Pirate Borg is a very flavourful, rules-light tabletop game about adventures on the high seas. This game is oozing Pirates of the Caribbean, Cthulhu, Three Musketeers and The Princess Bride. Basically any swashbuckling, rope-swinging Caribbean adventure. It’s crammed full of pirates, ghosts and of course – ghost pirates.
To learn more, QD was sent the Pirate Borg Starter Set, Core Rules Book, GM Screen and the Down Among The Dead expansion by its creator Limithron. Below are some thoughts on each. If you want to hear how the game plays, be sure to join my crew and check out my player review piece.
Pirate Borg Starter Set
The Pirate Borg Starter Set is hands-down one of the best tabletop starter sets I’ve seen. It’s absolutely jam-packed with everything you need to run a game.
For the GM, you have a really cool adventure about an ancient magical item. It includes battles with the Redcoats, plenty of zombies as well as a pirate settlement and some naval combat. You also have a set of dice, and tokens for every enemy and NPC in the adventure.
READ MORE: Pirate Borg Starter Set Review: The Perfect Gateway To Pirate RPGs
For the players, there is a miniature player’s guide. But you also have character sheets, and character creation cheat sheets that are super easy to use. There are also player handout cards for items and weapons, as well as enemy cards for the baddies.
The only thing missing from this starter set is the GM screen, which is sold separately. But that’s a really not essential for your first games. The GM screen, expansion and core rulebook are sold separately, but the Starter Set is an incredibly generous prospect for anyone looking to set sail in the Dark Caribbean.
Check out the Pirate Borg Starter Set, priced at $72 AUD here. Read on for more on those other products.
Pirate Borg Core Rulebook
The Pirate Borg core rulebook is where the meat and potatoes of your DM reading is going to be. This is a 166-page book, filled with delectable piratical details.
The art and layout of these books is absolutely wild. I love the chaotic grungy look of the pages, the art is spectacular, and really gives a great vibe to the whole setting. Just have a look at some of the pages and you’ll get what I mean.
The book itself is an expanded version of the Player’s Guide in the Starter Set. The full-fat version includes eight character classes, naval combat rules, 18 vessels, 80 NPCs and monsters, and heaps of tables for random encounters. There is also a totally separate adventure to the one in the Starter Set. So those playing with both will have the option of where to set sail.
My favourite part of this book (apart from the art), is all the options for character creation. When you’re building your crew, everything can be done with dice rolls. Using the tables in the core book, you’re certain to roll up some cool, weird, cursed pirates. Because Pirate Borg is a very high-lethality game, you can expect player characters to kick the bucket more often, then roll new ones to join the crew.
Find the Pirate Borg Core Rulebook for $55 AUD here.
Game Master Screen
Along with the core book, the Game Master Screen is there for the forever-GMs in the party. This is a densely-packed rules reference that is very useful in game, and also hides your plans from prying eyes. It includes combat and weapon rules, basic actions and enemy stats as well as a pirate name generator and naval combat rules.
There’s a whole lot of information in the GM screen. So, if you’re jumping into a game, be sure to give it a look over and identify key information first. The colour coding is great through. All the pirate name generator content is on the left in black. Combat rules are in red, naval rules in turqoise etc.
Check out the GM screen for $36 AUD here.
‘Down Among The Dead’ Expansion
For those wanting a bit more existential dread with their pirate shenanigans, check out the Down Among The Dead expansion. There are a set of expanded player options in this tome – some new classes that lean more heavily into the undead and Cthulhu mythologies. The great thing about these advanced classes is that you layer them over a basic class, giving more options for pirates who know the system already.
As with the core book, the art is a huge standout in this first expansion. Every page is oozing with existential dread and deep-sea horror. The book also includes pages upon pages of random generators for ships, islands, customised Jolly Roger flags and coral reefs.
One big selling point of the Down Among The Dead book is that it contains three adventures within its water-logged pages. The first sends your crew to Davy Jones’ Locker beneath the waves. The second pulls real Indiana Jones vibes with an ancient jungle temple in the tropics. The third in a stand-off with an undead vampire captain and his hungry crew. Really cool adventures.
Read more about the Down Among The Dead expansion here, priced at $57 AUD.
To read more about Pirate Borg and our first gameplay impressions, head here.
Learn more about Pirate Borg at Limithron’s website, and check out their three new upcoming Kickstarter projects, which were just announced!
All Pirate Borg products were supplied by the publisher for the purpose of review.
