Tag Archives: City of Mist

Legend in the Mist: Mist Engine may be Fate’s Forged in the Dark

It is in some ways perfect timing that only a month ago I was comparing Fate and Apocalypse World, and looking at their respective destinies. In 2013 the fourth edition of Fate, Fate Core, went from its Kickstarter to legitimately outstanding commercial success. Around the same time, Apocalypse World had just started on its inexorable upward trajectory not due to its own sales numbers but rather the adoption of its underpinnings, Powered by the Apocalypse. Fate would peak in the lead-up to D&D Fifth Edition while PbtA would continue to soar, eventually powering what was at the time the largest TTRPG Kickstarter ever.

Both games were successful enough to spawn not only hacks but also derivatives, mechanical cousins of the original game which kept the underlying ideas but altered the core mechanics. Blades in the Dark is the notable one for Powered by the Apocalypse, but there were of course others. For Fate, the same thing happened, even if much of the hacking was further under the radar than what John Harper pulled off on the PbtA side. There is one Fate hack of note which is coming back into the limelight, the Mist Engine from Son of Oak Game Studio.

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City of Mist Review

The smoke from the hookah lounge downtown swims through the place, heavy and sweet. At a back lounge sits a bald man with a gold hoop earing who knows just what you need to do to get what you want…if are able to ignore the literal fire flickering in his eyes. In the Industrial District’s meatpacking plant, a grizzled old timer working the graveyard shift wonders how life passed him by, noting with some curiosity how his skin didn’t break on that saw, when he slipped and ponders why all the leftover animal parts always seem to vanish when he takes a nap on the job…and why he just gets hungrier whenever that happens. In the financial district there is a business guru who, despite his age, always seems to be in exceptional vigor and with an improbable knack for turning seemingly useless investments into gold…and nobody seems to know how long he’s been here? It’s like he’s practically immortal. But lots of strange things happen in The City. Once its inhabitants were wide eyed and agape, but now they’ve seen it all…or so they like to think.

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