RAVAGED BY STORMS - On Kickstarter August 12th
#013 - What Golem Productions has been brewing for Pirate Borg over the last few months.
How did a prehistoric builder feel just before placing the last stone on his pyramid? How does an artist feel hours before his vernissage? Or a marathon runner in first place when he finally sees the finish line?
Maybe I understand it a little bit now. Of course, I wouldn’t dare compare us directly to these impressive people. But we can see that (first) finish line tomorrow, the last stone, our “vernissage.” And we are freaking out a little.
Tomorrow (Tuesday, August 12th, 8 p.m. CEST), RAVAGED BY STORMS will launch on Kickstarter, our mythical sandbox adventure module for Pirate Borg!
A 72-page myth-infused sandbox adventure module for Pirate Borg and OSR systems
They say there’s a place in the Eastern Bahamas where no ship may pass.
Where a serpent of feathers and lightning coils in the sky, guarding a ruin of white stone, dead and crumbling.
Where the wind itself whispers warnings through shattered sails.
The locals call it the Lifeless City. And they say no one returns.
But you’ve heard the rumors. That treasures lie in the bones of the dead white city RAVAGED BY STORMS. They call it a risk. You call it a lead. If you didn’t want to risk dying loud and legendary, you wouldn’t be a pirate. Will your crew brave the storm to claim the Lifeless City?
Watch the Launch Trailer!
Cudos to my fantastic crew member
for this amazing launch trailer!What RAVAGED BY STORMS actually is (and why you’ll care)
RAVAGED BY STORMS is a 72-page, offset-printed hardcover sandbox for Pirate Borg — rules-light, art-heavy, and fiercely OSR. It’s the most comprehensive Pirate Borg adventure yet (first or third party): built for multi-session campaigns, while many of the nine dense locations drop cleanly into one-shots, if so desired.
At the center: a Feathered Serpent (Coatl) that dynamically moves through the world as your table plays. Around it: three rival factions, procedures for travel and tension, and a Lifeless City you can only reach if you find a way to pass through the storm — or break it.
Fueled by the competitive hunt for a thief who dared to steal from the Coatl, the adventure offers no prescribed plot, but triggering events to which players can react in an OSR-like manner, however they want, or not at all.
Inside the book you’ll find:
🗺️ A campaign framework for the Death Wind Islands: a remote archipelago in the Eastern Bahamas where factions scheme and the Coatl changes the map.
🧭 9 fully keyed locations — hideouts, lairs, landmarks, the Lifeless City — each usable as a one-shot or part of the whole.
🌪️ Travel and faction procedures to keep the world moving when the crew does. Plus hooks, rumors, and encounters to explore these forgotten islands.
⚡ Squallbinding: a new school of Ancient Rituals (6 rituals) to bend wind, cloud, and thunder.
🎲 Storm Generator & Ruin Generator to stock seas, alleys, and bone-hollow towers on the fly.
👹 7 new monsters, mythic relics, and dangerous curiosities.
🎨 40+ hand-drawn pieces by Sabrina Jatscha — maps, NPC portraits, spreads. Art-heavy, not art-punk. No AI.
🧩 Pirate Borg at heart, easily adaptable to other OSR/NSR systems.
Early Bird Extra: 3 Postcards of the Death Wind Islands
Want to gather a party to run them through RAVAGED BY STORMS or any other Pirate Borg adventure? Surprise them with a real, physical postcard of the Death Wind Islands!!
If you back a physical pledge level of RAVAGED BY STORMS within the first 48 hours of the crowdfunding project, you will receive three Kickstarter-exclusive postcards for free!
Production and Format
It's been almost a year since we started the first brainstorming session for Ravaged by Storms. Shortly after we won the “Best Adventure” award at Limithron’s CABIN FEVER jam for “The Way of the Worm” and released “The Scarlet Coral Citadel.” I told that story here.
A whole year? Yeah, true, although some family and health reasons had put the project on hold for 4-5 months. However, since March or April of this year, we have been moving full steam ahead! The adventure has been completely written and edited, and playtesting has been underway since the beginning of July. The layout is finished, so to speak, and about 60-70% of the artwork has been created (all hand-drawn by
). AI has not been in play. In this blog post, I shared some sources of inspiration as well as game design principles that guided us through development.Two more adventures in the hold
Alongside RAVAGED BY STORMS, we’re crowdfunding print editions of two modules that slot perfectly into a longer campaign—or shine as lethal one-shots.
The Scarlet Coral Citadel — Enhanced Edition
A grim underwater pointcrawl inside a corrupted elkhorn coral that breaches the waves, restructured for clarity, expanded from 11 to at least 16 pages (Stretch Goals might add more) with new art and content, including the Red Coral Addict class.The Way of the Worm — Best Adventure, Limithron’s Cabin Fever Jam 2024
Parasite-ridden folk horror in the too-quiet village of Crique des Vermineux and the gnawed caves below. First time in print, full-color zine, featuring The Worm-Ridden class and a “Road to Disaster” timeline that escalates if your crew does nothing.
But for now, your heading is clear:
👉 Follow RAVAGED BY STORMS on Kickstarter and brave the storm when we launch on August 12:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/golem-productions/ravaged-by-storms-a-mythic-sandbox-for-pirate-borg
Subscribe, share, back, and you’re surely going to make our day! We couldn’t be more proud to have finally made it this far. Now, let’s fund this adventure, so that we can set our sights directly on the next milestone: getting it into your hands and sending your crew over to the Lifeless City!
More previews and behind-the-scenes looks coming soon on OSR Rocks!
“From pebble to monolith—your journey matters. The Golems have spoken.”
Alexander from Golem Productions
Keeping an eye on it, but sadly don't have much funds to spare. But it looks really interesting.
We're live and funded!