The medieval post-apocalypse horror rpg Choir of Flesh has been released after a successful kickstarter. It can now be found on DriveThruRPG here and itch.io here! Full disclosure, the DTRPG link is the affiliate link for my blog.
I have written a partial review of Choir of Flesh and completed character creation for a solo game here.
The kickstarter for Choir of Flesh also had a number of stretch goals. These stretch goals for additional mechanics, backstory and tables are coming in the form of a zine called Apocrypha. I have had the opportunity to read a beta version of Apocrypha that contains some of the art, and I can say with full conviction that it is really good with more Choir of Flesh eye-popping art, and equally top-tier writing.
My book review of the 33 pages of Apocrypha will follow. You can get your hands on Apocrypha if you are a kickstarter backer likely next month, once it is fully complete, according to Blackoath Entertainment. Public release is expected to come in January 2026. At that point Apocrypha will be available for purchase via DTRPG, itch.io and Amazon.
Onward to the book review!
The Nephilim
Apocrypha opens with the last stretch goal: The Nephilim’s Arrival. Now what is a Nephilim? In the Hebrew Bible Nephilim are supposedly beings of great size and strength or possibly great power and authority which some sources claim are offspring of rebellious angels and humans.
Apocrypha has a unique really interesting take on Nephilim that further builds out the world of Choir of Flesh. Nephilim are alchemical amalgams of a Choir’s Angel stripped down and fused with human body parts and elements of the Flesh so that the giant monstrosity functions as one unit from disparate parts. This giant, Frankensteinian creature was made as a weapon against both the Choir and the Flesh by gnostics with alchemical techniques. As the book says, with a chilling line, “This [Nephilim] was a weapon of war. It did not need to stay sane.”
This is great worldbuilding. We already know that members of the Roman Catholic Church are terrorized by the Choir in Italy and pagans are competing or just trying to survive the Flesh when it has been summoned in their lands. Now we know what a new group of people, the gnostics, are doing in the twin apocalypse of 1001 AD.
Frankly this is exactly what I wanted from an expansion of Choir of Flesh. It provides more information about what other peoples are doing in this blasted post-apocalyptic medieval world and how they are coping, or seizing on the opportunity for change.
The chapter continues, describing how the Nephilim are a threat to the settlement you have built in the base game. Ultimately the Nephilim will be inexorably drawn to your lands to wreak havoc unless you and your party charge into a new Incursion written for Apocrypha, find the Nephilim’s spoor, and destroy it.
One of the many things I like about this chapter is the use of color symbolism in the Omens that herald the Nephilim’s coming; and the same symbolism is sprinkled throughout the encounters in the new Incursion. The Choir and Flesh are well defined in the core book, so how is the Nephilim, this amalgam between the two, made distinct?
The author uses the colors red and crimson in natural and unnatural phenomena to signify the Nephilim’s encroaching violence. One quote I can give from the book is “Grasshoppers and butterflies turn bright crimson in the fields and die midflight.” There are other Omens that describe red ants pouring forth from the ground and swarming in the air; and crimson clovers releasing choking pollen. In addition, in the Incursion an exploration is described that progresses through a ruined gnostic laboratory. During this delve, the color red is featured in various descriptions and progressively as the player’s reaches the Incursion’s dark climax.
This style of writing is literary and not often seen in tabletop rpgs. As I said before, the writing in this book it top-notch.
In addition, there are elements of the design of the new Incursion to find the Nephilim’s spoor that stand out to me as being well crafted. In the core book, an Incursion is randomly generated from a table of 100 points of interest. These points of interest are all thematic, graphic, and dangerous; but they are mostly self-contained. The points of interest in the new Nephilim Incursion are steps in a journey the lead to the climax of a story.
There is foreshadowing in the early points of interest. Features of the Flesh and the Choir are seen in the same setting; casually side by side as seams of meat in the earth along with wildflowers that sing the Choir’s song when wind passes them by. Or more grotesquely in a stone circle where one hemisphere has been infested by the Flesh and the other half is consecrated to the Choir. In that supernaturally charged locale the players are forced to make a choice between the two sides or navigate a third more dangerous middle path.
The themes of alchemy are slowly revealed in the nine points of interest. A terrible implied alchemical accident has created a morbid watchtower that may test the player’s humanity. A dormitory is found before the ruined gnostic workshop that birthed the horrid Nephilim is encountered. Abhorrent alchemical experiments can be found in both locations and the subsequent one in which there is a particular flower. I will not discuss the final area. It is for you to discover.
New Notable Citizens
Moving along in Apocrypha, we come to the new Notable Citizens chapter. All the new Notable Citizens are great and would be vibrant characters to interact with, but four stand out to me as having deeper roleplay potential. Brother Gregor the Anatomist, Bastian the Reeve, Luc the Lookout, and Isolier the Sin Eater are characters that frankly I want to plop down in a multiplayer game and have my players interact with them.
Take Bastian the Reeve for example. A reeve is an administrative official serving a king or lesser lord in a variety of roles in Anglo-Saxon England. In Apocrypha, Bastian can act as your settlement’s judge, jury and enforcer of the law. And Bastian clings to the “Old Law” as fervently as your Unbroken character clings to their Sin to keep them going through the horrors of the apocalypse. In a multiplayer game, you could spend a couple hours with this character debating the morality of Old World Law, if it even applies in this post-apocalyptic world, if it should be revised, or even based on a more religious or humanistic world view. Isolier the Sin Eater has similar interaction potential on the themes of Sin and redemption.
New Settlement Options
Next up, we have the new settlement options chapter. This is full of random tables to flesh out your settlement, including tables for the surrounding environment, weather, the central structure of the settlement, quirks for your population as a whole with mechanical effects, downtime events, and the notorious Celebration and Carousing table. Someone had a fun time writing this because entries such as It Is Vital That We Go Into The Fields And Knock Over The Cows and Absolute Blowout are quite fun. This re-centers the idea in Choir of Flesh that the player is trying to maintain their humanity in this grim-dark horrific apocalypse.
New Character Options
In the new character options chapter, there are 16 new Feats and 8 new Drawbacks. I'll have to spend some time theory crafting to really have an opinion on those. The new Drive and Revelation mechanics look good. Drive is a new resource for player to spend to enhance their rolls to be heroic or survive by just squeaking by. It does make players more powerful or resilient but I do not think it makes them overpowered, since Choir of Flesh’s encounters can be punishing. I do think that Drive is more useful for a game master than it is in solo play because the Drive resource is replenished by roleplaying their Passions (Sin, Doom or Anchor), their Drawbacks and just by participating in a session. That is not to say that one cannot use Drive in solo play. Far from it, the mechanics are there and simple to fulfill. I just think that giving points of Drive is a nice reward that is not experience, treasure or settlement resource related that encourages players to explore their Passions in the Choir of Flesh world with a game master present.
Final Thoughts
Apocrypha is 33 pages with no space wasted. Either there is excellent art, interesting new mechanics, or compelling story present. Having said that, what more would I like to see in the future? Well, there is a line on page 7 that has fired my imagination. "The pagans who summoned the Flesh were immediately subsumed into its ranks, becoming undifferentiated gristle at the heart of something ancient."
What is going on with the pagans? Which pagans? How are they coping with members of their population turning to the Flesh or the Choir? Is it possible that a fraction of a pagan tribe got trapped inland and now may interact with your settlement because they were on a boat when the Seas turned to Flesh and they are displaced?
There is a lot of fertile history to be mined in the vibrant world of Choir of Flesh and I want to see more of it.
