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Mistborn Adventure Game: Sample Heroes

Whether you are looking for inspiration, want a few well-detailed NPCs to act as associates or rivals, or need a character (or whole party) in a hurry, this product will fill your purposes admirably.

Herein are eight fully-developed characters, set up as an integrated crew. Each one gets a couple of pages – one a filled-out character sheets with all the necessary game stats, and the other a write-up of the character’s background, including a brief history, notes on personality and motivations and even what he thinks about the other members of the group. There is also a sketch of the character to enable you to visualise him.

A fairly shady group they are, too. The leader is one Beck, a fixer – the sort of fellow who can get you whatever you want, no questions asked, provided you are willing to pay his price. The others are the crew who procure the whatever it is… a crew called Nine Eyes. Most people will find a character they’d like to play, if you are using them as your ready-made party. A wandering scholar, an urbane steward (or is he?), a kandra longing to return to her Homeland but honour-bound by her contract, a fugitive Mistborn noble lass, a Skaa con-woman who insinuates herself into noble society, a thief who is rarely as drunk as he appears to be, and a watchful bodyguard who burns with barely-controlled rage.

Between them, they form a group that is more than its individual members. They’d certainly make a good starting group (especially if you want to dive straight in to the game), else they may be exemplars of how you might create your own crew, or a rival crew to pit against your own players…

Mistborn Adventure Game Novel Characters: Vin and Sazed

Continuing the series of free ‘tasters’ for the Mistborn Adventure Game, here are two major characters from the novels on which the game is based, completely written up with game statistics and background details. Risky, as lovers of the stories likely have their own ideas – but for the enterprising GM who would like some of the characters from the novels featuring in their game, very useful. Anyone who has not read the novels yet should avoid this, thought, there are major plot ‘spoilers’ in the background text.

The first character portrayed is Vin. Her powers are at their height, with many of her defining exploits now in her past. After a full-page portrait, the first part of the write-up details her past up to the point chosen for the exemplar character. Next come her full game statistics, then a section on ‘Playing Vin’ which will help any GM to make her come to life as a powerful, potentially deadly, NPC – even as an ally, characters are advised to be careful, and she could make a formidable foe if they were to get on her wrong side… and rather helpfully, there are sections on how she’d behave as ally or enemy to make things easy for you. And there’s more… this is followed by notes and stats if you’d prefer to use her earlier in the story, as a young and inexperienced member of a crew, with little to hint of what she will become… could be interesting, and a route for drawing your own characters into pivotal events later on, when that unassuming Skaa girl they knew on the streets blossoms into her power!

The other character featured here is Sazed. Again, the main write-up is at the same time in the plotline as Vin’s, when he was an advisor and friend to her. The background explains how he got to that stage, while the notes on playing him bring out his tendency to be a voice of reason, a source of quiet and thoughtful advice. It’s quite hard to make an enemy of him. The second build depicts him earlier in life, when he was going through an interesting time.

If you intend on weaving the novels’ plotline through your game, rather than just using the setting to tell your own stories, these could be useful NPCs. Even if not, characters who become themselves pivotal figures might meet them, or they can serve for ideas about how really powerful characters might develop. Plenty of scope here!

The Mistborn Adventure Game is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Review by Megan Robertson

Tags | dark-fantasy