4 Strange Powersets You Can Use in City of Mist TTRPG

Whenever a player asks “can I have this powerset in City of Mist?”, the answer is almost always yes! Every character in City of Mist is made up of power tags that players create themselves, from pyrokinesis to laser eyes. By using power tags instead of stats, City of Mist opens up the stage to almost any power that you can describe in words. But thankfully there are still limits, and whether or not you can successfully use your powers depends on the number of tags you can sync together, your character’s current condition, and of course, how well you roll those dice.

The setting of City of Mist is populated by Rifts that draw their powers from all kinds of fantastical legends. To stay true to the setting, the City of Mist tabletop roleplaying game requires a character creation system that can emulate almost any power you can think of, as well as a few you might never expect!

Today, we’re going over just a few of the strange powersets you can build in City of Mist. We’ll be using some of the Mythos themebooks from the core Player’s Guide, as well as a few from the expansion Shadows & Showdowns. Let’s get started!

Luck Manipulation

One powerset I’ve seen asked about a lot in the community is the ability to bend luck. There are tons of stories about gods and creatures that can manipulate chance, and City of Mist has a District full of them in Fortune Row.

If you want to bend fate in your favor, you’ll want to use the Expression themebook. This themebook represents your powers directly changing the world around you. With its power tag questions, you can gain abilities like bless with good fortune and curse with bad luck. Then you can buff your allies and debuff your enemies by stacking good luck and bad luck statuses. With the theme improvement Contain the Surge, you can even remove the chance of failure from the most powerful move Stop. Holding. Back.

Now this powerset doesn’t mean you don’t have to roll dice anymore. This is still a game with game mechanics after all. But it does mean that you can have a power tag like convenient car crash and just constantly have trucks appear out of nowhere to run over your enemies. 

Owning a Magic Castle

Our next powerset is something RPG’s normally only give you in the epilogue of the story. But if you’re playing the Rift of a knight, prince, or princess, wouldn’t you love to start the game with your own magic castle?

You can have your own stronghold hidden within the City by using the Enclave themebook from the expansion Shadows & Showdowns. This themebook is built specifically for enchanted places that serve as your character’s safe haven and it can come loaded with all kinds of weapons, items, and even servants to help you in your adventures. With this themebook, you can create power tags like armory of weapons or library of ancient knowledge.

Your stronghold doesn’t even need to be a castle! It could be a haunted house, an underground dungeon, or even a nightclub based off of a Temple of Doom. Or if you’re playing the pregen character Bodhi, your mystical fortress could be a hidden monastery of shaolin monks that just so happens to be in your mom’s basement.

Time Travel

Now let’s take a second and discuss a powerset that’s often seen in comics but rarely in roleplaying games; time travel!

Your character in City of Mist can be capable of bending the fabric of time, and you can manifest these powers in a few distinct ways. For example, our hipster hacker Flicker can warp time with the Mobility themebook and give herself super speed. Meanwhile, our getaway driver Baby New can use the Adaptation themebook to weaponize this year’s trends and even shift their own age. Both of these characters can also use the Divination themebook to create abilities like visions of the future, flashes of the past, and perfect timing.

But here’s the big question you might have; can my character turn back the clock and truly travel through time? The answer is still yes! While there’s certainly no core move for changing time, you can use the dramatic move Stop. Holding. Back. to stretch your powers to the limit and affect the story in a big way.

That said, I would heavily advise giving a heads up to your MC and talking with them before pulling this stunt. If I was a player at the table and another player turned back time and undid the last several sessions, I’d probably be pretty annoyed. But if that player turned back time and did just enough to save the life of an important NPC, I’d consider that a session highlight!

Power Mimicry

But perhaps you don’t want a character with a single set of powers. Maybe you want every power at your disposal. If you want to mimic the abilities of those around you, City of Mist still has you covered!

With the Adaptation themebook, you can become a mimic like a doppelganger. Just choose power tags like steal with a touch or ability adaptation and then use the move Change the Game to create story tags based off your friends’ and foes’ power tags. Fighting a storm god? Now you have lightning bolts! Fighting a gangster Medusa? Throw her stone gaze right back at her!

With a single level-up, you can also gain the theme improvement Tap Into the Source and start each scene with two points of Juice. That means you won’t even have to roll Change the Game to use your stolen abilities! If you’re investigating with your mutant boxer friend and trouble starts knocking, you can immediately answer with some borrowed bone armor and extra arms. Talk about lending a hand!

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These are only a few of the powersets that you can create in City of Mist, and I’m not kidding when I say the possibilities are nearly endless. For more examples of powersets, check out the expansion Shadows & Showdowns which features over thirty Mythos theme kits you can use to help build your character.

You can also check out our Powersets character creation stream, where founder Amit Moshe and I dabble with how to create weird powersets. And if you want to workshop some of your character ideas with the community, consider joining the City of Mist Discord!

What are some strange powers you’ve used in City of Mist? Let us know in the comments or on social media. Until next time, have fun!