas for the next session. The community is overflowing with creativity, there are so many cool addons and extras to keep things fresh and exciting.

See the rädicalisations page for a quick rundown of the rule differences between Mörk Borg and Rad Brats

 Table of contents

Vibes

Colourful post-apocalypse. Riding the edge between gross-out and funny. 50/50 mix of medieval fantasy and post-collapse sci-fi.

Rad Brats takes place on the Wilderas continent on planet Meer. It is known that other continents lie somewhere across the gunky seas, beyond the glowing fog, but their names have been lost to time and war, as has most Wilderan and Meeran history.

Wilderas is mostly composed of feudal-like fiefdoms ruled over by monarchs, barons, and counts. The rulers are sometimes evil, sometimes arguably benevolent, and seemingly always on the precipice of going to war.

Scattered around Wilderas are dungeons. These dungeons sometimes have historical reasons for their existence, but they can equally have been created or just randomly appeared just to challenge whatever band of plucky adventurers happen to stumble upon them.

Lifeforms

The main classes of sentient lifeform are Mutant, Dirtling, Robot, and Cyborg.

Mutants are the descendants of the animal kingdom, of flesh and bone. Most bear some ressemblance to their long lost ancestors. Eyes and ears. Skin, fur, feathers, or scales. Feet, hooves, hands, and paws.

Dirtlings were once bound to the dirt. Jealous of the animals, they shed their roots and mycelium to walk the lands, and in the vacuum left by the animals' wars, they expanded and claimed their place in Wilderas.

Mutants often believe their ancestors built the robots. That belief is true, in a purely technical sense. The robots the mutants built were machines. When the mutants grew tired of building robots, they ordered robots to build robots. When the mutants grew tired of designing new robots, they ordered the robots to design robots. When the mutants realised what they had done, they feared an uprising and prepared for war. The robots never attacked, and simply began to just... Exist.

Cyborgs are an amalgamation of mutant and machine. When the robot war didn't happen, the peoples reunited. Robots enjoy tinkering, and with access to flesh, nerves, and other materials with interesting properties, some incorporated biology into their designs. Some mutants, aware of the limitations of their flesh, learnt from the robots' innovations and began to replace their flesh with metal. Where the line between mutant and robot is blurred, cyborgs were born.

Rules

Stuff

Tables

  • d20 Cool Vibes
  • d20 Fashion Statements
  • d12 Sick Scars
  • d20 Magickal Mishaps
  • d10 Gnarly Scrolls & d10 Fresh Scrolls
  • d20 The Gunkspillers demand
    • WIP: Some ideas for long-term quests or projects
  • d6×d8 Robot? Mutant? Absolute legends all...
    • WIP: Cool names for adventurers
  • d10 epic treasures
    • WIP: Ideas for magickal items that might be found
  • d12 wack traps
    • WIP: Ideas for evil traps to mess with the players
  • d66 sweet loot drops
    • WIP: Random stuff to find, some valuable, some useful, some disappointingly funny
  • d66+77 The Prophesies of Gorâzoteth
    • WIP: Weird world events, working like Mörk Borg's Calendar of Nechrubel, except the events are maybe a bit more "wacky"
  • Even more reasons to kick some ass
    • d12 where do you wander?
      • WIP: List some good starting locations around the continent
    • d20 who (or what) contacts you?
      • WIP: List some interesting character archetypes for "quest givers"
    • d100 adventure spark
      • WIP: List some ideas for adventures, treasures, and things to do
  • One of the many rad dungeons
    • WIP: A bunch of tables to aid in creating a dungeon
    • WIP: For the time being: Refer to Mörk Borg's dungeon tables and switch up the tone, soz lol
    • d12xd12 what is it called?
    • d6 status
    • d10 imminent danger
    • d12 who or what dwells here now?
    • d12 distinctive feature
    • d4 d6 sample rooms
  • d20 Awesome stories
    • WIP: Create list of cool backgrounds for player characters

Cultural touchstones

  • Adventure Time
    • Colourful post-apocalypse
    • The entire setting and tone
    • Dark fantasy and cosmic horror themes in a colourful cartoon style
    • Youth culture, loud and exciting, rule of cool
  • Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts
    • Colourful post-apocalypse
    • Mutant animals with various fashion genres
    • Sillyserious politics
  • Steven Universe
    • Sillyserious politics
    • Colourful horror themes (gem amalgamations, gem farming)
    • Loria is basically White Diamond

Random notes, lol

Bogus, wack, weak, bunk, stale, rank,
Epic, sweet, primo, cool, räd, righteous, badass,

Rad Brats is an independent production by Gaeel Bradshaw-Rodriguez 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.

Find out more about Mörk Borg, the artpunk doom metal album of a game: morkborg.com

Acknowledgements & thanks

Rad Brats's creation was powered by a mind that has absorbed many things. Here are (to the best of my knowledge) the things that inspired or accompanied my creative process:

  • Adventure Time by Pendleton Ward
  • Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts by Radford Sechrist
  • Steven Universe by Rebecca Sugar
  • Grog the Frog by Alba Bg and Davilorium
  • FLCL by Kazuya Tsurumaki
  • FLCL OST by The Pillows
  • Lei Line Eon by Iglooghost
  • La véritable histoire de Ashe Barrett by Vincent Hardy
  • L'Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Mœbius
  • Nichijou by Keiichi Arawi
  • Scavenger's Reign by Joe Bennett and Charles Huettner
  • Gelatinous Cube by Thee Oh Sees (with the music video)

Thanks to:

  • "The Brodie Appreciation Society", for reigniting my love for roleplaying games!
  • Les amis de Roubaix, c'est vraiment une belle bande d'amis qu'on a là, j'adore partager mes jeux de rôles avec vous!
  • /r/MorkBorg, a welcoming community of Mörk Borg fans, full of supportive and creative people
  • The wise and inquisitive folk on the Knot Knot Games Discord server
  • The miserable scvm from the the trve MÖRK BORG Discord server

Compatible with Mörk Borg