Zombie hunting after the apocalypse - a Mephisto review

The zombie apocalypse has happened, and humanity has lost. But humanity has also survived. Thus, although the USA no longer exists, a new nation has formed on the West Coast: Cascadia. While the cities and the interstate connecting them have been cleansed of zombies and other undead, the undead are still on the move in the wasteland. Between the cities, which are secured by high walls, and the wasteland, which is separated by another fence, there is a zone that should be relatively free of undead and is used for farming. Unfortunately, since the fence only serves to prevent the undead from accidentally coming to the cities and finding interest in them, undead stray into the zone now and then. It's up to a new professional group to put a stop to this problem. However, these zombie hunters, the Morticians or simply Morts, are not celebrated heroes, but a professional group of those with few alternatives...

The game world of Morts approaches the zombie apocalypse theme in an unusual and somewhat humorous way. Here it's not the zombie virus that has triggered the catastrophe, but somehow necromantic powers have been unleashed, so there are ghosts and necromancers in addition to zombies. In fact, the player characters do not have to be human but can also play as revenants, lichs, or ghosts. Of course, slightly different rules apply to these undead, especially when it comes to dealing with stress and damage. There are also rules for necromancy, but they are kept short and simple - and unconventional and mysterious. The book describes the structure of typical missions and how to use them for appropriate dramaturgy—the inevitable adventure rounds out the book.

Morts is well written, and the idea for the not-quite-serious background is quite fascinating. The idea of lightly serving up the zombie apocalypse (life practically resumes as normal in the cities) and making the zombie hunters a less popular job is also coherently presented. The setting, presented compactly in a few small sections, also sounds exciting. It definitely makes Morts well-suited for some short zombie hunting missions - so if you're looking for a quick casual zombie hunt with Fate, this is the place to go.

(Björn Lippold)

I was pleasantly surprised by this one.

"oh great this is going to be an awkward mix of DND and fallout"

Well it definitely borrows from those things, but it's more post-post apocalypse, and the dnd elements just work, the world work and the rules work, the settings lends itself to all manner of fun story telling, does everything an RPG book should do well

Morts is my first Fate setting, and as a Fate GM. It was exactly what my players were looking for: a dead-pan comedic low-but-not-no-magic post-apocalyptic zombie fighting setting. I can recommend for all because Morts exemplifies a modicum of tweaking Fate Core for beginners.

Morts is a great little read. It sets up the setting in a nice compact way that gives a lot of ideas without inundating the reader with too much. The Missions guidelines are also a very nice way to set up adventures, very handy fornovice game masters.

Morts is a nice addition to the Fate Core Series. You get a descent build for your future stories and a "reason" for your players to go nuts while keeping them under control. Zombie removal is for the insane, ecentric, and poor/desprite.

You get three new races/builds to play around with and this is one of those "zombie worlds" where society already collapsed and just picked itself back up again.

While the material they give you is a little bit short... it's an addition to my RPG library that I gladly recomned to someone else if only to see another group have a skelton, human, and ghost all argue about if it would be culturally insentive to start singing the ghost buster theme song while they are shooting zombies in the face lead by an undead specetor that wishes to destory their town... over a parking ticket.