From the company behind City of Mist, and the forthcoming QUEERZ! as well as :Otherscape, comes a new rustic fantasy TTRPG. I caught up with Amít Moshe of Son of Oak Game Studio to learn more about their first fantasy game, its engine, and the status of those forthcoming TTRPGs.
EGG EMBRY (EGG): Thanks for putting this project in front of me, Amít. What is Legend in the Mist RPG?
AMÍT MOSHE (AMÍT): Legend In The Mist is a new “rustic” fantasy narrative RPG from Son of Oak Game Studio, using an updated version of the engine of City of Mist to tell stories and adventures that resemble a fireside tale. We’ll be creating a setting-agnostic core book for groups who want to use the tag system in their own fantasy settings, and an original setting book, Hearts of Ravensdale. The latter will explore more specifically the “rustic fantasy” element, providing the backdrop for tales that focus on journeys through countryside and wilderness, the heroes growth and transformation, and magic and monsters that are mysterious and build a sense of awe and wonder, as opposed to the well-worn high-fantasy settings.
EGG: Is this the “prequel” to City of Mist? Or is Legend in the Mist a standalone TTRPG?
AMÍT: Legend In The Mist is a standalone RPG. There is some remote and theoretical, or mystical place where these universes meet, but it’s not a core feature of the game.
EGG: This project uses the updated game mechanics from TOKYO : OTHERSCAPE - A Mythic Cyberpunk RPG. What’s different about this system than the original City of Mist?
AMÍT: The new engine is a streamlined version of City of Mist that moves further away from its Powered by the Apocalypse roots and leans more into the tag system. As in City of Mist, there are no stats and characters are a collection of tags, short descriptors that describe what the character is, has, or can do; and you still count up your relevant tags before each action, building up the Power of your action. This means gameplay can be affected by any character details, not just attributes, skills, and spells but also backstory details, catchphrases, and pretty much any interesting detail you can think of. However, in this new version we let go of all the Moves, so :Otherscape and Legend In The Mist are single-roll games: all actions are resolved with a single roll that changes based on the tags used. We also cut out a lot of the excessive resources like Clues and Juice. If successful, you simply spend your Power on Effects such as giving an opponent a negative status or creating new tags for yourself. We also added an option to keep the roll short and sweet, and avoid the spend Power aspect altogether, for those actions that just need a narrative outcome. This resembles a D&D skill check, with the exception that it is based on creative use of tags, and that it never “fails silently” – there is always a Consequences. Finally, we clarified and codified the soft/hard moves, which were a little handwavy at times if you don’t know PbtA. Now there’s a structured three-phase rhythm to the game, where the GM announces Threats in the Establish phase, the players take action in the Action phase, and the GM delivers Consequences in the Consequences phase, if Threats were ignored or if player actions generated Consequences. Overall, it’s a much more flowing game experience now.
EGG: Narrative with tactical options. How do the tactical options work?
AMÍT: First, as I explained there, you can easily switch between narrative and tactica by choosing which actions are Quick, that is narrative only, and which actions are Tracked and use tags and statuses. When it comes to tactics, the tag system provides infinite possibilities without needing to memorize a ton of rules. You can give characters tag like Cornered, Prone, Cover, Aiming, Distracted, Restrained, and such, and give the environment tags like Foggy, Muddy, High Ground, Loud Noise, Silences, and so on. It’s as simple as naming the tactical conditions, and these tags factor into the player’s actions or reaction right out of the box. The GM controls the tactical depth by “sprinkling” fewer or many tags on the scene and adversaries.
EGG: While this engine can be used with any setting, you have a built in world, Hearts of Ravensdale. What can you share about this world? What makes it different?
AMÍT: I really think the original feeling of the fantasy genre hasn’t been well reflected in many big RPGs. There is a tendency to think that people want more flashy spells and progressively weirder magic and metaverses, but my own impression is that many people seek that essential sense of wonder. You can’t achieve that with high-magic settings where every PC is a demigod and every player knows what a Tarrasque is. I’ve created Hearts of Ravensdale as a foundation for fantasy games that harken to that old feeling, that fireside tale, where the world is big and scary, magic is a complete mystery, and the creatures you meet are unknown to you. In Hearts of Ravensdale, heroes start from a remote mountain community called the Dales and are propelled into a quest by outside events, much like in Lord of The Rings or for example, Princess Mononke. There is a rich cosmology that is completely hidden from players; most PCs are only aware of the very surface and gradually discover the meaning of magic and the nature of the monsters and beings around them.
EGG: This is Son of Oak Game Studio’s first fantasy TTRPG, correct? Why is now the right time to move from superheroes, detectives, and cyberpunk to fantasy?
AMÍT: The fantasy genre has a special place among RPG genres, that much is clear. We wanted to get things right, so we’ve been working on this for a long time in the shadows so to speak. I think :Otherscape has shown us how great this system works for other genres, and once we gained that confidence, fantasy was the next obvious choice. Also, we’re always talking to our community and there was a clear voice there as well for making the next game a fantasy one.
EGG: Who is working on this with you?
AMÍT: The lead artist for Legend In The Mist is the incredible Daniel Pinal, who is also the current lead artist for City of Mist and drew most of the art in our recent Local Legends book. The Dev team includes the usual suspects in Son of Oak, such as developer Kelly Black and our longtime editor and creator of Crystal Heat, Eran Aviram, and we also brought on Itamar Karbian as another game designer. Graphic design for the books will be done by Manuel Serra Saez as always.
EGG: Let’s look back at your last three crowdfunding projects. QUEERZ! RPG (which we discussed in late 2021), TOKYO : OTHERSCAPE - A Mythic Cyberpunk RPG (which I talked about in my cyberpunk year in review 2022), and City of Mist RPG: Local Legends look great, but are still awaiting delivery. While Local Legends is still within its delivery window the other two are around a year late. Let’s start with their statuses. Where in the production cycle is each book?
AMÍT: QUEERZ! is on the boat, arriving in late February or early March. Local Legends has been released in PDF and is being prepared for print, and :Otherscape, which has suffered the most delays due to the overhaul of the engine we mentioned, is in the process of being laid out. The core book PDF should be released before the Legend In the Mist Kickstarter launches, with the setting book PDF following closely behind, hopefully before the end of the Kickstarter. Then this will go to print too, arriving June 2024.
EGG: In terms of project management, what steps are you taking to insure Legend in the Mist RPG fulfills on-time?
AMÍT: Improving our process and pipelines and catching up to our backlog has been our focus in 2023. We hired additional staff and installed systems that allow us to develop much faster than before. And I’m pretty happy with the result. Indie game dev, especially at our high standards and production value, is a challenging business, but we were able to keep our latest KS within its fulfillment range while wrapping up two others and developing a new engine. We will clear the board completely by the time the pledge manager for Legend In The Mist closes, so we can focus just on this one game going forward. We’re also going to take a slightly longer time frame to develop it so we can accommodate any delays.
EGG: You’ve built a brand around the word “mist”. Do you have any concern about unintentional name confusion between Brandon Sanderson’s beloved Mistborn fantasy series and your new fantasy TTRPG, Legend in the Mist RPG?
AMÍT: Not really. I don’t see an overlap there – these are two clearly defined and separate IPs. When I just started out and called City of Mist, City of Myst – that was an issue!
EGG: Ha! Beyond the projects we mentioned, what else is on the horizon for 2024?
AMÍT: 2024 is going to be dedicated to developing Legend In The Mist and for the release of QUEERZ!, :Otherscape, and City of Mist: Local Legends. We have more plans in the horizon, but we’ll roll them out when we feel confident enough that Legend In The Mist is close to finish.
EGG: Thanks for talking with me, Amít. For fans interested in checking out this project, where can they find you?
AMÍT: You can find all things Son of Oak at [our website], and you can find Legend In The Mist on Kickstarter. Check out our YouTube Channel for great content by Kevin Carpenter, and our Discord for all the live updates and discussions. We also have a subreddit. Personally, you can find me as @macdaire_ on X or reach me at amit@sonofoak.com.
Legend in the Mist RPG from Son of Oak Game Studio
AMÍT MOSHE (AMÍT): Legend In The Mist is a new “rustic” fantasy narrative RPG from Son of Oak Game Studio, using an updated version of the engine of City of Mist to tell stories and adventures that resemble a fireside tale. We’ll be creating a setting-agnostic core book for groups who want to use the tag system in their own fantasy settings, and an original setting book, Hearts of Ravensdale. The latter will explore more specifically the “rustic fantasy” element, providing the backdrop for tales that focus on journeys through countryside and wilderness, the heroes growth and transformation, and magic and monsters that are mysterious and build a sense of awe and wonder, as opposed to the well-worn high-fantasy settings.
EGG: Is this the “prequel” to City of Mist? Or is Legend in the Mist a standalone TTRPG?
AMÍT: Legend In The Mist is a standalone RPG. There is some remote and theoretical, or mystical place where these universes meet, but it’s not a core feature of the game.
EGG: This project uses the updated game mechanics from TOKYO : OTHERSCAPE - A Mythic Cyberpunk RPG. What’s different about this system than the original City of Mist?
AMÍT: The new engine is a streamlined version of City of Mist that moves further away from its Powered by the Apocalypse roots and leans more into the tag system. As in City of Mist, there are no stats and characters are a collection of tags, short descriptors that describe what the character is, has, or can do; and you still count up your relevant tags before each action, building up the Power of your action. This means gameplay can be affected by any character details, not just attributes, skills, and spells but also backstory details, catchphrases, and pretty much any interesting detail you can think of. However, in this new version we let go of all the Moves, so :Otherscape and Legend In The Mist are single-roll games: all actions are resolved with a single roll that changes based on the tags used. We also cut out a lot of the excessive resources like Clues and Juice. If successful, you simply spend your Power on Effects such as giving an opponent a negative status or creating new tags for yourself. We also added an option to keep the roll short and sweet, and avoid the spend Power aspect altogether, for those actions that just need a narrative outcome. This resembles a D&D skill check, with the exception that it is based on creative use of tags, and that it never “fails silently” – there is always a Consequences. Finally, we clarified and codified the soft/hard moves, which were a little handwavy at times if you don’t know PbtA. Now there’s a structured three-phase rhythm to the game, where the GM announces Threats in the Establish phase, the players take action in the Action phase, and the GM delivers Consequences in the Consequences phase, if Threats were ignored or if player actions generated Consequences. Overall, it’s a much more flowing game experience now.
EGG: Narrative with tactical options. How do the tactical options work?
AMÍT: First, as I explained there, you can easily switch between narrative and tactica by choosing which actions are Quick, that is narrative only, and which actions are Tracked and use tags and statuses. When it comes to tactics, the tag system provides infinite possibilities without needing to memorize a ton of rules. You can give characters tag like Cornered, Prone, Cover, Aiming, Distracted, Restrained, and such, and give the environment tags like Foggy, Muddy, High Ground, Loud Noise, Silences, and so on. It’s as simple as naming the tactical conditions, and these tags factor into the player’s actions or reaction right out of the box. The GM controls the tactical depth by “sprinkling” fewer or many tags on the scene and adversaries.
EGG: While this engine can be used with any setting, you have a built in world, Hearts of Ravensdale. What can you share about this world? What makes it different?
AMÍT: I really think the original feeling of the fantasy genre hasn’t been well reflected in many big RPGs. There is a tendency to think that people want more flashy spells and progressively weirder magic and metaverses, but my own impression is that many people seek that essential sense of wonder. You can’t achieve that with high-magic settings where every PC is a demigod and every player knows what a Tarrasque is. I’ve created Hearts of Ravensdale as a foundation for fantasy games that harken to that old feeling, that fireside tale, where the world is big and scary, magic is a complete mystery, and the creatures you meet are unknown to you. In Hearts of Ravensdale, heroes start from a remote mountain community called the Dales and are propelled into a quest by outside events, much like in Lord of The Rings or for example, Princess Mononke. There is a rich cosmology that is completely hidden from players; most PCs are only aware of the very surface and gradually discover the meaning of magic and the nature of the monsters and beings around them.
EGG: This is Son of Oak Game Studio’s first fantasy TTRPG, correct? Why is now the right time to move from superheroes, detectives, and cyberpunk to fantasy?
AMÍT: The fantasy genre has a special place among RPG genres, that much is clear. We wanted to get things right, so we’ve been working on this for a long time in the shadows so to speak. I think :Otherscape has shown us how great this system works for other genres, and once we gained that confidence, fantasy was the next obvious choice. Also, we’re always talking to our community and there was a clear voice there as well for making the next game a fantasy one.
EGG: Who is working on this with you?
AMÍT: The lead artist for Legend In The Mist is the incredible Daniel Pinal, who is also the current lead artist for City of Mist and drew most of the art in our recent Local Legends book. The Dev team includes the usual suspects in Son of Oak, such as developer Kelly Black and our longtime editor and creator of Crystal Heat, Eran Aviram, and we also brought on Itamar Karbian as another game designer. Graphic design for the books will be done by Manuel Serra Saez as always.
EGG: Let’s look back at your last three crowdfunding projects. QUEERZ! RPG (which we discussed in late 2021), TOKYO : OTHERSCAPE - A Mythic Cyberpunk RPG (which I talked about in my cyberpunk year in review 2022), and City of Mist RPG: Local Legends look great, but are still awaiting delivery. While Local Legends is still within its delivery window the other two are around a year late. Let’s start with their statuses. Where in the production cycle is each book?
AMÍT: QUEERZ! is on the boat, arriving in late February or early March. Local Legends has been released in PDF and is being prepared for print, and :Otherscape, which has suffered the most delays due to the overhaul of the engine we mentioned, is in the process of being laid out. The core book PDF should be released before the Legend In the Mist Kickstarter launches, with the setting book PDF following closely behind, hopefully before the end of the Kickstarter. Then this will go to print too, arriving June 2024.
EGG: In terms of project management, what steps are you taking to insure Legend in the Mist RPG fulfills on-time?
AMÍT: Improving our process and pipelines and catching up to our backlog has been our focus in 2023. We hired additional staff and installed systems that allow us to develop much faster than before. And I’m pretty happy with the result. Indie game dev, especially at our high standards and production value, is a challenging business, but we were able to keep our latest KS within its fulfillment range while wrapping up two others and developing a new engine. We will clear the board completely by the time the pledge manager for Legend In The Mist closes, so we can focus just on this one game going forward. We’re also going to take a slightly longer time frame to develop it so we can accommodate any delays.
EGG: You’ve built a brand around the word “mist”. Do you have any concern about unintentional name confusion between Brandon Sanderson’s beloved Mistborn fantasy series and your new fantasy TTRPG, Legend in the Mist RPG?
AMÍT: Not really. I don’t see an overlap there – these are two clearly defined and separate IPs. When I just started out and called City of Mist, City of Myst – that was an issue!
EGG: Ha! Beyond the projects we mentioned, what else is on the horizon for 2024?
AMÍT: 2024 is going to be dedicated to developing Legend In The Mist and for the release of QUEERZ!, :Otherscape, and City of Mist: Local Legends. We have more plans in the horizon, but we’ll roll them out when we feel confident enough that Legend In The Mist is close to finish.
EGG: Thanks for talking with me, Amít. For fans interested in checking out this project, where can they find you?
AMÍT: You can find all things Son of Oak at [our website], and you can find Legend In The Mist on Kickstarter. Check out our YouTube Channel for great content by Kevin Carpenter, and our Discord for all the live updates and discussions. We also have a subreddit. Personally, you can find me as @macdaire_ on X or reach me at amit@sonofoak.com.
Legend in the Mist RPG from Son of Oak Game Studio
- “A rustic fantasy tabletop RPG based on the acclaimed City of Mist. Spin a tale of journey and peril where choices transform gameplay.”
