The Roused

A Mörk Borg calendar for the membrane

The apocalypse is not a dragon. It is a filing error that becomes true.

Britain looted haunting and could not contain it. R Unit wrote the dead onto a duty roster. The Unit died. The shop bought the roster. The membrane between the living and the dead is a clerk's line. Factions pull it, weave it, tangle it, or try to re-knit it. Some of the Roused have stopped taking the bugle as an order.

Use Mörk Borg as written. Powers are scrolls. Guns are ranged weapons. A fumble jams; clearing it is your action. Helpless at arm's length is not a test. Unaware is still a shot. A fine pistol is +1 and you are broke.

Ghost stories are not courts of appeal.

The dead are not clues. Grief is not a puzzle with a prize. Test every addition with one question: does this treat the dead as a phenomenon, or as somebody? R Unit, the Shop, and most player characters will want the first answer. Somebody has to remain in the game who wants the second.

Three claims

Every job has three claims.

• Who gets the body.
• Who gets the story.
• Who gets the thing that came through.

You cannot satisfy all three. An immaculate operation can still leave a grieving mother without a body. A rescue of the Roused can lose the official story. Exposing the cover-up can hand the apport to the Shop. Nobody needs a morality meter. Custody is the morality.

If a session produces only occult professionals hunting apports and invoices, the table is playing R Unit's gaze. Put a person in the room who wants someone back.

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Doctrine

Most dead	Memory. No good to anyone.
Roused	Died right. Rise when the bugle sounds.
Apport	A thing that arrives with or instead of the dead. Often the prize.
Asport	A thing sent out of the world.
RE	Revenance event. The membrane hiccups.
The Work	Not magic. A trade with a hangover.
The roster	The wish to put stirring on a list.

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The Calendar of the Rouse

Each dawn the GM rolls a die. On a 1, a Misery. The die is agreed before the first job: D100 for a long dirty war, D20 for one inquiry, D10 for a season of outsourcing, D6 for a cruel month at the shop, D2 if the end is already in the room.

Then roll D66. The same Misery does not befall the world twice.

The seventh Misery is always 7:7. The world does not explode. The premise becomes infrastructure. The campaign ends because the horror is no longer exceptional enough to investigate. Burn the file, or file it.

Psalm I — the barracks

1:1 Shackingham's woods fill with the recently uniformed. They do not answer to the names on the tags.

1:2 For ten days every testimony believes itself. Truth and cover story are the same sentence.

1:3 Towers of excellence fall stone by stone. The contracts do not.

1:4 From Malaya, Oman, Kenya, the Congo: spectres the empire pocketed. Worms fatten on the files. Vultures tire.

1:5 Doubt is crowned. Assets turn their blades on the silver that paid them.

1:6 Blood-cough in the inquest rooms. Families catch it from the paper.

Psalm II — the apport

2:1 Flies in every armoury. They know names the living have forgotten.

2:2 The ground pales with casings that were not fired here.

2:3 Frost from a wreck that fell for no earthly reason. Debris includes a figure that should not be in the sketch.

2:4 In ten days and one, the Unit's writings go pale. What remains is truer and worse.

2:5 Glass becomes the mirror. It shows only the shameful part.

2:6 She sees him grow stronger. She is revealed. Someone is slain who was only trying to help.

Psalm III — the inquiry

3:1 At the barracks the soil warms. Those who rest are made to walk the inquiry route.

3:2 In the park the trees breathe. What was hewed hews back. Children vanish into a house at the end of the street.

3:3 Hunger among the campaigners. The gaunt prey upon the gaunt. A journalist is the meal.

3:4 The great are made poor. The poor are made a market.

3:5 Rain unending. Day is night in the safe houses.

3:6 Parent slays parent over whose child died "right."

Psalm IV — the shop

4:1 For five nights a mother's flesh is a cloak for something rented.

4:2 For five nights fathers weep in rooms that bill by the hour.

4:3 From the west, fire, a horde, a PMC with a lion-and-unicorn on the invoice.

4:4 The liar knots hearts. Oaths that should have ended keep.

4:5 The sea goes mountain-high. A Venom engine coughs in weather that has no plane in it.

4:6 Something takes the winter-born and the already-fallen. It does not distinguish.

Psalm V — the void

5:1 Brooks blacken. Water is tar and cordite.

5:2 Trees wither into the rune for yew. Protection, and a grave.

5:3 Birds fall. Among them, one that was never a bird.

5:4 In one night the unnamed children pass, and dawn gives them back as eaters.

5:5 The sky weeps fire. A stone falls like a secret city. Madness first, then the dead.

5:6 The last handler and the last convenor wither. Wolves eat the courts. The wolves have name-tags.

Psalm VI — the membrane

6:1 You know the last day. The bugle sounds and does not end.

6:2 Day is night and night is day. You do not sleep. You do not wake. You are on strength.

6:3 Colour drains. Finance, developers, a closed joke where a city was.

6:4 Those on two legs forget their names. The roster remembers.

6:5 The earth veins. Black shapes come up through the cracks the Unit dug.

6:6 The unnamed pass through. The veil is a filing cabinet with the back knocked out.

7:7

The border does not rupture so much as get a payroll number. Living and dead share a strength, and the strength has a shift pattern. Revenance is employment law. The bugle is a roster. The Shop's invoice and the Unit's oath are the same document in different type.

Tomorrow everybody will be doing it. The campaign ends here, not because the world stopped, but because there is nothing left to discover that a clerk does not already bill for. Stallo killed the convenor. The dig went on. History kept its dead on strength.

Burn the book. Or bind it as standing orders.

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Who pulls the membrane

Faction	Wants	Pays in	Breaks when
R Unit, last dregs	Contain, then use	Oaths, pensions, silence	The silver stops
The Shop (Wran and the towers)	Rent the dead	Retainers, bids, proof-of-concept	A channel refuses
Other desks	The same loot, parsed as a state	Treaties, corpses, maps	Their theory fails in the field
The void current	Apports, not spirits. A rupture on purpose	Charms, shovels, old militants	The convenor dies. It does not stop
The bereaved	One minute in which he is not dead	Dignity, leaks, their own bodies	They are hired
The Roused, unrostered	To stop being a resource	Nothing you can spend	You sound the bugle anyway

Reaction (2D6), if no one has orders: 2–3 bottle or kill; 4–6 file and resent; 7–8 invoice; 9–10 trade a true detail; 11–12 aid, and it will cost.

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Optional classes (D6)

Scrolls do not work in medium or heavy armour, unless the class says otherwise. A gun is Presence to hit, DR12, damage as the weapon line. Armour soaks bullets. It does not soak the Work unless you have a ward, a bottle, a named briefing, or salt.

1. Asset

You were paid to be the instrument. Malaya, a barracks, a shop. The gyring dark attached itself and did not file a transfer.

Begins with 3D6×10s and D2 Omens. HP: Toughness + D10.

Posting (D6): 1 Malaya. 2 Oman, a wreck. 3 Kenya. 4 the North. 5 the Falklands, absurd and late. 6 Shackingham, which should have been the end.

Abilities: roll 3D6+2 for Strength. Roll 3D6−1 for Presence; guns ignore the penalty. Armour up to medium. Weapon: rifle (as crossbow, D8) or sidearm (as bow, D6).

You also begin with (D6):

1. A shield you can sunder to ignore one hit. It is a riot shield or a man.
2. Once per fight, a second attack. Spend an Omen or it jams after.
3. Advantage is not in this game. Instead: unaware targets are DR8.
4. A dog that has outlived two handlers. HP 8, bite D4, knows apports by smell.
5. Plates (−D4, tier 2). You owe the shop for them.
6. A name you banished once. It has not forgotten. +2 Presence to hear it coming.

2. Brief

You wrote the language that made the deaths self-inflicted. Or you are writing the invoice that replaced the Unit.

Begins with 4D6×10s and D2 Omens. HP: Toughness + D6.

Desk (D6): 1 Unit science. 2 the inquiry. 3 a tower of excellence. 4 Wran's book. 5 a foreign desk you can still parse. 6 a newspaper that knew too much.

Abilities: roll 3D6+2 for Presence. No heavy armour. Sidearm or nothing.

You also begin with (D6):

1. Once per job, name the test. Allies roll that ability against it at DR−2 until the minute ends.
2. A report that will be believed. Show it: one reaction roll at +4.
3. Quiet dignity. In an official building, Presence tests are DR8.
4. A source. After each useful answer, 1 in 6 the source is gone.
5. Two scrolls, one sacred-seeming, one unclean. You understand both and trust neither.
6. Strude's old pass. Doors open. Something on the other side knows your name.

3. Salvor

You hunt what arrives instead of the dead. You left the Unit, or it left you. The dog is not the same dog.

Begins with 2D6×10s and D2 Omens. HP: Toughness + D8.

First RE (D6): 1 a hole with no eyes. 2 a Ghost engine. 3 a letter. 4 a child-shaped apport. 5 a city of both. 6 a thing you banished that had a baby.

Abilities: roll 3D6+1 for Presence and Agility. Light armour. One gun, one blade.

You also begin with (D6):

1. After a successful Read, pocket the apport. It counts as one item. 1 in 6 it steps down and is gone after use.
2. DR8 to track wreckage, sites, and people who have already died here.
3. A younger civilian who kept the dog and taught herself the field. She may betray you kindly.
4. Maps to three digs. One is a grave. One is a shop. One is both.
5. You ignore the first fumble of a job. The second is worse.
6. Old Pal's attention, worn smooth. You always know when it is in the scene. You cannot make it leave.

4. Channel

You are the bottle. Willing, rented, or used. The dead borrow your mouth and do not pay rent.

Begins with D6×10s and D4 Omens. HP: Toughness + D4.

How you opened (D6): 1 grief. 2 a ritual you did not consent to. 3 a barracks chapel. 4 an apport worn as jewellery. 5 the shop's interview. 6 you were dead for a minute and came back wrong.

Abilities: roll 3D6+2 for Presence. Roll 3D6−2 for Strength. No medium or heavy armour. You may use scrolls. Begin with one scroll of the Work (D6 on the unclean table, or choose Read Apport).

You also begin with (D6):

1. Once per job, become the bottle. A Nearby Work strikes you instead of an ally. You take it. You learn one true thing.
2. When broken by the Work, roll the Broken table with DR−4 on the die (minimum 1).
3. Three questions a day to the recently dead. Answers need not be kind.
4. A shroud. You may deport it. You do not come back the same.
5. People talk over you. Presence tests to be believed are DR16. Tests to be overlooked are DR6.
6. Ectoplasm, or whatever the table can stand. On a fumble while channelling, everyone Nearby tests Toughness DR12 or is at −2 for the hour.

5. Irregular

Parent, journalist, junk-shop hand, deserter. You were told to stay out of the dead's business. You thought it meant undertakers.

Begins with D6×10s and D2 Omens. HP: Toughness + D6.

Why you (D6): 1 the open verdict. 2 a sibyl in the campaign. 3 a byline. 4 a house at the end of the street. 5 you sold the Unit a name. 6 you are only still here.

Abilities: roll 3D6−1 for Strength. Presence and Agility tests are DR10. Light armour. Holdout or tool.

You also begin with (D6):

1. Once per session, produce a person who knows a piece. The GM names the cost.
2. Vanish into flats, cafés, crowds: DR8.
3. Handlers, police, and the language of quiet dignity are DR8 to refuse.
4. A file. It is incomplete. It is enough to ruin someone small.
5. On death, if the body is not recovered, 1 in 6 you are Roused at the next dawn. You are not yourself.
6. A child's drawing of a gun, a tank, a plane, a tree. It is an apport. You do not know that yet.

6. The unrostered

You died right. You got up. No one has successfully put you back on the list, though they keep trying.

Begins with nothing, a tag, and D4 Omens. HP: Toughness + D6. You do not eat. You do not heal by sleep; you heal D4 when the bugle would have sounded (dawn, or a Misery).

What you were (D6): 1 gunner. 2 guerrilla the empire named wrong. 3 clerk. 4 child. 5 convenor. 6 never alive in the way they mean.

Abilities: roll 3D6+1 for Toughness. Silver weapons, fire, and Last Post harm you normally. Ordinary cuts do half, round down.

You also begin with (D6):

1. The oath still fits. Once per day the old desk may call. Test Presence DR14 or obey for a minute.
2. You pass for living until you speak at length.
3. Apports know you. DR8 to find one.
4. You cannot enter a debrief. Doors that are only paper stop you.
5. Kill you and you rise at the next Misery unless the body is burned or deported.
6. You remember the Dwell. You will not say if you liked it.

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Scrolls of the Work

Uses per day: Presence + D4. To cast, test Presence DR12. Fail: the Power does not happen, lose D2 HP, and for an hour every Power fails in the worst way. Targets do not get a save. You roll. Add +2 to the DR per point of difference if the thing is worse than a man (GM's finger).

Unclean

1. Sound the Rouse. D4 Nearby dead of no great fame stir for D4 rounds. They are not yours.
2. Inodus. A door that should not be a door, for Presence rounds. You do not choose what enters.
3. Bottle substance. A charm. Thrown, D8 to one target, Toughness DR12 or also broken.
4. Finger the channel. One Nearby creature tests Toughness DR14 or is broken.
5. The Dwell. For D4 rounds the room is both. Everyone tests Presence DR12 or is broken. The site remembers.
6. Last word. One creature with 8 HP or fewer dies and cannot be called back. Something still counts the oath.

Sacred, or grieving

1. Last Post. One group of Roused must spend D4 rounds fleeing.
2. Read apport. One object yields a true detail. If it is a fight, it also takes D6.
3. Speak with the said. Three questions to a Nearby corpse or Roused.
4. Ward. 2D6 temporary HP against the Work only, for 10 rounds.
5. Quiet dignity. One official scene. Lies about you do not stick until dawn.
6. Deport the cloth. Send a shroud, sheet, or name out of the world. A door opens the other way.

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What walks

Name	HP	Morale	Armour	Note
Barracks drunk	D6	6	—	Travels in twos. Knife D4
Desk sergeant	6	8	−D2	Calls MPs if slighted
Unit asset	10	9	−D4	Attacks twice if an ally is near. Rifle D8
Named Roused	12	—	−D2	No morale. Fire, silver, or Last Post
Inquiry	14	—	−D4	Not a man. Each failed test is a paragraph
Apport-letter	12	—	—	Reading it is the fight. Bite D6, Presence
Convenor	14	10	−D2	Killing them does not switch it off
Ruined operative	8	4	—	Presence already −2. Proof of concept
Shop floor	16	9	−D4	A failed Presence test is a bid on you
Void cell	14	11	−D2	People, not spirits. Shovels and charms
Old Pal	20	—	−D6	Banished once. May have had a baby

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The file corrupts

The booklet is not the ontology. Printed terms want to become true. The phenomena outrun them. Once per job, corrupt the paperwork. Roll D6.

1. Two copies of the same report. The second uses a different word for the RE: lespry, suppletion, inodus, hantu, gast, gōst. Same event. The procedures do not transfer.
2. A glossary that helps. While you use the Unit's names, tests to handle the thing are DR−2. Tests to understand it are DR+2.
3. Marginalia in a hand that has not joined the Unit yet. It is accurate.
4. D6 mutually incompatible names for what came through. Each name is believed by someone in the room. Only one is a person.
5. A sentence in the briefing repeats, then loses a word, then loses the name.
6. An official ending. THE END, in the file, a hundred pages too soon. Everything after is coda, and still billable.

Do not let the bold type win.

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Hooks (D12)

Friction. Roll when the job has not yet decided who is using whom. Name the three claims before the first roll.

1. A mother and a salvor want the same woods. Only one of them wants the boy back as a person.
2. The shop bids on a channel who has not signed. The Unit's last handler still has the oath.
3. An apport in a biscuit tin. Two lads on the walkway are the easy part.
4. A foreign desk offers maps. The maps are apports. Reading them is service.
5. The bereaved network is half infiltrated. The sibyl is either the leak or the only clean room.
6. A Roused gunner reports for duty. No one living called him.
7. Wran keeps a ruined operative in a chair as proof. The operative still has one scroll.
8. Marco's dig is active though Marco is dead. The kids with shovels do not know his name.
9. An inquiry with HP. Duggan's ghost is just a man with a pen.
10. Old Pal's child, if it is a child, has a barracks number.
11. Heiko has the dog and the field notes. She will not come unless the salvor admits the last kill changed nothing.
12. The seventh dawn is tomorrow. Someone wants the shroud to keep a person. Someone wants the bugle filed as standing orders.

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Getting worse

Improve a character after they walk away from a job: one inquiry, one site, one RE, one contract. Say which claim they kept and which two they lost. Killing a priest, a handler, or a son does not switch the phenomenon off and is not, by itself, improvement.

Do not give them the source. The calendar is not the source either. It is the filing error, still open.

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Credits and License

THE ROUSED is an independent production by The Grey Ledger Society and is not affiliated with Ockult Örtmästare Games or Stockholm Kartell. It is published under the MÖRK BORG Third Party License.

It is also a non-commercial, fan tribute to The Rouse by China Miéville.

MÖRK BORG is copyright Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell.