Normally, I wait until I have a physical copy for a review of a game, but Legend in the Mist is looking like a late spring/early summer timeframe for that. Kickstarted earlier this year, Sons of Oak promised “…[a] rustic fantasy tabletop RPG based on the acclaimed City of Mist.” It is essentially an engine similar to Powered by the Apocalypse, using “tags” to modify task rolls, rather than a plethora of modifiers. I was a little skeptical of the system — my experience with the PbtA games has been lackluster, but Sions of Oak give you the chance to try out the game with a comic book-style mini-adventure that plays like the old Create Your Own Adventure books of old — you chose an action, go to the appropriate page, and press on. It’s a novel way to teach the game, and the artwork..? The artwork is gorgeous. I must not have been alone in my assessment: the Kickstart pulled $855,000 or so. Pre-orders are still being taken and I went all in on the Ravenhome bundle.

The PDFs of the main books — both the core rulebook and Action Grimoire are already out, as is the PDF of the GM screen (which is actually useful!), as well as a few extra bits: a Halloween and Winter-themed short with creatures, etc, and a Dungeons & Dragons 5E conversion guide for the main character classes. If you preorder, you get these little “splatbooks”.

So first, the production values. Yes, I only have the PDFs to go by, for now, but these are gorgeous books. The artwork has a realistic animated film kind of look with multiple two page pieces that blend one into the other. 

The title page…

You build a character by creating four “themes” — based on personality, your trade or job, background, etc. — and there are three “might” levels: origin, adventurer, and greatness, so you can play from rank amateur or average adventurer, to trained and skilled heros, to powerful heroes. You can choose from pre-existing themes like Artisan, or Prophetic Visions — there are “power tags” listed that give you a bump on your die rolls, depending on if they are applicable or not. You choose two and one weakness tag which might work against you in a scene. For instance, a Hunter might have a “Well Crafted Bow” and “Animal Lore”, with a weakness of “Ragged & Dirty”. You get four of these themes, plus a “backpack” for gear. There’s also a Fellowship Theme for group play explaining why you’re together.

You’re ready to go. Play is simple: the GM gives you a situation, you tell them what you want to do to respond and figure out which tags work for the scene (which might have it’s own tags like “Bandits!” or “Heavy Downpour” that take away from your roll. Roll 2d6 added together to give you the result. A 10+ gives a success and depending on the tags, you give a “status” to your opponents or you overcome whatever obstacle you were meeting. A 7-9 gives a success, but with a consequence — a negative status to you. Six or lower is a consequence and you failed. For instance, say you were climbing a cliffside and had “Strong as an Ox” and “Athletic” tags that were appropriate — that adds 2 to your roll. However, it’s raining and the rock is slick for a -1 to your test. You roll a 7 (+2 for your tags and -1 for the rain for an 8.) You make it up the cliff, but you might have a consequence of “Scrapped Up” or it you were on a time limit you might be “Behind Schedule”. Here’s an example from the comic:

The books has plenty of examples of situations and opponents — all approached in the same way, and the Action Grimoire adds to the number of scenarios your could borrow from on the fly as a gamemaster. I ran two nights of Legend in the Mist using a vague idea of an adventure, and used the core book and Grimoire to slap together encounters that ran quickly and well. Both groups thought the game rules were simple and quick to understand, although trying to figure if a tag was appropriate had a lot of trying to stretch the meaning of the tags. Spitballing statuses was a bit tricky the first time out, but once it clicks, the game is easy to run — even off of the PDFs and a two page cheatsheet you can get off the Sons of Oak website.

The core book is a double volume coming in at a hefty 496 pages in PDF format, the Action Grimoire is another 103. Even the 5E splatbook is 25 pages.

So, is it worth the $50 for the core book and $20 for the Grimoire? Yes…and unreservedly so. One thing I’ve always disliked about Dungeons & Dragons is the staggering amount of rules you have to sift through, especially regarding magic. None of that here — it’s a simple engine for play, leads to good character creation and role play. It’s also just beautiful to leaf through. 

All the artwork here is 2025 copyright the Sons of Oak Game Studio. No infringement is intended — only a good ol’ word of mouth assist for a good product.