Isn’t it obvious? The zombie metaphor is still strong and wild in our pop-culture. I thought we’d all seen enough after that bit of nastiness with Glen. But the zombie infection plods on, inexorably shambling to the strange but fortunately unwritten future. But that’s no reason to write a table top role-playing game about it. Or is it?

Anyway, at the 2022 Gamehole Con, here in lovely Madison, WI, I picked up a copy of MORK-BORG. From page one I was in love. I read the book cover to cover then started again. Then, of course I mad-scrambled to collect the official ‘zines and supplements. My madness shifted then once more and I sought out other games using those same rules, presented in the same style. I discovered Vast Grimm, Cy-BORG many other great role-playing games.

I was particularly interested in how combat worked in these new BORGian nightmares. It seemed to work very well and quickly at that – folks were dying left and right. The letters T-P-K were heading our way on swift, red-fletched wings. The whole and how those few survivors made it through the adventure alive is a story worth telling but not today. Just know that when that game session was over I was a changed man. I knew what needed to be done.

We had to update The Darkest Age, resurrect it, if you will.

Taking inspiration from the folks behind MORK-BORG, we greedily helped our selves to their open-source rules and sucked the marrow clean.

Streamlining, updating and revising existing character classes was a labor of love. Each change and revision needed to be woven into the world accordingly, carefully. I think we have done just that.