Black Powder and Brimstone is a Kickstarter-funded grimdark TTRPG set in a hellish reimagining of the Thirty Years’ War. In Black Powder and Brimstone, players are cast into the war-torn killing fields of Vaterland, a crumbling empire beset by feuding religious orders, roaming bands of mercenaries, covens of witches, and legions of demons.
Adventures in Vaterland have a classic old-school renaissance flair, with a heavy emphasis on swashbuckling and occult mystery. As with other TTRPGs from Free League Publishing, players can expect an art-heavy, rules-light experience that prioritizes cinematic storytelling.
To keep the rules light, Black Powder and Brimstone uses a modified Mörk Borg engine—a streamlined d20 system built around four core stats, a handful of skills, and fixed challenge ratings. To keep the art heavy, the hardbound book fills nearly all of its 168 glossy pages with gloriously gothic, Mike Mignola-inspired illustrations. The setting is fleshed out in short, grimdark-style vignettes that are colourful but deliberately vague—a choice that gives Vaterland a strong sense of place while keeping the world as malleable as the rules.
The print quality of Black Powder and Brimstone is top-notch. The illustrations are grim and beautiful, and the world is both mysterious and original. As an art book or setting guide, Black Powder and Brimstone is fantastic—but as a core rulebook for a TTRPG, it’s a poorly formatted, underdeveloped misfire.
The red flags start raising right away. Take the world map on page four, for example: it lists 24 locations in a numbered index, but the corresponding map has no clear order. Locations 1, 3, and 5 are clustered on the east coast, while 2 is in the far north, and 4 appears below 8, far off on the west coast. The pages that follow describe these locations in a similarly disorganized fashion. We’re given a broad overview of three cities, a haunted swamp, and a general overview of forests and the countryside. The rest is left entirely to the imagination.
After introducing some of the locations, the book shifts to explain the world’s two religious orders, followed by a list of other factions, world events, and then, once again, returns to religion. Disorganization alone isn’t enough to be game-breaking, but it does lead to precious time being wasted. The last thing gamemasters and players want to do during the fleeting hours of a game session is flip through a rulebook. But there’s a more consistent issue than poor structure: readability.
Text blocks are often tiny, oddly spaced, vague, and awkwardly staggered across the page to accommodate the artwork. Not even the charts are spared from these issues: information from one side of the page bleeds into the chart on the other. Text size, color, and fonts are inconsistent, complicating even the simplest details.
“The print quality of Black Powder and Brimstone is top-notch.”
Nowhere is this more frustrating than during character creation. We’re instructed to roll our stats before selecting an archetype, but each archetype offers unique ways to roll its stats. And if you choose not to pick an archetype, the rules are incomplete, leaving out a roll to determine starting gold.
Each archetype also offers a role-playing advantage, but there’s no explanation of how it works. A rifleman can make bullets when at rest, but it’s never stated how many they can make. A greatswordsman wears flamboyant clothes that command respect, but there’s no context for what that means or how to roll for it. Witches can brew potions if they have the right ingredients, but the potions list doesn’t mention the required components. Fortune tellers can give hazy tarot card readings—how? Why? Spoilers: We never find out.
The whole point of Mörk Borg is to keep the game rolling, but the rule modifications and formatting only create unnecessary roadblocks to gameplay. The new mechanics come with inadequate instruction, shifting the core experience from rules-lite to rules-absent. However, there are a few interesting and well-defined additions, such as the Devil’s Luck system, which allows players to roll for a dark power at the risk of being cursed, and charts for building mercenary companies and war wagons.
“Black Powder and Brimstone needs a second edition to work out its kinks.”
But for a game with “Black Powder” in the name, surely the gunplay has to be fun, right? No. Guns and bombs often feel more like liabilities than tools—and there are only four to choose from. The benefit of a firearm is that its damage bypasses armour, but the drawback is a 1 in 4 chance it won’t work, and a 1 in 8 chance it will explode in the character’s hand, dealing 1D4 damage.
Whether the exploded weapon can be fixed apparently wasn’t worth mentioning, but if the gun does fire, it takes a full round to reload. The math only gets worse for the Grenadier archetype. Even with the ability to reroll misfires, they still face a 1 in 9 chance of attack failure—and a 1 in 18 chance of blowing their hand clean off.
Games where death comes quickly can be a lot of fun, but when serious injury or death is a common outcome of standard attacks, it starts to feel tedious.
The problems persist into the gamemaster section, but by that point, I’d stopped taking notes. Black Powder and Brimstone needs a second edition to work out its kinks. It introduces some compelling gameplay ideas and builds an evocative world, but fumbles the execution with disorganized, underdeveloped rules.
A gamemaster with Mörk Borg experience could probably make a campaign work, but would likely use this rulebook for inspiration only. Unless you’re specifically looking for a campaign setting or an art book, I’d give Black Powder and Brimstone a pass.
- IMMERSIVE GRIMDARK SETTING: Dive into a world where darkness, destruction, and betrayal lurk around every corner, offering a relentless grimdark experience that challenges your survival instincts and forces brutal, life-or-death decisions.
- RULES-LIGHT, ART-HEAVY DESIGN: Experience fast-paced, streamlined gameplay with a focus on rich, evocative artwork that brings the setting to life, making it easy to learn yet deeply immersive for both new and seasoned TTRPG enthusiasts.
