Announcing "Legend In The Mist", a Rustic Fantasy RPG Based on City of Mist
Son of Oak Game Studio, the ENnie-award winning publisher of City of Mist, is excited to announce our next title, Legend In The Mist, a rustic fantasy RPG powered by our signature narrative game engine.
The new title will be Kickstarted in February 2024, featuring a setting-agnostic core book and an original setting book, Hearts of Ravensdale, as well as a slew of other accessories and add-ons, including the popular visual pregen character folios in the vein of previous games released by Son of Oak.
STORY AFFECTS GAMEPLAY
Not another tactical fantasy D&D-clone, Legend In The Mist is a narrative game with optional tactical elements. Like City of Mist, Legend In The Mist takes a different approach to roleplaying by using keywords instead of stats: player characters are made purely out of “tags” which players invoke during a roll to gain bonuses whenever their tags support the action they are taking. This potentially allows any character detail to affect gameplay: not only physical and mental attributes, skills, and spells, but also motivations, backstory details, and even character catchphrases. Any character can be created simply by describing it, and the game includes a range of features to help players make the most of this freedom and to maintain balance.
A JOURNEY THAT WILL CHANGE YOU FOREVER
Another main feature which will be reprised in Legend In The Mist is the focus on player character story arcs. Each PC has multiple and sometimes conflicting motivations at their core that the player must juggle between. When one character "theme" eventually overshadows another, players can transform their characters in dramatic story moments, swapping out themes and all the abilities (tags) associated with them in ways that alter the character’s gameplay.
Based on the player's choices, characters constantly evolve, staying dynamic and fresh, changing their “class” or resolving a major backstory event and coming out with new abilities. This non-linear character progression in Legend In the Mist ties story and gameplay tightly together.
A WHOLE NEW LOOK AT FANTASY ROLE-PLAYING
The Legend In The Mist Core Book will introduce the fantasy version of the game in the Learn-As-You-Play format typical to Son of Oak products. It will include, among other things, a new set of character creation tools (Themebooks and Theme Kits) adapted to the fantasy genre, a starter adventure, and a guide on how to develop different magic systems using this flexible framework, with ample ready-to-use content for those who want to dive right into play. With the Core Book, players will be able to play in any setting using the tag system.
Uniquely, the game will support a party of PCs of varying power levels out of the box, balancing them by giving them equal narrative power (who was more instrumental in Lord Of The Rings, Frodo or Gandalf?), so it's possible to start the game with a party that has a heroic outlander, a powerful wizard, or even a supernatural being alongside a band of rough-hewn villagers whose heroic days are yet to come. This balance between Origin and Greatness is at the heart of the game, and player characters can move between these polarities as they progress.
THAT FEELING OF AN ANCIENT TALE
In the Hearts of Ravensdale Setting Book, Son of Oak will focus on creating the feeling of an old fireside tale. Dubbed “rustic fantasy”, this hidden-magic low-to-epic fantasy setting returns to the roots of the fantasy genre, exploring unlikely heroes from tucked-away villages – such as Lord Of The Rings’ hobbits or Princess Mononoke’s Ashitaka – who are driven by circumstances to set out on a journey through the countryside and wilderness, surrounded by unknown dangers.
While magic pervades this setting and the HoR world is full of strange and sometimes monstrous beings, the practice of magic has been largely forgotten and wizards, or Thaumaturges, are mysterious and rare individuals, most often encountered in the legends of a bygone kingdom. For those players who will discover the secrets of Thaumaturgy, Hearts of Ravensdale promises a unique and flexible magic system based on inner cultivation of spiritual qualities where the player is discovering magic along with their character.
The legendary creatures and eerie forces that inhabit the Hearts of Ravensdale setting, collectively known as Creatures of Twilight, are designed to initially mystify the heroes, but are connected by a rich behind-the-scenes cosmology that the players reveal inch-by-inch as they delve deeper into the secrets of the land.
THE HOUR IS NIGH
In recent years, Son of Oak has expanded the City of Mist universe with the districts and one-shots anthology Local Legends and universalized the game engine for use in other genres, the first of which being the upcoming mythic cyberpunk RPG :Otherscape, slated for digital release early in 2024.
Legend In The Mist will be the next major release from Son of Oak. To receive updates on this project, pledge first, and win the first day spoils, sign up for notifications on Kickstarter or sign up for updates from Son of Oak.
