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MÖRKTASTIC BEASTS

Created by Flaming Hand

The definitive bestiary for Mörk Borg. 220+ pages of original creatures illustrated by some of today's most exciting artists—including Johan Nohr, co-creator of Mörk Borg itself—with lore by Janaka Stucky and stats by Max Moon. A5 hardcover in yellow leatherette with debossed black foil.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

THANK YOU—AND NOW TO WORK!
16 days ago – Fri, Apr 10, 2026 at 05:38:20 AM

Good morning everyone! ☕️

What a ride. The dust is still settling over here, and I wanted to write to say thank you—genuinely, deeply—for making this campaign what it was. We raised just shy of $40K from all of you, which is wild, and every one of those dollars represents somebody choosing to believe in a weird, lovingly crafted, artist-first book.

The original Ekphrastic Beasts launched in 2020, which is the same year Mörk Borg came out. We've been dreaming about making a Mörk Borg version of this book for years (in fact, that's part of what brought Max and I together under the Flaming Hand banner). To finally get to do it—with so much additional new art in the lineup, no less—feels like one of those projects that was always going to happen, it just had to wait until we were ready for it.

⚔️ Unlocked Stretch Goals

  1. The Apotheotic Arena Zine: a monster hunting arena game written by Max, free with every pledge 🤘
  2. Eight new creatures illustrated by Caustic 🤘
  3. Four new creatures illustrated by Saprophrial 🤘
  4. Three new creatures illustrated by Johan Nohr 🤘
  5. Three new creatures illustrated by Justine Jones 🤘
  6. Physical upgrades: silk ribbon marker, pink headbands and footbands, black trim stain, and metallic foil stamping on interior pages 🤘

The book started at 150+ pages and has grown to over 220—more than twice the length of the Mörk Borg core rulebook. This is going to be a chonky beast!

⚔️ Overview of the Next Steps

  • The stretch goal artists get to work on their new illustrations. We'll post backer-only previews as pieces come in
  • I begin writing lore for each new illustration as it lands in my inbox, and hand them off to Max for stats
  • Finish layout and proofing
  • Finalize production specs
  • File in with with the book printer, the poster shop, and with the Campbell-Logan Bindery for the handmade Reliquary Editions
  • Distribute digital files
  • Receive inventory at the warehouse
  • Begin fulfillment

Doesn't sound like much when I list it out, but each of those bullets contains a whole hidden ecosystem of smaller tasks. We'll keep you posted as things move, and are currently targeting an October fulfillment date.

⚔️ Pledge Manger

We're aiming to open the Pledge Manager by the end of next week, and hoping to lock orders around the beginning of May so we can finalize our print runs.

⚔️ Preorders

Preorders are live right now for anyone you know who's experiencing FOMO—note that the Apotheotic Arena Zine is no longer free with preorders and is available only as an add-on.

Monthly updates from here on out, sometimes more when there's something exciting to share. If you want to hang out between updates, we're always over on Discord—a great place to chat with other backers, ask questions, or just lurk the threads on occult, doom, and other high weirdness.

Thank you again. Truly. More soon!

"For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure."
—Rilke

By Night,
Janaka

Join the conversation on Discord ⚔️🕯️
Follow Flaming Hand on Instagram ⚔️🕯️
Delve deeper at flaminghand.com ⚔️🕯️

FINAL STRETCH GOAL + CONCEPT ART IN PLEDGES!
18 days ago – Wed, Apr 08, 2026 at 07:44:59 AM

Twenty, twenty, twenty-four hours to go 🎶 

(ok, maybe just a few more hours than that: the campaign ends at 7p ET tomorrow!) 

To kick things off today, we just added something special to the Reliquary Edition: every copy now includes an original piece of concept art by Nathan Reidt, hand-drawn in ink and graphite. These are one-of-a-kind works on paper—not prints, not reproductions. If you've been on the fence about the Reliquary, this might be the thing that pushes you over. There are very few left.


We also unlocked our $35K stretch goal yesterday: black trim stain all around, and metallic foil stamping on interior pages. The book keeps getting more beautiful and we keep being grateful!

Now the final stretch: we're $4K away from our final stretch goal. At $40K, Joe Keinberger paints an apocalyptic panoramic battle scene across the front and back endpapers of every copy. We have one day left to make it happen.

Share the campaign. Tag someone. Send the link to your group chat. Whatever you've got—today's the day!

While we wait for the world—uh, I mean, the campaign—to end, come hangout in the Flaming Hand Discord.

⚔️🤘

—Janaka

BOING BOING FEATURE on MÖRKTASTIC BEASTS ⚔️
19 days ago – Mon, Apr 06, 2026 at 10:27:09 AM

Happy Monday!

Boing Boing published an interview with me and Max Moon on this project today. We talked about the ekphrastic process behind the book, what makes Mörk Borg a natural home for these creatures, and the larger ideas driving Flaming Hand as a project. If you've been looking for a way to explain this book to someone who hasn't seen it yet, this is a pretty good link to share:


"An artist painted a monster, an occult poet conjured it to life, and now it wants to kill your Mörk Borg character"


The campaign ends on Thursday. Sharing this kind of coverage in the final stretch genuinely helps—if you've got a group chat, a Discord server, or a friend who'd be into it, we'd appreciate the signal boost!

~Janaka

SUPERNATURAL DEATH CULTS, ALIEN TAXONOMIES, AND THE EKPHRASTIC METHOD
24 days ago – Wed, Apr 01, 2026 at 09:06:02 AM

One of the unexpected developments in writing this book was seeing how all these works began to reveal something larger than any individual creature. That's what happened in a very explicit way with Nathan Reidt's art.

Reidt's pieces are distinctly fleshy, alien, and biological in a way that felt connected—like they all belonged to the same ecosystem. So rather than treat each illustration as a standalone monster, I looked at the full body of his work for the book and asked: what if these are all species within a single alien civilization? From there I discovered the Xivvians—interdimensional organisms with their own biology, ecology, caste hierarchy, reproductive cycles, and cosmic agenda. Every one of Reidt's creatures lives among them, from the massive qhor'ox at the throbbing heart of each hive to the lowly xiks who attend their ohlaex masters. There are death cults, there are lamplighters—undead proto-humans sent back across the void to prepare our world for annihilation—and there is an alien world of peristaltic tunnels, membranous chambers, and noxious clouds that you can explore or simply let haunt the edges of your campaign.

For me, this is the ekphrastic method at its most expansive—where the art didn't illustrate the lore, but rather the art led me to an entire world.

If you've played Mörk Borg you already know one of the things that makes it great: it gives you just enough to ignite your imagination and trusts you to build the connective tissue yourself. That's the same philosophy behind the lore in Mörktastic Beasts. We give you the creatures, a taste of the mythology, and the stats—you decide where they live, how your players encounter them, and where they die. The xivvians could be lurking beneath a dying city, seeping through a rift at the edge of your map, or manipulating the machinations of the wretched royalty. Are the Xivvian Lamplighters a kind of Proto-Wickhead? Your game, your players, your encounters will yield the truth.!

That's already happening, by the way. I've gotten emails from backers who are homebrewing Mörk Borg campaigns around creatures from the book—and one person is building an entire adventure around the Xivvian mythology. That's exactly what this book is for.

~Janaka

Backers: the full spread draft for one of these Xivvians is below. Take a look and let us know what you think!

JUSTINE JONES UNLOCKED! PLUS: OUR FINAL TWO STRETCH GOALS
27 days ago – Mon, Mar 30, 2026 at 07:59:43 AM



She's in! Justine Jones is now part of Mörktastic Beasts and I could not be more excited about it.

For those of you just getting to know her work—Justine is an illustrator whose pieces move between incredibly detailed, obsessive line work and wild psychedelic color. She's illustrated for Old School Essentials, Magic: The Gathering, and Kobold Press—self-published her own horror comics, and draws wizards and monsters like she's channeling something from somewhere she probably shouldn't be looking. She's a perfect fit for this book and I cannot wait to see what she makes for it.

That's seven stretch goals unlocked. We've got two more, and they're both about making the physical book even more special...

$35K — Physical Upgrades #2: We're adding a black trim stain to the book to make those pink headbands really pop. And keeping in spirit with the Mörk Borg rulebook, we'll be adding metallic foil stamping to interior pages. Assured destruction, but make it shiny!

$40K — Physical Upgrades #3: For our final stretch goal we've got something truly special. Joe Keinberger will paint an original apocalyptic panoramic battle scene to print on the front and back endpapers of the book. Picture "Night on Bald Mountain" meets the End of Days. This is the kind of extra flair we love to see when opening the cover of a book, immediately signaling something special. It will be epic.

These are the last two. Help us get there—share the campaign, tell your people, let's make this book everything it can possibly be.

And if you're not already on it, join us over at the Flaming Hand Discord, where the conversation continues about monsters, miniatures, gaming, music, the occult, and other weird endeavors...

~Janaka