Although most of your adventure as Morkin takes place on the inhospitable, frozen surface of Midnight, there will be times when you come across ancient ruins or unexplored caves. These areas can not only be explored but may also contain related quests.
Typically, when you arrive at a cave or ruin, you’ll encounter someone offering you a quest—ranging from retrieving an item or freeing a prisoner, to eliminating a monster or bandit, or even wiping out the dungeon’s inhabitants.
If you choose to accept the proposed quest and begin exploring the dungeon, you will use a special sheet to map it as you progress. Through dice rolls and various tables, you will generate the dungeon as you go—featuring different types of rooms, each with its own atmosphere and discoveries, a variety of doors and entrances (some trapped or concealing hidden passages), and staircases leading to other levels.
Each dungeon is home to a different type of inhabitant: they might be Ice Trolls, spiders, wolves, bandits, Doomdark troops, skulkrins… or even the feared Beasts of Death, which are the result of mutations created from Doomdark’s prisoners in the depths of the Ruin of Death, near the Tower of Doom.
The exception to this rule is three dungeons that are pre-generated in the game, complete with their own maps, defined inhabitants and final boss: the aforementioned Ruin of Death, the Ruin of Toomog, and the Cavern of Kor.
In the header, you can see Miguel Romero’s drawing of a Morkin character exploring a ruin.
Morkin is a table-top, solo-player game inspired by The Lords of Midnight, the strategy and adventure epic fantasy game created by Mike Singleton and first released for the ZX Spectrum in 1984. The Lords of Midnight is often ranked among the greatest role-playing and strategy games of the 1980s.
You will step into the role of Morkin as he embarks on his quest to destroy the Ice Crown. Played on a hexagonal map, the game blends role-playing elements with strategic exploration and adventure. All you will need to play Morkin is the book, a pencil, eraser, a few dice and your imagination.
Developed under licence from https://www.thelordsofmidnight.com/
Artwork by Miguel R. Mata (@miguelr.mata)
Layout & Graphic design by Esteban Iglesias (@estebaniglesias_pro) for nonserial (@nonserial_pro)