CY_BORG

CY_BORG is the TTRPG for groups who want cyberpunk as a fast, furious, disposable street fight rather than a gear catalog. Built on the rules of MÖRK BORG, it hands you a randomly rolled punk with debts, a gun, maybe a deck full of Apps or a body full of half-controllable nanotech, and drops you into a megacity where the corporations are winning and the world keeps ending. Characters come together in minutes, a test is one d20 roll, and the book is packed with tables that let a GM generate the next job, location or corporate enemy on the spot.

It is not a deep simulation of hacking, cyberware economics or corporate politics, and it is not gentle. The rules are deliberately minimal, characters are fragile, and the tone is loud, profane and openly anti-corporate. Choose it when your table wants one-shots or short, chaotic campaigns with strong style; look elsewhere if you want crunchy netrunning, long character builds or a setting encyclopedia.

What the game is

CY_BORG is a complete, standalone, rules-light tabletop roleplaying game "based on and compatible with MÖRK BORG," created by Christian Sahlén (rules and text) and Johan Nohr (graphic design and art) of Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. Free League lists it for 2 to 6 players, ages 16 and up, plus a GM.

The setting is the City of Cy in "the year 20X3," after an event the book calls the Incident: rotting slums where gangs, cults and military corporations wage war, the scraper forests and arcologies of Central, and toxic industrial zones under a permanent smog. Player characters are cybernetic misfits and punks scraping together creds while the city collapses around them. The book's one firm social rule, as reviewers note, is that characters are never loyal to, or sympathetic toward, the corps, the cops or the capitalist system.

Publication history and editions

CY_BORG was crowdfunded on Kickstarter from November 13 to December 1, 2021, where 6,866 backers pledged SEK 4,144,283 against a SEK 101,010 goal. The campaign brought in a long list of guest writers from the indie and OSR scene, including Zedeck Siew, Luke Gearing, Kienna Shaw, Jamila R. Nedjadi, Greg Saunders, Diogo Nogueira and Chris Bissette. The finished core rulebook reached DriveThruRPG on November 15, 2022. There is one edition; no revised core has been announced.

What you need to play

You need the core rulebook, polyhedral dice (mostly d20s, with d4 through d12 for damage and tables) and a GM. The CY_BORG Core Rules PDF on DriveThruRPG is a 168-page file listed at $24.99. The print core rulebook from Free League comes with the full core PDF and the CY_BORG Asset Pack PDF at no extra cost.

The core book contains the city overview, random character creation, six optional classes, equipment, cybertech, Apps and Nano powers, more than 25 foes, mission and location generators, and the introductory heist Lucky Flight Takedown, in which the crew scopes out and infiltrates the Lucky Flight Casino to wipe debt data or shut the operation down.

Supplements and community support

The main official add-on is the CY_BORG Asset Pack: a high-resolution map of Cy with its sectors, corporations and cults; the Location Pad, 34 one-page locations with hooks, encounters, secrets and loot; and the one-page adventure Reaper Repo, a job to recover a killmatch champion's allegedly stolen chrome legs while he is still wearing them.

Like MÖRK BORG, CY_BORG has an open third-party license that lets anyone publish free or commercial compatible material without paying Stockholm Kartell or Free League, as long as they do not reuse official art or text or imply endorsement. That license is why there is a steady stream of community jobs, classes and zines for the game.

Digital tools and VTT support

Free League sells official Foundry VTT modules for the Core Rules and Asset Pack, which together add 64 actors, 143 roll tables, 41 scenes and 10 macros on top of the CY_BORG game system for Foundry. A Foundry license is required. Community modules, including a third-party content pack and a Foundry version of Lucky Flight Takedown, also exist.

Core rules and play structure

If you know MÖRK BORG, you already know most of CY_BORG. Rolls are player-facing: to act, attack or defend, you roll a d20, add the relevant ability, and try to meet a difficulty rating that is usually 12. Armor reduces damage by a die roll, hit points are low, and the GM makes rulings rather than looking up edge cases. The book describes the system as "rulings before rules," and one reviewer estimated the mechanics would fit on four or five pages.

CY_BORG adds a few things for its genre. Community players point to a new Knowledge ability that takes technical and hacking work off Presence, rules for guns, ammunition and spraying fire, and short optional combat modules for cover, suppressive fire and similar choices. Those modules add a little tactical texture to firefights without turning the game into a grid skirmish.

Characters and advancement

Character creation is quick and dirty: the dice decide your abilities, gear, what your punk is capable of and who they owe money to, with extra tables for Style, Quirks and Current Obsession. You can play a classless punk or pick one of six optional classes, such as the Forsaken Gang-Goon, the Shunned Nanomancer and the Renegade Cyberslasher. Advancement stays light, in the OSR mold: the game expects deaths and replacement punks, and nobody is building a long optimization arc.

Signature mechanics

• Miserable Headlines. CY_BORG's version of MÖRK BORG's doomsday prophecies is a d66 table of breaking news. Each headline that hits the feeds brings new chaos to the city, and the seventh is the end. Because each of the six headline slots has six variations, the countdown plays out differently from campaign to campaign.
• Decks and Apps. Hacking runs through a deck loaded with custom Apps, which work like quick, risky powers rather than a separate netrunning minigame.
• Nano powers and infestations. The game's answer to magic is nanotechnology that is "almost controllable": strong effects with latent infestations that can turn on the user.
• Generators everywhere. Tables for missions, locations, corporations, cults and NPCs let a GM build a job in minutes.

What play feels like

A typical session is a job: a fixer or a desperate contact offers creds, the crew plans badly, and things go loud. Fights are short and dangerous, so smart players lean on ambushes, cover, bribes and running away. Between jobs, a headline may land and change the city. Reviewers describe the result as a brutal, stylish cyberpunk game where the art and attitude are part of the play experience, not decoration. The CY_BORG book itself has a dense, glitch-art layout by Johan Nohr; it is striking, but it can slow down a GM looking up a rule in the middle of play.

Running the game

Prep is light. The generators and the Asset Pack's one-page locations mean a GM can run with a city map, a rolled mission and a few foes. The real load is improvisation: the setting is drawn in quick strokes rather than encyclopedic detail, so the GM supplies the specifics. One reviewer said the basics were simple enough to GM quickly but still needed a lot of book-referencing at the table at first. New GMs who are comfortable making rulings will be fine; those who want every situation covered will feel exposed.

Campaign fit

CY_BORG works very well as a one-shot: roll characters, roll a job and finish in a single evening. It also holds up better over a short campaign than MÖRK BORG, according to The TTRPG Factory, because characters are a little sturdier, the city is more dynamic, and the 36 headline variations make the doomsday clock less predictable. It is still not built for years-long play, and the Miserable Headlines give every campaign a natural end point.

Reception

As of October 2026, the DriveThruRPG listing showed 142 ratings and 13 written reviews and carried a platinum Best Seller badge. Critics praise how fast it is to learn and start, its pile of generators, and its style. Geek to Geek Media gave it 5 out of 5. The TTRPG Factory liked it more than MÖRK BORG and recommends it as an OSR-style game outside fantasy. Wyrd Science praised its minimal rules and quick start while calling Cy "evocative yet shallow," a setting meant to be filled in at the table. Common caveats are the rules-reference friction of the layout, how thin the mechanics are for players who want depth, and how dark and abrasive the content gets.

We did not find a major award for CY_BORG itself, so this page does not claim one.

Where it is strongest

• Fast, random character creation and a one-roll core mechanic.
• Generators for jobs, locations, corps, cults and NPCs that make low-prep sessions easy.
• A doomsday clock (Miserable Headlines) that gives campaigns shape and urgency.
• Direct compatibility with MÖRK BORG material and an open third-party license.
• Official Foundry VTT modules for online groups.

Where it can frustrate groups

• Hacking, cyberware and gear are light compared with Cyberpunk RED or Shadowrun.
• Fragile characters and swingy d20 rolls mean frequent deaths.
• The art-heavy layout can be hard to reference during play.
• The setting gives tone and hooks rather than detailed lore.
• The relentless grimness and explicit politics will not suit every table.

Content and safety notes

Expect graphic violence, drugs, body horror from nanotech infestation, corporate brutality, and a bleak, end-of-the-world tone with profane, satirical humor. Free League rates it 16 and up. Talk about lines and veils before play, especially around violence, addiction and body horror.

Best starting path

Buy the core PDF or the print book, roll a crew together, and run Lucky Flight Takedown as a first session. If the group wants more, add the Asset Pack for the city map and the 34 one-page locations, then let the Miserable Headlines push you toward the end of the world. If you already own MÖRK BORG material, much of it can be reskinned for Cy.

Research notes

Last checked October 26, 2026. Sources:

• Free League Publishing: CY_BORG game page (players, ages, creators)
• Free League Publishing: CY_BORG Core Rulebook (contents, classes, generators, included PDFs)
• DriveThruRPG: CY_BORG Core Rules (price, page count, release date, ratings)
• Kickstarter: CY_BORG by Johan Nohr (funding period, backers, guest writers)
• Free League Publishing: Foundry VTT modules and Foundry: CY_BORG Asset Pack
• CY_BORG third-party license
• Wyrd Science review, Geek to Geek Media review, The TTRPG Factory review
• Community discussion on r/MorkBorg comparing CY_BORG and MÖRK BORG rules (Knowledge ability, optional combat rules)